I awoke alone in my room with my fingers jammed in my cooter, while the echoes of an orgasm faded.
It’s almost enough to make me want to try to contact him, except I know what will happen. He’ll show up, do his fangy white knight act, wanting to fix my fucking life. Then what am I supposed to do?
I’m in fuckingAlaska. There’s not much farther I can run unless I try toDukes of Hazzardjump my fricking 4Runner to Russia from the goddamned backyard.
I amnotlooking forward to an Alaskan winter. Maybe I’ll make my way to Florida before the days shorten too much.
Arizona isrightout.
I can’t go back there, even though the thought of never seeing Dexter again makes me want to climb down the switchback path winding along the bluff’s face, plunge my head into the frigid waters of Kachemak Bay just off the beach, and stay there until death takes me.
What’s the point of life? I mean, seriously? What’s the point of staying alive if I’m going to feelthisfreaking miserable?
The only good thing about Alaska right now is that nights are only about four hours long.
Yeah, that’s right, baby. Land of the Midnight fricking Sun. Which is why, along with the low population densities, vampires as a general rule tend to avoid Alaska.
Unfortunately, those short nights don’t last forever. Eventually, it changes to months when the days are barely that long.
Dexter might think he can protect me, but the truth is, he can’t. I think that was made perfectly clear in Tucson. Finally having proof—the FLIR was pretty conclusive—that the dog-thing is real shook my faith in anyone being able to help me.
The last thing I want to do is draw attention to myself, because I’ll not only have the vampires after me, but shifters, as well. I’m…different in a way that doesn’t fit in. If I’m a liability. I’m dead. That’s how it works, and I know that all too well.
I mean, this thing tracked me to outside Lucius Frangelico’s nightclub. If Lucius doesn’t want humans getting harmed or killed on the premises so it doesn’t draw attention, hedamnsure doesn’t want huge phantom dog-thingies sniffing around his staff parking lot for the same reason.
The vampires and shifters can’t risk humans finding out about them. They also can’t risk attracting government attention. The shifters have already shut down several Data-X labs, but it’s possible there might be more, or other secret programs out there, trying to snatch shifters and vampires and breed super-beings for war. Selene’s hybrid status makes her a particularly high-value target, should the wrong people learn about her existence.
No, best I completely disappear before I make the bad kind of name for myself with any of them.
I’m lucky my very first vampire boss, Neimus, the one in Toronto, likes me and gave me this job lead. Chaldis Bianchi is a very old vampire—nearly as old as Lucius and Dexter—who was in need of some help for a little while. His long-time human helper had family business to take care of in the Lower 48.
There’s not a lot I have to do. Chaldis doesn’t feed on live humans very often, which is a damned good thing, because there aren’t a lot of humans per capita in this part of Alaska from which to choose.
He also orders a lot of bagged blood. For hunting, he mostly feeds on cattle and wildlife. He runs a cattle ranch, so he’s never lacking in choices. If he happens upon fishermen or hunters or tourists who are out and about at night, he sometimes chats them up and grabs a nip from them. There’s a higher-than-usual number of tourists around here because they film some homesteader “unscripted documentary” TV show nearby.
The people who work at the ranch think Chaldis is an elderly recluse in poor health. Normally, everything is handled through Corbin, his human helper. But Corbin’s older brother is battling cancer, and it’s looking grim. The timing worked out perfectly that Chaldis had just contacted Neimus the day before, looking for possible references.
This is where I come in. I’m Chaldis’ “niece.” Or so everyone has been told. I don’t have to deal with the day-to-day ranch operations. I’m simply a go-between and errand-runner.
Meaning I keep an eye on the time and, on the nights Chaldis wants to hunt, I prepare a special four-wheel-drive RV kept parked in the enclosed garage, so it’s ready to go at safe twilight. I drive him out to his favorite hunting area and then literally wait with the motor running to drive him home again. There’s a portable, light-proof crypt inside the RV, just in case we get stuck or don’t make it home before dawn. I also run to the store for him when he needs anything, and I help with chores around the house.
It is a rather nice house, large, even though on the outside it doesn’t look like much, doesn’t draw any attention to itself. Inside, it has every modern amenity. All the bedrooms are made securely light-proof with roll-down shades inside, and louvered shutters on the outside to keep sunlight from directly entering. The rest of the house has louvered shutters on the outside, and roll-down shades on the inside that are triggered by light sensors. The front and back door entry rooms are set up not to allow light into the main house, so there’s no danger to Chaldis. In addition to all this, he has heavy-duty storm shutters that can be rolled down, and can withstand hurricane-force winds.
He’s 1,727 years old. While the morning hits him hard and drops him into the daily stupor, he rarely sleeps more than four hours. Sometimes, not even that long. Apparently, the wild fluctuations in Alaska’s days and nights have altered his vampiric circadian rhythm over the years.
Once he wakes up, he’ll talk with me while he helps me take care of chores around the house.
I was a little creeped out by that, at first, worried he might try to feed on me. But then I realized it’s just that he’s…
Well, he’slonely. Fortunately, he’s not creeped out by his inability to thrall me, so I guess we’re even there.
He had a vampire mate, but she was killed in World War II while they were trying to escape from Europe. After losing his mate, Chaldis made his way east across Russia to Alaska, where he lived feral in the wilderness for several years before pulling himself out of his depression and building a life here. Like Dexter, he’s very ethical in that he doesn’t wish to harm innocent humans, and he hasn’t killed any humans in over a decade.
It won’t be much longer before he’ll have to move on. The locals think he’s in his seventies, and through his thrall he hasn’t let anyone recognize him in over thirty years. He looks like he’s in his late thirties or maybe in his forties, barely. Handsome guy, with dark brown eyes and brown hair, six-two and slender in build. Bet he looks good in a suit, even though I’ve never seen him in one.
Nothing like my not-Ianto, though.
Chaldis is giving serious thought to moving to Tucson, and that’s one of our frequent topics of conversation, even though it makes me miss Dexter like freaking crazy.
