Through the Eyes of a Child
I walk into the club at 5 AM to find Martin crucified to the huge black cross that hangs behind the stage. I haven't fed in three days, and the smell of his blood dripping from his wounds is making me hungry.
"Dude, you have serious issues."
"Oh. Hi Alex." He says looking down at me with a "I just won the friggin' gold medal for pain tolerance" look on his face. "What time is it?"
"5 AM. You need me to help you get down from there?"
"Nah, not yet."
"Martin, you're gonna fall asleep up there again."
"No I'm not. I've got a good half hour until sunrise."
"Issues. Serious issues."
I walk past him and go into the back. I open the door that leads to my basement haven when I think I hear a door creak behind me. I turn to notice the broom closet isn't closed all the way.
I pull my gun.
I stand to the right of the door and grab the knob with my free hand. Next thing I know a kid is trying to run past me like he's being chased by a werewolf.
I grab the kid by his collar and pick him up off the ground.
"Don't kill me! I didn't see nothing! Nobody would believe me anyway! I'm not worth wasting a bullet on! Besides, I know those phosphorous rounds are expensive and using one on me would be overkill and…"
"Shut up."
I see him tense up like he's waiting for the bullet to hit him in the back of the head. After 30 seconds, he tries to turn his head around to get a look at me. "Really, I just wandered in looking for shelter. The weather out there is brutal."
"It's 75 and clear."
"Well, I have this condition…when it gets too hot…"
"Just…just shut up."
"Don't kill me."
"I'm not gonna kill anybody." I put him down, but keep my hold on him. I squat down to get eye-level with him. He's maybe 12 years old, but his eyes look so much older.
I put my gun away and check for a pulse.
"Wow, you're strong! Are all vampires as strong as you?"
A drag him into Martin's office and close the door.
"What do you know about vampires?"
"Not much yet. I mean, I know all the old stories and I've seen Dracula 2000 and everything but until the other night I hadn't ever seen a real one before. How often do you guys have to eat anyway?"
You know, life's a joke and then you die. Sad part is it's not even a funny joke. This kid's been following me since the last time I fed. And I didn't even notice. Brat got inside the club AND I DIDN'T EVEN NOTICE. If a 12 year old can find me…
I grabbed the kid's head and forced him to stare into my eyes. "Now listen. You haven't seen any vampires. You just had a bad nightmare after seeing Dracula 2000."
"No, I really did see you. I didn't tell anybody. I didn't like that guy anyway. He beat me up a few months back for no reason."
Great, damn brat is immune to Jedi Mind Trick. This just gets better.
"What's it taste like?"
"Taste like?"
"Blood, what's it taste like?"
"What the hell do you mean 'what's it taste like'? You've been following me around for three days, you sneak into my home, and you sit there and ask me what blood taste like without even a though to the fact that I can snap your neck like a twig and bury your ass in the basement and nobody would even care!"
"You're not gonna kill me."
"I'm not?"
"If you were gonna kill me, you would have already. You're a good-guy vampire. Like Louis in Interview With the vampire or Angel from Buffy the vampire Slayer."
"You watch too much TV."
"I have a lot of free time."
I sit on the floor next to his chair and shake my head.
"What's your name, kid?"
"Ralph. I live on campus at NYU."
"What, you live on campus with your brother or something?"
"No, I'm a student. Here, look. This is my student I.D." I look at the I.D. and examine it. It's legit.
"How old are you?"
"I'm…ah…I'm 12. But I'll be thirteen in two months. I'm part of the gifted student program. I haven't declared a major yet, but I'll probably go for computer programming, or maybe nuclear biology, or chemistry, or…"
"O.K. o.k. I get the picture."
Just then Martin yells for me to come help him off the cross.
"Stay here." I say. I leave the kid in Martin's office and go retrieve the ladder.
I climb the ladder and begin to pull the nails out of his wrists. "What are you doing?" he asks.
"Sorry, I'm not thinking," I say. So I just grab his hand and rip.
He lets out a blood-curdling scream and smiles. "Much better," he says.
I help Martin down and I hear a little voice behind me. "That was so cool!"
"Didn't I tell you to stay in the office?"
"Yeah, but I heard the scream and I thought you might need help and then…wow, that was SO cool."
I hear an unfamiliar growling behind me and I realize its Martin.
"I can explain," I say without turning around.
"No, you can't."
"This is Ralph."
"That is dinner."
"Now wait a minute…"
I see a look of actual horror on the kid's face. And as I turn around I see Martin vamp out and lunge. I grab him around the waist and pull back with all my strength.
The kid pulls out a small Lego knight from his shirt pocket and yells "shield" as he braces for impact. I bring Martin down to the ground and hold him there until he regains some semblance of composure. Then I get up and reach for the kid. My hand strikes an invisible wall.
"Well, it's been fun. Gotta go. Bye." The kid takes off running.
I chase after him, but get stopped at the door as the first rays of the sun begin to warm the street. I slam the door shut behind me.
"This is great, Alex. This is just fucking great!" Martin screams. I've never actually seen him mad before. It's kinda weird.
"I'm going to sleep."
