Visitors

  I thought it was pretty silly that we should rent this house. The house was for

sale, but Gloria had convinced the seller to rent the house to us for fifty five

hundred a month. The first years rent paid in advance, cash. No questions asked.

  Gloria had not let me anywhere near the sellers during the dealings of the house.

She had said that I wasn’t the kind of attention we needed. My transformation

had not left me beautiful like most vampires, I looked dangerous and menacing. I

rarely came out during the day time, I just drew too much attention.  

  The house had modern white colored stucco. The inside had beautiful dark red

hardwood floors, the interior walls were bright white. Every room but two of the

bedrooms had fire places.

  The great room had double doors that went out onto the patio above the garage.

The master bedroom was on second floor, it had its own balcony. The master bath

had a raised tub that could hold four people. The bathroom had a steam shower

that was so large, I could fit every bathroom I’ve ever had in it. Gloria had

transformed two of the smaller bedrooms into her closets. I didn’t have near as

many clothes as she had. So I utilized the master bedroom’s closet. We had a

maid service that came in once a week.

  Gloria went crazy with decorating of the house. I had to admit, the house was

very nice. She joked that we should take pictures of it and send them to Better

Homes Magazine. But Gloria had never paid taxes, and I hadn’t filed sense the

army. We didn’t need attention.

   The home was located across the lake in Kirkland, a suburb of Seattle. Gloria

was of the mind that if we were going to fit in the suburbs, we needed new cars.

Gloria cashed in a few of the diamonds and bought a black, 6-Series convertible

BMW. Much to Gloria’s dislike, I chose the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo. Bright red. I

got the darkest tint I could find for the windows.

  We still had the Ford Excursion. It was to big to fit in the garage. I had but an 6 inch lift on the it, and 37“. The Excursion had a stock exhaust when we bought it, but that didn’t last. I put a huge aftermarket system on it that shook the house when I fired it up.

  I got pulled over on a regular basis, but once the cop that pulled me over came up to the window I changed his mind about giving me a ticket. And of course it had darkest tint I could find. I also put a huge brush guard and wench on the front. Again, we didn’t need the attention.

  Gloria had taken to suburban living quite well. Every day rain or shine at seven

in the morning you would find her running eight to ten miles at a fast human

pace. She also would take every opportunity to be a part of the local social seen. One of her friends had three kids and Gloria has adopted them, so every weekend she’s doing soccer or baseball with the parents. The wives of the neighbor absolutely adore her and her outgoing personality, her endless energy to help anyone in need. To the husband’s of the neighborhood, she’s everyone little sister. Everyone thinks she’s twenty two and in need of protecting.

  Me on the other hand, it’s been a little more difficult. The same women that love

Gloria, think I’m a cradle robbing lush. The men, are green with envy to have

such an amazing young bride. I have to hide in the attic or leave the house when

the maid comes once a week.

  Our human cover story was simple. Gloria and I were married when she was

eighteen, now she’s a stay at home house wife. And since I took over Gloria’s

precious gem business, we tell the neighbors I’m a reclusive diamond and gem

broker. We’re able make a decent living between diamond trading and Gloria’s

new kick for fun, hijacking armor cars. I make sure she goes out of state for that,

she takes the Excursion.

   Our diet has changed sense we moved to the suburbs. Well, at least Gloria’s did.

After becoming a vampire, I refused to take human life. Gloria thinks I’m being

silly, but I think she’s starting to see the benefits of this life style. It’s aloud

Gloria to live more publicly, before she became a vampire she lived the sheltered

life of a United Pentecostal in eastern Texas. After her change, she spent her life

running from other vampires.

  So now our diet consist of me once a month going to one of several blood banks

and buying twenty pints of blood. I have the same deal with all of them, fifty buck

per pint. I rotate between the different banks. Blood has a shelf life of about six

weeks, then they have to destroy it. So I call the bank I would like to hit, they

work their paper mojo so the blood’s going to expire. I come and collect blood

that the blood bank thinks it’s been destroyed. But in truth the blood would still have two week left on it shelf life. We keep the blood in a locked refrigerator in our basement.

   Gloria and I have been in this house for the last sixteen months. Gloria had

had a very successful hijacking somewhere last week in Idaho, she brought back

two hundred and eighty thousand. Three thousand was in quarters alone. She

called me on her way home and told me about the quarters, I asked her what the

in the hell was she going to do with three thousand dollars in quarters,

she just asked me, ‘should I have left them?’ I told her we could just make a trip

to the casino, she called me a smart-a*s and hung up.

  I was on my way back from California, I had sold three large diamonds and one

emerald, enough to pay the rent for a few months. There’s nothing better then

pulling into your own garage. I don’t like renting this house, I think it’s a waste of

money. I wouldn’t be so against this house if it was ours, but renting it seems like

such a waist. I’m going to have to talk to Gloria about setting up some form of

legitimate business so we can just buy this one, or one like it. But I know what she

will say about it, ‘That will bring us into public eye. Leave to big of a paper trail.’

and her armored car jacking was low really low key, miss top ten most wanted.

Whatever, I loved Gloria and she loves the house.

  She didn’t mind paying for it, I think I’m just a bit jealous of her freedom here.

I shut my car off, I could hear that Gloria had the girls over. The neighborhood

gossip was in full swing, Gloria love to play human. I just smiled, no matter how

grouchy I got Gloria’s happiness never failed to melt me. I got out of the car and

shut the door and went into the house. I closed the garage as I went in. I came up

the stairs to the main floor, Gloria was having the hen party in the Great room.

  Fall is always nice in this part of Washington, it was early October and late in the

afternoon. It was pleasant outside, Gloria had all the windows in the common

areas open. There was a wonderful breeze going through the large house. Gloria

was serving ice tea to the four ladies she was entertaining.

