Fanged Hero

Blood dripped down Allister Calbury's hands from the gaping hole at his side. He almost escaped without incident until a hunter broke off a wooden chair leg and stabbed him. The hunter underestimated how much he wanted his freedom. They assumed it'd be easier to recapture in his weakened state. He ran, stole a car, and ran again, stealing his last car leaving Nee York in his review mirrors. After he ditched his car in case the hunters followed him, his body lagged.

Allister weaved around in the shadows, hoping he landed in Sunrise Valley. His cellmate spoke of Sunrise with such passion he thought wanted to check it out when he planned his escape. He wished Bobby was by his side. The hunters took away his heart and learned one of vampires' weaknesses. Wooden stakes, garlic, all of those things were lore. Allister would be fine if those dammed wooden shards were farther from his heart. Uniformed peach houses, palm tree-lined streets surrounded him. The more he moved, the closer he got to seeing the end of his 150 years. 

Allister rested in the alleyway sandwiched between an emergency clinic and pizza parlour.

***

A stream of blood flowing down into the sewers was the first thing Tamiko Cane notice leaving the clinic. Her mind screamed not to go investigate down the dark alley the blood came from alone. She endured medical school, residency, and two years of fellowship to turn her back now. As an ER surgeon, Tamiko had seen it all.

At least she thought she had. This was the first time she saw someone stabbed with a piece of furniture. Back home in East Los Angeles, she treated more gunshot wounds than anyone would believe. Who would do something so horrendous to another person?

All the violence and chaotic schedule become too much for Tamiko. Four months ago, she had a panic attack after a five-year-old child got sent into her ER room. She saved his life when he should have been safe playing in his backyard. The stray bullet that nearly killed him gave her nightmares. When her grandfather retired and asked her to take over his clinic, she packed up and moved right away.

Life in Sunrise Valley moved slower things like stab wounds should have been a thing of the past. She got baked goods sent to the clinic when she reopened. Everyone knew her as Jed’s grandbaby. The scariest moment happened to her when she got asked to deliver a horse. Out in the country, their doctors fixed everyone and everything. She stopped explaining the kind of doctor she was an emergency to Sunrise was whatever her neighbours wanted it to be. She zoomed vets and eye doctors and got to know so many people outside of her field of study. This guy took the cake. Who stabbed someone with was that a chair leg?

Apple green eyes flew open, and a low growl emitted out of her raven-haired friend. Tamiko jumped back and covered her mouth when fangs descended from his mouth. Despite being a woman of science, she believed in elements of the paranormal.

She would have bet money ghosts were more real than vampires. When she was little, she felt hands pushing her on her bike. She turned around and saw her father. Six months after his death she decided to teach herself to ride the big bike she got for Christmas. She smiled and waved at him. From that moment on, she knew he watched over her.

“Easy.” Tamiko walked toward the raven-haired man like she would one of her mother’s rescue animal.

TV and movies got one thing right about vampires: they were gorgeous. Tamiko could tell he was tall slumped over he looked well about 6ft. He did something physical in his life to gain muscles in his arm and abdomen. There was something classical about his face. It spoke volumes like a gothic renaissance painting; dark, twisted and with a story to tell. His was in his jaded green eyes.

“I can remove this thing for you.” Tamiko removed her stretched out hands when his growls grew louder. “Please, I’m a doctor I can’t let you die.”

His eyes rolled back, and before his head hit the ground, Tamiko caught him in her palms.

***

Allister woke up in a strange room filled with medical supplies. He ran out of the room, into a woman carrying a tray with a glass of blood on it. 

Doctors never give him their blood instead, they extracted the healing properties of his blood.

“Fast healing another thing I’ll add to my list of things they got right in Hollywood.” She pushed the glass toward him.

Despite his weakened state and aching gums, Allister stopped himself from reaching for the sweet-smelling blood. He needed to know her angle. Humans used vampires as much as they used them to stay alive. Neither side acted out of kindness. After he first got turned, he tried to keep parts of his old life and became a homicide detective. The cruelty of humans was something he grew familiar with. Now that he was dead humans plain disguised him.

“It isn't poison, drink up. Let me know if this is too personal. How does one wind up brutally stabbed in an alleyway?”

