Dark Moonlighting (9 page)

“You okay, Nick?” she asked with concern.

Still focused on the man’s eerie message, I
did not respond immediately.

“Officer Whittier?” Jasmine said a little
more forcefully.

I snapped out of my daze and moved quickly
towards the old man. The intensity he had shown earlier was gone.
He sat on the ground and quietly whimpered, making no effort to
defend himself as I got closer. I grabbed him under the armpits,
lifted him to his feet and pointed him in the direction of 16th
Street.

“If you don’t go to the shelter you’ll be
spending the night in jail,” I shouted at the man. “If I see you
out again tonight I’m going to be very angry. Do you understand
me?”

The bum made no indication that he had
comprehended what I said or even heard me. He returned to his
default stupor and slowly started staggering in the right
direction.

“What was that about?” Jasmine asked after
the man started to move. “Why did you let him get so close?”

“He surprised me,” I lied with a nervous
laugh. “Who would have thought the old fart could move so
fast?”

“Ah,” Jasmine said, clearly unconvinced.
“You’re all right though? No needle sticks or anything?”

“I’m fine,” I shook the question off. I
continued more cautiously, “Did you hear what he was talking about?
Did he seem… oddly intense to you?”

“The monsters in the night bullshit?” Jasmine
asked. She nodded her head. “Seemed like standard wino nonsense to
me. It’s actually sort of a nice change of pace. I get so tired of
all the ones who think they talk to God.”

“I guess,” I said skeptically. “Just seemed
like he was talking… like he was trying to warn me of
something.”

“Dave Matthews feasts on the flesh of the
living!” the homeless man shouted into the air without turning back
towards us.

Jasmine gestured towards the disturbed man.
“There’s your prophet.”

I pretended to shake the incident off for the
sake of my partner. She returned to the front door of the store and
retrieved the cups of coffee she had hastily placed on the ground.
She looked me over again with concern when we returned to our seats
within the police cruiser. I pretended not to notice as I reached
into the glove compartment.

“Purell?” I asked as I retrieved a tiny
bottle.

Jasmine cupped her hands and pointed them
towards me. “Think a bath in rubbing alcohol would work better, but
I’ll take what I can get.”

We were still rubbing the homeless man funk
out of our hands when the radio crackled to life.

“1-Adam-12, reports of shots fired in the 600
block of Baker Street,” the dispatcher calmly announced.

“We’re on it,” Jasmine responded excitedly.
“Three minutes out.”

My partner turned the key in the ignition,
flipped on the sirens and peeled out of the convenience store
parking lot. The strange incident with the homeless man left my
mind as the adrenaline started pumping. This was the part of the
job that I lived for.

After I was captured, some reporters labeled
me as a Renaissance man. Having lived through the Renaissance, I
tend to think that I was not as impressive as those great
historical figures. They mastered multiple fields in a single
lifetime whereas I had centuries to learn. I did not start my
studies out of a desire to be the most knowledgeable human being
that I could, but rather from a need to stave off boredom. Being a
police officer was my most recent attempt to do this, and it
offered plenty of opportunities for excitement.

Jasmine slowed our police cruiser to a crawl
as we reached the 600 block of Baker Street. It was a residential
neighborhood made up of low income housing, but was not notorious
for a high amount of crime. I rolled down my window, shuddered at
the cold breeze and slowly pointed my flashlight at the houses as
we drove by. An elderly woman waved at me from the porch of the
fourth house and pointed farther down the street in the direction
we were traveling.

The woman started to talk but her voice
immediately cracked. She cleared it and shouted, “The alley!”

I waved my appreciation to the old woman as
Jasmine slammed on the gas pedal. She hit the brakes just as
quickly as the next alley on the block was only fifty yards away. I
pointed my flashlight down the alley and immediately identified the
suspect. He was crouched near a dumpster, and his head shot in our
direction when he noticed the light from my flashlight. He was
wearing blue jeans and a gray sweatshirt, which matched the
description we had received from the dispatcher en route. It was
not until he bolted the opposite direction down the alley that I
noticed the pistol in his right hand. I fumbled briefly with the
car door before leaping out of the police cruiser.

“Cut him off,” I shouted to Jasmine as I
started my pursuit.