  Erica, who seemed nice, was the closest to Gloria’s real age. Erica was married to

some kind of criminal defense lawyer. His name was Tommy, and Tommy was

friends with all sorts of shady people. and it was through Tommy that we were

able to get all of Gloria’s phony papers. A new social security card, a new birth

certificate with her twenty two year old birthday. It cost us a pretty penny but

because of Tommy, Gloria ceases to be Gloria LaClair of east Texas and became

twenty two year old Gloria Steele, wife of Conner Steele. Also a plus to me, his

friends always seemed able to get me wide rages of different types of diamonds, and cheap.

   Next was Tabitha who everyone calls Tabs, she lived next door. Single, a thirty

eight year old hard body cougar. She helped Gloria in getting the house. She has

her hand in real state. It was Tabitha that Gloria ran with most mornings. She

could keep up with Gloria’s human workout. Which Gloria told me Eliza hated

because someone her age should be able to be in that good of shape. How Gloria

keeps up with all this is beyond me.

  Eliza, twenty nine year old banker’s wife and dumb as rocks. And in my opinion

the most spiteful women I’ve ever met. I asked Gloria why she invites her over,

she just smiled and said, ‘Because she’s a hateful b***h, and I love to be nice to

her.’

   ‘But she seems to despises you.’

   ‘I know, that’s why I like her.’ and then she would just smile.

  I don’t think I’ll understand women. Gloria would just say to me, ‘don’t try, you’ll sleep better.’ like a vampire sleeps.

  Last but not least was Jane. Jane was married to a man name Todd, Jane and

her husband was both professional people what ever in the hell that meant. They  were the ones with the children. Jane was the queen of gossip, she knew

everything about everyone everywhere. Who was cheating, who was losing their

house, who’s kid was in rehab, who’s kid was pregnant. I just hoped Gloria kept

tabs on what she was saying about us. Gloria told me not to worry about it, I’m

was pretty sure we were quite the scandal.

  As I was walking up the stairs I heard Erica ask, ’Gloria honey doesn’t that

husband of yours ever feed you? You’re so thin.’

   ‘Oh he feeds her, he feeds her good every night. I know, I hear it.’ That would be

Tabitha. As the women laughed she went on,

   ‘You should hear them, hours of feeding!’ more gales of laughter. Then I hear

Gloria shriek through the laughter,

   ‘Tabs! Hush!’ I can hear the embarrassment coming through.

  I came around the corner into the Great room, ‘What’s so funny, do I get to hear

the joke?’ though I heard what was said, I played my part of the unobservant

husband. It became so quite in the room, I could hear someone leaving a message

on Tabitha’s answering machine next door. The five ladies just looked at each

other, all of them except Gloria were bright red.

  Then Jane cleared her throat and spoke, ’We were…..ummmm, talking about

Gloria’s diet.’

 They all looked at Jane in shock. After a second, they all broke up laughing again.

I just frowned at them, which only made them laugh harder. I looked at Gloria,

she looked like she was having so much fun. Not the human charade fun, but the

Gloria that I knew and love fun. I could never allow anything to take this home

away from her.

  I looked at her, ’Remember, you and I are going to the casino.’ Gloria laughed

and told me to go up stairs.

  I chuckled and went to clean up after fourteen hours in the car. As I was

going up there stairs I could hear the ladies saying their goodbyes and making their exits. They all wanted to go to casino with us, Jane said something along the lines that they should do this next time at her house. Erica kissed Gloria’s cheek and left, then it was quite.

  While I was undressing in the bedroom, I heard Gloria say to quietly. ’I love

you.’

   Though we were in different parts of the house we could hear each other

perfectly clear.

   ’I love you too. When you’re done down there would you like to shower with me?’

  From the kitchen I heard her say, ‘I’ll be up in a second, get the water started.’

 By the time I turned on the shower, she was naked with her arms around me

from behind.

   ’Make love to me, my darling?’ I turned and looked into her bright red eyes,

   ’Yes, I thought you would never ask.’     

 

  It would be dawn in a few hours, Gloria and I were laying in naked in our bed.

We always spent our nights in bed, outside of our love making tonight was

nothing special. As vampires, we didn’t need sleep. But during the normal hours

that humans slept, Gloria and I retired to the master bedroom like we were

sleeping.

  We would lay there holding each other in silence or talking about our day. Other

times we would make love till the sun came up. About an hour or so ago, I heard

Tabitha laughing to herself about us leaving the house opened up. Gloria and I

didn’t really worry about burglars.

  Seeing the happiness that this place brought to Gloria, I decided I would try to

convince her that we should stop renting the house and try to buy it.

   ’Gloria?’

   ’Hum?’

   ’I think we should buy this house.’

 Gloria was snuggled up to my side with her head on my chest, she sat up.

   ’What, why? I thought you hated this house.’

   ’This is not my ideal house, but you’re my ideal home and you love this place.

You love your friends, you love your life here. So how can I hate something you

love?’

   ’Conner, there’s no way we can buy this house. You just can’t go around buying

a one and a half million dollar home without an income. People will notice.’

   ‘We could declare our assets. Well at least some of them, enough to buy the

house at least.’

   ’I don’t know Conner, if the I.R.S. came after us, we would have to relocate. We

would end up needing Tommy get us new IDs. I don’t know Conner, I really like

this house. What would we do about the furniture if we had to run?’  She was

quite for a minute, then she started comb out her hair with her fingers.

   ‘But if the I.R.S. did come after us, maybe we could lose that car of yours.’ she

said jokingly.

  Gloria has never been a fan of my Evo.

  Gloria sensed that I went stiff, ’Conner, I’m joking about the damn car. Please don’t get all pissy.’ she said starting to frown.

   ’There’s someone in the house.’ I said suddenly.

  Gloria looked at me to see if I was joking. Then in a instant we both exploded out

of the bed. In a flash I had taken a pair of shorts out of my dresser. I turn to look

for Gloria, she didn’t keep clothes in the master bedroom other then her

undergarments. She came out of the master closet in one of my dress shirts, it

was dark purple. She had all buttons buttoned up except for the two top ones. I

could see her neck and her collar bones, the soft satin white skin above her

breasts. The shirt came down to her mid thigh, she was rolling the sleeves up her

forearms when she came out of the closet.

