Chapter 3

Night Stalkers

Midway through my second week, I got my break. Mitch moved me to second shift when one of the waitresses decided that Hollywood wasn't going to notice her, and that the only red carpet in her future here in LA would be worn and grease stained.

The first night was busy. A lot of rigs stopping by to get a burger before they moved on to San Diego, San Francisco, or wherever the Tartarus they thought they were going. There were also the usual, to put it meanly, whores, who were trying to get the attention of the truckers or just score some food to dilute the drugs in their veins. There were also kids. Runaways.

Anne, I suspected, wasn't any older than many of those runaways, but I almost felt sorry for any chicken hawk who had tried to "recruit" her (and almost certainly, some of them had tried, she was too cute). They tried to recruit me once in awhile, and while I always dissuaded them quietly, I also always found a way to work a little pain into my dissuading, and I suspected Anne did as well.

The first rush ended around 8:00, but another one started up around 9:00 and lasted until about 10:30. By the time Anne and I finished our shift, however, things were pretty dead.

That was when Anne decided to give me the talk.

"Rhonda," Anne said. "Have you been in LA long?"

"No," I answered truthfully. "I came here from...somewhere else."

I knew Anne would respect my privacy, as I respected hers.

"Yeah, well, it's dangerous here," Anne said. "And I am not just talking about the chicken hawks."

I briefly considered teasing her by asking her what a chicken hawk was, but I decided against it. She was so cute when she was serious.

"On the way home, stay on the public streets," Anne continued. "Don't take any short cuts, never go anywhere where there are no witnesses, and don't dawdle."

"OK," I said, and I meant it. I had no intention of being a hero. Being a hero made you a center of attention, and that was the last thing I wanted to be.

The first three nights, I followed her advice. The fourth night, however, as I left The Diner, I heard a scraping sound from one of the roofs. Without moving my head, I looked up, and saw a cloaked figure leaping from the roof on one side of the street to the roof on the other side of the street.

Vampire.

I briefly contemplated walking on, but I decided not to. Call it a vague sense of civic duty. Or, maybe it was that I was 99% sure that Anne was the current vampire slayer. I had only known one other, but she was perhaps the last human being I had ever loved.

So, against my better judgment, I ran into the nearest alley, and jumped up onto the roof of the nearest building. The vampire was already about three roofs away.

"Shit," I whispered to myself. But I still followed her (from the way she moved, I could tell it was a her), staying about three roofs back.

We traveled this way, the vampire and I, leaping from rooftop to rooftop for about half a mile. Finally, the vampire stopped, so I stopped, still three roof tops away.

Suddenly, the vampire leapt off the roof and to the alleyway below. I immediately started to jump the last three roofs. By the time I reached the last roof, I heard the sounds of fighting coming from below. I jogged over to the edge of the roof and looked down.

Anne was wearing blue jeans and a black tee shirt. She was also wearing a worn backpack (I suspected her waitressing clothes were in it). Anne was also fighting four vampires, including the cloaked one who had just jumped off the roof. As I watched, two of the vampires imploded into dust (which is what happens when they are destroyed). The cloaked vampire immediately turned and ran while the other remaining vampire, also a female, attacked Anne. Anne backhanded the vampire with her left fist. The vampire flew across the alley and literally bounced off the brick wall and onto the point of the wooden stake Anne held in her right hand. Anne turned her head as the staked vampire imploded, then exploded, into a grey cloud of dust. Anne looked around quickly and then up, and I hastily backed away from the edge of the roof.

It was clear that my hypothesis was correct. Anne was a vampire slayer. It was also clear that she was far better at it than my long dead friend Cassandra had been in her day. Contrary to any worries I might have had, she didn't need my help.

I quickly jumped four rooftops away before jumping down into an alley. As I started to walk out of the alley, however, a voice spoke up behind me. A voice that spoke in a language I had not heard in nearly three thousand years.

"Well, Helene of Sparta, Troy, and the Amazons," the voice said. "What a truly unexpected surprise!"