All In A Night’s Work

Just your friendly neighborhood vampire man.

Image generated in Midjourney.

Just like anyone else, I have a daily routine. It’s just that thanks to being a vampire, mine starts after dark. I wake up around sunset, and spend maybe another ten to fifteen minutes trying to coax myself out of bed. No, I don’t sleep in a coffin; the idea creeps me out. I don’t want a constant reminder that I’m dead lying around.

Once I manage to shamble to the kitchen, I grab my mug—‘Goth Water’ it says, gifted by a friend who thinks he’s funny — fill it with pork blood, and warm it up a bit in the microwave. Animal blood’s not ideal, but it’s enough to tide me over. After that, it’s time to get ready for the night.

Now, most of the time, this just means work. I might not need to eat anymore, but I still have bills to pay. The rest of the time, though? That’s when my nightly routine and everyone else’s daily one really diverge. Unless of course, someone else out there is also moonlighting as a superhero.

Odd choice for a vampire I know, but there are worse things I can be doing with my life. Afterlife? Unlife? You know what I mean.

Not going to lie. At first I was pretty bad at this, mostly flailing about with my newly acquired vampire powers and trying not to die. All I knew was that I didn’t want to land in a grave permanently, and that undead monsters like me are a lot stronger than humans are, so I clumsily swung at muggers when I tried to fight them.

Got a wooden crate stuck on my hand trying to punch a guy, but then smashed it over his head. I still cringe thinking about that one.

About the only thing I got right was the costume. It’s cobbled together from stuff I had lying around the house, most of it things from high school I don’t even wear anymore, but it works. If I’m going to be sneaking around at night and taking people by surprise, I really don’t want to wear bright primary colors. Also, no cape. Yeah, I know, vampires and capes and all that, but I’m not into it.

Scarves work just fine. You still get the dramatic flowy effect you’re after, but without feeling like you’ve got a bedsheet hanging off your shoulders.

Five months in, I finally feel like I’m getting the hang of things. No more panicky flailing; unless someone’s carrying a wooden stake and a clove of garlic or two, I’ll be alright. Or silver. Silver, as it turns out, is as much a problem for vampires as it is for werewolves.

I know this because a little while back I caught a silver bullet in the arm courtesy of a hunter. It still hasn’t healed completely; if I move that arm wrong, a twinge of pain shoots straight up all the way to my teeth. Honestly, silver’s even worse than the werewolf claws I’ve been on the receiving end of a couple times already.

It’d be nice if the hunters around here learned to differentiate between helpful and harmful monsters, but I won’t hold my breath. Best to just stay out of their way whenever possible.

Thankfully, there were no hunters tonight, no werewolves, and no other vampires. Two men had cornered a girl who was clutching something and shaking her head, unwilling to hand it over. None of them noticed that I was clinging to the side of the building above.

…Or at least, nobody noticed until I landed on top of one of them as a bat monster. Still not sure if that’s what a vampire’s bat form is supposed to look like or I’m just doing it wrong, but it’s great for scaring the absolute hell out of people.

The guy I used to break my fall hit the pavement hard, but not hard enough to knock him out. Pretty sure he was seeing stars since he didn’t start screaming right away. Once his vision cleared and he got a good look at the monstrosity ready to feast on his sweet, sweet blood, he shrieked like a cartoon housewife and fainted.

His buddy turned to see what all the noise was about, going bug-eyed at the sight of me. “The hell are you, some kinda alien?” he yelled. Trying to sound tough, but his hands were shaking. Not like that gun of his could do much against me, anyway. Regular bullets hurt, but not quite like silver does.

Also vampires are freakishly quick. I was on him before he had a chance to aim, pinning him to the ground. Feeling a little cheeky, I changed back into my normal form and slid my mask up just enough for him to see my sharp, pointy grin.

“Nope, just a dead guy,” I quipped before punching him in the face. Out like a light, which would normally be the end of it. I’d make sure the girl was okay and see her on her way before calling the police. Unfortunately, vampiric instincts are what they are, and they tend to get in the way at the worst of times.

My fangs ached.

The older guys have a better handle on things, but fledglings like me are always hungry, and there was a sack of fresh, warm human blood right there.

Just one bite. Just a little sip. Straight from the vein, it was leagues better than the tubs of frozen pork blood I had to heat up in the microwave every evening. I’d done it dozens of times; if I was careful, the worst that would happen would be the guy would be a bit woozy when he woke up. It’d be okay.

I was a heartbeat away from biting into his neck when I remembered that the girl was still there.

That snapped me back to reality. She’d been through enough already; didn’t need to see me chomping on some guy’s throat on top of it all. I was supposed to be a superhero, which meant I had to be a superhero right then. Being a monster could come later.

Sliding my mask back into place, I got up and slowly walked over to her. Trying to look nonthreatening and not like an undead abomination that’d eat her for lunch, you know?

“Hey, um…are you alright? They didn’t hurt you, did they?”

