Chapter 4: The Vampire Who Turned Into A Wolf and Howled “UwU!”Pants woke up, feeling very well rested.

  Which she shouldn’t have, considering she spent the entire day squished up with two other people in a small bathtub. But that’s the thing about being dead for the day. Your muscles don’t cramp. Your bones don’t ache.

  During the day, a vampire is just a corpse.

  Last night, Caleb insisted, and Angelina reluctantly agreed. Stelian’s home was shielded from direct sunlight, but it wasn’t sun-proof, and Caleb was taking no chances. So, they all climbed into the small, windowless bathroom, secured duct tape around the cracks in the door, and all settled into the bathtub.

  Caleb looked at his digital watch, and after they all maneuvered to get up, started to pull the duct tape from the door. Stelian was already up and about.

  “Sorry, Pants,” said Stelian. “You’re a griller, not a glitter.”

  He pointed to a piece of cardboard, with some burned through clear scotch tape and tiny little scorch marks on the surface. Next to it were some of Stelian’s own fingernails, undamaged, put there as ‘control’ in the experiment.

  “Your fingernails burst into fme. My condolences, kiddo.”

  Pants sighed.

  “It’s okay, Stelian. Thanks for putting us up for the day. You’re a good guy.”

  Pants looked at her hands and was mildly surprised to see that her fingernails had grown back to their usual length after they had been cut off the night before. Stelian’s noticed Pants staring at her nails, and showed her his own, which had also grown back.

  “Yeah, however you are now, you’re stuck with it. You’re lucky you didn’t end up for all eternity with a bad haircut, like me,” said Stelian.

  “It’s not… that bad,” lied Pants.

  “Right,” said Caleb. “Moonlight’s a wastin’. I know who we need to see next.”

  ***

  In Vegas, like in many cities in America, there is a pce where the lonely, the desperate, and bedraggled lost souls gather. A location not out of pce in any horror film. Where the lights have left the eyes of what can only be described as the shambling hordes.

  The zombies shuffle, after their baccanals and manic gambling sprees, towards the glowing lights, signs of life, and promises of sustenance.

  To those with nowhere else to go, it is a refuge of st resort. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

  And in this particur Denny’s restaurant, sat a young man with a ptop, wearing a trenchcoat. He sat in the same booth every night. Ordered a gss of water. Never drank from it, and left.

  He had been doing this for seven years, night after night.

  Every night.

  And neither the staff, nor the regurs, knew his name or remembered his face. Every night he was just someone new, coming in from the desert heat, or desert cold, to sit. He was arcane. Unknowable. A shadow in the corner of your eye.

  And he was currently editing the Wikipedia page for “Dancing With The Stars, (U.S. Season 6).”

  The door chime rang out and in walked Caleb, Angelina and Pants, looking straight at the booth where Philip Gyrich sat, heading over to it.

  Angelina waved at him and smiled. Caleb just waved, and the three of them sat down at his booth.

  That was when Philip knew this was going to be a long night.

  “As I don’t live, and I don’t breathe,” said Caleb. “Just the person we were looking for. How are you doing, Philip?”

  “I’m surviving,” said Philip. “Same as all of us. It’s nice to see you again, Angelina.”

  “Likewise,” she responded.

  Philip offered an over-the-table handshake to Pants.

  “Philip Gyrich.”

  “Patricia Antsel. Pants for short.”

  “Anyway, I’m sorry to have to do this, Philip,” said Caleb as he took out a blue 1 chip from the Monte Carlo casino with the initials ‘P.G.’ on it written in red sharpie from his pocket. “...but I have to call in a marker.”

  “Just a bluebird?” asked Philip, raising an eyebrow.

  “We need your brain, not your tricks.”

  “Well, you taught me the only trick I know, Caleb,” said Philip.

  “Wait, can we learn tricks?” said Pants.

  Philip raised an eyebrow.

  “New?”

  Caleb nodded. “Very. But smarter than she looks.”

  “Hey!” said an indignant Pants.

  “My condolences. Did you catch the asshole that turned you?” said Philip.

  “It was me. Pants here was a witness to the Stalker.”

  “More of a victim than a witness,” Pants admitted.

  “It was the only way I could preserve her testimony,” said Caleb. “Still not sure if it was a good idea. Pants, can you show Philip the printout?”

  Pants took out the information that she printed from Stelian’s computer.