"Like hell you are!" He grabs my arm as I walk past him. "Did you forget what we are? Did you forget whose looking for you? Have you forgotten every damn thing I've taught you about survival? You bring a kid in here and…"
"I didn't bring him here. He got in on his own. Take it up with your security."
"You let him live."
"I'm not gonna kill a kid, Martin."
"That kid's gonna get us killed."
"Ralph's not gonna say anything to anybody. I think he's got his own secrets."
"What's that suppose to mean?"
"He threw up a force field when you lunged. If I hadn't stopped you, you would have rammed head first into it."
"What?"
"A force field."
"What?"
"Did I stutter?"
"You telling me the kid's a mage?"
"A what?"
"Did I stutter?"
"A mage? What the hell, did I wake up in a really bad D & D game or something?"
"New York is full of them."
"You know this for fact?"
He nods.
"And you never mentioned it because…"
He just shrugs.
"Great. I've got friggin' Harry Potter stalking me."
"I've never seen one so young, though. He should still be somebody's apprentice sweeping floors and scrubbing toilets somewhere."
"Anything else I should know?"
He rubs his chin and thinks for a moment. "Well, stay out of Central Park because a lot of lupines hang out there. But you already knew that."
Damn straight I knew that. That scar was never gonna heal.
"Nothing else, just a lot of mages in the city. They normally ignore us and we ignore them. So it works out."
"I'm tired."
Martin starts to wobble a bit as if he would pass out. The sun was completely out by now. Martin has a harder time staying awake during the day than I do.
"Help me to my coffin."
He drapes an arm around my shoulder and I help him to his room. By the time I open his coffin, he's already asleep.
I go downstairs and turn on the computer. I go the NYU website and tap into the university directory. I find the brat's room number. No roommate. Either scared his last roommate off or can afford not to need one.
Vampires and werewolves…and now mages…oh my.
My unlife has become a really bad B-grade horror movie. And I think it's about to get worse.
I wake up starving. I gotta grab something before I go to the campus. So I hop on my bike and cruise down to Chinatown. I park and start walking. As I start walking down the street I hear a door slam ahead and a scared voice plead something in Chinese. I walk up to the door and open it to find two young men dressed in trenchcoats leaning over the old shopkeeper. Let's see…almost 70 degrees…wearing trenchcoats…they must be the bad guys.
Like I said, bad B-movie.
"The store's closed," says the first. The second opens his coat just enough for me to see he's packing heat. I look at the old man.
"You speak English?'
He nods.
"Good," I say as I look into his eyes. "Go to sleep."
As he visits dreamland, I turn to the first guy. "You, go wait outside." His friend looks confused as he leaves the shop.
"Who are you?" he asks.
"Let's go in the back and discuss that."
We go into the old man's office. I see there is a door that leads to the alley. Perfect.
He actually pulls his gun on me and demands that I tell him who I am.
"You know, I've heard a gun is an extension of a man's penis. If that's true, I'm not impressed."
"You think I won't shoot you, bitch?"
"No, I'm pretty sure you will. But maybe after you go to sleep."
He collapses to the floor in slumber. I bend over him and bite down. His blood tastes richer than human blood, but not as strong as vampire.
Great, somebody's pet.
I decide not to kill him. There is a knock on the door. The first one snapped out of it. I go out the back door before he comes in. I pull out the cell phone and put in a call to the police of a breaking and entering at the address.
Now, let me go find that kid.
Just as I start to knock on his door, it opens and he's on his way out.
"Looking for me?" I say as I push him back into the room.
"Don't kill me!"
"Didn't I already tell you I wasn't going to kill you?"
"Oh, cool," he says as he relaxes. "In that case, can you do that shadow-thing you did the other night because I think I finally figured out how to bottle it and…"
"No."
"But…"
"No."
I look around the room and I feel like I walked into a mini-mad scientist lab. I see mechanical parts everywhere.
"Tell me that's NOT suppose to be a dog," I say as I point to the mechanical contraption asleep on the dog bed in the corner of the room.
"Well, we aren't allowed to have real pets. Come here, Puppy."
The "dog" lifts its head, jumps out of bed, and runs over to Ralph.
"Martin says you're a mage."
"I didn't tell him that."
"I didn't say you did."
"Who told him that?"
"Look, Ralph. You know what I am. What the hell are you?"
"A loveable prodigy?"
"Try again."
He sulks and sits down on his bed. "You can't tell anybody."
"Who am I gonna tell? Are you a mage?"
He nods.
"What's your interest in me?"
"Your cool."
"…and?"
"You're just cool. I thought maybe…well…nobody here understands. I can't tell anybody about my work because of the rules. But I could tell you because you have your own rules too and you would understand."
He sniffles. Somebody give this kid the Oscar.
"I just kinda hoped that maybe…you'd be my friend." He looks up at me with crocodile tears.
"Fine, I'll be your friend."
"Really?"
"Yeah, so long as you promise not to sneak into the club anymore. Martin wants to turn you into an appetizer."
"I promise!" He comes running over to me and hugs me around the waist. I brush his hair with my hand and for a moment think the kid is sincere. Then I feel his hand slip cautiously onto my backside.
With friends like this…
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