Curse of Darkness by Steven Gilby - Chapter Two

The next day when I woke up from my deep slumber I was enticed by the smell of a delicious smelling breakfast. Sausage, bacon, eggs with cheese, toast, and pancakes all cooked up and ready for me to eat and still warm. I was more than happy to sit down and enjoy this great feast. My mother and I engaged in idle chit-chat about everyday things like politics and the government (I don't know why. I didn't like to talk about either but I knew a great deal about them.) Also we talked about the bible on occasion, but that was a subject I felt uncomfortable talking about and didn't know much about.
I quickly gulped down my eggs and sausage and bacon and started on my pancakes with a slab of butter and a heavy dose of maple syrup.
"Orange juice?"
I looked up at her with a look of surprise. She knew I loved orange juice but I couldn't tell if she was just joking or if she was serious.
"You're kidding right? Get me a big glass, please."
She got me the biggest cup we had from the clean dishes that had just finished getting clean in the dishwasher and poured me a nice big glass of ice cold O.J. I took the glass and chugged it down and wolfed down the rest of my breakfast and took off for school. The good thing about today is that my dad didn't have to work today and my mom doesn't work so it's all good. I sped out of the driveway and got to school. When I got there there was a crowd of people surrounding the front door and no one was allowed in. The principal was in front of the door making a speech. I made my way to the front to catch these words, "James Watson is dead. He was murdered last night. Since this has hit the community so hard we have decided to cancel school for today and tomorrow."
Hearing that I ran to the car and turned the key just as Razz walked up to the driver's side.
"Steven, what's going on?"
"Get in and I'll tell you. We need to get out of here."
She ran around and got in and I sped off to a secluded place where we were always alone. There was just something about a field full of dandelions and buttercups that just makes you tell all to a person you trust, even if it's something that you wouldn't normally tell them. When we got there I took the key out of the car and looked at Razz.
"James is dead."
She looked down, making very sure that she wouldn't look into my eyes, "I know."
"Did you do it?"
"Jesus Christ, Steven, I thought you had more sense than that. I would never kill James."
"You need to let me in on everything you know."
She looked dead into my eyes as if they were locked that way, "I am a small time bounty hunter. I work with a man named Eddie. Every few months he drinks a small amount of my blood to temporarily stop his aging."
"How long does it stop for?"
"A few years. He is one hundred thirty-five years old now and looks like he's still in his forties. He makes the blades and other weapons I use to hunt and kill vampires and werewolves that tip the scales."
I gave her a questioned look.
"The scales are a delicate balance of the good and evil vampires on this planet. When there are more bad than good then a Hunter is called in to get rid of it. I'm the one called on the most for the small jobs; I've never done any of the jobs that earn me major recognition or cash."
I understood what she was saying, but it's not every day you find out your best friend is a vampire who hunts other vampires.
"So these 'scales'. They aren't, um," I had to struggle to find the right words to use, "The vampires and werewolves you kill. No one keeps track of these vampires do they?
"There is an Order of very old vampires. They are the ones who keep track. No one ever sees them; no one even knows where they are. But it's not like they count all the good and bad and tell people to kill the bad ones to keep it equal. It's more like they want us to kill the vampires that get out of hand.
I thought for a second. You got to be really fucking old to be called a "very old" vampire.
"How old are you?"
"Come this December I will be two hundred seventy-seven years old."
"Wow!"
"Yup. Now come on. We need to get to Eddie's to see what he can tell us, but first we need to go to where James was killed."
"But what about the cops? Won't there be cops there?"
"I don't know. What time is it?"
I looked down at my watch, "Ten thirty."
"They'll be on lunch break."
"But it's only-"
"Trust me. They always take an early lunch. All I need is some grass or a footprint."
I nodded then turned the car on. Whatever I thought. We drove strait to the scene. Wouldn't you know it, no cops.
The scene was covered in still moist blood and dew from the early morning hours. The smell was horrible. The body was taken away long ago. In some of the blood and clean grass there were scuff marks where there had obviously been a struggle. And the cherry on top was the yellow tape that surrounded the whole crime scene. I kind of figured they would put cops on guard here twenty-four seven until it was all cleaned up or whatever. But hey, who am I to complain?
Razz jumped out of the car and ran under the yellow tape and took some bloody grass from the ground and gave it a sniff.
"It's a werewolf alright," she yelled at me.
She ran back to the car and put the grass in the ash tray.
