The Stuck Hen
Sitting in The Stuck Hen drinking my ‘Very Bloody Mary’, two things occurred to me at once. One, people really needed to come up with better, or more subtle vampire drink names, and two, the child I was looking for was somewhere in the building above me. I’d been tracking him for 2 days after hearing the reports come in that he’d been taken. Usually, I wait until someone has actually hired me to go looking for missing people, but I made an exception when I heard the police were suspecting a vampire. Plus, it’s a lot easier to pick up a trail from fresh blood.
The supernatural world wasn’t exactly a secret, but we also weren’t what you’d call ‘out and proud’. We’d been outed a few years ago after someone decided to prove that we did show up on camera, by announcing to the world that we were real, that we had been around forever, and that we had systems to be alive and didn’t hunt and drink the blood of humans anymore. Then he killed and ate a news presenter on live tv, just to prove the point. Now we were kind of in a weird limbo, sure there were cities where being a vampire was perfectly normal, well, boroughs in specific cities anyway. But you’ll still find a lot of people in small towns who will tell you with total confidence that we aren’t real and even if we were, you’d never find her son anywhere near ‘one of those Dead people!’, but just like homosexuality in the 80s, lady, let me tell you, your son loves getting sucked in a truck stop bathroom. But, you know, not specifically by a guy. Not that it mattered, anyway, I downed the last half of my drink as I scanned the bar for stairs. The Stuck Hen was modelled after an old school English inn, bar and dining room below, rooms above. I took a deep breath and awakened more of my vampire side, and when I opened my eyes again, I could see the blood moving around in the other patrons of the bar, I could see their essence drifting through the room like shadows showing me their paths. And when I looked at the stairs, I could see the faintest outline of a young person, presumably a boy, being pulled along by a dark shadow.
“Fuck.”
Slipped from my lips when I saw it, and with a quick shake of the head I was back in myself and charging up the stairs, much to the shock and surprise of the barman. I took a quick and deliberate sniff as I passed each door until I found what I was looking for, then turned and kicked. The door burst open and almost flew across the room, but the hinges managed to hold on. Which was good, because if they hadn’t, I would have kicked the door directly into the kid. But I was angry. Vampires already had a rough reputation, and the news outlets always blamed us for missing kids, like being a vampire meant you wanted to take kids, like they meant the same thing. And as someone who actually was taken as a child, I hated when we all got painted with that brush.
The room was small and simple, two twin beds on the left, a large tv on the wall to the right, and a door that presumably went into a bathroom. There were some open shelves with folded towels and enough space for some clothes. On the floor with a colouring book and a wild look in his eyes was the kid I’d seen on tv, and on the floor between the beds cowering in abject fear was a pale skinned, red eyed vampire who looked almost as much like a child to me as the actual human child.
“What the fuck is wrong with you!?”
Was probably not what he was expecting me to say, I mean, it wasn’t what I was expecting to say either, but it’s what came out. He lifted his hands over his head and cowered even more, as the child scrambled across the floor into the bathroom.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I… I’ve just been so lonely.”
“So, you took a child! A human child! Do you have any idea how cliché that is, not to mention how bad that makes the rest of us look!”
I probably shouldn’t have said that last part, but again, anger makes you say stupid and sometimes overly truthful things. A dark look came into his face as he dropped his hands and pushed himself onto his feet.
“Oh, okay, so you’re not worried about me, or the child, you’re just worried about how my actions make people see you, well fuck you buddy! And for the record, I haven’t done anything to that child!”
“Except kidnap him you mean?”
Then something strange happened, I saw something flicker across his face that was too quick for me to place, but it was something, a departure from the now. A thought or a memory that either flashed in his mind too fast for him to catch, or something that tried to show itself that he smacked back down.
“I wanted a companion, a friend a, a person in my life to share immortality with, isn’t that how we used to do it?”
‘How we used to do it’ that confirmed some suspicions of mine, and I let my shoulders drop a little, and released some of my tension as I did, willing myself to calm down. I looked at him again and this time really looked.
“What are you, like 5? 6?”
His face turned dark again with frustration.
“I’m 67, I’ll have you know.”
Which made me roll my eyes, another thing I probably shouldn’t have done as he looked even angrier when I looked at him again.
“How old are you in terms of vampire years?”
His face actually eased a little at the question and I could see him thinking.
“Oh, yeah, about 6, I’m not exactly sure.”
“Of course, and where is your sire?’ I saw him scrunch up his face and decided not to wait for the question, ’the person who changed you?”
“I don’t need them!”
This wasn’t a new problem but it had become a lot more prevalent recently. You see, changing from a human into a vampire is a lot like being reborn. Sure, you’ve got however many years experience being a human, but being a vampire is very different, and you are in many ways a child again. Except because you’ve had this human life you think you’re an adult. Most of the horror stories you’ve ever hear or read about monster vampires are usually people who have only a few years into their new life. But like a child with a gun, they can still cause a lot of damage. And when the people who change them don’t take the time to raise them properly or to think in the long terms of immortality, you get stupid children that think they’re powerful, because they have a gun in their hands.
I could see again the look of angry frustration in the man’s face that I’d brought up this pain point, and before I could say anything else he seemed to lose his temper.
“I’ve done just fine without them, I’ve got strength and powers, and who the fuck are you to tell me I can’t take what I want. I want a son, so I took a son, and I don’t give a shit what you or the news says about me, us, and specifically you!”
The redness around his eyes had spread slightly and his face had turned even paler, a clear sign that he was embracing the vampire, and about to do something very stupid.
“We get stronger with age, and I’m a lot older than you. Don’t do it.”
But he didn’t listen. Within half a second, he rushed across the room to stand behind me and swung a thick fist at the back of my head. Credit where it was due, he clearly had been taught how to fight at some point in his human life. By the looks of his hands, he was actually possibly good at it. Problem was, I had also been taught how to fight as a human, and then when I was changed, my lessons continued, and I’d been a vampire for 437 years. So, I watched him move in near slow motion. His form was good, he punched with his legs and shoulder, I think if he could land a blow, it would really hurt, maybe even do some damage. It would kill a human no problem. I waited until his arm was fully extended before I grabbed him by the wrist and shot my arm out to the side, pulling him with his momentum and flicking him out like a towel. Then I pulled back hard swinging him through the air and slamming him onto his back, cracking the floor boards beneath him.
Now usually when I find a missing child and some deranged man sitting watching him in a small poorly lit room, I let myself indulge in a bit of vigilante justice. But this man irritated me, and vampires didn’t kidnap kids, and we weren’t monsters. But when one of us was, then suddenly we all were. My mind flashed back to black leather boots standing next to my bed while I cowered underneath it. I heard a voice that I hated whisper.
“I’m going to teach you how to think in the long term.”
I twisted at the hips spun around and threw him off the small balcony to slam against the far wall of the bar before crashing onto the pool table below. Then I looked down towards the scared barman holding a phone.
“That the police?”
The barman nodded.
“Good, tell them Sebastian Montgomery is here and he’s found the child they’re all looking for, again, and to bring silver handcuffs.”
