Blood Calling (The Blood Calling Series, Book 1) Read online

  I should clarify that I was not a smoker, never had been, and never will be. I could argue that it was the smell of cigarettes, or the fact that the people I always saw sneaking off to light up weren’t the kind of people I wanted to emulate.

  No, it was the waste.

  You got nothing from cigarettes. They cost money, more and more all the time, and you didn’t get anything out of it. Overeating might make you fat or unhealthy but at least you consumed life-giving calories. Seeing a movie or reading a trashy book might not increase your brain power but at least the pursuits brought some measure of happiness.

  Smoking was like paying to eat shards of ceramic tile. At best, you only got hurt a little bit, and at worst, it was like committing slow suicide.

  Or maybe I was just cheap.

  But a lighter was a totally practical purchase—especially if you wanted to hack off your mom. Or, you know, read a secret note from your dead grandfather.

  If you were going to do the former, a cheap lighter just wouldn’t do it. You needed a lighter with intent. I laid out twenty bucks and got myself a nice Zippo, which was not only kind of pretty, but also windproof, the sort of thing that told your mother you were up to no good.

  As far as reading the note went, it worked wonders. As far as my mom went, even after I left it in plain view on my dresser, she failed to notice. Which made me one for two. Not the worst.

  As for the note itself, I guess I could build up the suspense over how careful I was, how I set up the lighter and then held the paper at just the right level of flame, so as not to char it, but, well, obviously I read it, so where was the surprise in that? Besides, I had years of experience holding paper at just the right angle.

  So here was what it said:

  Lucy,

  My space is limited, so this must be short. I knew you would find this kit and note after I passed away thanks to your unusual love of my closet. Isn’t that where all the great secrets are said to have been kept?

  So here’s mine: I’ve spent my life hunting and killing vampires. They exist, they are dangerous, and you can use the items in the box I’ve hidden for you to slay them.

  If I could, I would send you to other vampire hunters to fill you in on details and stories, but all of my vampire-hunter friends are long-dead, senile, or no longer in my life.

  Just know that if I died in a bed, in my sleep, I went the way I wanted to. I hope you can do the same. Use the tools I gave you if you need them.

  Love,

  Grandpa D

  I read and re-read the note. There was nothing there. Nothing to grab on to and tell me that what he said was true. Now that I had the note, I still knew the same things: my grandfather thought vampires were real and I should fight them.

  I already knew my grandfather loved me.

  I read the note again, and turned to the open vampire-hunting kit on my bed. I pulled everything out and felt my way around all the edges of the felt at the base of the box, looking for more notes, hidden compartments, anything at all. I touched and poked and prodded for the better part of an hour.

  And came up with nothing.

  There was a schism in my mind, and didn’t know what to do with it.

  On one side of my mental break was a picture of my grandfather. Younger, spry, quick-witted. Hands strong and capable. His mind all there.

  On the other side of the crack was a memory of my grandfather near the end. Worn out, not always all the way present.

  Which one had written this note? The younger? The older? Or was it the seeds of the older in the younger, those times he would forget my name, the times we’d be opening Christmas presents and he’d fall asleep in his easy chair almost out of nowhere, those first signs he was getting older and not always going to be around?

  I put the objects back. The stakes. The bullets that appeared to be molded from pure silver. The holy water. The gun. And that was when I saw it.

  A paper lip in the barrel of the pistol.

  I clutched the gun between my knees and used the fingernails of my pointer fingers to ease the paper from the barrel. Which was when I discovered it wasn’t a paper at all. It was an old photo.

  Time had lightened the colors of the picture but I could still make out my much younger grandfather among all the other people. The back of the photo said On the Hunt and the picture itself consisted of my grandfather and a bunch of other men, ranging in age from thirty to perhaps sixty, holding up stakes and crosses and bottles of what I assumed were holy water. Behind them was a large house, which probably had some kind of proper name, but looked like every gothic-style mansion you ever saw in scary movies. Rusted fence, gargoyles on the roof, and a super-ominous red sunset.

  My grandpa. Vampire hunter.

  I stared at the rest of the faces. I had known a few of my grandfather’s friends over the years, men and women who brought their grandkids by and sat for coffee while the kids and I played in the backyard. Their names were a blank hole but I saw one or two who, missing coffee cup aside, looked familiar.

  I slid my eyes over the picture again and again, mentally hunting for names to go with the faces. I could recall a grandchild’s name here and there, Amanda and Patty, but all the names of the people in the picture returned a, “Yes, sir,” or, “Yes, Mr.—”

  I was about to give up when I realized that though I’d never met one of the men as a kid, he did look familiar. In fact, I’d seen him just the night before.

  Smitty was in the photo.

  CHAPTER 12

  I blinked, and looked at the picture again. The man in the photo hadn’t missed as many meals and his beard was more controlled than the one Smitty sported, but I was sure it was him.

  I looked at the clock. It had gotten dark as I examined my kit, and a glance at the time told me what I already suspected. I was going to need to run to catch the bus.

  I grabbed my backpack, emptied it out on my bed, and put the vampire-hunting kit into it, along with the picture and note. On the way out the door, I grabbed a leftover slice of pizza, which I ate as I jogged to the bus stop.