"Your phone is a camera phone, right?"
"Yeah, you need to use it?"
"Uh huh, going to take pictures and give them to Eddie, see what he thinks of all this."
As she was walking away I thought about something and said, "They're a little small on the camera. Wouldn't he need to see large copies?"
Razz yelled back, "You'd be surprised at how many gadgets he has."
I shrugged Razz finished taking the pictures on my phone and got back in the car. I never get any calls on the thing anyway. At least it was used for something good.
She gave me directions to Eddie's house and I drove there as fast as I could without getting pulled over. He lived in an old two story house on the outskirts of town where no one goes unless it's the fourth of July or New Years and they go out to pop firecrackers and shoot off bottle rockets.
The steps were cracked and covered in green mold and the wood that made up the porch was so creaky that it almost sounded like it would break. The house itself was old, enough said there. Dusty windows and broken shutters covered the face of the house.
When we went up to the door Razz banged on the door and it fell over with a loud crash and dust flew up from underneath it. Eddie came running up not knowing it was us. He has a German accent with light brown hair and blue eyes to go with his five foot nine inch tall body. His clothes were as if he hadn't changed them in days, smelly and covered in what looked like food and machine oil. The inside of the house was simple enough: a living room right when you walk in, the door neatly concealed to the right (if you're on the inside and looking at the front door). A small doorway led into the kitchen to the left, and if you kept going strait ahead through the living room there was a staircase that, if you were going up, would have you facing to the right, but when you were at the top would have you facing towards the front of the house. In the kitchen there was a side door with a small window with a tattered curtain covering it. And to the right of the living room there was a door, always closed, that lead into a small bathroom that nobody ever used. Upstairs there was a bathroom with shower and two bedrooms, one master bedroom with a walk-in closet and the other was just a small room with an even smaller closet, both full of electronic toys that Eddie had apparently never finished working on or put in here to work on later and forgot about them. Going beyond the stairs on the first floor there was a rather large room full of books and magazines, the study I suppose you could call it. Books on everything vampire and werewolf and all the bullshit holy artifacts that would supposedly kill a vampire of werewolf.
"Yes, vat do you vant? Oh, Rass, eet's you. Vat do I owe this most humble visit?"
"James Watson was murdered and we need to know who it was. Think you can give us a hint?"
She handed him the grass and my camera phone and he went down to the basement and for a minute and came back up without those things.
"Za pictures need time to upload and za grass ees in a scanner," he looked at me, "Ah, who is your friend?"
"This is Steven. He knows pretty much everything."
"I will need a blood sample," the machines in the basement beeped, "Ah, I vill be back. Help yourself to anysing in za fridge. Rass, take za blood vee need."
I went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator and looked to see if there was anything I fancied to drink. I grabbed a bottle of red wine and opened it.
"What are you doing," Razz asked.
"I'm smelling the cork."
"Do you know how to tell good wine from that?"
"Not a damn clue, but it smells really good."
I tossed the cork in the trash and went into the living room and sat on the old green recliner. Rocking back and forth I sipped on the wine. Razz opened a drawer on the desk next to me and pulled out a large syringe and some alcohol and a cotton swab. I jumped up when I saw it.
"WOAH! What the hell do you think you're going to do with that?"
"I'm going to take some of your blood."
"Not with that thing you're not."
"Relax," she took a cigarette from a pack on the desk, "Smoke this and drink that while I do it and you won't feel a thing."
Cigarette and alcohol, perfect combination. Razz dug the needle in my arm as I took a drink from the bottle.
"Shit!"
"Don't be a baby. It didn't hurt a bit."
"So says you. I didn't even get to light the cigarette."
She tossed me a lighter and I lit up. It might have been a little late, but hey, a cigarette's a cigarette.
Eddie came back up with pictures in his hand and a paper that probably came out of a machine when the grass was done.
"Zees vas no accident."
"What do you mean," I asked.
"Vat do you sink it means you stupid boy? Zees murder was staged. By looking at enlarged pictured of zee scene I noticed that zee blood was not in a splash or drip pattern. It vas poured in zee grass and smeared all around and zey even stirred up zee grass and dirt to make eet look real," he looked at Razz, "How was the body?"
"From what I heard the face was unrecognizable. They think he was shot or something of the manner."
"Ah, yes. A body with no face. Very easy to come by if you are a werewolf."
"But who around here is a werewolf? I thought Razz said that they were both vampires."
