The Team

Crissy and I live in an old firehouse that has been converted into an office and our home. We live upstairs and our offices are down stair. We work with two more associates Tristan and Beau. Tristan is Crissy’s older brother. He is a natural like Crissy. A natural is a vampire that is born a vampire. Most people assume that a vampire is just a vampire but there are different types of vampires. A convert is a vampire that was born human and then was changed by another vampire. Converts are changed for many reasons. Some choose to be changed because they think it’s cool, others do it because they are dying, and sometimes a vampire just decides to change a human just because they want to. Maybe they are lonely or maybe they are just sadistic. A rogue is a vampire that has decided to start feeding off of unwilling humans and then killing them Naturals and Converts can become rogues. I am a Peace Keeper and it is my job to stop the rogues. For years I have felt like I am alone but lately I have started to feel like maybe there are more like me out there some where. I did not choose this job it chose me, but I will do my job and I will find more of my kind. I know I’m not alone in this world. I have Crissy, Beau and Tristan but I need to know that there is someone else out there that is like me. I have so many questions and if I can just find another peace keeper maybe those questions could be answered.

            I was still sitting at the kitchen bar finishing my morning coffee when Beau walked in. Beau is another important part of our team. He is the brains behind the operation. He is human but we don’t hold that against him. He is very much a part of our team and our family. He also has military training which helps keep him alive when we find ourselves in a sticky situation. This is more often than not. The man can handle some serious fire power. He is a pro with any weapon that you can fire; he’s also pretty dangerous with a knife. He poured himself a cup of coffee and pulled up a stool beside me. He could tell something was on my mind but Beau isn’t the type to pry. He just sat their patiently waiting for me to tell him what was bothering me. If I chose not to open up then that would be ok with him too. That’s one of the things that make it so easy to love him. He doesn’t push and if you choose not to talk about something he leaves it alone.

            I had another dream about him, I said. He just sat their patiently waiting for me to continue. “The thing that bothers me the most is not the dreams or even what happens in them, it’s the fact that I don’t know why I’m having them.” He turned his stool to face me and took my hand in his. “I think it’s time we find out what is going on in that head of yours.” I smiled at him and got up to wash my coffee cup. “When Tristan gets here I think we should all meet downstairs and start going over ways to find out where these dreams are coming from and what they mean” he said.  “Sounds like a plan to me, I’ll let Crissy know and we will all meet downstairs in half an hour.” I started down the hall to my room to get dressed and hollered back at Beau, can you call Tristan and tell him not to be late again. Crissy hollered from her room “and tell him to bring a dozen fresh doughnuts from that shop down the street.” “For someone who lives on blood you sure do have one hell of a sweet tooth, it’s going to go right to your a*s” I said laughing as I went into my room and closed the door just as she threw a shoe at me. It bounced off the door and landed harmlessly on the hall floor. I leaned against my door smiling. This was nice, this was family and after all the years I spent without one, I finally had my own family. We were an odd combination but we fit well into each others lives and we loved each other unconditionally.

            For years it was just me and Crissy, we both left home when we were sixteen and have been taking care of each other ever since. Tristan is about seven years older than us, so he helped us get a place together and kept an eye on us. I can’t even remember what it was like not to know them. We started up our business about ten years ago. Crissy, Tristan and I started hunting rogues about two years after we moved out. Crissy and I were barely eighteen but Tristan was twenty five and had more experience than us, so he started training us. That’s when we found Beau. He was being attacked by a rogue and we were there to rescue him, but he didn’t need rescuing. He took out that rogue and didn’t even break a sweat. We all knew right then that he had to be a part of our team. So that is how we all came to be partners in our business.

            Since vampires are now out in the open, walking around just like us, shopping, working, even owning their own businesses. We keep pretty busy, a client will come in after running across a rogue and hire us to track and kill the rogue. We have had several clients say they saw a rogue and wanted us to kill it but it was just a vampire. People are still scared of vampires so they try to have them killed even when they’ve done nothing wrong. We even get family members that come in and ask us to take care of a rogue relative.  Of course we also go out every night looking for rogues to send straight back to hell. We are not in it for the money, but we have to take paying customers if we are going to keep our operation up and running. We make a good living doing what we do but it’s dangerous work so the money helps out with supplies we need to keep ourselves alive while doing our jobs.. We all know that we could die at anytime and we have made peace with that and have got all of our affairs in order, just in case something horrible should happen. Before Beau joined our team we had a team member named Joel. He was like family and we all loved him but things went wrong and we lost him. I vowed to never again let a blood sucker take my family from me. The night Joel died we were chasing a rogue, just one lousy rouge. I could have taken him myself but he ran into an old warehouse and Joel and I were right behind him. Just as we entered the warehouse we both froze, we knew that something was wrong, we were in big trouble and the rest of the team was too far out to reach us. Joel was human so he didn’t stand a chance. The only reason I survived was because of what I am. I can’t be hurt easily and I heal just as quickly as a vamp. That night I was hurt bad, real bad. If the team hadn’t arrived when they did I wouldn’t be here today. There was nothing they could do but rescue me. They drove the truck into the warehouse grabbed me up and took off. We were not even able to recover Joel’s body. Eventually we took out each and every one of those rogues that killed our friend, but it still didn’t make the hurt go away. I felt as if I had failed him somehow. I go over that night in my mind time and time again and try to find a way that I could have saved him. Some little something that I could have done differently and he would still be alive. I know this is pointless; there was nothing I could do. They jumped down from the rafter’s right in front of him and ripped out his throat in less than a second. Five rogues jumped me from behind as I was running to grab Joel. If we were going to die we were going to do it together. I fought to get them off me so that I could get to him. The closer I got to him the further they would throw me from him. They beat me with tire irons, chains, two by fours and anything else they could get their hands on. The only reason they didn’t rip out my throat was because I wear a choker with crosses on it. They can’t get any where near my neck with out being burned. Since Joel died the humans on our team and myself drink holy water. We have a priest bless our water cooler every week. The naturals on our team can’t drink the water but it can help keep the rest of us alive. If a vamp bites us, it isn’t very likely that they are going to drain us with holy water in our systems. Just one sip of our blood with the holy water in our systems and the rogues will burn from the inside out. The team and I have been doing some research to try to figure out why naturals and converts turn into rogues. Of course not all of them do but a good many do, too many for my liking. Crissy and Tristian were born vampires and they have never had a tendency to want to hurt another person. In fact, they save lives every day. So between the research on trying to find a way to stop vamps from turning into rogues and the mission to find out who it is I’m dreaming about every night we seem to be quite busy. If the dreams were not of another person doing the same thing that I do on a day to day basis, I wouldn’t even look into it. However, this person does exactly what I do every day. He tracks and kills rogues. He’s just as good as I am and he has all the same abilities. We can both levitate up to twenty feet, we can both pick up a small car without breaking a sweat, and we can both run at speeds of up to seventy miles an hour. I just don’t know if this guy is real or just someone I am dreaming up because I am tired of being the only one of my kind. There are stories of peace keepers but they died out long ago, now it’s just me. No one remembers the peace keepers that lived years ago, if they did that would even help me to feel better. I could finally get some questions answered, like why me? Why did I get chosen and what does it mean that I was chosen? Does it mean that I have a very violent short life to look forward to? I finally stopped day dreaming and started getting dressed so our team could start our day. I put on my dark green camouflage tank top, black cargo pants, and black steel toe work boots. The steel toe hurts like hell when you kick someone with them, that’s why they are my favorite. I tied my black waist length hair into a braid and I’m ready to start my work day.  Once I was dressed I headed downstairs where the other members of my team waited.