  I felt ill.

  Partially because of the running and partially because I knew I put together all the pieces of a big and cool puzzle. Why did Smitty feel indebted to Wash? Why was Wash so interested in vampires, and why was he so dismissive of romantic vampire fiction (he was right, by the way—the book did, no pun intended, suck)?

  They were vampire hunters.

  Ideas continued to come together as I sat in my seat, staring out the window at the final traces of sunlight. Smitty probably killed someone in the past. Maybe a vampire, maybe not. Perhaps there was an accident and a good friend ended up dead by Smitty’s hand. It would explain why he didn’t want anything from society. He felt he was a murderer.

  Or maybe he’d killed a vampire who the authorities thought was a human being and had to go on the run. It would explain his lack of address, his fear of getting a job.

  Or maybe…

  There were a lot of maybes.

  One thing I was certain of, though. Wash had to be a vampire hunter as well. That explained why Smitty would listen to him and no one else. Took shelter from Wash when he was truly sick. And trusted him when there was no one else to trust.

  I felt like I had missed the hints, of which there had been a handful. The talk of the vampire books. The lightest of light reading, why read a scary book when chick-lit can ease your troubled mind so much more easily? The vampire interest. Even the shelter itself, a place where the homeless could go so creatures of the night couldn’t feed on them.

  It all made sense.

  I put my speech together in my head as I walked from the bus stop to the shelter. I would pull out my backpack and tell Wash there was something I wanted to ask him about. I’d show him the contents of the box. The note. The picture. Then I’d ask to talk to Smitty. Learn what I had to do to carry on the legacy of my grandfather.

  I laughed as I walked. It all sounded insane to me. Impossible. But it all
made sense.

  I reached the door of the shelter. I took a few deep breaths and walked in.

  There was no sound. That wasn’t unusual but under the circumstances, it felt eerie. Usually I could at least hear the turn of the washer and dryer, or catch a glimpse of Wash as he walked from room to room, sweeping, or fixing a bed, or talking to one of our nightly residents.

  But that night: nothing.

  I considered calling out, then thought better of it. I set my backpack under the desk, as I usually did when I had a book or homework inside, then realized that leaving a collection of weapons out where it might get taken was not the best idea.

  Instead, I settled my bag on my shoulders again and headed to the laundry room.

  Everything there was clean and stacked, ready for whoever might walk in the front door. I was mildly surprised. Usually, Wash would let towels and sheets pile up until he had a load or two to wash. It wasn’t that he minded washing a small load, it was just that, he’d told me, he was budget-conscious and tried to cut down on soap and water waste.

  The showers, too, were unoccupied and sparkling. Now I was starting to get genuinely curious. What had led Wash to go from, “Yeah, it’s clean,” to “I think this needs to be scrubbed down with a toothbrush?”

  I walked out of the laundry room and checked out the main room where all the cots looked…immaculate. Every bed had hospital corners. Every blanket and set of sheets appeared to have been washed and changed today, despite the fact that we rarely had more than two or three visitors a night.

  I thought about opening up my backpack and taking out the gun. Not loading it, that would have been crazy but…maybe not.

  I walked towards the back room. I had looked in the door once or twice, checking on Wash as Wash checked on Smitty, and I knew Wash wouldn’t be happy with me cracking open the door but frankly, I was out of options.

  Besides, I said to myself, if they were both back there, maybe I could just get everything out in the open and be done with it.

  I told myself to stop freaking out and walked to the door. I knocked once. Then twice. Then I stood, and finally, unable to handle the fact that I was ready to leap out of my skin, I opened the door a crack.

  No one was there.

  CHAPTER 13

  I stared into the room for a long time, finally walking in and turning on the light to confirm what I already knew: both Wash and Smitty were gone.

  “Hello?” I called out, as though they were there, but I just couldn’t see them.

  I stepped out into the main room, and repeated my greeting to the cots, then to the front office, and finally, to the laundry room.

  Each time I was met with silence.

  Still in the laundry room, I tried one last gambit. “Wash? Smitty?”

  I felt ridiculous. No one was there. No one at all. Which was when I heard it.

  A soft something-or-other.

  In hindsight, I’d call what I heard a moan but at the time, it sounded almost like a grunt. The sound of frustration.

  The only problem was I couldn’t tell where it came from. Not at first.

  Then I heard it again and realized it was behind one of the bookcases.

  My blood started pounding in my ears.

  I stepped to the bookcases and noticed something I hadn’t seen before. There was a small gap between two of them. The one on the right was set perhaps a quarter-inch back from the other, which should have been impossible since they were both flush against the wall.

  I touched the shelf, then pushed it, lightly. Nothing happened. I pushed harder. Nothing again.

  I gripped as hard as I could, and pulled back. More nothing.

  I hit the bookcase, which only hurt my hand.

  Then I kicked it, which hurt, and I stumbled a bit, and stomped down, hard, on the bottom of the bookcase.

  The case lifted up the tiniest bit and slid forward to line up with the bookcase next to it. My heart skipped a beat, and I grabbed the case, pulled it, and slid it away from its companion.

