It was quarter to ten on a Saturday night and Shaun and Honey were sitting on cheap metal chairs with a metal table between them outside the Sundae Fundae Ice Cream Parlor. Honey was methodically working her way through a caramel sundae with rainbow sprinkles and extra nuts while Shaun casually people watched, looking for a potential meal. Usually the bar and club scene didn’t have the sort of people Shaun went after. There were levels of wrongdoing, you couldn’t just kill every mundane idiot who ran a red or flashed a fake ID or cheated on a boyfriend. Those weren’t the sort of transgressions that deserved death by exsanguination. Sometimes he got lucky, though. When you knew what you were looking for it was easy to tell the difference between, say, the guy grabbing his girlfriend a little too aggressively because he’s drunk and the guy grabbing his girlfriend a little too aggressively and that’s the absolute least of what he does to her. Sometimes he’d be able to pick a sociopath or a psychopath out of the crowd, some flat or unhinged look behind their eyes that lead to a whole pile of bullshit with only a little digging. Just a few months ago he’d pegged a serial killer looking for his next victim. Called himself ‘Dexter’ for a week despite the fact that Honey had no idea what the hell he was talking about.
All of that was going on vaguely in the back of his mind, and he was mostly scanning people out of habit. They had blood in the fridge back at the apartment and he was already looking at this piece of shit managing a Wendy’s and, he was pretty sure, forcing his teenage staff to do some stuff Wendy’s corporate would not have approved of. He wouldn’t be able to deal with that until the next night, anyway. Tonight, they had come out because Honey wanted ice cream.
“I don’t know why you aren’t understanding this,” Honey said.
“Because it doesn’t make any sense!”
“Of course it does. People don’t like lots of foods.”
“Not chocolate, though. Everyone likes chocolate.”
Honey licked her spoon as she shrugged. “Not me.”
“Because you’re allergic?”
“No! Because I don’t like it.”
“Any of it? None of it. You don’t like any chocolate at all. Milk chocolate?”
“Nope.”
“Dark chocolate?”
“Nope.”
“Okay, but that real dark chocolate that barely has anything in it?”
Honey shuddered. “Too bitter.”
“What…about milk chocolate?”
“You already asked that. It’s too sweet.”
“Chocolate cake?”
Honey sighed. “Why do you even care? You don’t even eat…”
She trailed off. Shaun would understand the meaning. Anyone overhearing wouldn’t.
“No, I don’t. But I’ve still eaten chocolate, if it’s good enough.”
If she had pearls, she would have been clutching them. “The cramps!”
“Last for days. Worth it, though.”
Honey squinted at him. “How am I the weird one here?”
Shaun didn’t answer. Honey wasn’t expecting him to. The conversation had started out real enough – and, seriously, Shaun was going to have further interrogate Honey later about this ridiculous stance against chocolate – but had quickly turned into a cover.
The sidewalk on the other side of the little fence that surrounded Sundae Fundae’s patio had been filled with people since they had gotten there, all hopping between the bars and clubs, and the group of four women he had seen approaching looked like all the rest. Barely dressed in trendy clothes, somehow maintaining balance and speed in violent heels, laughing and talking too loud like they were already drunk.
Except it was all an act. He had given Honey the signal – brushing at the side of his neck like he was scratching – and she picked them out immediately. Shaun knew how he always knew someone was a vampire. When you could hear heartbeats, the silence was deafening. Honey could pick them out almost as fast, though, and she could never exactly articulate how beyond, ‘when you’ve been around them most of your life, you know.’
Vampires. On the hunt.
One of them, in a silver mini dress and black curls down to the middle of her back, clocked him. Her eyes, dark and surrounded by bright pastels, darted between him and Honey and back again before she had raised one perfectly manicured eyebrow. A mini salute, of sorts, from one predator to another.
He’d given her the eyebrow raise back as they slithered through the crowds. If he had a nickel for every time another vampire had thought he was hunting Honey he’d have enough money to buy all the chocolate Honey was apparently never going to fucking eat.
They were gone, and Shaun had been about to ask what to do with them. Four against two. Eh, one and half and Honey would be the first one to say it. Fighting was out. There was always following them around and biteblocking them. Get between them and the victims. Honey was much better at that. It was only a temporary solution, though. It was clear this was how they operated. If they stopped them tonight, they’d just be out next weekend.
“What…about milk chocolate?”
“You already asked that,” Honey got out before Shaun gave her another signal. The ASL H, first two fingers out with the thumb hiding behind them. Because another group had been coming up the sidewalk, following the first.
Maybe Shaun did understand how Honey could always clock vampires, because he had the same innate sense for hunters. Something about the way they walked, their shoulders always up, stiff and scared. Or the way their clothes, always jeans and boots and a plain t shirt and some sort of leather jacket, hung off them, a little too loose. Or their eyes. Bouncing from person to person without really seeing them. Studying them, making a brief assessment, and moving on. There were three of them coming down the sidewalk and usually Shaun would feel nervous. But these three were barely paying attention to anything around them.
They only had eyes for the four women who had already passed.
Shaun turned to watch them stalk down the sidewalk.
“Well, this should be fun,” Honey said.
High Urban Fantasy Jazz 