Once Bitten, No Longer Shy by Julie Steimle (chrome ebook reader txt) 📕

seemed the type of guy who stalked women rather than spoke to them in the daylight. It wouldn’t have surprised Matthew in the least if Connor had been stalking Nicole when he had seen her get attacked by the vampire. Careful not to entertain Connor’s obsession, he factually said, “I’ve seen vampires since I was in high school.”

Conner perked up with interest, but did not move on. Damn. This was a problem.

“Look,” Matthew said, gesturing to the darkening area as chills continued to run rampant along his nerves, “It is not wise to mess with vampires. Just give me the address and we’ll call backup.”

“But I don’t know the exact location,” Connor said, which sounded like a half-truth. It had that intonation though his mind had the same words. “Just the general area.”

“How about a building?” Matthew said, hoping for that to come out in Connor’s thoughts.

Connor shrugged with a grunt, mentally dismissing it. “How about block?” He then stepped back and pulled Matthew around a pylon where the old overpass used to be. “Look. If we wait until dark, and watch for him to come out—and he comes out the roof—I’m sure you’ll see him.”

This felt all wrong. Matthew could not put his finger on it, but he did know you did not wait until dark when dealing with vampires. That was when they were at the advantage. This was bad. He should just go back to the station and have Connor submit a formal statement. That was wiser. He was about to say so.

“I just know this guy is the one who grabbed Nicole,” Connor said, nodding earnestly.

Know. A shiver went down Matthew’s back as Connor had said that word. This wasn’t a ‘know’ as in a strong conviction. It was a ‘know’ as in he actually knew the guy. Matthew’s mind added it up again. Brandon, Connor’s annoyingly sexually unrestrained friend, was murdered in one place and dragged to another. That took vampire strength and speed. Possibly even flight, which Troy did not have—more evidence Troy was innocent. Troy had claimed being attacked by a vampire the same night Nicole was killed, one whom Jandra Washington (Bobo’s girlfriend) had tazed and driven off. That had to be the vampire. But how did the vampire know about Brandon or Nicole? New York City was too big. Those bite victims only ever met once at night, and that was during that first meeting when and they had let no attending, practicing vampires (except Steve who wanted to go straight) live. Their group quarrels had happened in the day time, except for at Bobo’s party. But no vampire was in attendance at the party as far as they knew. Certainly no vampire had tried to attack Troy outside the place since the party so none knew where he lived.

Pulling it out, Matthew glanced at his cell phone then shook it. Then he hit it. No texts from anybody. No calls either for the longest stretch. That was abnormal. He almost always got texts from JJ or those at the precinct over cases where they just needed a ‘listening ear’. He was often flooded with them. He decided to text JJ his location. 

He pressed send.

It didn’t send. An error message flashed. No signal.

He looked at his bars, though. There was plenty. And then there was none. It flickered like his phone was having a seizure.

A shiver went down Matthew’s back again. He looked to Connor, whose eyes were on the building like a zealot. Connor had, actually, what Tom called ‘sanpaku eyes’… the kind where you can see 3 parts of the white in his eyes—Charles Manson eyes. His shivers finally made sense. Something Rick had once said flashed through his brain: “Sometimes crazy people believe their own lies.”

“Crap,” Matthew muttered.

Connor jerked around, cluing in almost immediately. He pulled out a knife.

Matthew grabbed his for his gun. But it wasn’t in his inner holster. Had he lost it in the car? Or was it when Connor ‘bumped’ into him earlier when he was acting drunk? It had been an act, though he did have alcohol breath.

The fanatic slashed, nicking Matthew’s arm just as he ducked out of reach. Connor slashed again. Dodging around the pylon for a shield, Matthew screamed out. He pawed the ground for the nearest weapon which ended up being a crumbled piece of concrete. He chucked it at the guy—and missed. 

Just as Connor stabbed down, something pulled up on the guy’s undershorts—yanking him out of reach. It was the most ill-timed wedgie for the creep, but perfect for Matthew, giving him just enough time to run.

For a second, he thought he saw a bag lady. Running to her, Matthew grabbed something from her cart. She yelped, staggering back as if flying on newspaper wings, getting out of his way. He extracted a hubcap and a busted up umbrella. As Connor advanced on him, walking funny with his wedgie still firmly between his butt cheeks—only how Tom’s imps could deliver one—Matt lifted the hubcap as a shield, the umbrella as a sword. 

Connor swung his knife as the street lights flickered on. The sky was now deeper red, the sun dipping behind the buildings.

Matthew whopped Connor’s knife hand away with the umbrella, shoving the hubcap into his face. As blood dripped down Connor’s nose, the man chuckled and said, “Nice. You really can hold your own, cop. But now it is two against one.”

Oh doubly crap. He knew what that meant.

Matthew could feel the air rush behind him. He whipped around just in time to clock the stringy vampire behind him with his umbrella. Unfortunately, it only knocked the guy barely off balance as he whopped Connor back before the psycho could stab in again. With just enough time to back away, Matthew prayed for help as there was no way he could outrun a vampire—never mind that he had no wooden stakes. He had long groped for his Holy Seven key fob to press, which was also—to his grief—missing.

The vampire pounced.

“No!”

