She appeared to sleep the entire hour to the vet practice. We walked into the lobby which smelled like dog food and antiseptic. An old lady sat with an arm full of yipping chihuahuas. Monica, the receptionist and vet’s wife, smiled upon seeing me. “Anthony, how are you?” She smiled in her grandmotherly way. “You brought a friend. What’s her name?”

I hadn’t asked up to this point, not wanting to know. It would make things harder. I glanced at the vampire.

“Lauren,” the vampire said softly.

“Is Ned available?” I asked.

“He will be right with you after he gives Miss Marbles’ babies their rabies shots.” The dogs were barking and growling like little RC engines. It seemed to me it was too late for the rabies shots. “Would you like to see our animals while you wait? We have a few babies that need forever homes,” she looked at us with a sad puppy dog face.

“Sure,” anything to get away from those annoying rats. She beamed and led us past the desk to the kennels where cats meowed, and dogs barked as we entered. It was loud but not nearly as grating as chihuahuas yipping.

“Feel free to take any of the ones with the red tags on their cages out one at a time. I need to man the desk. Ned will be in shortly,” she turned and pushed back through the swinging doors.

Lauren had popped open a cage a little way down from where I stood and was petting a fuzzy, gray, speckled cat. I had thought about getting a dog to help me find dead bodies. Well, I don’t need help finding bodies, I needed an explanation for how I found them. It was not uncommon that I got the side-eye from a detective or officer for finding a body too quickly. Plus, I was never home and taking care of one on the road seemed like too much work. Lauren had moved on to another cat, this one orange. She spoke suddenly. “I was offended that you were bringing me to a vet like some animal, but animals seem to be purer than a large percentage of people I have met in the last few years. There are worse groups I could be lumped in with,” she glanced at me, emphasizing worse groups. She scratched the chin of the orange cat again before moving on to a seven- or eight-month-old bloodhound who had been baying and begging for attention since we entered.

All the animals seemed to like her, which was interesting because, often, they don’t like vampires. Animals intuitively know a predator when they see one. Perhaps that’s why they don’t seem to like me either. The bloodhound wouldn’t let her put him back in his kennel, letting out the occasional howl. She sat down and leaned against his kennel door to pet him. The back door opened, and the vet walked in. He was smiling, though there was a bit of concern in his eyes.

“Anthony! Oh, you have a friend!” He glanced at Lauren and the little bloodhound. “He’s a good dog. His owner couldn’t stand his baying, so he wound up here.”

“I like him,” Lauren rubbed both sides of the dog’s face making his droopy, happy face swing side to side.

“Well, you’d best put him back,” I said a bit more harshly than I had meant. The happy countenance that she had faded. Ned gave me a look. “She needs your help as well.”

“Let’s take a look at you first. Once you manage to get him in his kennel, feel free to come through these doors,” Ned told Lauren. Lauren nodded; her lap occupied with the massive puppy. I followed him into his operating room.

“Take off your shirt, Anthony, and let me see.” I popped off my jacket and t-shirt. Ned looked at the bite marks on my chest and abdomen. “Hm, they are healing well. Turn around; let me see that arm.” At this moment Lauren walked in. She paused halfway through the door. I could feel her eyes looking over my bitten and marred skin. She slowly shut the door and found a seat along the wall. The vet pulled the bandage off and took a good look at my arm. “Well, you will live. It doesn’t look too bad. How much movement do you have?”

I shrugged. “I can move it any way I need to, though it hurts quite a bit. It won’t stop oozing blood.”

“I’m going to poke around a bit, stop the bleeding, and you should be good to go.” It wasn’t very long before he had me sewn up with a new bandage wrapped around my arm. I got up from the chair. “Now, how can I help you miss?” Lauren looked to me, a bit irritated.

“We need you to draw some of her blood. She is being hunted by a few creatures, and I need it to lay a trap.”

“Very well. Come and sit here. And you are?”

“Lauren,” she said as she walked over and sat in the seat.

The doctor frowned, looking at her bandaged arm. “Don’t tell me the two of you tried to do it yourselves,” he unwrapped the bandage then shook his head, wrapping it back up. “I had best do your other arm.” I got another glare from her, though I pretended I didn’t see.

I produced the kit from my jacket, handing it to him. “Her blood is going to be different.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

He took the kit, unfazed by my words, and began his work. “Oh, it is quite different,” he filled the vile and held the gray, translucent liquid to the light. He looked back at her. “Is it rude for me to ask?”

“She’s a vampire,” I said before she could open her mouth.

He looked at her, nodding and popped in the next vile. “Not the one who tore you up a month ago, I see.”

Her eyes strayed to my exposed chest. “How did you come across him?” Lauren asked timidly. I grabbed my shirt off the vet’s operating table and pulled it on.

“There was a serial killer in Memphis that was abducting prostitutes along with a few college students. A few of their bodies were found void of blood with signs of an IV having been planted in their necks. I got a call from a friend in the FBI. I handled the problem.”

“Do they know?” Ned asked.

“My friend does, but the cops are still officially looking for the serial.”

“Do you find serial killers, too?” Ned asked.