  “We have a licence pte for the Stalker’s van, a Red Ford Econoline. That gave us the make and model,” said Pants. “And through a little social engineering I was able to get a name. Joshua Randolph. Here’s his phone number as well, and we printed out the first page of his facebook profile.”

  “You can clear a bluebird if you can get an address,” expined Caleb. You find something very useful and I’ll give you one of mine.”

  Philip looked at the information.

  “You say this guy is the stalker? He doesn’t seem the type.”

  “Philip, are any of us who we seem to be?” said Angelina.

  “No,” admitted Philip. “Okay. But give me time. Say three nights from now? Check back around midnight?”

  “Three nights?” asked Angelina. “I heard you could do this in one. You’re a computer hacker for goodness sakes.”

  Philip sighed. “It’s Defcon coming up. It’s a big event that I don’t want to miss.”

  “Oh, I get it,” said Pants. “You want to make sure you keep up with all the test security exploits and such.”

  “No, it’s just that there are a lot of my fellow furries at DefCon, and I’m not passing up the prime opportunity for such a smorgasbord to go to waste.”

  Pants blinked.

  “You feed on furries?”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “It’s just… strange.”

  “Food’s food. Look, it’s simple. You know how some vampires can turn into wolves?”

  “Well, in the movies, sure. Haven’t seen anyone do it in real life,” admitted Pants.

  “Right. That’s how I ended up owing Caleb a couple of chips. He taught me how to adapt a ‘turn into wolf’ trick into a ‘turn into a wolf fursona.’”

  “Oh, simir to his bat trick,” said Pants.

  “Same principle, yes,” admitted Caleb.

  “And when you see a guy dressed head to toe in a polyester blue wolf suit, the st thing you think of is: ‘vampire,’” said Philip.

  “I mean, the st thing I’d think of is ‘werewolf,’” said Angelina.

  “Wait, werewolves are real?” asked Pants.

  “No.” said Angelina. “Well, I mean, if they are real, I’ve never met anyone who’s seen one.”

  “That just means nobody who has seen a werewolf has lived to tell the tale,” said Philip. “Not that they don’t exist.”

  “Great,” said Caleb, rolling his eyes. “Pants, this comes up a lot in vampy circles. The great debate about whether or not we’re alone out here. One of the arguments is that other supernatural creatures exist, but that they’re too dangerous to survive the encounter. I call it the ‘deadly leprechaun theory.’ Speaking of deadly things that go bump in the night, Philip, I’m sympathetic to it being DefCon, but if we wait a few more nights, this guy could go killing again.”

  Philip looked at Caleb.

  “Okay, Caleb, what else is going on here?”

  “What do you mean? This guy is shitting where I eat. Where we eat. I don’t want him bringing any heat on us from the cops.”

  Philip narrowed his eyes.

  “Okay. Keep your secrets.”

  Pants looked between Caleb and Philip.

  “Hold on. What do you mean, Philip?”

  Philip sighed.

  “This is going to sound callous, since you were one of his victims. But why would Caleb be hunting this guy down in the first pce? The Stalker is a serial killer. They tend to have short shelf-lives. Tracking him down to prevent him from killing again is one strategy, a far less risky strategy is to avoid the areas he hunts and wait for the professionals to handle it. The Stalker’s got Caleb’s nose out of joint, for some reason. And it’s not that he’s spooking the herd, or even out of a sense of moral obligation. Caleb’s working a different angle.”

  Pants and Angelina looked right at Caleb.

  “Is that true?” said Angelina.

  “Is that why you… why you turned me into a vampire?” said Pants. “For some… sinister agenda?”

  Caleb spoke through gritted teeth.

  “This is not a conversation for Denny’s. Philip. I trust you’ll do your best. Ladies, we should talk outside.”

  ***

  The three piled back into the Camry, for a little bit of privacy.

  “Spill it, Caleb,” demanded Angelina.

  “Not in front of the kid,” said Caleb.

  “Not in front of the kid?” Pants shook in anger and disbelief. “I’ve been stabbed, died, turned into a vampire, and dragged around half of Vegas. You do not call me ‘kid.’”

  “Pants is right, Caleb, whatever is going on, whatever you’ve dragged her into, she has a right to know,” said Angelina. “Stop being a melodramatic, brooding, maniputive asshole for once. It makes you unlikable. And it’s a cliche.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a cliche. Melodramatic, brooding, maniputive, asshole vampire.”

  “What?”

  Pants chimed in. “You are so being a Lestat right now.”

  “I am not Lestat,” said Caleb.

  “Nah, Pants, he’s not Lestat,” said Angelina.

