“A low profile is fine,” I remind myself as I turn away from the ocean view and back towards the doors of the hospital. They’re big, bronze and glass art deco doors that harken back to a busier, more prosperous time in Vesper Point. Ivy crawls along the front facade making it a sea of waving green leaves. Weeping stone angels mark the hospital’s corners.
Not everything is bad about Vesper Point.
There is, for instance, the woman that lives next door.
I was surprised to see her standing there in her kitchen watching me when I moved in. Even more surprised when she dropped to the ground when I waved, though not as much as when I saw her lay out the local in the coffee shop. She might not be a supe but she’s interesting, not a bad thing with my self-exileto Vesper Point. It won’t hurt to have a distraction close by if I need it.
Although, I suspect my trying to blend in as a human in Vesper Point is going to take a lot of my time and energy. I’d even had to go grocery shopping to keep up appearances. A newcomer to town that didn’t eat or grocery shop? Definitely going to be a red flag to locals. Vampires could eat, we didn’t need to but it was something we could do if we chose to. Some vamps were even making money as foodies on social media. A real bold move if I ever saw one, considering digital footprints are forever and too much attention brought the Varcolacus down on you, but whatever. Sometimes the immortal nature of vampires bred carelessness but that wasn’t me.
The last thing I want is a summons from the group of over powered vampires. The Varcolacus aren’t like the rest of us. At a certain age, vampires started to develop powers outside of our natural enhanced speed, strength and skills at glamouring. The Varcolacus could fly, move shit with their minds, there was even a shapeshifter in the mix.
For as long as it takes Rosanna’s trial to be handled and the Varcolacus to focus on someone else, I’m staying put in Vesper Point. I’m not ready for the Varcolacus to know about me. When I make that play, it’ll have to be for something that’s truly worth it.
Something I’d die to protect.
I scan the ID card that I’d been mailed by the hospital when I’d formally accepted the position as the town’s newest doctor and enter the doors with a fake smile plastered on my face while I channel the energy of a harmless golden retriever. It works, from the way the nurse at the intake desk lights up when she sees me.
“Hello! How can I help you?”
“Good morning,” I stop to look at her name tag, “Donna. I’m Doctor Vale and I’m your new hospitalist.”
Donna’s eyes widen and she sighs. I know the look in her eyes. She’s older, maybe fifty or so but still pretty with silvering blonde hair and big brown eyes that remind me of a deer. Donna is going to be an easy ally when I need anything done that isn’t quite above board.
“Oh my word, I didn’t expect someone so young and…” her voice trails off and I know what Donna isn’t saying, which is likely a variation of handsome, good-looking or I’d even been called dashing recently. They’re right. I am damn good-looking but such is the life of a vampire. We’re pretty because we’re the perfect predators. Humans trust pretty people, and in life humans trust me far more than they should which means I am very fucking pretty.
“And tall?” I ask, feigning innocence. I’m decently tall at six foot two, and while I’m not towering over anyone it’s the best excuse I can give the nurse to recover and keep her at arm’s length. I don’t want anyone on staff thinking they can get too close to me on the first day.
Donna blinks like she remembers she’s indeed working and nods. “Yes, that’s it. I-sorry! We just are an older bunch here at Vesper Point Memorial. You’ll be the youngest on staff but that’s perfect. We’re positively starved for new blood.”
I smile at her comment. If she only knew how wrong she was about my age. “I’m excited to learn from such an experienced staff. I can’t think of a better place to learn from.”
Donna blushes at that and then motions for me to follow her. “It’s a pleasure to have you here with us. And it’ll be our staff that learns from you, we’ve never had such a skilled hospitalist on staff. The entire town is going to be over the moon! I’ll take you back to show you around and introduce you to the staff. We have an office ready for you to go.”
I’d had a shared office in Seattle, but never my own.
“Thank you, that’s very kind.”
Donna waves a manicured hand and bats her eyes like she personally arranged my office. “We had to pull out all the stops for our big city hospitalist.”
I give her a smile I know doesn’t reach my eyes but she doesn’t notice. Instead, she takes me through the hospital and chatters about the history and the founding of the place. I half listen to Donna but I do pick up that the building is original to the 1901 founding, which means there’s only two floors and the basement where the morgue is. Even though it’s been renovated since its founding, it’s dated. I bet that plaque is the newest addition to Vesper Point Memorial. There’s only two wings, the north and the south wings, on each floor with 40 beds total, which is nice. I’ll be able to relax after the bullshit in Seattle. The first floor houses the maternity wing, which is woefully empty, ER, and the surgical suites. There’s a few going on today, which is good. Calm is what I’m after, not deader than me if I want my abrupt move from Seattle to Vesper Point to be believable.
The second floor, Donna tells me, is where I’ll be spending the majority of my time. Internal Medicine and general inpatient care occupies the north wing, alongside post-op recovery in the south wing. I spy six beds in post-op and ten in internal medicine.This is going to be a cake walk. I might even have time to pick up a hobby. Something boring like fishing, which for all my lack of interest seems like a better waste of time than the hours I know I’ll be spending ingratiating myself with the locals. Distasteful I know, but a necessary evil to show just how much of a stable vampire I am. One perfectly capable of assimilating into the human world and ensuring the continued ignorance of humans to the vampire world. It’ll earn me a shiny fucking gold star in the Varcolacus’ book, or at least it better fucking earn me one. Access to steady meals and my general curiosity about thebody and its ever present march towards decay and death might have first lured me into medicine but I stayed for the cover it gave me.
Doctors do good, more than good, they save lives.They’re helpers.I can’t be entirely evil if I’m helping, right? No, of course not. It isn’t like I’m worried about the state of my non-existent soul or the balance of good and evil in the world. I’m a doctor because it means I’m generally allowed to do as I please and remain safe from the overreaching arm of vampire law. If the Varcolacus turn their eye on me because of Rosanna, it’ll be obvious she was operating on her own. Vampire sires turn out to be assholes like human parents all the time. They won’t punish me on account of her sins.
“Yoohoo!” Donna trills when we make it to the second floor. I bite back a sigh when I see where Donna’s taken to yoohooing at.
The lounge.
Fuck.
The lounge means other doctors and nurses and orderlies. I’ll have to be on top of my game with that many humans paying attention to me. God, I’d rather be fly fishing.
“Look who I have here to meet, everyone? Our handsome new doctor!” Donna bustles into the lounge with me in tow. The lounge is over half full when we make our entrance. There’s six nurses gathered at a table in the middle and a weathered looking doctor sucking back a cup of coffee. I do my best impression of looking bashful at Donna’s side when the table of nurses turn their full attention on me. Four of them are around Donna’s age but there’s two that are younger, in their early thirties, around the age that I look. They instantly sit up taller and nudge the other as we exchange pleasantries. Hungry, sharp looks. There’s no mistaking the target that’s on my back now as far as the pair are concerned. Shit. No doubt they’ll be dogging my every move in a bid to get a date. The amount of nurses that plannedon bagging a doctor just to quit working was high, and I’d been marked as target before. It never ended the way the other party wanted. I’d never date a human, much less one that I worked with but hospitals were a playground for that sort of thing. I’d rather meet the Final Death than use a human for anything else but food.
But there is that neighbor…
I can see her face. Wide-eyed and shocked. She was furious when she hit the man in the coffee shop but the second she saw me—that fury melted away. Dropped off like a discarded garment the second she fell under my glamour’s sway.
