Chapter 1 #2
“That sucks.” The lights went out at ten o’clock, and he wondered if he could get a night light.
Not that he was afraid of the dark, but he didn’t usually get into bed before three in the morning, and this wasn’t going to help him sleep at all by just turning the lights off.
He thought about asking for special care, but thought they’d make it darker somehow, and he’d never get any sleep.
“The mother fuckers would probably just laugh at me like they’ve been doing since I got here. ”
He tried to remember, after getting himself worked up over the lights, who he’d seen that was a vamp.
The only person that he could think of was Smith, and he didn’t look much like the vampires that he’d seen.
Then he got to thinking about it. He had been wearing all black.
Not that that was a sure sign, but with his dark hair and blue-green eyes, it was something that he’d not thought of.
Then there was what he’d said about owning the land for decades.
“Yes, sir, he’s a vampire.” He was told to hush up by the other people in the cells, and he decided to ignore them. “Rance Smith is a vampire.”
“All the Smiths are vampires. Shut the hell up and go to sleep. I have a court hearing in the morning, and I’d rather not be exhausted when I go there.
” He didn’t understand why missing a couple of hours of sleep had anything to do with court hearings, but he let it go.
Another man down the way said he’d not mess with the Smith’s in town. They were dangerous.
He wasn’t afraid of any vampires. They were a bunch of panisses as far as he was concerned.
He’d heard about them from his mother and knew that they were just like they were in those romance books that she read all the time.
Pretty boys that didn’t have the sense to come in out of the sunlight before they were dead.
“Stupid cocksuckers.” That’s all they were too.
He’d known a couple of them who were new babies; they called them.
They were a waste of flesh, just running around making more babies, and he didn’t like them.
Someday, he’d capture himself one and make it heal him. Wouldn’t that be the best way to go?
If Smith really was a vamp, he wondered how old he was.
Couldn’t be too old. He didn’t look a day over twenty-five.
He knew that they aged differently, just like him, but he didn’t know much more than what the romance books told him.
Not that he’d ever read them, but his momma loved them, and he’d trust her over a vampire any day of the month.
He started getting tired around three in the morning.
He wasn’t positive that was the time, but since he went to sleep at that time nightly, he figured it had to be right around that time.
As soon as he snuggled up in the little bit of blanket that they gave him, he felt his body relax enough to get some sleep.
Walton didn’t usually dream unless it was the dream that he had about making it rich.
He’d been dreaming that since he’d been just a small boy.
It was always the same way. He’d be carried in on a large car with ticker tape blowing down from windows all around him.
His momma and daddy were there, too, just like he remembered them before they got too sick to move around.
The town had been thrilled that he’d bought up the land and brought more businesses to town.
That’s the way it should have been here, but these people were just too stupid to know what was good for them.
It wasn’t even dawn yet when he’d been told he had a visitor.
Damned if it wasn’t that Conri person telling him that he shouldn’t be in his territory unless he got permission.
Even though he was only about a quarter wolf, he still had to obey the rules like everyone else did, and now he had to pay a fine for his transgressions and be out of town by the end of the month.
“That’s six days from now. You’d best be doing your business and be gone before then, or I’ll assume you want to die by pack.
I don’t mess around with trespassers. Especially ones that bother good friends of mine.
” He asked if he was really going to kill him for trespassing.
“Yes. As I said, you’re bothering some good friends of mine, and I don’t like you at all for that.
Get out of town while the getting is good, or so help me, you’ll never see us coming for you. ”
Six days was more than the police gave him, and he was going to make it count.
The first person he was going to see was that Smith person and ask him why he hadn’t just said he was a vampire.
Then he’d go from there. This town would sit up and take notice if he told them all that there were vampires running around.
~*~
Rance had lived in his house for the last several days.
Something was missing, but he couldn’t figure out what it was.
It just didn’t seem to be as warm as the other houses, and he didn’t know how to fix that with his magic.
He was going to have to pay more attention when he went over there to see what it was he was missing in his home.
It had to be something small because it didn’t jump out at him when he’d been there.
The house was nearly all green. He loved that he’d been able to incorporate all the things that he’d read about over the years.
He was going to be saving water and power by reusing it all when he had the chance, like washing his hands in the bathroom.
That water went to flush his toilet. Shower water would go into a large container and be used for watering the plants.
There were even solar panels on the roof to make his own power when he needed it.
Just as he was having a glass of water, someone knocked on his door. It was Huston again.
“What do you want? I think I made it perfectly clear that I’m not selling my land.
Land that I own.” He said they got off on the wrong foot.
“No kidding. Did you know that you’re dying?
You’d think you’d be someplace where you could get some medicine in you instead of running around like nothing is wrong.
You can’t have that much longer to live. ”
“I have plenty of time to make a name for myself and buy up some land. I know you’re not selling your land, but I have a deal for you.” He asked him what sort of deal. “I won’t tell the town that you’re a vampire, and you’ll sell me some of the land that you have. You have too much of it anyway.”
“I’ll be the judge of me having too much land.
And I don’t. I want to keep neighbors away, so I built in the middle of the acreage so that I don’t.
” Then he smiled at the sick man. “Everyone in town knows that we’re vampires.
Everyone. So long as we don’t cause them any trouble and don’t bother them, they don’t care.
You’re going to have to come up with something better than that to blackmail me.
Now this is how this is going to happen.
You’re going to go back to whatever rock you crawled out from under and leave me the hell alone.
I’ve told you several times now that I have no interest in selling any of my land to you, and that’s final.
You should get yourself to a doctor and let them tell you what’s wrong with you. ”
“I have cancer of the blood. See, I know what’s wrong with me.” Rance simply reached out beyond the man and told Brew that he was being harassed by Hudson again and that he had leukemia.
“He’s going on about not telling the town that we’re vamps and that he’ll buy my land so he doesn’t tell.
I don’t think he believes me when I tell him that they already know that we’re vampires and they don’t care.
” Brew laughed and said he could take care of him.
“I don’t think making him dead is the way to go.
People might be happy that he’s gone, but then there might be questions.
He’s an idiot if you were to ask me. What kind of person thinks that blackmailing is a way to make friends over something like this?
No one. He’s going to get his ass handed to him if he doesn’t watch out with what he’s doing. ”
“I spoke to Conri, and he said that the man had no money at all. He thinks that with good credit, he’s going to be able to buy up land all over the place and make a name for himself before he dies.
” Rance asked how that was supposed to work.
“I have no idea. He’s all alone in this world, I suppose, and that’s where he gets off telling people that he owns their land, hoping that someone will say that he does.
He said to show him your monster and see if that turns him away. ”
“I might just do that before it’s all over.” He looked down at the little man. “What’s he doing out of jail anyway? I thought that he had to wait for Markus to come around.”
“Conri had him released so that he could cause more trouble and get into deeper shit with the judge. He seems to think he’s going to piss off the wrong person, meaning you, I believe, and you’ll take care of him if the judge doesn’t.
” Rance said that he might end up doing that.
The man was becoming a royal pain in the ass.
“Just don’t drain him. That’s all I ask.
We don’t need the town coming down on us about this little man. ”
“It wasn’t my intention to drain him. Not with him having cancer.
His blood would be tainted, and I don’t need to deal with something like that when I’ve only just got my house the way that I wanted it.
” Rance thought about why he was calling it a house and not his home.
“I need to get one of the women up here to tell me what I need to make it more homey. It’s beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but—hang on, he’s saying something to me. ”