  Behind the bookcase was a small, light-tight room, with a single bed.

  On the bed was Smitty, who was almost impossible to see because Wash bent over him, giving him a hickey. Well, no, not really.

  What was happening was, Wash was sucking Smitty’s blood, and those two moans I heard seconds ago were joined by a third—Smitty’s last sound on earth.

  As the last noise of Smitty’s existence exited his mouth, Wash looked up at me. His eyes were black and his canines extended to sharp, needlelike points.

  Which made it that much creepier when he smiled at me, and said, “Lucy?”

  CHAPTER 14

  How long is a second, really?

  When you were a kid, they taught you to cross the street by counting it out in seconds. One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand, four-one-thousand. You were across and the danger was over.

  But how long is a second, really?

  Here was what happened next, which took about two seconds, and also forever.

  I dropped to my knees, flipping my backpack off one shoulder. I sucked in a lungful of air, preparing to scream. I yanked the zipper on my bag open and dumped the vampire-hunting kit on the floor.

  In that same second, Wash leaped at me, then flew over me as I ducked. He tucked, rolled, and turned. It was a strangely kung-fu moment, the kind that made you wonder just what people who made movies actually knew about vampires.

  I opened the box at my feet and grabbed one of the stakes. I lifted it up. That was the first half of the next second.

  In the second half of that little two-one-thousand, Wash yanked the stake from my grip, covered my mouth with his hand, and wrapped his arm around my waist.

  In the third second, he pulled me into his hidden chamber and slid the door closed. And the lights went out.

  CHAPTER 15

  Now about the dark.

  We spend almost half of our lives in the dark, but it isn’t a real dark. There are lights in our homes. There are lights on the streets. And even if you’re standing in a huge field, camping out, away from anything and everything, there are lots and lots of stars.

  You hear people talking about not being able to see their hands in front of their faces but you don’t understand it until it really happens to you.

  I know. Because the instant we were in the hidden space, we were also in complete darkness. Wash let me go, and I stumbled forward. My knees hit the bed, which was invisible to me, and I let out a small shriek. I would have gone into a full-on scream but my throat felt like it had closed.

  I turned to face the general direction of where Wash had been a second ago, and put my hands up in a basic defensive position. Not a boxing stance, so much as I used one hand to protect me from possible neck attacks and the other to protect my stomach. I don’t know why. I never heard of a vampire that sucked blood through your belly button when it couldn’t reach your neck.

  I stood that way, prepared to defend myself, feeling a shock of cold sweat breaking out all over my body, when a light popped on.

  Wash was standing next to the bed, his hand on a lamp by the bedside table. After the pure dark, the light scorched my eyes.

  I looked over at the bed and saw that Smitty had been covered up with a blanket. His tiny body made small creases, little bumps and rises that indicated that though small in stature, there was a being under it.

  My throat opened, and I screamed. Then I did it again. And one more time.

  During all my vocalizing, Wash stood there, nearly unblinking, letting me scream myself out.

  It worked. Eventually my lungs tired of making loud noises in a confined space, my legs gave out, and I sat on the floor heaving air in to replace all the air that had gone out.

  Adrenaline coursed through my veins but it felt like it was making me tired instead of powerful. I was locked up, unable to move, unable to get up off the floor. I wondered, briefly, if this was how animals end up dead on the highway. They see the car, and the j
olt of chemicals through their bodies gave them too many different options of what to do, so they chose nothing.

  I wasn’t not sure how long I sat there. A minute? Ten minutes? The entire time, Wash kept on standing there, hands calmly at his sides, not moving.

  Some things in life were inevitable. The time you did something stupid on your bike and your parents pulled you aside to have a talk with you. After you blew a final, and a teacher wanted to talk to you about your performance.

  That was like those moments. Times thirty-seven.

  I finally managed to unlock myself enough to point at Smitty and opened my mouth. What I wanted to say was, “You killed him,” but what came out was, “He—that man—Smitty—he’s dead.”

  Wash nodded. It was the acknowledgement of a fact.

  I got it out. “You killed him.”

  “I helped him die,” said Wash.

  My brain apparently decided arguing with a vampire I just watched kill another human being, then demonstrate superhuman strength, was a great idea. “No. You killed him. You killed Smitty.”

  “I helped him die. There’s a difference.”

  I opened my mouth again.

  Wash raised a hand and said, “Wait.” He stood, silently, for a few seconds, and then looked at me. “Someone is at the front desk,” he said.

  I strained my ears, and I could, very faintly, hear the words, “Hello? Anyone here?” I hadn’t heard anyone talking a moment ago, and I realized in addition to the crazy amounts of speed and strength I just saw Wash demonstrate, he also appeared to have super hearing. And given that he just ended Smitty’s life in a pitch-black room, he had super vision as well.

  I watched a swath of emotions cross Wash’s face, even as his mouth opened again. “Here’s what’s going to happen.” He pointed at the doorway behind me. “You’re going to walk out of this building. You’re going to leave your little kit behind. You’re going to go home. You’re not going to come back. In a few months, you’ll have forgotten that any of this happened.”