Chapter Seven

            I’ve got my answer.  It didn’t even take me a full day to find it. Score three for Rachel. Eric must have sensed my excitement because his expression grew wearier. I broke the silence “Thank you for letting me know and for the warning.  Is there anything else that you know about him that you could tell me? I’m sure any details would help.”

            Eric looked at me more closely this time. He looked a bit lost this time in his gaze.  “You know, you’re really pretty,” he said.  He’s got the same creepy stare starting as the man from the impound lot and gas station had. Is this some weird vampire juju? Did it make people notice me?

            “Thank you Eric, but I really need to –” I started.  Before I could finish, Eric decided it was still his turn to speak. 

            He kept staring and said “I’d really like to take you out sometime.  Do you live nearby?” He scooted closer. Oh my god, he smelled amazing. It might be vampire juju, but I’m going to play along. For now. It’s not every day a strange sexy man hits on me.  

            “I live fairly close.  What did you have in mind?”  

            Eric leaned closer and gently tucked my hair behind my ear.  “Anything you’d like. I’d be happy to have you show me around the area.  I just know this small 2 block radius.  Any favorites? If not, I can find something to surprise you with.”

            Something about this flirting was making me feel a certain way.  What was it?

            Hungry.

            “Are you free now? It’s nearly lunch. We can find something to do. Movie?”

            Eric was definitely in my personal space now.  It was sudden, but it didn’t feel creepy at all. Mainly because my vampy senses were tingling. I could hear his heart beating steadily. The closer he came, the faster it was beating. All I could hear was his heart sounding out to the beat of “Eat me. Eat me. Eat me.”

            “Eric, do you have any other appointments coming in soon?”

            He inched closer. “Just you today, darling.” He leaned in for a kiss. The warmth of his against my lips was almost more than I could take. It’d be so long since I’d even been on a date and it was taking everything I could to keep it together. I could feel my mouth tingling. “Ouch, a little too hard on the lip biting sweets,” he said and pulled away.

            Shit. My fangs must have popped out. He stared at my face now.  He wasn’t running. He wasn’t screaming. He was staring right at my mouth.

            “So the rumors are true,” Eric finally said. “I’d always heard thing about The Barton, but they seemed too ridiculous to even repeat.  Why are you really here?”

            “I told you why, Eric. That man broke into my car and ended my life.  That is what he took from me. I’d never seen the man before that point and I don’t know why he chose me. From the moment I realized what he had done, I had vowed to get revenge. Find answers, take him down, whatever I need to do.  The first step was finding him and you’ve helped so much with that.”

            “Are you going to kill me?” he asked.

            “No! I would never.  I just came to find answers.”

            “Okay, then I’d still like to take you on that date. I’ve got questions now that I want answered. We can go over everything over dinner.  There is more that you need to know.”

            “Sounds great! But I can’t eat. Drinks? I think I can drink.”

            “You think?? How long have you been a vampire?”

            “You’re witnessing day one.”

            “What do you eat?”

            “I haven’t yet.”

            He stared at me for a minute. “I’ll help you. Or I can try.  I don’t want to be on the menu, but we can try to find a blood bag or something. We’ll figure it out.  I probably should be terrified sitting across from a baby vampire, but you don’t seem like one of the bad ones.”

            We exchanged numbers and made plans to go out that night at seven, after his store closed.  He wanted to run by his place and grab something first.

            Seven on the dot, I heard a knock on my door.  I answered and saw Eric standing there even better looking than before.  He had a bottle of wine and a bottle of whiskey in hand. “Can I come in?” he questioned. “I figured it might be best to start here.  Seems like more of a private conversation, didn’t want anyone listening in.

            “Sure, come on in.”

            Eric walked in and I grabbed some glasses.  Could I get drunk still? Maybe I’ll have the tolerance of a train, I mean a man, and not turn into a lush with the drunchies. He poured wine in my glass, and I took a sip.  Fine so far. Eric poured a drink for himself and took a seat on my couch. Cooper seemed happy to have the living visit and pranced over to beg Eric for attention. Eric obliged.