“No, killing actual people, even if they are monsters, is not my line of work. I leave that to the cops.”

Ned popped off the last vile and started wrapping up her arm. “Well, you are ready to go. Pay Monica at the front.”

I paused, holding the door open for Lauren. “How much for the hound?”

Ned looked at me. “Three fifty.”

“How’s his nose?”

“He’s a bloodhound.”

“Would you hold him for me? I will be by to pick him up in a few weeks.”

“Sure. I don’t mind you paying to house him.”

“Thanks.”

I led our way out and paid Monica for the vet’s work and the dog’s adoption fee and boarding. We got in the Jeep and started driving. We were about fifteen minutes from our destination when the vampire spoke, arousing me from my brooding.

“Why did you get him? The dog.”

I shrugged. “He might be helpful. I need to find people from time to time.”

“You mean monsters.”

“No, actually, he would get torn up pretty good and likely killed if I sent him after a monster. Not to mention I have no idea how good of a working dog he will be.”

“You’re not making a good case for why you would want him,” she rubbed her temple.

“Perhaps I get lonely sometimes,” I was surprised by my own honesty. She looked at me.

“Are you, well, alone a lot?” I nodded pulling off the highway onto a familiar dirt road.

“My parents live states away, and my siblings spread out across the states, except the youngest, who is still at home. I don’t see them much due to work.”

“Do they know what you do?”

“My Dad does, but the rest think I am in law enforcement or the military, perhaps the FBI.” At this point in the conversation, the thought occurred to me that she had a family somewhere. I didn’t ask. I didn’t need to make this harder, so I kept on talking. It wouldn’t matter what she knew.

“How come he knows, and the rest don’t?”

“My father and I were on a camping trip with a friend of his when we came across a monster from the class of Grendel. Are you familiar?” She shook her head. “It is a lanky, human-like creature that hunts and eats people. It’s horrifying and is one of the few things that a gun won’t do squat to. The short story is my father’s friend was in this line of work, so we were able to survive.”

“Did you kill it?”

“No, it can’t be killed. It’s still somewhere up in the Rocky Mountains. We were lucky to survive.”

“Are you going to try at some point?”

“It’s too dangerous. Finding it would be next to impossible, and it would kill me nine times out of ten.”

“So, it really can’t be killed.”

“I don’t know how. Perhaps if I could get it in a foot thick, steel box and fill it with molten metal or concrete, but it’s too smart to be captured. It sticks to the mountains. The government has tried to find and kill it, but they are only feeding it with the men they send. My mentor even went after it. He’s missing along with ten other men.”

“Are there many of these monsters?”

“I don’t think so. I have only heard of the one in the last few hundred years. There were more supposedly, which makes me think it is killable, but the folklore on how is not accurate, to say the least. Perhaps, it’s always just been the one. I don’t know.”

A shiver ran down my spine. There was a reason I work here in the South and never take jobs in the Rockies. It’s said once it gets a taste of you, it never stops hunting you until you are devoured. We rode in silence for a few more minutes until I pulled off the dirt road onto the overgrown strip that led to my graveyard. The vampire seemed to feel the change in my mood; she wasn’t stupid. She kept glancing from me to the darkening road ahead. The moon would be rising soon. She was becoming skittish, eyes moving quickly. I could feel her fear swelling the closer we got to the clearing.

I let out a long breath as I pulled into the clearing. It was covered in mounds of grass marked by stakes with trinkets on them. My gut felt hollow. One was fresh, covered in rich soil, with a dress shoe set on the stake. I put the Jeep in neutral and sat in silence. Part of me wanted to keep her alive as long as possible but that would not be doing me or her any favors. No, I should end it.

I got out of the Jeep and walked around to the passenger side, my face set in stone. I pulled the passenger door open. The vampire trembled under my touch as I pulled her roughly from the Jeep and dragged her to the center of the field. I pushed her down onto her knees. The first rays of moonlight breached the tree line, gliding across us. I pulled my 1911 from the holster and clicked the safety off. The sound seemed to ring through the empty clearing. The vampire’s skin shone silver in the moonlight, giving her a heavenly glow. With my free hand, I pulled my knife from my pocket and cut into the back of the wrist holding my gun. I discarded the knife point first into the grassy ground.

Blood rolled over my fingers down the barrel of my 1911 and landed on the back of her head. She shook with each drip as if they were physical blows. I stood there waiting for her to lash out and attack. Under the full moon, she should not be able to resist my fresh blood. She knelt there stiffly, fingers digging into the ground. I watched as her fingers slowly dug furrows into the rain softened soil. She gradually went limp and collapsed to the ground. Her back heaved as soft sobs escaped. In a moment, my mind went back to a similar sound as I swung softly side to side. Dots started to spot my vision.

I let out a long slow breath and allowed the 1911 to fall to my side, the safety on. I wiped the gun on my pants, but the blood was dry and didn’t come off. I slid it back in its holster. I couldn’t kill her. I didn’t know how, but she hadn’t given in to her natural instincts. My head was pounding, so I crouched trying to get some relief as waves of blackness crashed over me.