Hunting the Hunter

“You want me to stop… this?”

A shaky exhalation followed by a long pause.

“Tell me and I’ll stop.”

“No….”

“‘No,’ stop?”

“…No.”
•••

Soft bed, heavy eiderdown quilt, comfortable pillow. Walter’s first thoughts before even opening his eyes were a quick assessment of the unfamiliar bed he woke in.

This was a bed in Doru’s home.

He had slept under a vampire’s roof. Was he mad?

Quite possibly. But Doru had rescued the young hunter from another of his kind who had been bent on killing and torturing him. Probably not in that order, but even that wasn’t guaranteed when dealing with vampires.

He sat up and swung his feet off the bed, then stopped as his stomach kept swinging around independent of the rest of him. He braced a hand against the headboard and stared down at his bare feet, trying to get the vertigo and nausea under control.

After his head stopped spinning, Walter eased himself up onto his feet. He’d been concussed before. There were worse things, but shaking his brain around inside his skull generally wasn’t a recipe for a good morning after. Or afternoon after? Or was it evening? Mid-winter in London made such distinctions difficult to make at times. No wonder vampires came to reside here. There were times in December and January when London received no more than an hour of sunlight in a day.

He looked around and found his pocket watch, cigarettes, and lighter on the dresser, but no sign of his clothes. The wardrobe had some suits and shirts he assumed were Doru’s, a dressing gown, and hanging in the back, a child-sized dress.

It had to be Mihaela’s. He hoped. Else Doru was entertaining young humans here and that would mean Walter would have to execute him.

He stopped and went back over his thoughts. Was he actually concerned for the vampire?

What was happening to him?

He swung around in response to a light rap on the door and put a hand over his mouth when his head and stomach reacted to his injudicious movements with pain and nausea.

Busy trying to quell the urge to vomit, he did not respond, but the door slowly swung open even without his invitation. Doru entered with what appeared to be Walter’s clothes freshly pressed and hanging over his arm.

“I took the liberty of sending your things out to be laundered. I would not want your employer to think that your host did not know proper hospitality.”

“I’m sure that my employer will be most impressed that the vampire who hosted me did not have me as a snack,” Walter said, putting sarcasm between the two of them like a shield while he stood there, nauseously aware of his vulnerability.

He relented though, as years of habit drove him to nod politely when he held out a hand for his clothes. “Thank you for having them cleaned.”

“So you will tell your employer of where you stayed?” Doru asked, draping the freshly pressed items over Walter’s outstretched arm, his fingers brushing feather light over the young man’s wrist as he drew away. “You did not tell him last night.”

“Last night he would have objected, thinking that you had somehow mesmerized me into agreeing to something so daft.” Walter put his hand under the cloth, surreptitiously rubbing the burning spot where the vampire’s fingers had touched.

“And today he will think differently?” the vampire asked with an inquisitive, and somehow faintly amused, arch of an eyebrow.

“Today he will see that I have been returned unharmed – by you – and ready to go about my duties.” Walter shifted his clothes from one arm to the other, inspecting them briefly to find that they were cleaned and pressed to even his rather meticulous standards.

Doru took the unspoken cue to nod and retreat toward the door. “I shall allow you to dress. After which it would honor me if you would accompany me for a meal.”

Walter watched the door click shut behind his host and shook his head slightly in bewilderment. The wave of dizziness that accompanied that ill-considered gesture reminded him of just why he had stayed the night there to begin with.

A meal with a vampire? How would he explain that to Arthur?
•••

Perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised Walter that they did not eat in Doru’s home. The restaurant the vampire selected was, he said, within comfortable walking distance, even for the young man’s injured condition.

“As you might imagine,” the vampire explained as they strolled through the crisply cold evening, “I have no reason to keep human food in my home, but it is my understanding that this restaurant’s offerings are of acceptable quality.”

Walter nodded, then asked a question that he’d been too dazed to ask the night before, but which had niggled at him since waking. “Why do you have a human-style bedroom? You have no more use for it than a human larder.”

“I do not?” Doru asked archly, glancing sidelong at the young human. “I cannot eat, and thus have no need of a kitchen, but I do, at times, have use of a bed and bedroom, even if not often.”

Walter had been expecting some answer about keeping up appearances; Doru’s response brought heat to his cheeks and unwelcome thoughts of what might have gone on in the bed he’d spent the night in.

“Ah.” Doru broke into Walter’s thoughts with a pleased exclamation and took his elbow to steer him toward a deep, shadowed doorway. “This is the restaurant. I presume you do not wish to be seen dining with a vampire, and this establishment is, of necessity, quite discrete.”