  The dark purple complemented her white satin skin beautifully, I completely

forgot about the prowler down stairs. Seeing Gloria’s white skin shimmering in

the moon light, I had a over whelming desire to rip my shirt from her…  

   ’Conner! Focus, the person downstairs?’ she said in a harsh whisper. 

  ‘Right.’ I went out on the bedroom’s balcony and tried to focus my thoughts

away from Gloria’s white skin. I jumped to the patio over the garage from our 

balcony. The patio still had one door half way open. Without breathing, I entered 

the house. There standing by the stairs was a very, very large vampire.

  The unknown vampire was bigger then any person I had ever seen. He had to be

close to seven feet tall. His size reminded me of the television show The

Incredible Hulk. I was terrified of the Hulk as a small child, and now here he was

the nightmare from my childhood standing between my wife and myself.

   The unknown vampire heard me come into the house, he was facing up the

stairs. He turned his head slightly to his right and sniffed the air, and growled

quietly and started up the stairs. Apparently, he didn’t feel to threatened by my

presence to even turn, his growl spoke more than any words could have. Beat it!

I remember right after I changed, I had wondered how I would fair in a fight

against a vampire, well it looked as if I was going to get my chance.

  But the thought of this monster coming near my wife enraged me. I threw myself

at the large vampire, he turned to face me. But he was to slow and off balanced

because of the stairs. I grabbed the vampire by the throat with my right hand and

pulled him off the stairs. I slammed his head right though the hardwood floor,

  Gloria is going to be put out with me for damaging her beloved wood floors. But I can’t think about that now. The vampire recovered quickly from my body slam. I

knew that in a instant, this was going to get ugly. Still having the advantage with

being on top of him. I quickly grabbed his right arm and put him in an arm bar. I

guess army training worked on vampires too, I’ll never bad mouth the army

again.

  I twisted his arm back with all my force. The vampire winced and growled in

agony against the arm bar. He was down and I was in complete control of him,

now what? I thought.

  At that moment Gloria came slowly down the stairs. She had her hand on the

banister. She walked with all the grace she could muster. Her bare thighs

shimmered in the low light. The unknown vampire ceased struggling against the

arm bar, all his attention was on Gloria. Her eyes were on fire, bight, red and

deadly. She never took her eyes off of the monster.

  Gloria walked around the vampire’s free side, staying just out of arms reach.

Gloria came around and kneeled on the floor by his head.

   ’Well now, aren’t you the brut.’ she said with no humor.

 The unknown vampire spoke for the first time, ’DIE B***H!’

 Gloria frowned at the large vampire.

   ’Now that wasn’t…’

 But before Gloria could even finish her sentence my rage of this monster being in

my house. The way he looked at Gloria, and the poisonous words he just spoke

overwhelmed me. I wrenched on the vampires arm with all of my might and tore

his arm clean off at the shoulder. The shoulder sounded like someone was ripping

a towel.

 Gloria jumped back from the suddenly free, one armed vampire. I spun on him

with the speed of a snake as he turned onto his hand and knees. With one hand, I

grabbed the vampire by the back of the neck so violently that my fingertips broke

the skin on his neck. With my other hand, I grabbed the back of his pants and

headed towards patio doors.

   ’Gloria open the other door.’ Gloria flashed by me and pushed open both doors.

Giving us all the room the double doors could offer. As soon as I cleared the

doorway I broke into a run, dragging this vampire by his neck and his pants. I

jumped up on to the patio railing and launched the vampire like a large sack of

potatoes.

  He flew over the house across the street where it sounded like he landed on a

car. Over the car’s blaring alarm, I heard him running off into the night. I went straight to the garage and grabbed a fagot of wood and came back into the

Great room and went straight towards the fireplace. Once I got the fire nice and

hot I grabbed the severed arm, tore it in half at the elbow and threw it into the

fire. The two pieces of arm caught immediately, a thick black smoke came off the

pieces of arm. The burning pieces sounded like fat pieces of bacon frying.

  I walked over to where Gloria was standing, she was looking down out the hole

in the floor that I had made with the other vampires head.

  She looked very upset, ’My poor floor. Did you have to put his head through it?’

  When I didn’t respond to her comment, Gloria look at me and panicked.

   ’Conner!’ she shrieked, ’Baby, what’s wrong? Are you okay?’ Gloria was in front

of me in a instant. Her whole body was trembling with panic. She grabbed my

arms above the elbow and shook me slightly.

   ‘Baby! Baby, look at me, baby what’s wrong?! Are you okay?’ her voice was

getting very high, I didn’t understand her concern.

   ’Of course I’m okay.’

   ’Baby, your eyes. They’re all black, even the whites, it looks like you have black

marbles in your head! And your all grey!’

  Gloria was in a full fledge panic attack.

   ’Look at your skin!’ my skin had a strange grey tint to it. 

   ’Baby, your skin is all warm, baby are you sure your all right.’ I could hear the

sobs in her throat.

   ‘That son of a b***h came here looking for you I think.’

   ‘Well it’s too bad you through him over the neighbor’s house, we could have seen what his problem was.’

  It was too bad I didn’t think of that, I could feel myself calming down. Looking at my skin I could see it was turning back to its normal chalky white.

   ’You’re looking better. The red’s coming back are you sure you‘re alright?’

   ’I’m so sorry about your floor my love. When the world wakes up, I’ll find

someone to come and fix it.’

She looked over at the fire place, the arm was completely burned up, ‘Do you

think he’ll be back for his arm?’ Gloria joked.

   ‘Well, not if he doesn’t want to join his arm in the fireplace.’

  Gloria turned to me and put her arms around my neck and pulled me down to

kiss me. She hugged me tight pulling her body against mine. She needed to feel

herself that I was alright. After a second she stepped back away from me with

great concern in those bright beautiful red eyes.

   ‘Now what were you thinking about right before you went down stairs?’ she asked almost pleading.

 I didn’t even answer her. I just scooped her up into my arms, pulled her body

tightly to my chest and took her up stairs.