I ran at a fast speed for a normal human as I
chased after the suspect. I heard the squeal of car tires as
Jasmine raced down the street, but did not increase my speed even
though I knew she was out of sight. I always tried not to do
anything superhuman while on the job despite the obvious
advantages. If a random civilian noticed me running as fast as I
really could, it would have drawn unwanted attention to me. As
such, the suspect was across the street on the opposite end of the
alley before I got close to him. He hastily hopped a fence
surrounding the backyard of a house with me right on his heels.
Jasmine drove down the new street in an attempt to circle around
and cut him off. I pulled my pistol out of its holster as I landed
on the other side of the fence. The suspect had slowed down, and I
could hear him panting heavily. He suddenly froze in his tracks and
whipped around to face me. Evidently he had decided he was not
going to be able to escape the pursuit. I looked past the pistol he
was leveling at me, it was not a significant concern to me anyway,
and for the first time saw who I had been chasing. I was close
enough now to tell that it was just a kid, probably not even old
enough for high school yet.

“Easy, son,” I said to the boy. “You need to
put that gun down.”

“Screw you, pig!” the kid screamed in a
prepubescent voice. “Sure you show up now. Where were you assholes
a half hour ago?”

“Why?” I asked, attempting to diffuse the
situation. “What happened a half hour ago?”

“He’s trying to kill me, man,” he answered in
obvious terror.

“Who wants to kill you?”

“I don’t know, I never saw him before. He
came out of nowhere talkin’ bout crazy shit. Said I was his
prey.”

The hair on my arms bristled as the boy
spoke, and it had nothing to do with the cold breeze. Between his
story and the run in with the homeless man, I was now very
concerned. I knew I had to push those facts to the back of my mind.
The real problem was the immediate situation.

“Well, it’s okay now,” I lied. I holstered my
pistol, turned the palms of my hands towards him and slowly started
to walk forward. “I’m here to help you, but I need you to give me
that gun.”

“What are you doing?” the young men demanded.
“Get back, man. I’ll shoot, I swear to God I will!”

“You don’t want to shoot me,” I said
soothingly. “You’re a good kid… you just got caught up in something
big. All you need to do is hand me that gun and we’ll—
sonvabitch!”

I was only about five feet away when he
unloaded two rounds into my chest. He ran farther through the yard
and hopped another fence as I crumpled to the ground. Bullets do
not kill vampires, but they sure hurt like hell. The virus has an
amazing ability to heal damage to the human body. Infected blood
clots over a wound almost immediately, which greatly reduces the
amount lost by the injury. It also helps to hide the fact that an
injury took place, which was an added bonus for me a moment
later.

“Nick!” Jasmine screamed as she arrived on
the scene. She raced towards me from the opposite end of the yard
as she turned her head towards the microphone on her shoulder.
“Officer down! Repeat, officer down. 500 block of Washington
Street. I need a bus and backup here now! Suspect is on foot
heading north towards Cleveland Avenue.”

“I’m okay,” I managed to cough out as she
collapsed on the ground next to me. “Cancel the ambulance. I had my
vest on.”

“The hell with that. You could—”

I grabbed her hand and pushed it away as she
moved to inspect my wound. I triggered the microphone on my
shoulder and cleared my throat before saying, “Cancel the bus. No
officer down on the scene.”

“Nick, you could have a bruised rib or
internal bleeding or—”

“I’m fine. Really,” I said, cutting her
argument short. “Go after the little prick.”

“I’m not going to leave you,” Jasmine stated
flatly. “You’re in no condition—”

“I’ll wait in the car. Go get him… go!”

Jasmine grunted in annoyance but complied
with the demand. I stumbled to my feet after she was out of sight
and started to inspect the damage. I groaned as I stretched my hand
over my back, but was relieved to feel two tiny bumps that had been
the exit wounds caused by the bullets. Had they been lodged in my
chest, I would have had to dig the bullets out. It was a procedure
I had performed on myself a few times over the course of my long
life, and it was unpleasant to say the least. The pain in my chest
had subsided into a dull ache by the time I gingerly climbed back
over the fence.

