Jonathan awkwardly walked ahead of Antinea, acutely aware of her presence. A bit of blood trickled down his forehead and nose. It was the first time he could remember bleeding this much, but he supposed it made sense, because he could also not ever remember being hit that hard in the face before. He was surprised at how wet his blood felt, how slowly it traveled down his skin compared to water.
He turned, hoping that his bleeding wouldn’t cause his erstwhile savior to regard him as a snack. But if it bothered her in any way he couldn’t tell. Her face, partially obscured by the black hoodie she wore over her head, kept looking from side to side as they moved down the street. He sorely hoped that any other vampires would be discouraged from jumping him while she was present.
Finally they reached his house. Jonathan paused at the front door. “Do I have to invite you in or…”
“What?” she asked. He couldn’t tell if she was surprised or annoyed. Maybe she was both. “Why? Did you put a protective ward on your house?”
“No. Is that a thing I could do?”
Antinea peered into his eyes. This time, unlike when she appeared out of nowhere inside of his coffee shop, he felt like she was looking at him, and not through him. “Only if you had the training,” she answered. “Let’s go inside already.”
“Okay,” Jonathan said with a sigh. “I was just checking.” He unlocked the door and held it open, gesturing for her to step inside. He closed the door behind her and then turned on the lights. Antinea walked slowly around the living room. He hadn’t been expecting a guest of the opposite gender variety, especially not one that had just saved his life, but fortunately his house wasn’t too much of a mess.
“Do you have a first aid kit?” she asked. “You probably don’t want to get blood everywhere.”
“Would that attract more vampires?”
“They already know where you live, they don’t need attracting. I was referring to blood stains in your carpet.”
“Uh, sorry,” Jonathan said, beginning to feel like an idiot. “I’ve got a first aid kit in the bathroom.”
“I can help,” she offered. “I know a few tricks.”
“Sure,” he agreed. “If I can avoid an emergency room visit and the bill that goes with it…”
She followed him to the bathroom, which lay just down the short hall, the first door on the right. He bent down and pulled the first aid kit out from beneath the bathroom sink cabinet and handed it to her.
“Sit,” she instructed. He pushed the bathtub curtain aside and obeyed, balancing himself on the side of the tub. She opened the plastic case and removed the roll of gauze, and then leaned over him. Jonathan closed his eyes as she began to clean his wound.
“Sorry for the vampire cliches,” he apologized. “It’s just that I don’t know what is true about your people and what is made up.”
“It’s all made up,” she replied.
“What do you mean?”
“All of it. There is no such thing as vampires.”
“What? But I’ve seen you do things…seen you appear out of thin air in my coffee shop. Thinking back I’m pretty sure you were at the community meeting, even though I couldn’t see you.”
“I was invisible,” she admitted. “None of the others people even sensed my presence.”
“Right,” Jonathan said, pretending that invisibility was something his brain could cope with. “And those vampires that attacked me? I’m not claiming to be some kind of super strong guy, but they were pushing me around like I was a rag doll. And they weren’t built like football players either.”
“I do have powers. So do they. But we aren’t vampires. Vampires aren’t real.”
“But that lady that addressed congress? All of the tv interviews, the new laws and announcements…”
“All for your benefit,” Antinea said. She spotted the trash can and tossed the bloody gauze into it. “This is going to sting,” she warned, right before dabbing rubbing alcohol onto his forehead.
“Fuck,” Jonathan said, biting his tongue.
“There is a lot in this world that most people don’t know about,” she said. “Things that people are made to forget. But something happened last year that couldn’t be swept under the rug. People like me made the decision to go public. To use a convenient cover story that ordinary humans, westerners in particular, were already familiar with. One that they’d already seen play out in books, movies, and tv shows.”
“Your people just used vampire pop culture as a cover story?”
“Yes,” she nodded. She threw away the alcohol wipes and then removed a bandage from the first aid kit. With a glance at his wound she grabbed a second one as well.
“So is any of the vampire stuff true? If your people don’t drink blood why did they attack me?”
“Some of the vampire stuff is similar to reality. That is why it was chosen as a cover story. Some of my people will drink blood, but not just anyone’s blood. Only people that are touched.”
“Touched?”
“The easiest way to explain it is by comparing it to magic. The only reason they would drink your blood, or eat you, or take you apart…”
“Yeah, I get it,” he said, throwing up his hands.
“…would be to absorb some of your magic.”
“I have magic?”
“That is why I noticed you,” she answered. She removed one of the bandages from its package and firmly stuck it to his forehead. “I was already watching them when I sensed your touch. I haven’t felt anything like it in a long time. I thought that you might be…well, nevermind. I knew that the others would noticed too.”
Jonathan decided to return to the ‘nevermind’ at a later date. He didn’t know if it was blood loss or the extent of the exposition dump she was dropping on his head, but he felt woozy. “If they wanted to…you know, eat me or whatever…to absorb my magic, why don’t you want to do that too?”
He opened his eyes just as she finished applying the second bandage. “You could say that I’m a…vegetarian. I already have the power that they crave anyway. Eating someone to absorb their magic is inefficient in the first place.”
“Am I allowed to call the police on vampires? Or fake vampires. Whatever they are.”