  “Thank you,” said Caleb.

  “He’s far more like Louis. Lestat owned it. Louis just spent all his time whining,” said Angelina.

  “Oh my god,” said Caleb.

  “Ooh, y’know, he’s kinda like Spike with Angel’s guilt complex,” chimed Pants.

  “Give him a few decades and he’ll become Adam from ‘Only Lovers Left Alive’, only without the talent,” said Angelina.

  That hit a nerve, far more than either Angelina or Pants were expecting.

  “Stop it! Stop!” said Caleb. “Shut up!”

  Caleb hung his head.

  “I think the Stalker has a link to my sire,” he said. “I find him, get him to talk, and after two decades of my soul being worn down to the nub by the atrocities I’ve committed over the past three decades, and yeah, I will get him to talk, maybe… maybe there’s something there. I don’t know.”

  “Okay,” said Pants. “Now we’re getting somewhere. What do you think this link is?”

  Caleb looked at Angelina for some sympathy. But Angelina had her arms crossed, a determined resting bitch face, and patiently waited for Caleb to start justifying himself.

  “He’s not the first Stalker,” said Caleb.

  “There are others?” said Pants.

  “At least one,” said Caleb. “I don’t know much about my sire. Don’t even know his name. But I know of one unique trick he can do.”

  “That is?”

  “He can compel people to do his bidding. Even compel them to kill.”

  “You think your sire is controlling the Stalker?” said Angelina.

  “I do,” said Caleb.

  “Wait, hold up. How do you know that your sire has this power? You always told me he abandoned you after he turned you,” said Angelina.

  Caleb looked at Angelina, then motioned with his eyes to Pants in the back seat.

  “This is why I didn’t want to have this conversation in front of Pants.”

  “Oh my god,” Pants said, with realisation. “It was you.”

  “Yeah,” admitted Caleb.

  “You’re a serial killer!” said Pants.

  “You already knew I was a vampire, why does that freak you out?” said Caleb.

  “Because you… vampires kill to survive. You killed for… for–”

  Caleb angrily cut Pants off. “I was being supernaturally compelled to kill! I didn’t know what was going on! All I knew was that I couldn’t stop, no matter how hard I tried, and I tried, and I couldn’t go to anyone for help, because then I’d have to admit what I’d done. I thought I was going crazy. I was going crazy, but I was being driven mad.” said Caleb. “It… I couldn’t stop it. That… urge to kill just didn’t stop. And before you ask, I wasn’t like someone who wet the bed and tortured animals as a kid, I was a normal person. It didn’t stop until I was turned into a vampire. And yes, I have an urge to feed, but that’s different from an urge to kill.”

  “Pants, stop!” said Angelina. “Caleb, why didn’t you ever tell anyone this?”

  Caleb didn’t turn around, he just shut his eyes and leaned into the steering wheel.

  “Take a look at Pants’ face, and ask me that question again,” he said.

  Angelina turned around. And Caleb was right.

  Rage. Anger. Betrayal. Disgust. And fear.

  “Maybe this has nothing to do with me or my sire,” said Caleb. “Maybe this is just some fucked up guy. But if he’s got nothing to do with my sire, we at least get him off the streets, and if he does, then… then fuck it.”

  Caleb punched the steering wheel.

  “I’ve accepted that my old life is over. Really!” he insisted. “But it kills me that I don’t know why. Why me? Why anyone for that matter? And why did he toy with me the way he did? Was there a point to it, or was he just… pying with his food. You two… at least you know why. As dumb as the reasons might be. And… I’m sorry.”

  Pants pouted. Angelina was more sympathetic, but still a bit miffed.

  “Caleb, drive us back to my storage locker near the Orleans. I’ll take Pants for the rest of the night - and the day,” said Angelina.

  Caleb sighed. “Yeah, I guess there’s nothing to do but wait for Philip to come through. Though you don’t have to take care of Pants, she’s my responsibility.”

  “No,” said Pants. “I’m not. I’m going with Angelina.”

  Caleb looked to Angelina, who shrugged.

  “You’re a hard man to like, Caleb Tryst,” said Angelina.

  Caleb sighed and started the engine. Nobody said a word until Pants and Angelina were dropped off at the self-storage.

  ***

  When Angelina got home, she rolled up the rolling aluminum door, let Pants in, and closed and locked it behind her.

  “I hope you don’t mind sharing a bed,” said Angelina.

  “I don’t. Thanks. But I have a question. A personal question.”

