Religous Differences

“I didn’t know dogs could handle subtlety,” I shoot back. That checks her attitude a bit, but I just played my only ace on a whim. She knows I know. “If you’re referring to Ms. Ferris’ former condition, I would appreciate it if the two of you put your differences aside,” the doctor explains. I glance at him and contemplate actually learning his name, just so I can know who to call an idiot. Werewolves and vampires had never been in the habit of getting along, to put it lightly. Ten thousand years of rape, murder, and slavery on both sides left us enemies by default. And that was back during the good days. “I’ve been around long enough to know she’s not my biggest fan. I got pricked up back in the sixties during the Vampire Enlightenment, so all the zealot nonsense never got stuffed into my head. I don’t have a problem with werewolves if she doesn’t have a problem with me. But I’m not your mortal pal either. I don’t get any more worked up about the people I killed than you do over the cows you butcher for dinner,” I explain dryly. The doctor is still as unphased as ever, but Ferris rolls her eyes. “What is a vampire doing living on the streets with two other hoods? Your whole Enlightenment sect went corporate a decade ago. What’s wrong, they got you working up the job ladder?” I take a long drag on my cigarette and contemplate the cards she’s laid down herself. “I deserted. Got sick of their bullshit. The religious folks, the Nod-worshippers, they tell themselves they have a right to kill people because vampires are chosen by the Gods. Supreme beings and all that. The Enlightenment shuffled all that up by isolating the virus that merges with us and really figuring out what the fuck was going on instead of that magic mumbo jumbo. Thing is, they just say we’re the supreme beings because the virus makes us genetically superior. Same bullshit to justify the same thing: staying alive,” I finish my speech and stub out my cigarette. Ferris offers me another and I accept. “So what do you believe justifies your actions to stay alive, Mr. Shade?” she asks. “I never really needed one until now,” I reply.

Friends from Work

The Doc asks me what I mean and I remind him that I was about to do the Hangman shuffle when he interrupted me. “Death wasn’t exactly inevitable before now,” I explain. My eyes catch the Doc checking a box next to ‘Depressed’ and ‘Suicidal’ like it might be relevant and I wait for the conversation to resume. It doesn’t, the Doc just keeps filling stuff out. “So…you used to be a werewolf? How’d they cure you? Hell, how’d they cure me? The virus mutates so rapidly I had thought it could adapt to everything but a sunny breakfast,” I ask. They eye one another and the doctor keeps writing. “Alright, scratch the last question. How’d they cure you? Lycanthropy is a bacteria that grows in the lower intestine and is spread through the bloodstream. Did they invent some su-“ Her hand moves far stronger than it looks like it can and knocks me clean to the floor. Looks like I said the right thing. “The blood of Fenrir may not be sacred to you but it is still better than your own disease. You may disdain your own religion all that you like, but kindly keep mine out of it,” Ferris says coldly. Looks like I found Ferris’ number and called it wrong. Damn but she could pack a wallop, cured or not. “If you intend to remain in our service for much longer, then I ORDER you to control yourself, Ms. Ferris!” the Doc shouts. He then turns around and helps me out, handing me a pen while he goes back to the desk. “The way we cured you will be revealed depending on you, Mr. Shade. Whether you believe in the cure or not is of little concern,” he explains. The Doc hands me the forms he has been filling out and points to a signature at the bottom. It says job application at the top.

Employed

“In exchange for agreeing to work for us, we will provide you with a place to live and a reasonable income to provide for yourself. You’ll be expected to reside in the city, keep regular hours, and be available at all times. Think of yourself as…an extra hand for the Paladins of Light. Someone who can inform us and explain things,” the Doc explains. I almost ask him what’s to keep me from running off before I remember the noose still coiled back in my room. It’s not like I have anywhere to run. “You want me to sell out my own people?” I ask. “You already said you were apathetic towards any philosophical considerations concerning humanity. You’re cured, Mr. Shade. They aren’t your people anymore. What else were you going to do?,” the Doc replies. It’s not like I have anyone to go to either. I can’t even imagine what Sunshine or Dingo would say if they met me as a human. “What’s to keep me from just getting bitten again and going back to it all?” Ferris snorts and pulls out a cigarette for herself on that one. “You’ll find that you are no longer a viable host for the virus, Mr. Shade. I’m afraid the cure is permanent. You’ll understand that soon enough or maybe not, depending,” the Doc answers. A part of me wants to ask what they plan for me to depend on. What the big deal is. But that cold feeling in my stomach isn’t just nausea at needing to eat, it’s real fear. It’s the real idea of choosing between the noose and trying to carve out a living. Trying to be human. I sign the form and hand it back without another word.

Handshakes

After that it’s all smiles and cigarette smoke as we all get up. The Doc sticks out his hand to shake but I only look at him like he just wiped his ass with it. He sighs. “As you may be noticing Mr. Shade, we’re a very young organization. We’ve only just acquired the means to combat the vampire problem. As you yourself noted, the virus is very powerful and can adapt to almost anything. Except sunlight, naturally,” He motions to the door as he talks and I go out first. In two minutes we’re down the stairs, out the lobby, and going out the doors I was blocked from leaving for the past few days. The light blinds me a little but I get over it quick enough. A glance around reveals I’m in a courtyard with a few other buildings connected by pavement. They even put a fountain and garden into their budget. “Didn’t know landscape decorators liked fighting the forces of darkness,” I mutter. Ferris cracks a bit and gives a laugh as we walk towards another building. “Just out of curiosity, are we exclusively fighting vampires or is this an equal opportunity kill job?” I ask. The Doc looks troubled for a moment and I make a motion to the former-werewolf with great tits. “Ah, I see. Well, that happens to be the source of some dispute within the Paladins of Light. Considering the current…social situation between the two factions, we have decided it best to…,” he’s getting nervous as Ferris loses the smile and gives me a stony look. What the Doc is referring to is the fact that the Guild of Nod, the dominant church of Vampirism, decided to enslave werewolves a few decades ago. Some shit in their Bible, I never read the thing and most of the other Enlightened wanted nothing to do with the werewolves. Kidnapped some important people or something that made the werewolves start working for them. I don’t get much of werewolf culture because, quite frankly, it never came up while I was a vampire. Judging by this little revelation though, apparently they aren’t too excited about being enslaved.