 

  The sun had been up for about two hours. Gloria decided about an hour ago that

she wouldn’t be running today, She didn’t even bother calling Tabitha. Gloria had

been very quite sense we came up stairs. She let her body express her need and

her love. I can’t remember a time when we had been this passionate. For the first

time sense her father’s house, someone had fought to protect her. The man she

love put himself in between her and the monster that had come for her, and that

now robbed her of her serenity.

  I wondered what she was thinking about, but I figured she would talk to me

when she was ready too. Gloria rolled onto her side with her back to me. She

hiked her right knee up. The blanket was pulled way down on her hip, exposing a

part of her bottom. I turned to face her, I reached up with my right hand and

touched her spine with tip of one of my fingers. I started at the base of her neck

and traced down spine till I reached the blanket and sheet. Then I ran my finger

back up her spine, then traced the outline of one of her shoulder blades.

  I loved Gloria’s back, the outline of the individual vertebra. The two dimples

above her waist. The outline of her ribs, her shoulder blades, The satin white

skin. When I was a human, her skin was so hard. Now, as a vampire it felt like a

body covered in silk. As a human, I had never felt skin as soft as Gloria’s.

 If a thousand life times of men pass, I don’t think I could grow tired of Gloria. I

will never stop loving her. For Gloria, I would kill anything and everything that

could or would walk, crawled or slither. To protect this vampire that I loved, I

would die a thousand deaths to keep her safe. If this world hurt my Gloria, I

would blow a hole so deep into this earth, that the guts of this world’s core would

spill out into space and the stars would know that this earth had hurt Conner’s

Gloria.

  How I love you my darling. Do you not know what I would do to keep you safe?

   ‘I’ve seen him before you know, the vampire down stairs? I saw him that first

night I stayed with you. Do you remember?’ she said with her back to me.

   ‘I remember you seeing one.’ Gloria seeing this vampire before bothered me for

some reason. She had said that night, that this vampire had either not seen her or

didn’t care. Now, this same vampire had turned up in our house. Coincidence? I

didn’t think so. What had brought him here? This wasn’t over, not by a long shot.

 Gloria suddenly faced me, ’Conner, I think I here another vampire coming up to

the house.’

  I put my hand to my face and rubbed my eyes roughly, then pulled my hand

down my face like I was trying to wipe the annoyance of this morning away.

   ’What the hell, we haven’t seen anyone in the year I’ve been a vampire, and now

they’re falling out of the damn sky.’

   ’Conner please relax. Whoever it is, isn’t trying to hide that he’s coming. For a

vampire he’s being relatively noisy, He’s letting us know he’s coming.’

 I tried to stare holes right through the ceiling finally I said, ’We better get dressed.’

  Gloria agreed with me and was gone in a flash. I dressed in a pair of white kaki

cargo shorts. A simple white short sleeve button up shirt and a pair of white ankle

socks. The socks had small black Nike logos on them, I loved to wearing white.

When I was a human, I was too clumsy to wear white. Now as a vampire, I moved

with a bit of grace. Plus I could see every speck of dirt or grime, it made it easy to

stay clean. I quickly made the bed, even making it quickly it looked like a display

bed that had never been slept in. I thought about how easy everything was as a

vampire and shook my head and headed down stairs.  

  Gloria was stunning as usual. She was wearing a tan pair of short shorts. Very

few women would risk wearing shorts that short. Most would have been to afraid

of what their thighs would look like from behind, but not my Gloria. For her top,

Gloria had chosen a snug little black spaghetti strap tank top. As per usual she

wasn’t wearing a bra. Her n*****s were slightly erect and plainly visible through

the tightly fit tank top.

  She had her hair pulled back in a tight bun and had a pair of decretive chop sticks holding it in place. They were black and had some kind of Chinese writing on the tops of them.

  She had put a pair of green contacts in and was bare footed. I tried my best to

stay away from people, so I wasn’t planning on putting contacts in in my own

house. Vampires knew the color of our eyes, but Gloria was a better sport about

playing human.

  I could hear our guest coming up our walk way. I headed towards the front

door to meet him. Gloria shot me a glance and told me to be nice, I opened the

door right about the time he got there.

  He was blond, about five foot ten. Medium build, and looked about ten years

older than me, not that our looks gave away any secrets of our true age. I thought

about the flat red of my eyes and the chalky whiteness of my skin, I thought it

made me look about nine hundred years old. Gloria  would say, ‘don’t be silly

Conner, you don’t look that old.’ then she would flash a big smile and bat her big

beautiful red eyes at me.

   He was dressed like he was going to spend the day at a country club. The

stranger was wearing a grey polo shirt with black slacks. He was wearing black

dress shoes. Made me wonder how he could run in such an outfit. Probably years

of experience.

   ’Good God!’ the vampire said very loudly and feigning shock, then he laughed.

The new vampire had a healthy laugh, it came from way down where his soul

must rest. You could tell when he laughed, he meant it. 

   ‘Now I see why you were able to get the best of old Augustus.’ Then he really

laughed. Placing his hands on his hips, he continuing, ’Imagine if you can, here I

am, following Augustus, being all sneaky and then what do you know?’ Getting

excited he continued, ‘Out of nowhere, I see this humongous, one arm vampire

flying into a car. Smash! He went right through the driver’s window. You should

have seen him trying to get out of that car. You wouldn’t know anything about

that flying vampire would you?’ He asked.

  He took his right hand off his hip and notion for me to speak, I liked him

immediately.

  I stuck out my hand with a smile, ‘I’m Conner, Conner Steele.’

   ’Well Conner, Conner Steele, I’m John Barleycorn.’ he followed his

introduction with a laugh, ’Well at least that’s what I go by this century, HA!.’ he

finished loudly.

   ‘Nice t…’

  Before I could get anything else out or invite John in, I heard the wildest snarl I

have ever heard coming from my wife’s mouth. The fierceness of Gloria’s snarl

spun me around to see if there was some unseen danger within the confines of the

house. But all I saw was Gloria, and her rage was directed at John, and John

alone. Gloria was in her leap frog fighting crouch.

