Love Bites Then it Sucks by Julie Steimle (best self help books to read .TXT) 📕

“Oh.” I nodded to myself. Then I wondered. This woman was most likely like JJ and Deidre. “So you just see ghosts and help them pass over.”

She nodded. But then she shrugged. “But they also give me help with things. The dead know a lot, you know.”

For some reason the idea of blackmail came to my head. It was possible this woman was not as genuinely good as she was making herself out to be. Her imps were a little plump, ignoring me as I was technically no longer one of them. But their horns were stumpy things. They were not evil, exactly. I closed the donut box, thinking about giving the rest to Cassius as a thanks for letting me used his backpack. I was almost near his house.

Just as I was about to part from her, I heard coming from under what looked like a raised metro rail or overpass some imps shouting in a crowd for their people to just drink all the blood in some guy. Others were screaming for them to tear him apart.

“Sorry, gotta go,” I said to the medium and zipped straight to the overpass.

There in the shadows was a crowd of vampires. I could smell their rancid blood—in fact more potently than ever—hearing their overexcited hearts beating with hunger. In the center of them, up against a concrete pillar was a young man—an ordinary human being except his neck was oozing blood like one of those perpetual bite victims. The vampires were in that moment pouring something into his mouth, which to me smelled like acid but was as dark and thick as blood. As they did this, on the man’s forehead erupted a flaming death mark, the first I had ever seen like that. It was white in the beginning, but quickly whipped into red with odd flames of green intermixed.

Lifting quickly onto my wings I soared over the group, horrified as I was too late to stop them.

The vampires dropped their hold on the man, gloating over him.

“Escape that, Meecham.”

I landed near where they dropped him, staring down at their poor victim with immense grief and pity. They had poisoned him with vampire blood. He crawled on his knees, gagging, trying to vomit it up, but even I could see that was hopeless. Vampire blood was toxic, the same as my blood. It also could transform a person into a vampire—something I had always thought was done by choice but here I was witnessing that perhaps that was not the case. I have never realized that a person could be force-fed the blood and therefore put in physical and moral crisis. I wasn’t fair, as clearly this man had not chosen this path. But what could I do? If I touched him, I could kill him.

I exhaled with grief, staring down at him. “I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t want to be a vampire either.”

He lifted his eyes, staring up at me. His rich blue irises swirled into deep red and his heart immediately sped up. I could hear it. His heart could pop from the pressure and the blood would kill him.

“This is it!” The collection of vampires around us cheered, each of them little vignettes of history in their moldy clothing, though some better blended with modern era than others. “You now must choose! Join us or embrace death.”

Their victim was pouring with sweat. His midnight hair stuck to his head and even dripped with it. Up close, I could see he was somewhere in his twenties with his whole life ahead of him still. He continued to stare at me with his red eyes as the pain of the blood taking over his body to remake it. I could hear his imps scream, “No! You will be no fun if you die!”

Yet he reached out for me.

Impulsively, I stepped back so he could not touch me. “Hey! Grabby. Don’t be so eager to leave this earth!”

“I’d rather be dead than become a vampire,” he choked out through rasps. His throat must been burned from the blood. It was terrible, awful, horrible to see that happening.

Yet the vampire crowd around us groaned as if they had just seen a bad play in a football game. Their receiver was down, or their quarterback had just been taken down by a bunch of linebackers before he was able to throw the ball. I wanted to kick their teeth in. Several hissed at him, calling him all sorts of nasty things. One of the vampires shouted several crude words and told him he was a worthless son.

I shuddered. Pointing to that modern vampire, I said, “That’s your father?”

The man between un-death and death stared at me. Then he looked around with utter disgust, as if seeking another death angel to take him to the other side. But he said to me, “Yeah. He bit me when I was a kid. Look. Are you a grim reaper or not? I chose to die.”

He was choosing to die? Why was he being such an idiot? I mean, I knew that life as a vampire was not the best sort of existence, but this guy seemed decent enough. I had no desire to kill him. His imps were pretty cool. Thin even. That meant he was an upstanding sort of man. The world needed more people like him.

As I pulled back further so he could not touch me, I noticed something flashing at his hip. It was a familiarly shaped mechanical key fob with a metallic number seven etched in the front. It was flashing. I had seen one of those before though they were rare. I didn’t have one, but Daniel had given one just like it to Hanz and had told him it was for emergencies. Hanz had put it on his key chain at work, but later misplaced it while at work. I had always suspected that someone had stolen it, but anyway… this man’s emergency fob had to have come from the same source.

I pointed to it. “Who gave you that?”

Blinking, the man lifted the fob then looked back to me. “Are you serious?”

I nodded, resisting the urge to take it.