Allister stared at the petite golden blonde-haired woman for a beat. She was a strange woman, both in the way she seemed relaxed around him and in her style of speech. There was a hint of a foreign dialect. The dark roots of her coiled hair suggest she Afro-Caribbean. Somewhere in Saint Lucia if he had to guess from him her traces of an accent. Her almond slanted amber eyes looked as if they stemmed from Asian roots. When Allister came across mixed-race people he marvelled at the vast changes in the world. He was born during the time of the Old West. Black men rode alongside him, aiding in taking down corrupt governments. He considered them some of his best friends. Never in his history had he seen a mixture of anything other than white master and black slaves. This unknown world outside of the hunter’s torture centre took getting used to, like women in pants. He also needed to get used to an aggressive woman who stared starred him in the eyes unshaken by his undead status. Allister grabbed the blood to ease his nerves and quench his thirst. He gulped it down and placed it back on the tray.

“Okay, you don’t want to talk about it. Sorry.”

“Become reborn as a vampire.”

“That’s it? That merited an attack?”

“Humans don’t need reasons to kill, they just do. These humans are trying to do much worse to me than that. They keep me on the brink of death to use my body to heal humans. So far you’re the first nice human I met. Time will tell if you are as you seem. Thank you for your hospitality. Have I reached Sunrise Valley?”

“Yep.”

Allister reached for his back pocket and found it gone. He looked down and realised he was in nothing but underwear.

“Where are my pants?”

“In the garbage, I had to cut them off you to remove to the chair leg stuck inside you. Your shirt’s gone too. I didn’t steal all those prepaid cards you had on you if that’s what you’re worried about. There on the table in the room, you escaped out of, stay here while I go rustle you up some threads.”

***

Tamiko shook her head as she drove off she forgot to ask for his clothing size. Heck, she hadn’t even remembered to ask for his name. Everything about him fascinated her. How could something dead heal that quickly? He was a medical phenomenon it was no wonder he was being hunted down. How could he have blood at all? His body stopped working when he died? She had so many questions. She wouldn’t ask any until he got more comfortable and settled into town. He’d have a good few years in Sunrise Valley before others got curious about him. She had time to ask her burning questions.

Someone was following her, Tamiko sensed their presence as she entered Walmart. She grabbed a three-pack of black Hanes t-shirts, a pair of large joggers closest to her, socks, and a pair of size 12 shoes. She’d seen his shoe size when she sat with him in the back of the ambulance. Tamiko thought she’d have to lie about his dead-like state, but his body behaved normally. Another thing she wanted to ask about, first she needed to get back to him. He wasn’t safe.

***

Allister walked back and forth from the examination room to the front of the clinic. He didn’t enjoy waiting, but there was a nagging sense of dread scrapping at him. She should have been back by now. Clothes or not, he had to find her.

Allister held on to the wall when he got dizzy. He smelled chloroform under the bridge of his nose. But that made little sense. He searched the clinic thoroughly to make sure he wasn't tricked. The bills he found addressed her as Tamiko Cane. She was a small-town doctor who cared too much and needed to charge more if she wanted to keep her clinic. No signs of weapons or clover, the stupid good luck charm of witches that could kill vampires. Tamiko Cane wasn’t a hunter.

Up in the clinic’s break room, Allister found a box marked return to asshole. The box had men’s clothes, movie tickets, whither flower petals and stuffed toy animals. He donned the black sweatsuit with LAPD written in white on the front in bold letters and on the pocket of the pants. To finish his look and shield his eyes from the sun, he put on the matching baseball cap. His eyes were sensitive to light he wouldn’t burn in the sun. Allister didn’t know where that lie came from, other vampires? Maybe they used it to walk among humans and keep hunters away.

Allister knew where Tamiko was now he saw her dragged out of the truck of a car. They shared a connection. It must have been her blood. He’d never had human blood before the hunters kept him alive on animal blood. Tamiko was his first friend he’d come for her and when he got there, they’d be hell to pay.

***

The blindfold over her eyes kept Tamiko from seeing anything. She heard frightening screams followed by something large hammering something into a wall. Her yells came out muffled from the tape over her mouth. He heard her; she knew it. Tamiko sensed her new vampire friend nearby. He came to rescue her. The hunters were right. He was a man of the law it was encoded in his DNA. She heard the hunters say he was a sheriff in his human days. After that, he became a homicide detective. As jaded as the hunters made him she didn’t think he’d show up.

“Allister, you shouldn’t have run away and made things complicated. This poor innocent girl might have to—”

Have to what? What was the rest of his sentence? Tamiko blinked from the bright light that shined in her eyes. She screamed when the tape ripped off the dead skin from her cracked lips and the tiny moustache above her her upper lips.

“Tamiko Cane, I’m Allister Culbury. I think saving each other’s life makes us friends.”

“As your best friend do I have lots of questions to ask you.” Tamiko smiled and took Allister’s hand, leaving the abandoned warehouse. She looked at Allister or straight ahead. Their new friendship didn’t warn seeing what lengths Allister went to, to rescue her.