Yellow lights flashed as they rotated atop the armed security guard’s truck. He made the rounds every twenty minutes. That meant we’d been doing nothing for forty minutes.

My black Fastback lay hidden in the dark corner of the near empty movie theater parking lot just down the street from Costco and the community college.

“I think those Korrigs gave us a run for our money,” I said to the wizard, telling him in a different way for the tenth time that we were sitting there wasting our time.

“If they named any other monsters I wouldn’t have believed them. But naming the children of the Dearg Due specifically makes me want to be absolutely sure.”

“Why?” asked Charice. “Who are the children of the Dearg Due?”

Nehemiah sighed, looking like he did not even know where to begin.

“Ooo, ooo, I know,” said Rob.

Nehemiah motioned for him to explain.

“There was this lady a long time ago and her love was spurned and then she died and her hatred for her lover was so strong that she came back from the dead.”

Nehemiah face-palmed. “We don’t need the one thousand year backstory.”

Rob bit his lip, whipping up a summary. “The Dearg Due is essentially a Celtic vampire. The vampire. Perhaps existing even before Dracula.”

“Are you saying Dracula is real?” I asked.

Nehemiah held up a finger. “NO rabbit trails. The Dearg Due was a vampire queen, a specific person in history. But now there’s enough vampires that ‘Dearg Due’ has come to mean a position of authority, AKA a local vampire queen.”

“We have a local vampire queen?” asked Charice.

“Yes. Oakland is her domain. That’s why the Shepherd’s Guild no longer protects Oakland.”

“What do they protect?”

“Good question,” said the wizard. “I don’t run with them anymore. So I don’t really know. Sacramento seems to be their focus now.”

“So this vampire chick is in charge of all the monster activity in Oakland?” I asked.

Rob could barely contain his excitement. “Yes. Specifically, she is Donn’s right-hand here on Earth. One of them anyways.”

Wide-eyed, he continued “The Tuatha de Danann and the Fomorians lose power here on earth. They were banished. But monsters created by the Fomorians aren’t affected by the banishment. They’re caught in a loophole. So Donn and others send their monsters here to do their bidding and create Chaos.”

Charice furrowed her brow. “To what end though?”

Rob shrugged. “Power? Controlling territory. Dominance. Maybe some greater force of Chaos compelling them? Who knows.”

The wizard’s face grew sober. “All I know is that the Dearg Due is one of our deadliest enemies and we have to do everything we can to stop her and her minions from staking claims on Vallejo.”

“What makes her so special?” I popped in a Decrepit Birth album, glad that Dad had been so smart to add a CD player to this car.

“Just about every other monster we’ve dealt with so far has been creature-based. Animalistic, if you will. But the Dearg Due warps humans to create her children, much like the Sluagh, but they retain their human appearance and their cognitive reasoning. The problem is that their hunger and the source of their power are one in the same: human blood.”

The music came on, but I kept it turned down low so we could keep talking. “So basically, vampires are more of a threat because they can multiply quicker?”

“Exactly,” said the wizard pointing at me. “What’s worse than an enemy that is lent more power from feeding on you, but that can also make you into a slave?”

“But the Banshee was humanoid too. She could reason and think and speak. Why are you more worried about the Dearg Due and her children?”

“Banshees have to decide to curse you, like the one you fought.” He pointed to my chest.

Instinctively I scratched at the scarred mark.

“But a vampire in the act of feeding, simply grabbing a person to snack on, is enough to create a monster.”

“Why isn’t the Bay Area crawling with vamps then?” asked Charice.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

“It is, and it isn’t. When they feed, if they suck the person completely dry, that poor soul will die. But if they leave enough blood in the person, the victim will most likely turn into a vamp if the transformation doesn’t outright kill them. What makes matters worse is that they are bred with a sense of loyalty for whoever bit them.”

Charice put two and two together. “So they automatically are changed into servitude for the Queen ultimately?”

“Yep. Like a sick and twisted pyramid scheme, and it’s how they’ve taken over the Oakland underground already. It’s only a matter of time that they would take over Vallejo and all the surrounding cities unless we stand up to them. “

“But there’s only three of us,” said Charice.

“Hey what about me?” asked Rob.

“Okay there’s four of us,” said Charice. “How are we four supposed to deal with all this?”

Nehemiah wagged a finger at her. “And that’s why my wife wants me here hanging out with teenagers, and not fighting by myself.”

“We are not teenagers,” I said.

“I’m 19,” said Charice.

“Not helping me prove my point here,” I said.