  “Yes,” said Angelina. “I’m a lesbian. Well, bisexual.”

  Pants blinked.

  “That was… not even remotely what I was going to ask.”

  “Oh. Sorry. Forget I said anything.”

  “Kinda hard to do that.” Pants shook her head. “Anyway, what I was going to ask, why are you helping us?”

  “I think I told you. We all help each other out. It’s how we survive,” said Angelina.

  “Then let me be more specific,” said Pants. “Why are you going out of your way to help that asshole?”

  “Ah,” said Angelina. “Because Caleb wasn’t always an asshole. He was a kind, even sweet, man, once. And if I can pull anything of the old Caleb out back to the surface? It’s worth trying.”

  Angelina sat down on the corner of the bed.

  “I was an accident, you know. I’m Caleb’s childe, just like you are, but he never meant to turn me. He was just unfortunate to meet the one young dy that, when she was attacked, had the wherewithal to bite back.”

  “You what?”

  “I bit back. And broke the skin. Which means that as I was dying, I got a bit of Caleb’s blood in my mouth. Poof. Accidental vampire.”

  “Oh,” said Pants. “Did he talk about killing you too?”

  “Not at all. He was different back then. He suggested I kill him, actually.”

  “Uh?”

  “In some of the vampire movies, if you kill the head vampire, all the other vampires that vampire made, and the vampires those vampires made, turn back into humans.”

  “Is that true?”

  “Who the fuck knows? But Caleb was so distraught that he thought it was worth trying. The way Caleb is going, I worry we’re going to find out after all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s worse than I’ve ever seen him. And for the first time – now that I know his history with the Stalker – I’m beginning to see why, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s barely holding it together. And vampires - we need to hold it together. People get killed when we don’t hold it together. And he’s the oldest of us. If he goes off the deep end…”

  Angelina sighed.

  “I don’t know what the American Psychiatric Association says to do with a vampire spiraling into a self-destructive episode of paranoia and depression, but I know what the American Veterinary Association says to do with a rabid dog.”

  Pants took a deep breath. “You… think it would come to that?”

  “I’m going to try everything else, first,” said Angelina. “But, I might be the only one who can. Physically, I mean.”

  Angelina looked away and bit her lip, a little worried. But then, she turned back to Pants, all smiles now.

  “But you know what, forget about what-ifs. Let’s forget about Caleb and pass the fucking Bechdel test. What about you? What do you want? What should we talk about?”

  Pants id down on the bed in a frustrated grunt.

  “Well, I was about halfway through a bckjack dealer training course. I guess that’s out of the question now.”

  “Probably,” said Angelina. “I mean, how good are you at mental math? I could maybe teach you poker? Game gets really easy once you add a couple vampire tricks to your game.”

  “Maybe. But right now I don’t know the difference between a flush house and a straight set of trips,” said Pants.

  “Well, you don’t have to think about it right now, but… and I know you might not want to hear this, being a vampire? It’s not like the movies at all. You need to dream small. Next meal. Next day’s shelter. It’s a rough life. And it’s a rough life secured at the cost of other lives.”

  “Great,” said Pants.

  “Actually, you know what might cheer you up? Let’s go hunting.”

  “Hunting? Like… hunting people hunting? Like… killing people?”

  “Er… no. Well, maybe. Don’t worry, I’ll watch your back. You know, if nothing actually goes wrong, it’s kind of fun! We’ll use the body system.”

  “Do you mean the buddy system?”

  “No, the body system is where I’ll try to stop you before you create a body, but if I can’t, I’ll help you hide the body. What time is it?”

  Pants instinctively looked at her wrist, where a watch would have been, had she not woken up naked in a morgue two nights prior.

  “Right,” said Angelina, looking at her own. “You’re gonna need a good wristwatch. Again. My treat. C’mon. If we hurry, we can catch a bus to the Albertsons on West Tropicana. We need to get you set up with a bus pass. Then we’ll head over to McMullin’s Irish Pub. Open 24 hours.”

  “Wait, wait, I can’t… just… bite someone and drink their blood,” said Pants.

  Then she stopped and thought. “I mean… can I?” she asked. And she wasn’t sure if she was asking Angelina… or if she was asking herself. The idea of taking some… obnoxious guy, an obnoxious drunk jerk, like the kind that always hit on her, especially the kind that made her feel unsafe, who just wouldn’t take a hint? Being able to extract… some measure of revenge… no, of power over them. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she might even like the idea.