Of necessity? Walter permitted Doru to open the door and usher him inside, down a dimly lit hallway and into an even more dimly lit restaurant. He half expected to see picture show gangsters at the tables, but there were only ordinary men, sitting alone or in twos or threes at the tables and the bar. Many of them turned, almost in unison, when the door opened to admit the pair, but returned to their business as soon as the newcomers had been inspected and apparently passed.

“How do you know this place?” Walter asked, after a waiter seated them and left them with menus. “You said you have no use for human food.”

“I do not always kill to feed.” Doru made a show of examining the menu before putting it aside. “If you would humor me, the lamb always smells delicious, and that is as close to dining as I come.”

“You come here to find people to feed from?” Walter’s incredulity made his voice louder than he’d intended.

Doru frowned and made a quieting gesture with his hand. “Would you care to announce it to everyone here? I said I do not always kill. There are times when I cannot find a suitable criminal and must resort to seduction. In those instances, it seems to me that the least I can do is offer a meal in return for a meal.”

“I will not be your meal and I will not be seduced.” Walter dropped the menu and rose, only to stop when Doru’s cool hand closed on his wrist. Even Walter, fast though he was, had not seen him move.

“That is not my intent, Angel. Please….” He released Walter and leaned back in his seat. “I wished only to have dinner with you before seeing you leave for Hellsing. Nothing more.”

Angel….

Someone cleared his throat behind Walter, jerking his attention away from the vampire’s dark eyes. The waiter had the good grace to look embarrassed before asking, “Do you two need a few more minutes?”

“No.” Walter turned back to look at Doru, not breaking eye contact as he answered the waiter. “No. We’re fine. I’ll have the lamb.”

“And a bottle of your best red wine,” the vampire added, a glint in his eye as he smiled at Walter. “I do drink… wine.”
•••

“What sort of place is this?” Walter asked, after the waiter had departed and he had retaken his seat. “Is it a private club?”

“Of sorts. The people who come here all live invisibly. You. Me. Them.” Doru languidly waved a hand toward the restaurant’s other patrons. “You and I may do it for different reasons than they, but the end result is the same. To avoid persecution, we must all be invisible.”

The young man scanned the other men, looking for the unifying factor that made them all invisible. The thing that stood out, was the guilty look that flinched across some faces every time the door opened. Guilty people waiting to be caught in the act. But of what?

“Is it your habit to make your explanations as unenlightening as possible?”

The vampire looked amused as he countered, “Is it your habit to expect that everything should be explained for you rather than discerning the truth yourself?”

“I would expect that asking about the nature of a restaurant would not be the sort of question I should spend time puzzling over,” Walter responded, nettled. “It is not as though I am inquiring after the resting place of your coffin, or your true age and name.”

The vampire looked past Walter with an amused smile and nodded when the waiter approached with a bottle and two glasses.

After they both had glasses of a fragrant red wine in front of them and the waiter had departed, Doru picked up the broken thread of their conversation as though they had not been interrupted. “Are those things you wish to puzzle out?”

Walter watched him lift his glass and contemplatively swirl the wine to observe it trailing down the inside of the glass on liquid legs. “You could just tell me.”

Doru shook his head. “I should give more power to the Angel of Death? If your Lord sent you to punish me, the blood of the lamb on my door would not cause you to pass me by. You should not be surprised that I have no wish to die a true death yet.

“With time and trust come sharings of confidences. You do not trust me, thus I cannot trust you. I wish to someday be able to trust you and I am patient.”

Walter wanted to argue, but the vampire’s logic was, unfortunately, logical.

The uncomfortable moment was once again interrupted by the waiter, this time bearing Walter’s order. This time, knowing that his presence was neither needed nor wanted, the man set the dish in front of the younger man and left the pair alone with only the standard offer of assistance should they need any.

The lamb did smell delicious, and Walter could feel Doru’s eyes on him while he cut off a bite and tasted it. Someone had had the clever idea of crusting it in a paste of garlic, mint, and what might have been a creamy cheese; it practically melted in his mouth.

The vampire leaned in, watching Walter’s reaction as though to vicariously experience the meal. His nostrils flared slightly and the young man wondered whether it would be better or more frustrating to have a vampire’s sense of smell in this instance – able to almost taste what he was obviously missing.

And to have that eternally out of reach.

He chewed slowly and, for the first time in recent memory, if ever, focused on little but the flavor of the meat and its seasonings. Sitting across from him was a being who would never again enjoy a well-cooked meal. Somehow that made him wish to savor it all the more – not out of a cruel desire to show Doru what he was missing, but because it would be callous not to appreciate what the vampire could not have.

He was watching his companion, not the door, and saw the vampire’s expression change moments before the door slammed open and the quiet restaurant became someplace louder and more chaotic. Men who had been glancing at the door every time it opened left their tables, scattering in different directions, toward the lavatory and the kitchen.