 She had one hand up like she was ready to swipe at John. Her eyes had turn

completely black and her skin had turned a dark grey. I could see why she had

been so alarmed when I had looked this way earlier this morning. I was

speechless, all I could do was stand there looking at Gloria. This was the Gloria I

was glad I never saw when I was human. She looked like a wild animal that was

cornered, I could feel my skin hardening up. I looked down at my hands, they

were turning grey. It must be anger that causes that I thought.

   ’I was afraid she would react to me this way.’

 I turned and looked at John and he shrugged and said, ’We’re old friends.’

   ’Well John Barleycorn you and I are not, how do you know Gloria? And why is

she so pissed at you?’

 Gloria continued going crazy behind me. I could hear her slowly backing away

from us behind me. I tried to block Gloria’s view of John and moved into slight

crouch.

   ’Whoa, buddy settle down don’t go getting your eyes all black.’ John said raising

his hands in his defense.

 My patience had run out, ’You have about three second to state your business

before I pull your head off friend.’ I said with a fierce growling voice.

  All of the John’s good humor vanished along with what little color he had from

his face.

   ’Okay, okay, please, just give me second.’ John kept his hands to show he meant

no disrespect.

  Behind me Gloria was still growling fiercely. I could smell the venom flowing in

her mouth. I turned my head slightly and spoke to Gloria, ’Gloria love, the neighbors are going to hear you.’

   ’I don’t give a s**t!’ she thundered in her child like voice, ‘This is the b*****d the

chased me to Spain last summer!’

  It hurt me to hear Gloria use such language in anger. I tried to keep my voice

calm, if I was to lose my temper John would pay for it with his life.  

  ’Gloria, language please. my love you’re far too pretty to talk that way. Give him

a second to explain himself and if he doesn’t start making sense, I’ll pull his arms

off and let you beat the s**t out of him.’

 Gloria snarled one last time, then stopped. Well except for the low rumble that I

could hear from her chest, I guess that was the best I was going to get.

   ’Well, please come in.’ I said inviting him to the Great room.

  Gloria snarled loudly and vanished up the stairs. John walked towards the Great

room in front of me and sat on one of the living room couches. I took a seat on the couch across from him. We looked at one another for a minute. When John thought I was composed enough to hear him out, he spoke.

   ’I’m terribly sorry about that Conner. Over the last few years I haven’t been so

nice to her. So her name is Gloria?’

   ’Yes.’

   ’That’s a very pretty name.’

  The house shook above us, John looked up at the ceiling.

   ’Now that we’re all introduced, would you mind explaining to me why’ve you

come here, especially knowing that your presence would upset her in this way.

Gloria is my wife. I love her very much, so if there’s not a good reason for you to

be here.’ I shook my head for a second, ‘I’m going to hurt you, badly.’

   ‘Well said my friend, well said.’ John slapped his knee and smiled. I could tell he was trying to break the tension in the room. I remained very short.

   ‘You know something about our visitor?’

  John leaned back to enjoy the full comfort of our couch, he close his eyes and

spoke, ‘His name is Augustus. He’s the most dangerous vampire I have ever

known. He’s a one man wrecking crew. Dangerous, violent and utterly ruthless,’

John opened his eyes, ‘but not to bright. He’s a servant of a very powerful

European vampire named Cline. Cline is one of the Ancients. I don’t know much

about them, other then they can be rather dangerous if provoked.

   ’Augustus has been sent out here by Cline twice in the last year or so. In my

seven odd hundred years,’ he paused for a moment to collect his thoughts, ‘There

has only been one vampire that has been faster then me. Your wife.’ at mention of

Gloria, we heard a fierce snarl come from up stairs.

  We both looked up and the ceiling for a moment, then John continued, ‘Anyways, when Augustus showed up last year it made some of my friends

nervous.’

   ‘Friends?’ I inquired.

   ‘Oh yes,‘ He said with a smile, ‘the other vampires that are around. We keep in

touch, from time to time.’

   ‘That’s funny, until last night, Gloria has been the only vampire I have ever

encountered.’

   ‘Well I’m not surprised.’ he said with a smile.

   ‘Really, and the reason you’re not surprised?’

   ‘Quite silly really, we stayed away from you two, well you mostly.’

   ’And the reason for that would be why?’

   ’How do I put this, mostly they have been, a little nervous of you killing them.’

That surprised me a little.

   ’I can see that that surprises you. We haven’t been very nice to Gloria over the

past few years. And now that she’s found her place in the world, we figured we

should steer clear of you two until she calmed down a bit. It’s the way of the

vampire, the older ones are nasty to the young ones. It’s kind of like a young bird

trying to peck its way from the shell. If you help it, it will die. It needs that

struggle, it needs it to survive.’

   ‘I guess.’

   ‘Hey we didn’t do anything that would hurt her. We just helped her developed

the skills that she already possessed.’ A wild growl came down followed a tidal

wave of profanities.

   ‘As you can see, she thanks you for it.’ I said sarcastically.

   ‘Well it wasn’t as bad for her as what for me. An older vampire, a real b*****d by

the name of Horatio, in the first month of my existence or so, tore my arm off and

hid it from me for like sixty years.’

   ‘How did you reattach it?’

   ‘Well, once I got it back, I stuck it up to my shoulder and it just kind of

reattached itself. We’re special.’ he said with a flashing grin. He leaned forward

on the couch and asked, ‘So how did you get the best of Augustus?’

   ‘I grabbed him by the neck and took him to the ground. When he swore at

Gloria I ripped his arm off and threw his a*s out.’

   ’Bet that big stupid jack-a*s didn’t see that coming.’ laughing loudly. ‘What did

you do with the arm?’

   ’I burned it.’

   ’That probably wasn’t a good idea.’ he said frowning, ‘But if you’re strong

enough to take Augustus down who knows. Anyways, where were we?’

   ‘Only Gloria has been faster than you.’

   ‘How the mind wanders sometimes. The reason why I’m here, my friends asked

me to keep an eye on old Augustus. Augustus doesn’t do anything without Cline

telling him too. Which means Conner my friend, he’s here on Cline’s bidding.’

