She frowned at that.
“What?”
Suddenly nervous again, I busied myself with my uniform and gear, getting it ready for work tomorrow, answering as I worked, my face turned away from her. “Well, I don’t know much about girls. I have always avoided them. The Hellbourne always know if I have a friend, and they will attack them or use them against me. But I like girls…I mean...I don’t want to be alone. It’s just not fair to endanger someone just because I’m lonely or something. But I watch them…girls that is. And it seems that the really pretty ones, the beautiful ones, are usually not so much the kind of people that I like. Not all of them. But most. You don’t seem to even know that you’re beautiful. And you’re definitely the kind of person I like.”
I finished babbling and finally turned to read her expression, figuring to find the window open and her long gone.
Instead, I found her only about ten inches away, staring intently into my eyes.
“Ah…hi!” I said, shocked at her proximity. Her eyes looked back and forth between my two. I held still. She blurred a bit and I felt a soft kiss on my lips. She was back on the futon, looking down at the bear as she petted it.
“I asked Lydia about kisses. She said I would know when I should kiss you. That was a when,” she explained, still not looking up.
I was frozen in place, trying to think of something to say, but my brain wasn’t in gear. Finally, she looked up bashfully and I automatically smiled at her. She smiled back and my brain slipped out of gear again.
“What is that?” she asked, curious again. She was looking at my feet, where my vest was sitting on the floor.
“It’s my body armor. You know….to protect me from bullets and knives,” I answered. She was back at my side in a split second, examining the vest from all angles but not touching it. I picked it up and handed it to her. The weight meant nothing to her, holding it like a sheet of paper.
“Is it good?” she asked, a little dubious.
“It’s the best. Dragon Skin, made by Pinnacle Armor. Top of the line.”
“Put it on...please,” she said. I shrugged into the vest and sealed it up. She poked the vest, fingered the exposed areas around my armpits and neck
“It does not protect the big veins in your neck or inside of your thighs,” she pointed out.
“No, it’s a concealable vest, so it doesn’t protect the neck. I don’t think anyone makes armor for the thighs, but I’ve never checked into it.”
Next she wanted to see all my gear and what it did. She snorted at my cuffs, but allowed that they would probably hold a human. She sniffed the pepper spray, flashed the flashlight and twirled the baton. That was illuminating, as she handled the stick expertly, at least during the moments when it wasn’t a blur. Tanya was no stranger to weapons. Next she wanted to test my flex cuffs, which are basically giant plastic zip ties like electricians use. We use them when we have lots of people to restrain. So I zipped a set closed on her, interested to see the result. She simply flexed her wrists lightly and the heavy plastic broke. I made a note not to zip tie any vampires. Finally, we got to the gun and I slipped into instructor mode, teaching safety as I had been taught. I expected derision or flippant disregard, but she took it very seriously. I showed her how to clear the chamber and drop the magazine. I explained the Big Four rules: keep your finger off the trigger, keep the muzzle pointed away from anything you don’t want dead, know your target and treat every gun as if it is loaded. She was a natural. I started to ask my own questions. Does sunlight hurt her? No, it makes her sleepy but it could give most vampires a burn, like bad sunburn, but quicker. How often does she need to eat? Depends on activity. Usually one unit of blood a day. My blood seemed to hold her longer. Odd. Where do they get the blood? Turns out the Coven owns its own blood bank, but there are lots of humans who love to be bitten. Does she have any powers? Not yet, but she was really young in most ways.
I asked her what that meant.
“Well, vampires get stronger and faster with age. We tend to develop new abilities as we get older. I’m only twenty-three, like you, but I’m stronger and faster than most vampires. Maybe like a six hundred-year-old.”
That shut me up for a while. I decided to change into sweats and a tee shirt. When I came out of the bathroom, Tanya was holding my discarded hoodie in both hands, sniffing it.
“Careful, any clothes you find on the floor might have a serious stink to them.”
“No, it smells of you,” she said.
“Tanya, are you cold?” I asked.
“I don’t really feel the cold…wait...if I am cold, I can wear the sweatshirt?” she guessed.
“Yup, or you can wear it even if you’re not cold,” I suggested.
She smiled and sort of wriggled and was suddenly wearing the NYPD hoodie. It was huge on her and it just made her look even cuter. I smiled at her, then covered a yawn.
Instantly she was adamant about me sleeping, thinking of my work tomorrow.
“Tanya, tomorrow is a shift change for me. I was on seven to three’s last week. Tomorrow starts three to eleven’s. So I don’t have to go in early. And I do need to get used to staying up later.” Of course that resulted in a new round of questions about my shifts and what I actually did. “So, you just walk around the City? With your partner? Who is your partner? “ I explained about eight person squads, run by a sergeant and rotating partners for us rookies. I thought that I was partnered with Bernice Hughes for the week. “Is she pretty?”
“What does that have to do with anything?” I asked.
She frowned. “That means she’s pretty.”
“Actually, she’s not. But I still don’t see why that matters?”
She changed the subject.
“When will you get home?”
“Oh, usually eleven-thirty to twelve or so.”
“May I come by?” Her voice was quiet as she asked.
“Sure. It always takes me some time to settle down after a shift. If you’re especially bored I’ll show you pictures on my laptop.”
Apparently, she was bored right then, ‘cause she slipped off the futon and snagged my laptop from the little table by the kitchen. So we looked at pictures of the farm, the woods, the Search & Rescue guys, my town, Gramps, lots of tracks (I collect animal tracks with both photos and plaster casts), and eventually, my parents and brother. She asked a ton of questions, of course, from things like “What was your mother like?” to “how many kids in your high school?” She must have been really bored but she kept at it gamely, right up until I fell asleep.
Chapter 7
I woke abruptly the next morning, my mouth metallic and my pillows scented with lilac and jasmine. Starving again, I whipped up scrambled eggs and toast with half pot of home brewed Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. While eating, I fired off a quick email to Gramps to keep him in the loop.
Hi Gramps,
Just a quick note. Took out daytime Hlbrn yesterday and cleaned house in neighborhood. Switching to evenings this week. Miss the farm. Anything new up there? Can't wait to get up there at Thanksgiving, which was approved by my Sergeant. Not much else to report.
Chris
After sending it, I cleaned up and then headed to the gym. It was heavy weight day and I spent all morning kicking my own butt. I broke through four personal bests for bench press, squat, dead lift and clean and press. Lunch was a seafood sub and soup that I grabbed on the way home. I spent the afternoon cleaning up my uniform and gear (not going overboard or I'd stand out as a rookie) and researching Galina Demidova.