The police sirens of my fellow officers
racing to the scene blared in the distance as I returned to my
squad car. I pulled off my jacket, crumpled it into a ball and
tossed it into the front seat. If Jasmine happened to inspect the
coat she would surely find it odd that there were two bullet holes
in the back and a small amount of dried blood. There was nothing I
could do about that though. I hastily opened the trunk of the
police cruiser, retrieved an important piece of equipment and
struggled to slip into it. When the other officers arrived on the
scene, they found me wearing the bulletproof vest. They all agreed
that it was quite lucky that I had been wearing it.

The pursuit of the miserable little brat who
shot me and almost exposed my true identity proved to be
unsuccessful. Jasmine, having instantly developed a vendetta
against the boy who had wounded her partner, was understandably
irritable on our drive back to the station. She was quite insistent
that she drive by a hospital, but I managed to dissuade her.

The Chief was not nearly as easy to placate
as my partner. He was standing in the parking lot with fiery eyes
when we arrived. His balled fists were pressed into his doughy love
handles. He was on me before Jasmine had even turned off the car’s
engine.

“Faith and begorrah!” The Chief screamed into
my face. “Do you know what kind of shit storm there will be if the
big wigs find out you refused medical treatment?”

“I’m fine, thanks,” I responded
sarcastically.

“I’ve had it up to here with you,” The Chief
spat at me as he raised a hand above his forehead. “This kind of
loose cannon shit isn’t going to fly at my precinct! You—”

“Chief!” another police officer
serendipitously interrupted from just outside the police station.
“Come quick!”

“What is it, Cragen? I told you I hate being
interrupted during a rant,” The Chief angrily responded.

“It’s Crockett, sir,” Cragen shouted back.
“He’s been stabbed. They’re taking him to St. Mary’s.”

The Chief trotted back to the building
without giving me a second thought. I was greatly relieved by the
distraction, and I was confident that The Chief would forget about
my transgression in light of the new crisis.

“See,” I said to Jasmine. “I told you
Crockett wasn’t going to get shot.”

Jasmine narrowed her eyes at my crass
joke.

Chapter Five: Primordial Anxiety

I was still reeling from the whole
getting-shot-in-the-chest-while-silmaltaneously-being-presented-vague-rumors-about-other-vampires-hunting-in-Starside
thing a week after the incident. Vampires are fairly rare in the
world, and I had only met a dozen or so during my six centuries of
travel. That, of course, is not counting all the ones I met in the
early 1940s… but that is a completely different story altogether.
The possibility of another vampire just happening to be in my city
was extremely unlikely. The crazy bum’s insinuation that there were
several vampires in Starside was inconceivable.

I had spent my free time during that week
using my position on the police force to investigate the extremely
unlikely scenario. There was one unsolved case of a shooting the
previous week in downtown Starside. The victim had been shot in the
head though, and the pool of blood surrounding his body in the
crime scene photos immediately ruled out the possibility that a
vampire had killed him. I dismissed it without further thought as
gang-related violence. Aside from that killing, there were no
unsolved murders in the entire city. Well, technically there were
fifteen unsolved murders, but they were only unsolved to the
Starside Police Department. I was quite familiar with all the
victims of those crimes.

The old man was a drunken fool and the young
boy had simply encountered a run-of-the-mill human psychopath. That
was the most logical explanation. However, I had difficulty forcing
myself to believe it. The vampire or vampires could have been
killing homeless people or runaways and disposing of the bodies. It
was a practice I had engaged in before that assured no evidence and
no one to miss the victims. I was left with two possibilities:
either there were no other vampires, or the vampires that were in
my city were particularly smart. I hoped it was the former, but
mentally prepared myself for the latter.

My fears were the reason I got out of bed
half an hour earlier than usual on that day. My morning routine was
quick since I never had to eat breakfast or expel solid waste. I
took a brief shower before walking downstairs and turning on the
television. Starside’s local news was notoriously terrible and
sensationalist. I usually went out of my way not to watch it, but
it was the quickest way to get the information I needed. I felt
mildly relieved when that broadcast led with a house fire. I
watched straight through the weather report just to make sure there
had been no murders or bodies found during my two hours of sleep. I
clicked the television off just after the optimistic weatherman
reported that conditions would be partly sunny instead of saying
mostly cloudy. It probably made most people feel better when he
focused on the sun instead of the clouds. As my skin had an
unfortunate tendency to melt when exposed to sunlight, the
statement did nothing to brighten my day.