She inched away, afraid that I was about to do the same thing to her that I’d almost done to her mugger. I could hear her heart pounding, the blood racing through her veins, and felt that stab in my teeth again.

“It’s okay. I don’t — -won’t bite. I’ve got it under control. Promise.”

Since saying I didn’t bite would have been an obvious lie at this point.

“Are you…are you actually a vampire?”

“Maaaaaybe?”

Pretty clear to anyone with eyes that I am, but she was kind enough not to press the issue. Guess she was doing me the courtesy of letting it slide considering I’d just saved her and all. If anything, my reluctance to answer seemed to help convince her I wasn’t actually a threat.

That, and dealing with her attackers without draining her dry.

“So you’re a dead guy, who may or may not be a vampire, who goes around beating up muggers?”

I nodded. “Yeah, but there’s a bit more to it than that. Kinda doing the superhero thing. You know, putting my dead guy powers to good use. There’s a lot worse I could be doing with them.”

Like the guy who had been robbing morgues and cemeteries to create an underground zombie fighting ring. Or the woman who had abducted and mind-controlled fifty people. She’d literally reduced them to livestock, and was using them as a steady source of blood.

She kept them in stalls like cattle. It was the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen.

Then there was that one really old guy who’d been collecting the eyes of his victims. I was going to go after him, but it turns out someone had beaten me to the punch. Hunters, probably.

“True. You actually seem a lot less scary than ‘dead guys’ are supposed to be. Giant monster-bat thing aside, I mean,” she agreed. “Is that how the turning into a bat thing is supposed to be? I always thought it was, you know, an actual bat.”

If I didn’t have a mask on, she would have seen how much I was blushing. Not being able to vampire right is embarrassing. “Yeah, I think I’m doing that wrong. It works though.”

I get similar results with my wolf form; looks more like a werewolf than anything. In my defense, I can do mist right. I don’t want to know what that’d look like if I botched it.

“I mean, if you’re going to do that, it does,” she said, pointing to one of the two before clearing her throat. “So um…what happens to them now? Are you going to…?” and she snapped her teeth shut.

I shook my head and pulled out my phone. “Actually, I was going to call the police, report an attempted robbery, and tell them where to find these guys.”

They’re used to it by now. Probably not happy about the random acts of vigilantism, and probably not buying the stories of monster bats and shapeshifting dead guys at all, but used to it.

That seemed to put her at ease, because she nodded and started walking towards the entrance of the alleyway.

“It’s only a little way, but I’d feel safer with a superhero walking me home, dead guy or not. So what do you say?”

Far be it from me to ignore a request like that. What kind of superhero would I be if I didn’t make someone feel safe, right? Those two would be out long enough for the cops to pick them up, so there was no reason to stick around.

---

Ava, as she introduced herself, walked down the street with me as a police car went in the opposite direction.

“Hope they like the present I left them,” I said. Proud of myself? Maybe just a little.

“‘Like’ isn’t really the term I’d use, but yeah,” she said dryly.

“So what were they trying to get from you, anyway? Didn’t seem like it was money or anything.”

“They wanted this,” she explained, pointing to a silver filigree necklace set with a dark red stone. “It was a birthday present from my grandmother, the last one she gave me before she died. I know I should have let them take it, but I couldn’t just let it go. It means too much to me.”

It was definitely real silver, I can tell you that. The fake stuff won’t make me flinch like that did. I rubbed at my arm, trying to ignore the ache from a silver bullet that wasn’t there anymore.

“Yeah, guess you really wouldn’t want to lose something like that,” I said, not wanting to just stay quiet.

“I would have had to if you didn’t come along when you did. Thanks for that.”

Ava stopped in front of an apartment building, looking back at me. “This is my place,” she said. “Thanks again for saving me, um…”

I shifted awkwardly, just kind of wanting to scramble up a wall like a spider in order to get myself out of this situation. Worst part of it was that I had no one to blame for it but myself; I was the one who went around superheroing without any sort of alias.

“…I actually haven’t come up with anything yet.”

Definitely glad she couldn’t see my face and how red I know I was. Kind of funny that the undead can still blush, but I suppose when you have a constant supply of fresh blood in you, it can still happen.

It definitely didn’t help that she laughed a little when I said that. “You’re kidding! You’re going around being a superhero without a superhero alias? Oh, wow.”

Oof, my self-esteem. That hurt worse than either of those guys could have managed with bullets, silver or otherwise.

“It’s actually a lot harder than you’d think, considering I’ll be stuck with it once I’m done. Also, I’d rather not get too close to anything copyrighted, yeah?”

I really don’t have lawsuit money. If I still had to eat I’d barely have rent money.

She laughed again, but I felt less like I was being laughed at this time. “True. You’re gonna have to come up with something, though. Sooner or later, some reporter’s gonna know about you, and they’re going to need something to call you.”

With that, she waved goodbye and went inside. As for me, I went back to work. Can’t just save one person and call it a night when you’re a superhero, now can you?

Now if I could just finally come up with a name.