He moaned. Then he groaned with pain as the mark on his forehead went greener. It had less red. 

The rare green marks I had seen on those weird folk JJ had brought to the hospital finally started to make sense. I looked around, realizing there was a similar mark on each of the surrounding vampires’ foreheads—though they were dull in color, almost musty. These were all marks of those who were immortal in some way. But those nearest me, I noticed, had marks that glowed a bit, as if mere proximity to me put them in danger.

Yet I said to this guy, “If someone from the Seven gave that to you, I don’t think it right that I should let you die. It does not feel like your time.”

That moment, his flaming red mark whipped straight into solid green. He collapsed, grabbing his chest.

“Hey!” an outside voice shouted toward the vampire group.

All the vampire heads turned. I looked from their victim and saw Daniel Smith with Peter McCabe, Jessica’s friend Silva, and some other guy who could be this poor victim’s brother, all running towards us. Daniel’s sword was drawn and blazing with fire.

*

“Hey, Hanz,” Daniel nudged him awake while the others hissed not to wake him but for them to just go.

“Hmm?” Hanz rubbed his eyes, looking up.

Daniel apologetically said, “I’m sorry to wake you, but we have to go to New York City ASAP. Randon just got an emergency text from Troy and he just activated his emergency fob. But I didn’t think it right to just take off without letting you know where we went.”

“We could have just left a note,” Peter said, already halfway to the door. 

But Daniel shot him a look.

Hanz sat up to go with them, searching for his shoes.

“No. You stay.” Daniel stepped toward the door. “Get some sleep.”

“But—”

“We’re dealing with vampires,” Peter said, slinging a rope of garlic onto his shoulder and raising a wooden stake made from a broom handle, showing him. “No offence, but you would just get in the way.”

Silvia gave Hanz a commiserating glance while Randon opened the door.

“Whose car are we taking?” Randon called out.

“Yours,” Daniel said, going out after him. “I don’t have a functioning car.”

“I took a scooter to get here,” Peter said, gesturing to where it was parked.

When they closed the door, Hanz stared at it, then the wall.

He leaned back in the couch and for a moment tried to fall back asleep, but his heart was now racing as well as his mind. He didn’t know why, but a little voice in the back of his head said he should go to New York City.

But that was ridiculous. Peter was right. If he followed them to New York, he would just be in the way. He didn’t want to meet up with vampires. And for that matter, how could he follow them?

The train, said that little voice.

Hanz sat there, wondering—especially after all his experience with Eve—if that voice was nothing more than an imp tempting him to do a stupid thing. Yet as he thought this, a warm sensation swept through his chest and stroked over his scalp, telling him clearly that it was important that he go to New York City NOW. Now or never.

Something in him made him jump to his feet and find his shoes. Hanz grabbed up his wallet, then his backpack. He left his other luggage where he had put it when he had come to Daniel’s apartment and rushed out the door with his cell phone in hand looking for a map app to find a train or bus to New York City. Thing was, he didn’t have an apartment key. With no other choice, Hanz locked the door on the inside, shut it, and hurried to the street.

He had originally taken an Uber to the apartment, but looking at his phone and the time on it, he wondered if that was possible again. It was getting late. Yet after two tries, he found one willing to pick him up.

“In a rush?” the driver said when Hanz climbed in, while checking the GPS coordinates for his destination.

Hanz nodded. “Yeah. I need to get to New York ASAP.”

Nodding, the driver pulled into the street. He was thankfully not chatty, and Hanz paid by digital transaction.

After a quick trip, hopping out to the rounded, color-lit building of the Boston South Station, Hanz rushed over the open square to the large, window-arched doorways where he went through. Hanz got a last minute Amtrak train ticket. After going through TSA, he was soon headed to New York. A thousand thoughts went through his head during the four hour train ride south and west. But with the rumble of the tracks, despite the stopping and starting at each station, he fell asleep with his face against the window glass.

Hanz awoke when they rumbled into the city, advancing on Penn Station. It was late. Probably just after midnight. Hanz checked his phone, rubbing his eyes as he tried to read the clock.

Twelve forty-five. He realized then that he must have left Boston after eight. He had not really registered the time. Only the urgency.

The train eventually stopped and he stumbled out, exhausted, to the platform and followed the few late night travelers through the train station to the outside doors. He had no clue where he was. He had never been in New York City before, and when he stepped out of Penn Station onto the street, he had no clue where to go.

Why had he come here again? Was he insane? Had he totally lost his mind?

“Hey Johaansen!”

Hanz turned, surprised. His bleary eyes fixed on a young man who cheerfully approached him. As the guy got closer, Hanz recognized him. “Condie?”

“Hey man! Fancy meeting you