We fell quiet pondering in the implications of the wizard’s words. The death metal cut through the silence.

“What in the Kevin Hart’s little legs are we listening to?”

“Decrepit Birth,” I said, and turned up the music for them to enjoy.

Let’s be honest, most early Decrepit Birth albums don’t have the best audio quality. You don’t listen to them for the mix. You listen to them for the raw talent on display. So what if the kick pedals were a little clicky? So what if the distorted guitars didn’t exactly cut through and came out a little murky? It gave me a more active listening experience as I tried to understand what each band member was doing.

A heart pounding riff kicked in and I couldn’t help but head bang. I screamed along with the lyrics as best as I could and when I looked up to see if Nehemiah and Charice were enjoying it, they both stared at me like I was a psychotic monkey with rabies.

Tain lowered his head to the seat, put his paws over his ears, and whined.

“You guys aren’t digging this?”

“I don’t even know what this is,” said Charice.

“It’s heavy metal. The most masculine music on earth. It’s raw testosterone in audible form. It’s a Red Bull for the soul.”

Nehemiah jutted his lips out, grunting. He wagged his pointer finger at the radio. “Some of what they are doing is musical, but there is no way you can call that music.”

Charice frowned like she smelled expired milk. “It’s not even musical. It’s just noise. Like the soundtrack of a horror movie and somebody vomiting. And the sound of death and war. Like all the worst sounds humans could possibly make all piled on top of each other and then turned up way too loud.”

“You’re kidding right? This is one of the best real metal bands out there. Seriously guys. Put aside your musical biases for a second and try to comprehend the genius happening. Decrepit Birth is what the band Death would have eventually sounded like if Chuck Schuldiner hadn’t passed away.”

“Who’s Schuldiner?”

I rolled my eyes and held up my hand. “Rob. CD binder.”

Rob handed me my CDs and I sifted through trying to decide between the album Symbolic or The Sound of Perseverance.

“Sorry Sean. I’m glad you’re passionate about something, but not everyone shares your enthusiasm,” said the wizard.

I raised my eyebrows looking to Nehemiah, then to Charice in disbelief.

She winced. “I kind of hate it.”

“That might be a deal breaker in our relationship.”

Rob floated up in between Charice and I. “Hey look at me. I get it.” He gyrated his hips, pelvic thrusting to the metal riffs. Then he took one pointer finger and crossed it from his hip across his torso pointing up to the sky. Then he did the worm in the air.

“Stop! Please. I don’t know how, but you’re making me hate metal right now,” I said.

“You’re just jealous of my dance moves.”

“Nobody’s jealous of that action,” said Nehemiah.

We all laughed.

The security truck pulled up right next to my Fastback. He got out of his truck with a flashlight and motioned for me to roll down my window.

“Good evening,” I said as I turned down the music.

“Hey,” he said. He was a heavyset half-black half-white guy in his mid-thirties. Sparse facial hair spread across his baby fat cheeks which made it hard to take him seriously.

“Technically you guys are loitering here. I have to ask you to leave if you’re not here to watch a movie.”

“Sorry about that,” I said. “We’ll be leaving right away.”

I fired up the Fastback engine.

“Nice ride by the way,” said the security guard given me a thumbs up.

I nodded to him smiling, then rolled up my window.

“Why’d you tell him that? We can’t leave yet,” complained Nehemiah.

“Dude, we’ve been here for almost an hour. There’s no vampire.”

Across the parking lot an exit door slammed open and a group of teenagers poured out of the side of the movie theater. Obnoxious loud laughter reached my ears even with the windows rolled up. Without a care in the world they tossed a huge tub full of popcorn to the ground, the popped kernels spilling out onto the asphalt, as well as several soft drink cups. They were literally only a few feet from a garbage can. “What a bunch of punk kids.”

The security guard sped off in the direction of the kids on his way to confront them.

I leaned back in my chair with a front seat, ready to enjoy the scolding. But as the security guard parked his truck and got out to confront the teens my Keening burned.

Nehemiah leaned forward, his head over my shoulder. “You feel that?”

“Yep.”

Charice pointed at the top of the movie theater. “Look!”

The black shadow of a man loomed atop the theater, contrasting against the moonlit starry night sky. Right as we caught sight of him he leapt from the side of the building plummeting to land behind a tall row of bushes that wrapped around the movie theater. If the security guard or the teens heard the man land, they didn’t react at all.

“Drive Sean!” said Nehemiah.

The engine roared to life.

But we were too late.