His name was Tim, and he was not quite what I expected. He was not a cop, a priest, a former commando or anything like that. He was a mechanical engineer. A fine profession, but not one that lends itself to a life of vampire hunting, or so I thought. In truth, he made a pretty good living, got plenty of time off, and knew a few tricks that made booby-trapping his home against nighttime visitations fairly easy work for him. And he traveled a lot for conferences, handy for his vampire-slaughtering hobby, for sure. Most of all, he was forgettable. You could talk to him for half an hour and the next day not have a clear memory of who he was, what he did for a living or even what he looked like. The CIA missed out when they failed to recruit Tim.
So what's a nice guy like Tim doing in a place like this? (The place in question would usually be a truly sleazy bar, hotel or house of ill repute in a part of town where people like Tim do not normally come out alive, at least not with wallets and extremities intact). Well, at the tender young age of 22, Tim got to see something that few of the living get to see--he saw a vampire feed. Unfortunately, he saw it feed on his young wife, just a few days after their wedding. It took a long time for him to share the story with me, so it doesn't feel right for me to give you the details here (since I hardly even know you yet), but suffice it to say that a honeymoon like that will either destroy a man or change him into something else. In Tim's case, it turned him into a predator. He hunted vampires the way a lion hunts gazelles. He was patient, cunning, and approached each hunt with the knowledge that there was only one way it could end--with another kill for him. I don't think I'll ever be the hunter that Tim was, and I hope I never have the inspiration to.
After I first "caught him in the act" and offered my services he was wary, not because he was afraid that I would turn on him or turn him in to the police, he was more resigned to the belief that this was a curiosity for me and that sooner or later I would wander off, realizing how incredibly dangerous and stupid this was. To this day, I don't know why he wasn't right. Maybe I enjoyed the danger, or the feeling of doing good. Maybe it's just that I knew I was meant to do more than work 40 hours a week for 50 years then die, mostly forgotten, having left surprisingly little impression on the world with surprisingly little to show for the effort of having lived a life.
I hung out with Tim on my nights off for about two weeks, mostly drinking watered-down drinks in bad bars, talking with hookers and low-life's. I think he enjoyed my company, but I also think I was cramping his style. Vampires are hunters, too, and they're much more likely to go after the lone target than a pair of them. In the end, our next target was revealed not when they moved on us, but when they moved on someone else.
It was at a strip club in Rockford where we observed Tamera. Actually, Tim observed Tamera, I was observing someone else entirely on the main stage at the time, but Tim saw Tamera, a pale, slim, brunette who looked to be in her mid thirties (a little old for a stripper in most cities, but pretty much the norm in Rockford), take a gentleman back for a private dance and when they returned, he seemed much more drunk than when they left. As Tamera departed, Tim made his way to the drunken gentleman and chatted with him. After a brief conversation, he came back and led me from the club. "She tapped him," he announced,once we were in the car. I looked at him blankly. "She drank some of his blood. Not enough to kill him, but a lot. He looks drunk, but he's not. The waitress will call him a cab, he'll wake up with a headache and assume he had too much to drink. Hell, he'll probably be back next week and she'll tap him again."
I asked him how we handle it and he basically told me that we stake out the building until daybreak. If she leaves, we follow her. If she stays, we know that's her den and we come in the afternoon and take her out. He made it sound so easy. It wasn't.
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