“You can do whatever you want. But what do you think the police will do? What would a mouse do if it was asked to arrest a tiger?”
“What about vampire police? Are there vampire police that I can call? ”
“I am the vampire police,” Antinea said softly. She pressed her hand against his forehead. He felt a warm sensation, as if a rainbow was drilling itself into his skull, and then all of his pain vanished. “That will speed up the healing process. You should get some sleep though.”
“Right,” he agreed. He stood, wobbled, and then fell backwards. She caught him before he could fall into the bathtub. “Thanks.” She pulled him forward and draped his arm over her shoulder.
“Bedroom?”
“Across the hall.” She helped him to his bedroom and then deposited him onto his unmade bed.
“Do you mind if I stay the night?” she asked.
“As long as you keep me from being eaten…” he mumbled, already falling asleep.
“Good night,” she said, retreating from the room and turning out the light. “Don’t let the vampires bite.”
oOoOo
Jonathan awoke in the morning to the sound of cartoons coming from the living room. He rolled over, his entire body stiff and sore. He felt his forehead, where the bandage Antinea had placed on his forehead still lay. His skin beneath the bandage itched so badly that he couldn’t help but rip it off. He expected to feel dried blood, and there was some, but beneath that his skin was whole and healthy. It seemed his new vampire friend hadn’t been exaggerating when she said he would heal quickly. Still wearing the same clothes from last night Jonathan struggled his way out of bed and shuffled down the hall. He arrived in the living room to find the lithe Antinea engrossed in a japanese anime.
“Good morning,” Jonathan mumbled. He turned and shuffled into the kitchen, intending to find something strong to drink.
“It’s nearly noon,” Antinea said, her gaze not moving from the screen.
“Fuck,” Jonathan responded. He slapped his pockets, searching frantically for his phone.
“You dropped it last night,” Antinea said knowingly, almost as if she could read his mind. Jonathan turned towards the living room and spotted her holding it aloft. “You have missed calls.”
Jonathan took his phone from her and glanced at the notification screen. There were three missed calls from Aki, as well as a couple of texts. The first one read ‘Are you running late? Front door is locked. Peoples want their coffee man.’ The second read ‘?? Going home dude’.
“God damnit,” Jonathan sighed. “I just missed a whole day of business.”
“You’re alive, so you have that going for you,” Antinea sand dryly. Jonathan unlocked his phone and sent a quick reply to Aki, telling her something had come up and apologizing for the lack of notice. Noticing that his phone’s battery was about to tap out Jonathan plugged it into the charger that stuck out of the wall next to the kitchen table, which was pushed up against the wall that separated the kitchen from the living room. Next he rummaged around in the fridge until he found some raspberry lemonade. Adding quick shot of vodka from the glass bottle that sat atop the fridge Jonathan returned to the living room.
“So, explanation time,” Jonathan said. “If your people aren’t vampires what are you?”
“We are often referred to as the Lost Tribe, the tribuperda,” Antinea answered. “There was a war in ancient times, before humans mastered the art of writing. A group of villages was caught in the crossfire and found themselves altered. Touched.”
“A war between who?”
“Heaven and hell,” she answered simply. Jonathan found himself taken aback, despite thinking that he had already tackled the toughest revelations last night.
“Those places are real?” he asked, collapsing onto the chair that sat adjacent to the couch and spilling some of his spiked juice. Jonathan had never thought much of religion, his mother had never taken him to church despite his grandmothers religiosity. He had supposed he was an atheist, but never devoted much serious thought to such things, and so called labeled himself agnostic. For some reason this revelation brought about a tickling in the back of his mind, like an itch he couldn’t scratch.
“In a fashion,” Antinea added. “Are you familiar with string theory? Or with the multiverse concept?”
“Only the hollywood version…”
“That’ll do,” she said, nodding. “There are worlds besides this one, and beings that can travel between worlds. The earthly concept of Heaven and Hell correspond to two realms that have been at war with each for all of human existence. My people’s ancestors got caught up in that war and disappeared from this world for a long time.”
“And now they’re back.”
“Yes. For several decades now. But our existence couldn’t be kept secret for much longer, so a decision was made to come into the light, so to speak. We used built in notions from subculture to frame this outing in a way people like yourself would understand.”
“Makes sense,” Jonathan said slowly. “What does this have to do with the…what did you call them?”
“Tribuperda.”
“What does this have to do with the tribuperda in Barnhoff and why one of them tried to eat me?”
“I’m just giving you context so you don’t give yourself a migraine having an existential crisis,” Antinea said, her eyes narrowing slightly. She ran her finger through her dark hair for a moment. “The tribuperda are not a unified group. We have competing factions and rogue elements just like you ordinary humans do. I don’t know why this particular group has moved to Barnhoff.”
“But you’re here to find out?” he asked. She nodded affirmatively. “How do you plan on doing that?”
“I’ll wait until they try to attack you again and hurt them until they give me answers.” Jonathan nearly choked on his juice.
“You’re just going to use me as bait?”
“Until I think of something better to do.”
“Great,” Jonathan said, sighing. On the quality scale of lazy sunday mornings this was likely an all time low.
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