The Cure

Rather than finish his sentence the Doc just goes ahead and we enter another building. From the moment I step inside it smells like lab. Sterilized equipment, white walls, and rubber stench are everywhere. My nose wrinkles and Ferris puts her hand up to block the smell. If she still has some of her enhanced abilities from the lycanthropy infection, it starts to make me wonder what I might still have as well. Either way, the dull ache in my eyes tells me that the sun still isn’t doing me any favors. The Doc slides his card through a few locks and waves to some nurses as they walk by. They both step around Ferris and I like we’re made of lava. “We here at the Paladins of Light employ a variety of former police and military officers. Many have combat training and are experts with fire arms. Believe it or not, most of them end up finding us as they search for answers to their own investigations,” the Doc explains. Given the number of people I’ve sucked dry and dumped in rivers, I believe him. We get to wherever we’re going and suddenly the whole scene changes. Sterile lighting, men in body armor (with steel neck shields), and what look like heavy machine guns are suddenly all around us. I almost think about telling the Doc there is no way I’m wearing something like that when a guard grabs me and searches me. He does the same for Ferris. The Doc doesn’t get touched. We’re allowed in and proceed down a long hall that looks like hospital and feels like battle ship. “Some of our military members proposed employing more sophisticated security for this section of the facility. After all, it contains the heart and soul of our organization. Mr. Shade, allow me to present the very means of your cure!” We walk up to a double-paned glass window and inside the room I see a guy with a book waving his arms over a pile of ammo and sub-machine guns. I don’t recognize the language he’s chanting in and there are armed guards watching over him while he works. I don’t exactly know what I’m supposed to say. “Well…it fucking figures,” I reply.

The Book

“How does your science feel now?” Ferris says. I give her a half-glance and roll my eyes. I’d seen vampires grow limbs after missing them for a few days, punch through concrete walls like paper, and even the occasional glowing pair of eyes. There were explanations for it. Not necessarily great ones, but explanations all the same. “It doesn’t feel like anything. Science isn’t a belief. It’s just there,” I shoot back. After blessing the weapons in front of him, the man closes the book and places it in an engraved metal box next to him. “So you’re telling me that those weapons are blessed? As in, unlike a normal bullet, if I shoot a vampire with one of those they die?” The Doc nods but catches himself. “And they can’t regenerate the wound. Frankly, I’m as puzzled by it as you are. Nothing chemically has changed on the weapon, we checked that. And it’s also not a function of the user’s beliefs, because people who have no clue what they’re holding can still use them. The weirdest thing of all, it’s the book itself. You can’t just memorize the words to the prayers, the person has to actually be holding that book,” he says. I consider asking him how they came to all these facts but decide I don’t want to know. They’re not my people anymore. “Mind if I take a look at it?” I ask. Ferris glances at the Doc at that. “No, I’m afraid that’s not possible. That book is the source of the Paladin’s power and the greatest asset we have. Only the highest members are allowed to perform the rituals and blessings. It was a uniquely blessed weapon that cured you, by the way.” The exposition is starting to make my head hurt because of all the bullshit sirens going off. Magic spells? Holy weapons? I was expecting a medical breakthrough, not a read-along from the book mobile. I looked down at my hands and swallowed. Here I was, cured of the uncurable, and pissed off that I didn’t believe in it. How do you argue with what’s right in front of you?

The Vampire Falcon

The Doc keeps jabbering about the irrefutable proof that this book can do everything from kill vampires to part the Red Sea. It’s the source of Ferris’ cure as well, for the same unexplained reasons. “The only thing anyone can say for certain is that it might have something to do with quantum mechanics,” he finally finishes. He’s gesturing at some photo-copies of archaic diagrams and pointing at some energy x-rays. I haven’t really been listening. The Nod worshippers would’ve been all over this but…I’d always been raised that this religious crap was a bunch of nonsense. That vampires weren’t good or bad, we were just wolves living around sheep. Now some book powered by…God? The Light? Christ, what did this make me back then and in whose eyes? What did it make me now? I’m staring at the floor asking questions people should learn to not ask when Ferris gives me a light shove. “The Doctor is talking to you,” she says stiffly. “I said, Mr. Shade, have you ever heard of a Vampire Falcon?” I’m about to say I’ve also heard of the Big Bad Wolf then I catch myself. Fantasy seemed to be coming true today. “It’s a biological conundrum. Since the vampire virus mutates so rapidly, it’s the hypothetical dilemma that if you could weaken it enough or the person’s immune system was sophisticated enough, they could develop some kind of…balance with it? Resilience? Look, all of this was impossible to me up until I woke up human again,” I explain. Ferris sits down and decides to take over. “Very good, Mr. Shade. A Vampire Falcon is a half-human, half-vampire hybrid. And it is part of the reason we have brought you in and decided to hire you on the force. We have one. And we have no idea what is biologically going on with his body,” she says.