   ’And that is?’

   ’Don’t know.’

   ’Do you think that it has something to do with me?’ Gloria asked joining us. Her

color was back to the beautiful white satin. She wasn’t wearing her contacts, She

looked outwardly calm but her eyes looked very tense.

   ’Yes.’ John said with a sigh

  I reached out for Gloria’s hand, she took it and came and sat next to me on the

couch.

   ’You have sure have made a life for yourself here. I’ve never seen our kind live at

such ease with the human kind.’

   ’That’s because we don’t feed on the humans.’ Gloria replied.

   ’Then what do you feed on, the neighborhood dogs?’ John broke into a huge

laugh. 

   ‘We’ve made some deals with some of the blood banks. It works for us.’ I

responded.

  Gloria looked at me and smiled, she took my hand in both of hers and placed

them in her lap.

   ‘About a year and a half ago I started following Augustus’ John took a deep

breath then continued, ‘I caught up to him up in northeastern Canada. He drifted

from place to place, there was no sense in his wandering. He tried to run me off a

few times, but once he figured out he couldn’t catch me he just went about his

business, and for the most part content to ignore me.

   ‘I was beginning to think maybe Cline had dismissed him. Then we made are

way into Seattle, he spent two days there. Then blam, like the devil himself was

after him he headed back east. I have never in all my years seen Augustus move

with such a purpose, he didn’t even feed before he hit the Atlantic Ocean. I didn’t

follow him back to Europe though.’

   ’How do you know he went back to Europe?’ I asked.

   ’I don’t, but who else could motivate Augustus like that? But once he was gone,

who cares I thought. Then about two months later he was back. He went straight for Seattle, it was just dumb luck that I was hanging where he came out of the ocean.

   ’He was moving with the same purpose that he moved with two months prior.

He went straight for Seattle, he broke into that apartment not far from the one that I chased you away from last summer.’

   ’That was Conner’s place when he was human.’ Gloria said.

   ’We had to move like three or four weeks after Gloria had seen him in the street

from my window.’ I added.

   ’Good thing, why did you move?’

   ’Conner was being clumsy and whacked me in the mouth with his hand.’

   ’And you accidentally infected him.’ John concluded.

   ’Yes.’ Gloria added with a touch of sadness. She leaned her head on my shoulder

so I kissed the top of her head.

   ’But that doesn’t explain why Augustus came here?’ I said.

   ’Well, once Augustus saw that your Gloria wasn’t there he moved on. I must say

I was a bit confused with his behavior, it never crossed my mind that he could be

looking for you. Augustus just wandered from place to place till a few days ago.

Then in Idaho he found his purpose again, then I understood.’ John and I looked

at Gloria.

   ’Child, for some reason, Cline is after you with a powerful will. If you wish to get

clear of this, you need to fine his reason and neutralize it. Cline will not let go of

you. This is just the beginning, he’ll find away to reach his goal with you.’

   ’Fine,’ I said flatly, ’I’ll find this Cline and I’ll crush his skull.’

   ’Yes that might work, I have no doubt that you couldn’t do it. But I wouldn’t

recommend it.’

   ’And why is that?,’ I asked.

   ’The Ancients would come after you with all of they’re strength. They would be

quite irritated for the inconvenience that would cause them, it wouldn’t be

pleasant for you. So crushing Cline‘s skull isn’t a good plan for you. This is what I

recommend, go see Gloria’s friend in Spain Roberto. Gloria, do you know who I’m

talking about?’

   ’The old vampire that helped me last year?’

   ’That very one.’

   ’How could he help us?’ I asked.

   ’He’s an Ancient. Why do you think I stopped chasing you?’

   ’Why would he help me, he hates me.’ said Gloria.

   ’I doubt that, in truth he’s quite fond of you.’

   ’How do you know that?’ she argued.

   ’Because he hasn’t killed you. Take Conner with you when you go to see him, it

will make his century to meet Conner. Roberto is extremely bored, he’ll love all of

this.’ 

   ‘Oh no.’ Gloria said jumping to her feet.

  John and I were on our feet in a flash, ‘What is it?’ John asked.

  He looked like he was about to jump ship. I looked to the front door. My face like a statue.

   ‘Tabs!’ Gloria said. ‘Conner your eyes! Get John out of here. I’ll try to get rid of

her.’

   ‘Let’s go John.’ I said pulling on his sleeve.

   ‘Where we going? What’s Tabs?’ John asked.

   ‘Not what, who. And who she is, is our next door neighbor.

   ‘Conner, get him out of here.’ Gloria said pointing at John in a near panic.

   ‘Come on John let’s go.’ I nodded towards the stairs.

   ‘I’ll get rid of her, now get!’ Gloria said pointing to the stairs.

  As John and I went up the stairs, John’s eyes were everywhere. The paintings on

the wall, the dark red banister. The skylights, the Great room below us. The door

way into the kitchen.

  When we got to the top of the stairs he turned and looked at me, ‘Conner, I’ve

never seen nothing like this, what you and Gloria have here. It’s amazing.’

  I chuckled and said to him, ‘You want to see amazing, look at this.’ I took him to

the first bedroom.

  We stopped at the door. I put my hands in my pockets and nodded to the door,

‘Open it.’ I said.

  John looked at me and suspiciously, then shrugged then he opened the bedroom

door, ‘Good God!’ he bellowed and then laughed whole heartily.

  The bedroom was one of the two bedrooms that Gloria had turned into a closet.

The room was crammed with racks of clothing. The closet door was slid open

revealing rows of shoes on shelves stacked all the way to the ceiling.

  I closed the door and nodded to the door next to it. ‘That one’s the same way.’   

  He opened the door and looked in. he laughed again and said, ‘How the hell

does she find anything in here?’

   ‘I don’t know.’ I said shaking my head.

  We heard Gloria yell from down stairs for us to stay out of her closets.

  John laughed, and I just smiled, ‘Gloria is like a tornado you know.’

  I raised an eyebrow at his comment.