“Alright you little perverts,” bellowed a man in policeman’s uniform, “playtime’s over! Keep your arses in your seats and your hands where we can see ‘em.”

Several more officers filed in behind him and spread out, heading for the lavatory and the kitchen while the first man started canvassing the tables.

“It’s nothing,” the vampire assured Walter. “This happens from time to time – the police come and frighten the men here with threats of exposure, occasionally catch a couple in the act in the lavatory and arrest them for sodomy, elicit a bribe from the owner, and then leave. You have nothing to fear – after all, you are truly only here for a meal.”

“Look at these two,” the apparent leader said when he got to Walter and Doru’s table. Walter looked up from his lamb and tilted his head inquiringly at the officer who asked, “Which one of you is the man? You both look like you want to be women with that girly hair.”

“Can we help you?” Walter asked calmly. He hunted vampires; a bobby with delusions of power wasn’t going to intimidate him.

The policeman tapped his pencil against the pad of paper in his hand. “You can tell me your names. We have to keep honest citizens safe from freaks like you.”

Walter took a slow moment to wipe his mouth with his napkin before asking, “Freaks who have lamb for dinner, you mean?”

Maybe he shouldn’t be taunting the man, but honestly, who did he think he was? He was trying to scare the bloody Angel of Death who was at table with a vampire. It was almost laughable.

His lips twitched with a barely restrained smirk when the man’s face flushed red. “Don’t talk to me like that, queer boy. I could run you in right now. How would you like that?”

“I think you would find yourself in more trouble than you would know how to handle,” Walter responded. He could feel Doru watching them both, but spared little attention for the vampire. Walter had no trouble with authority, but this wasn’t authority, it was just an excuse for bullying.

“Are you threatening me?”

Walter had to fight hard against his smirk as he watched the man’s face move from red to something much closer to purple. The only reputation Walter had to worry about was one that wouldn’t be tarnished by rumors that he’d been eating in an establishment like this, and while he wasn’t especially eager to answer questions from Arthur about this incident, it certainly wasn’t anything that would affect his duties.

Allowances would be made for one such as he.

“There is no problem.”

Both Walter and the policeman turned their attention to Doru, who was lounging back in his seat, also looking amused.

“What?”

“There is. No. Problem,” the vampire repeated, dark eyes locking with the other man’s pale blue ones. “No one here has done anything wrong.”

“There is no problem?” the man parroted, sounding confused. “No. No problem. We should… should we be going?”

“Yes. You should.”

The policeman nodded slowly. “There is no problem.” He frowned as though forgetting something important, but turned away from their table. “There is no problem here. Let’s go.”

One of the other policemen shook his head. “But it was your idea to come here in the first place.”

“And now it’s my idea to leave,” he snapped. “There is no problem.”

With a few more sharply barked orders, the officers reassembled and left, leaving shaken but relieved restaurant patrons, one entertained vampire, and a suspicious but strangely amused Angel of Death.

“It was very rude of him to attempt to interrupt your meal when you were so very clearly enjoying it,” Doru remarked. “All because he believed you were doing something immoral.”

“If I read his accusation properly, apparently my eating lamb was some form of homosexual activity,” Walter said with a smile before having another bite of the meat. “I shall remember that the next time I am tempted to order lamb.”

“Does that mean you will not be ordering lamb again?”

Walter stabbed the last bite and brought it to his mouth, chewing deliberately before shaking his head. “Why would I let a fool’s opinions dictate what I eat?”

•••

Thomas Phelps had just finished a very confusing shift and was heading home, pulling his coat tight around his neck and wishing for a muffler when a little girl’s voice addressed him from the shadows at the bottom of a basement flat’s stairway.

“Mister policeman?”

His head was still muzzy from the aborted raid on the restaurant earlier in the evening, but he stopped to peer down into the darkness looking for the girl. “Is there something wrong?”

“There is no problem,” the voice pronounced lightly.

Points of red winked in the otherwise lightless stairwell.

“There is no problem,” Officer Phelps agreed dully, and walked down into a stygian blackness populated by a swarm of red eyes.

•••

“Tell me now about your mission,” Arthur directed the young man standing in front of his desk. “You reported it was a success.”

“The vampire was silenced, but there was another vampire that got to her first and then turned on me.” He didn’t rub his head, although it was throbbing again.

“Another vampire intervened.”

“Another? Intervened?” Arthur leaned forward, scrutinizing Walter carefully. For what, he couldn’t say. “Why would a vampire do that?”

That was the burning question, wasn’t it? “I don’t know, sir. He saw me to a safe bed for the night and left me in peace.”

It wasn’t too much of a lie if he didn’t mention that the bed had been under the vampire’s roof. Was it?