"Well then we have an immigrant wolf in town."
"You mean from another country," I questioned.
"No," Razz started, "A werewolf from another town. Most towns have clans of werewolves, sometimes the whole state is one clan. There isn't one here, we're too small. So that means we have am immigrant in town. And he needs to be dealt with. This is where I come in."
Eddie ran down in the basement and came back up a few seconds later with a sword and a crossbow. Razz looked at me, "Come back for me later tonight and I should know where we need to go."
"Rass, tonight ees a full moon so be careful."
She looked at him and gave a slight smile, "I'm more than capable of handling this without any help."
"Well, I guess I'll be seeing you later tonight then?"
"Bye," she said as she tossed me my phone.
I got in my car and went home. As I sat in my room and pondered about what would happen tonight. A vampire was bad enough; I didn't want to meet a werewolf, at least not yet. I lay on my bed as I thought of all these things. Vampires, werewolves, and what would happen if I were to become one of these creatures that mankind wouldn't even think twice about being real and if so would kill without a second thought.
After a while I had fallen asleep; the dream I had seemed as real as life itself. It started out with me running, just running down a street, in and out of streetlights, a beast running after me jumping into the lights every now and then just to let me know the terror that was chasing me was real. A bright flash of light and I saw myself on the ground covered in blood, my shirt torn to shreds. As I lay there, dying I suppose, I looked up into the sky and saw a full moon, and then I closed my eyes and there was darkness.
My phone rang and scared me awake. I was covered in sweat and I started to shiver as I realized my room was freezing. I clicked the talk button on the phone and said "hello" in a hoarse tone then I cleared my throat. It was Razz, she wanted me to get her from Eddie's and that she would tell me the rest when I got there. The ride was fast seeing as how I was alone. I didn't even bother to get out of the car when I pulled up to the house. It didn't really matter anyway because Razz was waiting on the doorstep with a black duffle bag and she was all dressed up in black, not leather though. No leather what-so-ever. (I wonder why they always choose black. I suppose it's better than pink or white, especially in the dark.) She opened the door on the back seat passenger side and tossed the bag in it then came and sat in the front seat.
"Go to Kay Street. It'll be the fifth house down," her voice was very calm and she didn't look at me, just out the windshield, nearly emotionless. I guess she was in a deep state of concentration. Nothing seemed to bother her.
No music, no words, no nothing, just silence as we drove to the house on Kay Street. The house we had made our way to was old, like Eddie's house, but the steps weren't all moldy and cracked, partially because the steps were wooden, and the porch was very small. From inside the car I noticed the front door was slightly ajar.
Razz reached back and grabbed the bag and opened it. There were various items in it: several throwing knives, a sword, katana of course (it was a capacious bag), a small crossbow with numerous arrows, and two daggers, decently lengthened. I was handed the crossbow and asked if I knew how to use it. I said that it wasn't a main priority for me to shoot a crossbow but I would guess I was a pretty decent shot with it. Razz took the sword and put the throwing knives in little holsters around her waist and one of the daggers in a leg holster. The other one she gave to me.
"What am I going to use this for?"
"An emergency."
I had never seen her like this before. She was dead serious (no pun intended).
She got out of the car and I a few seconds after her. As we were walking up to the house she fell to one knee and started to groan. I ran up to her to see if she was going to be alright, but when I got close she just told me to stay back in a harshly hoarse voice. When she finally stood up her eyes were very dark, black almost, and they were severely bloodshot. I asked if she was alright and she said she was fine. I looked up into the sky and noticed the full moon.
"Does the moon do something to vampires, too?"
She looked at me, fangs at full length, "Yes. It gives us a small amount of power, but werewolves are still stronger than us by at least three fold."
I didn't say anything to that. What exactly can you say to a person with fangs and black eyes? Exactly, nothing.
Carefully we walked up to the front door, Razz noticed it was cracked open; seemed to me like we were expected. She pushed the door open with the handle of her sword and slowly started to walk in and look all over the place. Her sword was pointed downwards so that she would have a decent advantage over whoever she was going to fight if there was indeed going to be a fight here. I prayed that nothing bad was going to happen.
She got to the stairs and told me to wait here and look around down here a little. The steps slightly creaked as she gently walked on them. I started walking away from her towards another room, but I didn't bother to check the closet next to the stairs for two reasons: it was to dark to see anything, and who would hide in a closet, especially a vampire? I mean come on!