I fight evil creatures, I don't date them (Preface)

I try and think of things that have happened recently that would trace back to any use of black magic. I follow the news frequently, but I can’t find any signs. No strange markings or unexplained deaths save the four simultaneous suicides on the bridge. Or were they homicides?

I scan through pages of the old newspapers from the past week. Nothing. I search my brain, trying to think of why I would miss such signs. I’ve been doing this for over a century… how could I have missed something? I release an exasperated sigh and look over to Black, perched on the edge of the kitchen table. Her tail moves rhythmically as she looks me over.

“Do you think I’m losing my touch?” I ask her. She stares at me, tail still twitching. I get up from the table to put the papers away. I hear a sharp meow from Black and see her dart into my bedroom.

“This danger is more glaring than anything you have yet to encounter, Celeste.” I turn around and meet the gaze of William, standing in the middle of the living room. The downside to the vampire charm is that once a vampire is invited in, he doesn’t have to be asked again. “Obvious signs won’t be showing up,” he says.

“If you’re looking for the same signs I am, why would you need my help?”

“It’s the signs I don’t know how to look for that will be useful.” He walks towards me, hands in pockets. I look at him and then away. He knows that I’ve been hiding something, probably thanks to Thomas.

“I still need to know what we’re dealing with.” I put particular emphasis on the word ‘we’re’.

“I would appreciate if we kept this a strictly informational partnership. I would like you to know as little as possible.” His snooty tone is glaringly obvious. I sneer, picking up a few more papers and dropping them into the cardboard box that is their home

“As it stands, the more I know, the more you know,” I say glaring up at him. I pick up the cardboard box and turn around. I walk over to my room and drop the box at the mouth of the door. “If you haven’t noticed, I’m completely in the dark.” I kick the box into the room as I hear Black meow and dodge out of the way. The box hits the foot of my bed with a thud. “I hope you enjoy being just as blind.” I turn around to face him and fold my arms over my chest. He raises an eyebrow, amused at my new batch of information.

“Well, you are a spitfire,” he says never breaking his gaze. I clench my jaw and narrow my eyes. He won’t be working his vampire charm on me.

“Well, as it stands on my side, the less you know, the better off you are,” he says I can sense that this statement stems less from a concern for me and more for the concern for the extinguishing of whatever threat has arisen.

“I think I can be the judge of what constitutes me being better off. I’m a big girl, William.” I am more composed now, which is good. It’s easier to hold your ground against a vampire when you’re not too emotional in any direction.

“Even so, the information I need from you, at this point, is miniscule.” I can already tell what this means by his tone. The less information he gets from me, the less I need from him. He smirks at me and I glare back.

“Fine, what miniscule information do you require?”

“I thought you’d never ask.” He takes a manila envelope from his jacket and takes out four pictures. I take them from him.

“Crime scene pictures?” I ask. “What do these have to do with the people who have been murdered?”

“Murdered? Here I was under the impression you still thought of suicide,” he says leaning against my countertop. “Those are the jumpers.”

I look at the pictures. The paper never said that they found the bodies, and these pictures didn’t look like pictures of people who died by jumping off a bridge. But, if they were already dead when they jumped off the bridge, it wouldn’t matter. I look up at William and then back at the pictures.

“The paper said no one could identify the jumpers,” I say finding a hole in the idea.

“Ah,” He says raising a finger. “The paper doesn’t and the civilians don’t… we do.” He pulls four more pictures out of the manila envelope. I look at the four pictures and see that they are close-ups of the people before they jumped off the bridge. They’re the same people featured in the other crime scene pictures.

I’d heard about this, years and years ago, during the civil war. There was a legend that Southern soldiers would have shamans cast spells over them to remove their spirits from their bodies. While the bodies were tucked safely away the soldiers could inhabit any other bodies they wanted… even dead ones.

“Can you explain the coincidence? Or is this meeting as futile as the last?” I raise my eyebrow at him and hand the pictures back.

“There’s a possibility that the bodies are still dead and spirits inhabited them. Extracting the spirit isn’t exactly black magic, but it is seldom used for harmless purposes,” I say. William concentrates on the information I’ve just given him.

“This spirit extraction; is it dangerous?” he asks. I shrug.

“It can be,” I say. “From what I’ve seen, most of the people who have done it are somewhat reckless, either that or desperate. If done wrong, it can be very painful and sometimes even fatal.”

William nods. He brings his emerald eyes up to meet mine and for the first time I see the brilliance of his smile. There is no way to hide the surprise on my face and he keeps smiling.

“Thank you. I’ll be contacting you again if I need to.” He walks swiftly out of my kitchen and I hear the door shut a second after.

I stare at the doorway to my kitchen and then scoff. I was so caught up in William’s smile that I didn’t press for any information of my own. I suppose I’m not completely immune to a vampire’s charms.

“Stupid human,” I mumble to myself as I go to my room to retrieve Black. I find her head poking out from under the bed. I bend down to address her.

“You’re smart, you know; avoiding him like that.” I sit on the edge of my bed. “This is why I work alone. Partners are distracting.” Black meows in agreement and I smile.

“You would never trick me with your supernatural charms, would you?” I reach down and scratch behind her ears as she purrs. “Yes, Reese probably wouldn’t either.” I’m suddenly surprised that his name came to mind. For some reason I can’t get the boy out of my head. If I were to place him in a category of mortal, it would be a normal one. His aren’t specifically extraordinary features to the every day person. Maybe it was his smile; that contagious one that infects even me. I grin just thinking about it. Yes, maybe it was that.

Perhaps I’ll make my visits to the deli regular ones.