Down dropped a pale tall figure like a leaden weight on top of the vampire, flattening the man to the asphalt. This newcomer arrived in a beat up, gray auto garage jumper, covering in splotches of engine oil. With him, dropping from the upper level as if gravity had no real effect on her, came a young punkish teenage gal in black leather. Both had orange eyes and peevish expressions, though as different as an albino mechanic, and an angsty goth chick. 

Tom turned around and snapped at Matthew. “Didn’t I tell you not to go into dangerous places by yourself?”

“No,” Matthew replied, wiping the blood from the small arm wound Connor had given him, glad Tom was there.

“Oh. I haven’t. Have I?” Tom shrugged anti-climatically. He then pointed a finger at Matthew. “Well, now I am telling you!”

The vampire crawled out from under him, snarling as Tom stumbled for his balance while also attempting to stomp on the vampire’s groin. He barely missed.

Connor staggered away, staring at Tom and more at Piranha. “What’s that?”

“Half imps,” the vampire snarled through his bared fangs, getting onto his feet. “Pests.”

“Who are you calling a pest?” Piranha snapped at him. She pulled out a pistol, then a badge. “CIA. Put your hands up.”

“Screw that!” The vampire launched into the sky—or tried to. The moment he was a foot from the ground, a scarred, abnormally rust-haired wolf bounded in from somewhere down the road, and pounced on him, clamping on his leg with his jaws and dragging him back down to the ground. The wolf was also wearing boxer shorts.

Soon after, JJ ran in, his gun drawn. “Freeze!”

Connor dropped his knife. With a side look at the vampire who was fighting with the weird wolf, trying to get him off his leg, he grabbed his head and let out a high pitched moan as if he had been kicked in the gonads. “Gah! Where am I? What’s happening?”

“Put your hands behind your head!” JJ called out to him, a chilly breeze whipping around him.  

“I don’t know why I am here?” Connor shouted back, staring wildly at the dimming sky, hardly looking at the group. His words matched his thoughts perfectly. Rote, really.

Matthew stared at him, pulling back next to Tom. “Tell me, what are his imps like? I can’t trust what I am hearing. It’s all a mess.”

Tom gazed drolly at Connor, rolled his eyes and said, “Fat. Large horns. And wicked. Look at his sanpaku eyes. We’ve got a demon in the making.”

Shivers ran up Matthew’s arms, confirming that. Tom even gazed at him, swatting away invisible imps who probably had been dancing all over him. But he was smiling fondly at them and him. They probably saved his life.

Piranha nodded in agreement with Tom, keeping her gun trained on Connor.

“He’s beyond psychopath,” Tom said, shooing off the last imp so that Matthew’s shivers were entirely gone.

“What?” Connor stared at Tom. “No! I—”

The vampire kicked off the wolf who lurched back on his paws, howling. The vampire bared his teeth and snarled also at Connor who was trying once again to flee while playing lost and lunatic. His red eyes once again said, ‘Screw this’. Once more he turned to flee.

Tom reached out to stop him. Yet the masterfully redheaded form of the ultimate knight, charged in from where they rest of them had come, sword drawn, his wife close behind with a gun and police badge. Matthew grinned at the welcome sight. She, whom he knew very well as Jessica Mason (now Cartwright), wasn’t wearing her uniform, but had on yellow chain mail over a leather jerkin. She also carried a yellow sword at her hip, though it was now drawn. Her husband, Andrew, hacked into the vampire. In one clean stroke he lopped the vampire’s head clean off his shoulders. Jessica marched with a wink to JJ, pulling out unusual, red-colored handcuffs.

“Did we come in time?” she asked, opening them, walking around Connor indicating he put his hands into the air.

Connor stared at the vampire’s head as it fell with a hollow-melon thump to the ground. The body collapsed right next to it, flumping to the asphalt with a sandbag weight. It didn’t really even bleed. Andrew landed his tennis-shoed feet next to it, standing like Lancelot in the dimming light. He turned an eye on Connor. Acrid blood stained his already red sword.  

Matthew nodded to Jessica. “Just in time, like always.”

“Where is the rest of the Seven?” Tom asked, openly annoyed.

Looking around, Jessica shrugged. “Europe, three of us. You know Peter and Daniel are out seeking our patron elf.”

“Elf?” Connor murmured, looking around. “I don’t know what is going on, but you guys are crazy.”

It matched his thoughts, dammit. Matthew grit his teeth, realizing that this louse knew how to play the mental game with him.

“Ignore his thoughts,” Tom hissed in Matthew’s ear. “Look at his eyes.”

“He has murderer’s imps,” Piranha said, keeping her gun trained on Connor.

“We need to box that.” The wolf pulled into human form. Howard Richard Deacon III now advanced on the dead vampire and his best friend who was now wiping the blood from his sword. “For evidence.”

Andrew nodded, going with him to do that.

Eyes wide on Rick Deacon, Connor lurched away, genuinely startled at his sudden arrival. His jaw hug open in… awe. “So cool.”

Rick snarled at him, still hirsute around the jowls and the back of his neck, looking a little too much like the Wolverine. “Shut it!”

Matthew looked to the sky realizing the moon was waxing close to the full sphere. It could be tomorrow, for all he knew.

“Strip him,” Tom said to what looked like the air around him. Matthew had a feeling, though that there was a horde of imps with them.

“Strip?” Jessica said as the imps immediately obeyed, rushing all over Connor, tearing off his clothes and all that was in them. “That’s not necessary….” Yet her eyes trailed after the things that came out of