If Smith really was a vamp, he wondered how old he was.Couldn’t be too old.He didn’t look a day over twenty-five.He knew that they aged differently, just like him, but he didn’t know much more than what the romance books told him.Not that he’d ever read them, but his momma loved them, and he’d trust her over a vampire any day of the month.
He started getting tired around three in the morning.He wasn’t positive that was the time, but since he went to sleep at that time nightly, he figured it had to be right around that time.As soon as he snuggled up in the little bit of blanket that they gave him, he felt his body relax enough to get some sleep.
Walton didn’t usually dream unless it was the dream that he had about making it rich.He’d been dreaming that since he’d been just a small boy.It was always the same way.He’d be carried in on a large car with ticker tape blowing down from windows all around him.His momma and daddy were there, too, just like he remembered them before they got too sick to move around.The town had been thrilled that he’d bought up the land and brought more businesses to town.That’s the way it should have been here, but these people were just too stupid to know what was good for them.
It wasn’t even dawn yet when he’d been told he had a visitor.Damned if it wasn’t that Conri person telling him that he shouldn’t be in his territory unless he got permission.Even though he was only about a quarter wolf, he still had to obey the rules like everyone else did, and now he had to paya fine for his transgressions and be out of town by the end of the month.
“That’s six days from now.You’d best be doing your business and be gone before then, or I’ll assume you want to die by pack.I don’t mess around with trespassers.Especially ones that bother good friends of mine.”He asked if he was really going to kill him for trespassing.“Yes.As I said, you’re bothering some good friends of mine, and I don’t like you at all for that.Get out of town while the getting is good, or so help me, you’ll never see us coming for you.”
Six days was more than the police gave him, and he was going to make it count.The first person he was going to see was that Smith person and ask him why he hadn’t just said he was a vampire.Then he’d go from there.This town would sit up and take notice if he told them all that there were vampires running around.
~*~
Rance had lived in his house for the last several days.Something was missing, but he couldn’t figure out what it was.It just didn’t seem to be as warm as the other houses, and he didn’t know how to fix that with his magic.He was going to have to pay more attention when he went over there to see what it was he was missing in his home.It had to be something small because it didn’t jump out at him when he’d been there.
The house was nearly all green.He loved that he’d been able to incorporate all the things that he’d read about over the years.He was going to be saving water and power by reusing it all when he had the chance, like washing his hands in the bathroom.That water went to flush his toilet.Shower water would go into a large container and be used for watering the plants.There were even solar panels on the roof to make his own power when he needed it.Just as he was having a glass of water, someone knocked on his door.It was Huston again.
“What do you want?I think I made it perfectly clear that I’m not selling my land.Land that I own.”He said they got off on the wrong foot.“No kidding.Did you know that you’re dying?You’d think you’d be someplace where you could get some medicine in you instead of running around like nothing is wrong.You can’t have that much longer to live.”
“I have plenty of time to make a name for myself and buy up some land.I know you’re not selling your land, but I have a deal for you.”He asked him what sort of deal.“I won’t tell the town that you’re a vampire, and you’ll sell me some of the land that you have.You have too much of it anyway.”
“I’ll be the judge of me having too much land.And I don’t.I want to keep neighbors away, so I built in the middle of the acreage so that I don’t.”Then he smiled at the sick man.“Everyone in town knows that we’re vampires.Everyone.So long as we don’t cause them any trouble and don’t bother them, they don’t care.You’re going to have to come up with something better than that to blackmail me.Now this is how this is going to happen.You’re going to go back to whatever rock you crawled out from under and leave me the hell alone.I’ve told you several times now that I have no interest in selling any of my land to you, and that’s final.You should get yourself to a doctor and let them tell you what’s wrong with you.”
“I have cancer of the blood.See, I know what’s wrong with me.”Rance simply reached out beyond the man and told Brew that he was being harassed by Hudson again and that he had leukemia.
“He’s going on about not telling the town that we’re vamps and that he’ll buy my land so he doesn’t tell.I don’t think he believes me when I tell him that they already know that we’re vampires and they don’t care.”Brew laughed and said he could take care of him.“I don’t think making him dead is the way to go.People might be happy that he’s gone, but then there might be questions.He’s an idiot if you were to ask me.What kind of person thinks that blackmailing is a way to make friends over something like this?No one.He’s going to get his ass handed to him if he doesn’t watch out with what he’s doing.”
