I know how these things go. I’ve seen Kick-Ass enough times to know that going out unprepared on your first patrol can lead to some serious hurt.

Tom and I spent that entire day making a list of things that needed to be taken care of.

A costume itself was easy. Thank goodness for the internet and next day shipping. After a couple hours of surfing the web, including some fetish shops, I decided that rather than become Gimp Man, I’d go with something more down to Earth. We’re talking black clothing, a trench coat, and a full-visor motorcycle helmet. Think The Matrix meets The Wraith. I ended up balking at the cost of actual body armor, but Tom solved that ... sorta.

“You want me to wear baking pans under my shirt?”

“They’re metal aren’t they? They just need to work good enough to keep any pointy objects out of your heart.”

I doubted his logic there, but my bank account said that compromises needed to be made so I said a silent prayer that the Pillsbury Dough Boy would keep me safe and we moved on.

Weaponry was a must. After all, the vamps of Village Coven were older than me and it would be a dead giveaway if I had to resort to biting them. Thankfully that was easy to figure out. Vamps might be tough, but blunt force trauma was a pretty good equalizer. Some of what we wanted couldn’t be shipped to New York thanks to the state’s stupid laws, but fortunately my parents lived in Jersey and they didn’t ask questions.

Speaking of vampires, though, there was also smell to take into consideration. I wasn’t sure if a vamp could tell another by scent – I wasn’t experienced enough to know for certain – but with our enhanced noses it seemed likely. I thought that could be an issue, but then Tom picked up the phone.

“Who are you calling?”

“Ed. His old man is a survival nut.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“The shotgun under Ed’s bed says different. Needless to say, he lives in the sticks and owns lots of firearms. Close enough for me.”

A few minutes later, Tom got off the phone, having secured that Ed’s stepdad did indeed have some scent killing shit to throw off deer and that he would be bringing a bottle of it back with him upon his return.

“No questions asked?”

Tom smiled. “Tis one of the perks of having a bloodsucker for a roommate. One learns to accept the weird and unusual with but a shrug and acceptance.”

“Think he’ll try to talk us out of this?”

Tom and I looked at each other for a moment before bursting out laughing. Who was I kidding? This was the same roommate who’d stabbed me with a knife to prove to Tom that I was undead. Hell, he’d probably want to videotape the whole fucking thing for posterity’s sake.

♦ ♦ ♦

The beauty of my arrangement with Sally was that it took into account my day job and anything else I did in my sad quest to have a life. Also, she liked that I typically only showed up on weekends because it allowed her to run things as she pleased, without any of my pesky morality around to muck things up.

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This time around, though, I had a feeling it was gonna be rougher on her than usual. She had a lot of damage control to do. I kinda felt bad leaving it up to her. I mean, she was only one vampire. Even she couldn’t keep eyes in the back of her head twenty-four/seven. In essence, I was leaving her to clean up my mess. I still wasn’t sure of my feelings for Sally. On the one hand, she was a total self-absorbed bitch. On the other, she’d gone out on a limb for me more than once. I wasn’t quite sure if I was ready to extend the title of friend to her, but she was definitely more than a casual acquaintance. Regardless, I didn’t relish the thought of anything happening to her while I was off tending to my day job and pretending that I still had a heartbeat.

Thankfully that didn’t look to be the case for long. Though it pained my wallet to do so, the expedited shipping of my supplies meant that the wait was fairly short. As expected, Ed was full on in, handing out a rare compliment to Tom for coming up with the idea and jumping in with his own suggestions.

Come the end of that week we were ready to put our plan into motion.

♦ ♦ ♦

“Can you come in here?”

“What?”

I raised my voice to make sure it was heard outside the helmet. “I said, get your ass in here!” Maybe if a 2.0 update was needed to my vigilante costume, we could spring for a Bluetooth speaker or something. Thankfully, the vamps whom I’d be targeting had damned good hearing.

“I’m on the phone.”

“Well hang up. You spend too much on sex hotlines as it is.”

“Hold on a sec.”

Muffled though my voice might be, I could still hear fine. Tom said his goodbyes to someone along with what sounded like ... nah, I must’ve been hearing wrong. It sounded like he said he’d see the other party soon. Odd. As far as I knew he had no plans to visit his parents.

“Dude,” my roommate said, stepping to my doorway. “I’m trying to get a fucking date here. What the hell ... whoa.”

I stood there, decked out in full battle gear. “How do you like it?”

“Pretty fucking badass.”

I turned to the mirror and had to agree. Though I definitely didn’t look like I was packing a superhero physique, the layers of clothing gave me a bulky look – and not just around the middle. The blackness of everything really helped too: from the combat boots, the trench coat, the helmet, and even the gloves– atop which I wielded a pair of brass knuckles that we’d spray painted to match the rest.

“How do you feel in it?”

“It should be fine unless we get a heat wave anytime soon.” The baking pans I’d rigged to cover the front and back of my chest weren’t the most comfortable things, but the bulky black sweater did a good job of hiding it in the front and it was pretty much invisible from the rear under the trench coat. Still felt like a dumb idea, but if it kept me from lining the bottom of an ashtray then it was worth it.

“Cool. Show Ed yet?”

“Yeah,” I replied, taking off the helmet. “He came in earlier and hosed me down with that de-scenting shit.”

“What did he think?”

“Said I’d be lucky to not be shot by a cop the second I step outside.”

“Sounds like an endorsement to me. Oh hey, I’ve been thinking of a name.”

“Oh god...”

“How about the Night Stalker?”

“Pretty sure that was a TV show.”

“Fine. Just the Stalker then.”

“Makes me sound like a rapist.”

“We can use that.” He put his hands on his hips and lowered his voice. “Fear not, for I am the Stalker, and I’m here to rape crime in the ass.”

“Yeah, let’s not go with that. It sounds ... wait, back up a second, did you say a date?”

“Fuck yeah! There’s this new girl in our PR department. I’ve been passing her in the hall the last couple of days, giving her my winning smile.”

“And she didn’t immediately file a restraining order?”

“Fuck no. She actually asked me out to lunch today. Yeah, I know. Surprised the shit out of me too. So I’m trying to set something up. With any luck, I’ll be fucking the daylights out of her before the weekend is through.”

“And they say romance is dead. What if I need you, though? This is our big test run.”

Tom placed a hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eye. “I know, and normally I’d be the Robin to your Batman ... not the fruity one in the pantyhose, mind you.”

“For which I am grateful, don’t get me wrong. What ever happened to bros before hoes, though?”

“It’s still in effect.”

“But?”

“But it’s been a long time since I got my dick wet and some things have to be given priority.”

Oddly enough, I couldn’t really argue with that logic.