            “Rachel, is there anything else I should know? About Barton or yourself?”

            “You know what I know.”

            “Okay. I do know more than I previously mentioned about the Barton.  I suppose I should start at the beginning.  I moved into my older building a few years ago. I’d have people renting the suites next to me that would mention or gossip about Barton and I always just blew it off. His bar was at the corner of the parking lot our shopping center was in.  We’d see cop cars stop by the bar occasionally, but never heard anything of it. One day my friend Russell from the suite next to me decided it would be a great idea to go into the bar and see what the fuss was all about.  It was the most bizarre bar I’d ever been to in my life. We walked in and everyone stared.  It was darker inside, almost like we had walked into a strip club.  There was no dancing, but everyone sat in different darkened corners of the room. There was no lively party live going, and there was not much socializing going on.  We walked up to the bar and asked for a menu.  No menu so I picked something from what I could see. The bartender opened a beer and handed it to me.  Palest woman I’d ever seen in my life.  This is where it gets weird.”

            “It already sounds a bit weird.”

            He ignored my interruption and continued.  “We looked around and saw some of the tables had people on leashes. Some had cages with people in them.  It looked like a couple of them had been branded with branding irons. I was convinced it was some sort of weird S&M sex bar. I’d seen enough, finished my beer, and we booked it. My friend was fascinated though.  He couldn’t figure it out.  For the next few weeks, he looked into this bar and found out about the Barton.  In his research, the only Anton Barton he could find nearby that could have been him was born in 1875.  Obviously, there was no way Anton Barton was born in 1875, or so we thought. The more he investigated things, the more he seemed to be slipping from sanity.  He had a theory that Barton was some type of leader of a crime group.  He would watch the bar and said he’d see the same few people stopping by, coming in and out, carrying things back and forth.  As far as he could tell, they didn’t work there, but they seemed to be reporting to Barton. Again, we thought mafia or crime ring.  Until, one day Russell disappeared.  I came into work one day and noticed a for lease sign on his business door.  I peeked inside and it was completely cleared out.  I called him a few times, but his phone was off. After work that day, I stopped by his house to see what was going on.  His house was completely empty, no sign of him living there at all. The next day, I asked around to the owners of nearby suites if they knew what happened to Russell. They all acted like they’d never heard of him. It was the strangest thing, like he’d been completely erased from history. I’m not sure why I hadn’t been affected by the effective erasure of Russell, but I had assumed the “mafia” crew had paid them off somehow to not speak of Russell again. Now, I wonder if maybe there was something more going on there. Something supernatural.  Do you know of anything like that? What all are vampires capable of?”

            I took it all in, but sadly I had no answers for Eric. “I honestly don’t know. I’m still learning as I go. I know I can’t eat food. I can go out into the sun. I can see my reflection. I probably can only have blood and apparently alcohol. I can’t fly (that I know of) and I have no supernatural abilities that I know of.  Other than the fact that I died and came back.  I also seem to have a weird appeal towards men. Case in point – you.”

            Eric laughed at the last bit. “That isn’t a vampire effect, for me at least.  I haven’t gone on a date in over a year, and you are a gorgeous girl. Surely, you know that. I can’t account for anyone else you might have had an effect on though.”

            Okay, I felt better about having this strange man in my house knowing I didn’t lure him in with my trance. “So if it’s not a vamp effect, why are you not afraid to be here? To ask me on a date even? Someone normal would be terrified I’d think.  I’m sure I would have been terrified if a vampire came into my work. And you kissed me! We’d only just met.”

            “What can I say? When you know, you know.”

            “So what now?”

            Eric smirked and asked “Dinner?”

            “You??”

            “No! Let’s find you dinner. Starting with the easiest option first. Want to go break into a blood bank?”

            “As a matter of fact, I do.” And off we went.