   ‘When Gloria was made, oh, forty some odd years ago,’ he said scratching his

brow, ‘she just came out of nowhere. All alone, no one could believe it. Who

could make such a creature and then just abandon her.’ John just shook his head,

‘She took the breath of everyone she came in contact with. The others hate her

you know because of her beauty. Conner you must be very careful with her,

they’ll kill her if they get a chance.’ 

   ‘I’ll be right back, please don’t do anything crazy or weird for a few seconds.’

John looked at me with mock horror.

  I went to the master bathroom and grabbed two packets of blue contacts and

came back to John standing in the hall way, I tossed John one of the packs.

   ’Do you need a mirror to put those in? If you do there’s a bathroom right though

the door behind you.’

  John looked at the packet and said, ‘I think I’ll manage.’

  I popped mine in and headed down stairs.

   ’Feel free to come down when you get them in. Oh, if you hurt Tabs, I’ll do

worse the take off your arm.’

  I walked into the kitchen, Tabitha and Gloria were sitting at the kitchen’s

island. Tabitha had a glass of water, Gloria saw me and frowned.

   ’Do you have to show everyone my closet?’ Gloria asked.

   ‘You never should have showed me your closet you skinny little b***h,’ Tabitha

said without malice with a big smile, ‘You’re lucky you and I are not the same size, otherwise I would live in your closets.’

   ’John thought the house was amazing, I told him if you want to see amazing he

needed to see your closets.’ I said kissing her on the top of her head, ‘Hi Tabs, you

just get back from running?’

  She smiled and said, ‘Yeah, I didn’t wait for you’re no good wife to meet up with

me. With all the noises I heard over here last night, I didn’t figure she would be

up for running.’

  Tabitha laughed and reached over and poked Gloria’s knee. Tabitha never

seemed to notice how cold Gloria’s skin was. Gloria just rolled her eyes and

looked out the kitchen window.

   ‘So Conner, who’s your friend. Gloria won’t tell me who he is.’

  When I didn’t answer her, Tabitha’s shoulders dropped and she sighed deeply, ‘Well aren’t you two the party poopers. Is he single? Oh come on! I’m desperate here.’

  John suddenly walked into the kitchen. I could hear Tabitha’s heart skip a beat

then speed up.

   ‘John Barleycorn.’ John said walking up to Tabitha.

  Tabitha stood up and shook John’s hand, ‘Hello John, I’m Tabitha Mears. How

are you this morning?’

  John flashed his charming smile, ‘This morning I am good. It is not often I get to

spend a morning with such beautiful women.’ Tabitha laughed and touched his

arm.

  She looked at John and raised an eyebrow at him, ‘You must be related to one of

these cold blooded monsters? Your skin is cold like theirs.’ John laughed, I shot a

shot a glance at Gloria without looking she just shrugged.

  John laughed, ‘No, Conner and I go way back, I used to chase Gloria around, and Conner stole her out from under me. HA!’ he laughed is booming laugh.

  Tabitha looked at him suspiciously with a sly grin, ‘You dirty, dirty old man.

Either you were chasing Gloria before she turned eighteen, or you were chasing

her while she was dating Conner. Tsk. Tsk. John Barleycorn.’

  John laugh deeply, ‘I’ll never say, a gentleman would never answer such an

accusation.’

   ‘Is that what you are John Barleycorn? A gentleman? I bet you’re more of a

villain then a gentleman.’ Tabitha didn’t know the fire she was playing with when

it came to John.

  John laughed, I thought it was time for me and John to go into my office so I

could talk to him more about Cline’s mission for Augustus, and this mysterious

Ancient Roberto.

   ‘Let’s go Romeo, we have business to discuses,’ I said leading John to my office.

  On the way out of the kitchen, I called over my shoulder to Gloria, ‘Gloria love,

when you get a moment, can I talk to you?’

  Walking to the office, I could hear Tabitha asking Gloria if she had just got her in

trouble for flirting with John, she had responded that she doubt it. Tabitha was

grateful because she thought that John was gorgeous. I could hear John chuckle

under his breath. John and I went into my office and I closed the door, as soon as

I shut the office door I spun on John and grabbed his head from behind with both

hands. I squeezed his head so hard one of his contacts popped out. The crushing

force of my hands made John fall to his knees. John gasped from the pain, he

futilely grabbed at my wrist trying to pull my hands from the sides of his head.

   ’Tabitha is my wife’s best friend John, I would be very distraught if you hurt

Gloria’s friend. Do you understand?’

   ’I understand, please let go.’

  I let go and John fell forward onto his hands. John stood and massaged the sides

of his head.

   ’Was that entirely necessary?’ John asked looking irritated.

  I walked past John grabbed an old contacted case off my desk and my sunglasses

and sat down in one of the two large chairs that sat in front of my desk, I notion

for him to sit. Reluctantly he came and sat.

   ‘I wasn’t going to hurt her Conner, really.’ John sounded generally hurt that I

would assume that he would, ‘I was just trying to play human with you, try to

understand what it is you two do here.’ John was still rubbing the side of his head

with one of his hands.

   ‘I didn’t think you really would, but pain is a good reminder.’ I said taking out

my contacts, ‘I didn’t think you would mind a little reminder.’

   ‘Well I did.’

   ‘I didn’t mind, and one out of two ain’t bad. If you’re willing, I would like for you to tell me more about Augustus.’

  John frowned, ‘I would be willing, if my head hadn’t just got smashed. I don’t think the memory is working to good now.’ John looked around the office for a second and went on, ‘What would you like to know?’

  I adjusted in the chair a bit, then placed my arms on the armrest of the chair,

‘I’m curious about how Augustus tracked Gloria from Idaho back to here. I don’t

understand how he was able to do that.’

   ‘Well as you know, we vampires have a great sense of smell. When Augustus

didn’t find Gloria in Seattle, he started running clover leaf patterns out from your

old apartment. Every time he finished a clover leaf run, he expanded out. He

searched all over western Washington and Oregon. He even went as far south as

northern California. He eventually came back north, Augustus never thought for

a moment that Gloria would turn into a soccer mom out here in the suburbs. So he came back to Seattle and started over, he interrogating one of the local vampires and he said he spotted Gloria going east on I-90. So off he went east. He knew she wouldn’t stop east of the mountains till at least Spokane.’