  “Absolutely. I mean, why do people even go to bars if they don't want to get ‘drunk?’ We’re doing them a favor. Now c’mon. Let’s go meet Mr. Wrong, and see if you can make him ‘Come Hither.’”

  ***

  Caleb, who was also feeling peckish at this point, headed to one of his favorite haunts, “Davy’s,” a dive bar located in the ‘Arts District’ of Downtown Las Vegas, and his shoulders slumped in disappointment to see that Stelian was already there.

  Another way his own stupid guidelines came back to bite him in the ass. First vampire to a venue for the night gets the first pick of the crowd. Anyone else who shows up forms an orderly queue.

  This particur guideline was added after one night at the Velveteen Rabbit (another local bar) and two young vampires set their sights on the same guy, and both of them tried to ‘Come Hither’ him, each one of the vampires pouring on the vampiric charm so hard that the hapless would-be-victim caught in the middle got a nosebleed and his eyes didn’t become uncrossed for three days.

  Thank goodness Stelian was hiding that awful haircut of his behind a Golden Knights baseball cap tonight. His chances of pulling a victim might not be impossible after all, thought Caleb.

  Stelian spotted Caleb from across the room, and frowned. Caleb nodded to him, but headed over to the bar, indicating that he didn’t come here for Stelian and he was going to let the younger ‘glitterboy’ go about his business. Not only did Stelian just do him a solid, Caleb now owed Stelian, and Caleb hated owing anyone anything.

  Owing someone something made him do things he didn’t want to do. Things that didn’t directly benefit him.

  And then, in a fsh of lingering self-awareness, he realised that these were the thought processes of a right bastard.

  When was the st time he did something actually nice? Something selfless. He wasn’t sure he remembered how.

  Come to think of it, that’s probably a good enough reason why he should force himself to do something nice. He was beginning to fall out of practice, to be the curmudgeonly misanthrope loner that only tolerated people, hated people, or used people.

  Right. Tonight, Stelian gets a little help at the hunting game. He spotted a likely victim - drunk, but not too drunk to walk out on her own power. With friends, but not close friends that would notice if she walked off. Likely with a bunch of “office friends,” or something like that. She wouldn’t be missed that much if she were to be gone for a few moments.

  Stelian hadn’t noticed them; but then again, Caleb had more practice at picking the most missable, easily maniputed person out of a crowd.

  He could be Stelian’s wingman tonight. He could do something nice for someone else, for no personal gain whatsoever, for no other reason than sheer altruism. It might even be seen as a friendly gesture. Egads.

  Caleb approached the group of women, which earned him an angry gre from Stelian - was Caleb breaking his own guidelines and poaching Stelian’s prey? Caleb looked directly at Stelian, and made a downward motion with his hands to tell Stelian to ‘keep cool.’

  “Hello, dies,” said Caleb. “Sorry for the interruption, My name’s Caleb, but I’m here with a friend of mine tonight, and if any of you are interested in meeting a nice fellow, his name is Stelian. He’s over at the bar, wearing the Golden Knights hat.”

  Some of the women, including the drunk-but-not-too-drunk dy, turned to look. Caleb waved at Stelian, pointing directly at him. Stelian took the hint, and waved and smiled back towards the women. Soon, there would be eye contact, a suggestion to find a more private pce, and Stelian would have a spring in his step and a gleam in his eye.

  If he really wanted to do a super-ultra-special good deed today, he probably should head over to the nearest convenience store and pick up a packet of sugar cookies for the poor just-been-drunk girl.

  But that’d mean actually walking across the street. “Nah,” thought Caleb. “That’s enough good deeds for the night.”

  He sat down at the bar, ordered a gss of ice water and pretended to be interested in what was on the TV.

  That’s when the nightly news broke in with news that the Stalker had cimed a third (well, technically a fourth, if you include Pants) victim.

  He paid rapt attention to the closed captions.

  “We believe this to be the third victim of the same suspect. We have few leads, but we do know that he leaves a calling card at his crime scenes. A slip of paper that refers to a line in the bible,” the detective said, showing it in a pstic evidence bag to the press.

  It said: ‘Numbers 26:65’.

  Which meant nothing to Caleb at the moment. He didn’t exactly have a fancy phone, or a data pn, so he couldn’t quite just google it.

  But ter on, when he finally did look it up, it scared the shit out of him.

  ***

  Numbers 26:65

  “For the LORD had said of them, They shall surely die in the wilderness. And there was not left a man of them, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.”