“I spoke to Conri, and he said that the man had no money at all.He thinks that with good credit, he’s going to be able to buy up land all over the place and make a name for himself before he dies.”Rance asked how that was supposed to work.“I have no idea.He’s all alone in this world, I suppose, and that’s where he gets off telling people that he owns their land, hoping that someone will say that he does.He said to show him your monster and see if that turns him away.”
“I might just do that before it’s all over.”He looked down at the little man.“What’s he doing out of jail anyway?I thought that he had to wait for Markus to come around.”
“Conri had him released so that he could cause more trouble and get into deeper shit with the judge.He seems to think he’s going to piss off the wrong person, meaning you, I believe, and you’ll take care of him if the judge doesn’t.”Rance said that he might end up doing that.The man was becoming a royal pain in the ass.“Just don’t drain him.That’s all I ask.We don’t need the town coming down on us about this little man.”
“It wasn’t my intention to drain him.Not with him having cancer.His blood would be tainted, and I don’t need to deal with something like that when I’ve only just got my house theway that I wanted it.”Rance thought about why he was calling it a house and not his home.“I need to get one of the women up here to tell me what I need to make it more homey.It’s beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but—hang on, he’s saying something to me.”
“How about you give me some of your blood to heal me.That’ll give me more time in this world, and I can make a name for myself.I need to leave something of myself behind.”He told him no.“What’s it going to cost you to make me a healthy man?Nothing but a bit of your blood.I don’t know how old you are, but you can’t be all that old.You don’t look a day over twenty-five years old.”
“I’ve been around for centuries and centuries.I’m older than this town.”He asked him again what it would cost him to make him healthy again.“Why don’t I go one step further and change you into a monster of the night while I’m at it?”
“I don’t want to be a damned vampire.I just want enough of your blood so that I can see my next birthday.It’s not that far off.I need to get with my doctor to see how much longer I have to live.”He told him what he knew.“Six months or less?That don’t seem right, but then what do I know?The moment he said that I had blood cancer, I sort of turned everything else off.I should have brought me someone with me like he suggested, but I don’t know anyone that would help me out.”
Rance could almost feel sorry for the man, but he couldn’t get past the part of him trying to blackmail him into selling him the land that he had.As soon as he turned toward the driveway where one of the few cruisers they had in town was pulling up, he started cursing.
“I didn’t call them.”He asked what they were doing there then.“I have no idea.I might have reached out to someone and told them you were trying to blackmail me, but I didn’t ask him to call the police.That’s all on Brew.”
“I’ve talked to a lot of you guys in the past several days.None of you are too nice when it comes to hospitality.You didn’t even invite me into your home.”He said that he didn’t want him in his home.“See?Right there.None of you are very nice.I thought that you had to be nice so you could lure some of your victims to your house?”
“I’m in no need for a victim, as you called it.As I’ve said to you, I’ve been around for a good long time and don’t need to feed all that often.I can even tolerate the sun better than most.Certainly better than you do.You’re sunburnt.”He said that because no one would invite them into his house.“For good reason, too.You’d probably be looking for something to steal when you’re casing the joint.Move on or go with the police.I don’t care.”
The police asked if he was bothering him, and he told them that he was trying to blackmail him.After telling him what he’d said about giving him blood, they ran him in for harassment and trespassing.Again.Rance suggested that they keep him in jail this time, as it was becoming an issue for him having to tell him no all the time.
“We’ll run him in.Conri said that if he gave us any more trouble, we were to deal with him like we did any other human.That’s about all he is anyway.”Nodding while they read Hudson his rights and put him in the cruiser, the officer asked if he was going to press charges.“If you come down to the stationhouse by tomorrow, we can hold him for you.”
“That’ll be perfect.I’ll see you either later this afternoon or in the morning.I’ve had enough of this man.”He had too.This was the third time in two days that he’d had to turn the man away, and that was enough.“Thank you for coming out.I guess Brew called you.”
“He said you were having trouble, and we figured that he’d be out here again.”They bothlaughed.“We’ll run him in, hopefully for the last time.He’s been bothering Mrs.Warner, too.We had to discourage her from using her gun on him.She’d do it too, she said if he came around again.”
“The old bat said she was going to blow my nuts off of me.What kind of reason would she have to be violent like that?None, I tell you.I was just talking to her.”The officer said that she didn’t want him talking to her.“See what I mean about hospitality?Not a single person in this town has one bit of it.”
