The Hunt

“What a night, huh?”

Waylon looked over as his hunting partner, Oliver, sat down at the bar beside him. They were in a small dive bar somewhere far off the beaten path. It was a tiny place, just crowded enough to provide some anonymity to the two of them, yet not overcrowded to the point where they couldn’t get seats. As soon as they’d walked in, Waylon had claimed these two while Oliver went outside to confirm with their friends back home that the hunt was, indeed, over.

Maybe not something that all hunters did, but when your prey was vampires, you needed to make sure you kept your connections close. And those connections needed to know exactly where, when, and how the vampire had been killed, both for your sake and theirs. So Oliver had taken care of that part while Waylon got the first round.

The bartender, a gorgeous red-head with a tight tank top and deep red lipstick, dropped off the beers with a smile. “Thanks, sweetie,” Waylon drawled, pulling out two dollar bills and putting them down as a tip. She thanked him, swept the bills into her apron, then moved onto the next group of thirsty patrons.

“I’ll be honest,” Oliver said, taking off his dusty blue baseball cap and wiping his forehead. “I thought for a minute there that we were out of our league.”

“You mean when her friend arrived?” Waylon asked.

“Exactly.”

It had been a straightforward case. A vampire wreaking havoc on a small community. Through the connected network of vampire hunters around the United States, word had gotten to Waylon and Oliver. The two of them had been fighting vampires since they were in their early twenties. Now, ten years later, they were professionals. A single vampire in a tiny Midwestern town should not have been a problem.

But then another vampire had crashed the party. A tall man with brilliant blue eyes and gleaming fangs. You didn’t look a vampire in the eye, not if you wanted to live to see the sunshine again. But Waylon couldn’t help glimpsing them before averting his gaze and swinging to reach the original target. He’d missed her, but then Oliver had come in from behind with the killing strike, straight through her heart and sending her into a shrinking pillar of flame.

Waylon had turned to focus on that, then realized his mistake. But when he’d turned to face the male vampire again, he’d been gone. No traces of him anywhere.

“Two vampires usually isn’t a problem,” Oliver said, though Waylon wouldn’t quickly agree on that. Sometimes two vamps weren’t a problem. But other times, it was a death sentence. An average vampire’s strength was about double that of a human that was the same size. With the right equipment, you might be safe. But, like tonight, if you were unprepared, it could go horribly wrong for you.

“We need to restock,” Waylon said gruffly, taking a long sip of his beer. It was flat, but beer was beer and he wasn’t about to complain. “We could have handled the change in plans if we had the right equipment.”

“We had stakes,” Oliver said. “But man, did you not feel the energy coming off of that vamp? All the stakes in the world might not have been enough.”

Oliver was more sensitive to energy than Waylon was. Waylon was a straightforward guy. What you saw was what you got, and he accepted that. Oliver, on the other hand, was more connected with the spiritual forces of the world or whatever. He could see energies, occasionally glimpse the future in a dream, all that good stuff. If his own job wasn’t fighting vampires on a regular basis, Waylon might be tempted to call bullshit on it. But he did, so he kept his mouth shut.

“Anyway,” Oliver said. “I talked to Cody at the Archer’s Hill Library, and she suggested sticking around here a little longer.”

“So no Disney World?”

Oliver laughed, putting his cap back on his head and drinking his own beer. “Not this time,” he said. “We’ll save It’s a Small World for another day. I was thinking we should hang out here a few more days, keep an eye out for any more signs. Especially that big guy. If he’s causing trouble, maybe we can get a plan in place to…”

He ran a finger across his tanned throat, and Waylon nodded. They couldn’t just discuss killing someone, even a vampire, openly like this.

“So what do we do in the meantime?” Waylon asked.

“Sleep in,” Oliver replied. “I want to try to tap into the energy in this place. Maybe it’s the vampire, maybe it’s the town. One is feeding off the other though, and it’s making my skin crawl.”

So that meant Oliver would be lying very still in his bed all day tomorrow, leaving Waylon alone to entertain himself. Excellent. Netflix didn’t work on their motel Wi-Fi and he’d finished the book he brought with them. So he’d have to find something else to occupy his time.

“Either way,” Oliver said, holding up his beer. “We succeeded tonight. Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

Waylon tapped his glass against Oliver's, then took another long sip of flat beer. This type of work jumped from thrilling to boring so quickly that, if he hadn’t been doing it for over a decade, he may have been suspicious of the sudden quiet. But instead, he was going to embrace it. Take a boring, but safe day. Hell, he’d sleep all day if Oliver was going to be connecting with the other side or whatever it was he did during those meditations. With the way his body was creaking and what he was pretty sure was a pulled muscle in his back from the fight, the idea of laying in bed doing nothing was getting more appealing the longer Waylon thought about it.

Maybe he’d order a pizza, turn on some shitty daytime television, and make a day of it. Oliver was moving onto other topics now, but Waylon couldn’t help thinking about that vampire who’d crashed the party earlier. Those incredibly blue eyes… you could get lost in them.

And if Waylon wasn’t careful, that was exactly what was going to happen to him next time they crossed his path.