   ‘Spokane?’ There’s quite a bit a land between Spokane and Seattle, I remember I took six hours to drive there as a kid with my mom and dad.

   ‘You’ve never fed on humans, so I can understand your question on that. You

can’t really feed in areas that are not heavily populated. Our kind don’t want to

draw attention to ourselves, not even Augustus wants that. Though we are

undoubtedly the highest animal on the food chain, never underestimate the

capabilities of a human. Cline’s witch discovered that the hard way.’

  One of the disadvantages of having Gloria changed me, though not her fault my

education on the life and times of vampire living was not up to par.

   ‘Cline’s witch?’ I asked.

   ‘Cline’s witch is one of his minions. He has several servants at his beck and call.

It’s Cline’s witch that controls Augustus. Since Cline controls the Ava, he’s able to

control Augustus.’

   ‘And Ava is Cline’s witch?’

   ‘Yes.’

   ‘And what did she learn the hard way?’ asking this question made John smile.

   ‘Messing with a human with a flame thrower is not a good Idea.’ John chuckled

and went on, ‘It was during the second great war of the last century, Ava, thought

she would play around with some American soldiers. Well one got her with a

flame thrower, and burnt her pretty bad, it about killed her. We don’t really heal

from fire. If you get burned bad enough, it’ll leave a scar. And in Ava’s case bad

scaring.’

  I’m going to have to remember that. Fire, bad for vampires, ‘So anyways,

Augustus headed east?’

   ‘Across the border into Idaho, Augustus found some cops investigating a stolen

armored car. Augustus stopped to feed on them, they had wrapped up their

investigation and there was one cop left there with the tow truck driver. He fed on them, then the strangest thing happen. He got into the armored car, then took off back west like a son of a gun. I had thought, well isn’t that strange, so I climbed up into the cab of the armored car and guess what I smelled, your wife. You wouldn’t know how Gloria’s scent got into the cab of a stolen armored car

would you?’

 I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes and shook my head. ‘Long story.’

  John laughed, ‘Well just to let you know, your wife is probably wanted

for first degree murder now on top of armed robbery. Some soccer mom she is.’

John laughed loudly again.

   ‘But why would he head back to Seattle then? Why would he assume she was

here if he had searched so thoroughly?’ None of this made sense to me.

   ‘That’s because Augustus understands vampires. After you were changed, you

moved right? But you only moved what twenty miles? Vampires are territorial

Conner, Augustus knew he wasn’t as thorough as he thought he was. He knew she

had to be somewhere close to Seattle.’

   ’But I don’t understand, we could have easily had moved to Boise.’

   ’Yes you could have except one thing.’

   ’Augustus knew she robbed the armored car. Conner it’s a good thing you’re so

strong, cause you ain’t so bright. If you all lived closed to the hijacking, Gloria’s

scent wouldn’t have disappeared at the truck. This told Augustus that she wasn’t living near there. And if Gloria was living far enough away that she needed a car to get the loot home, then she had to be living in Seattle somewhere.’

 Damn, she might as well have left a sign for Augustus I thought, ’So how did he track Gloria here? I asked.

   ’He was running back to Seattle and happened to come through your

neighborhood, and by dumb luck he picked up an old scent of Gloria’s at your

local community center. Followed it right to the house.’  I frowned.

   ‘Gloria volunteers there for neighborhood sports, she loves children.’ We sat in

silence.

  I could hear Gloria talking to Tabitha still in the kitchen. I loved Gloria’s voice.

Tabitha’s voice sounded so rough compared to Gloria’s.

   ‘Conner, what are you going to do?’

   ‘Go to Spain I think.’

  I thought about how Gloria and I were going to go about that. Maybe she was

okay with swimming, but I sure as hell was not up for swimming the Atlantic

Ocean. I would have to go to the bank and get our new passports out of the safety

deposit box.

  Finally John sighed deeply and said, ‘Conner I’ll leave you to your thoughts. I

understand that head of your is kind of slow, so I’ll show myself out. Don’t worry,

everyone will be in a panic in the next few days on hearing about what you did to

Augustus, I’ll keep you informed on anything new from Cline.’ And then he was

gone.

  I hear him say goodbye to Gloria and Tabitha on his way out the door. I hoped

that John had grabbed his lost contact on his way out. A moment later I heard a

knock on the door and Gloria poked her head in the office

   ‘Conner? Do you have a moment to talk to Tabs? She’s would like to look at

some earrings form her sister. Is that okay?’

   ‘Sure.’ I sighed and put on my sunglasses, ‘Come on in Tabs.’ I said getting up

from my chair.

  Tabitha came in and stood by the back of one of the two chairs in of my desk.

She reached up and laid one of her hands on the back of the leather chair. Gloria

frowned, then shrugged with a smile and walked out of the office leaving the door

open. I sat back down in one of the chair in front of my desk and waited for the 

inquisition to begin on John.

  What was I going to say about John, there was no way I was going to hook them

two up. I had no idea what I could use as an excuse of why I wouldn’t match her

and John up. How could I make her understand that he was no good for her? I

figured the best way to handle this was to use a bit of truth and let her come up

with the explanation of her own.

   ’Tabitha let me be frank. John’s a very dangerous man, and in good conscience

there’s no way I could let you two date.’    

  That should do it, I knew I looked scary, if I would say something like that she hopefully would take my advice. Tabitha came around the chair and walked over to my desk, she picked up a picture of me and Gloria together. She looked at picture and smile and placed it back on my desk.

  Tabitha turn and smiled, ‘Oh I didn’t come in here to asked you about John.’

   ‘So you really want to talk about earrings?’ I crossed my legs and folded my

hands around my knee, ‘I fine that hard to believe.’

  Tabitha looked at me and smile, ‘So, what’s it like being a vampire?’