Burke and the Vampire

Chapter 1 “What’s on your agenda for tonight?” Dan asked Burke as they got ready to leave work. “Not a damned thing worth talking about,” Burke replied in disgust. “Go home, eat, watch whatever dreck’s on TV.” “On a Friday night? Man, are you crazy?” “So I’ve been told.” “Hit up a club. Find a willing chick and take her home. That’ll liven up your life.” Dan winked salaciously. “I might.” Not that he would. Burke only said that to get Dan off his back. “Is that what you’re doing?” “Thinking about it. Tell you what, we’ll go together. There’s a great place on Magazine and they have free oysters.” He waggled his eyebrows. Burke snorted. “That’s all a lot of hype. They’re no more an aphrodisiac than…than anything in there.” He pointed to vending machine full of wrapped sandwiches in the break room as they walked by it on the way to the elevator. “Yeah, but the ladies don’t know that. Feed them a few and they’re turned on. It’s all mind over matter.” “If you say so. I’ll still pass, thanks.” Stupid bastard. “Whatever.” Dan hurried to the elevator, buttonholing another man they worked with just as the guy was getting on. Burke heard Dan ask him, “What’s on your agenda tonight?” and shook his head as the elevator doors closed behind them. “Talk about desperate,” he said under his breath. He got on the elevator when it returned, taking it down to the ground floor. From there he walked to where he always parked his car—in a lot a few blocks from the building. Five minutes later he was on his way home, glad for the end of the work week. As a single man, his house was more than he needed, but it had been in his family since the turn of the last century and he wasn’t about to part with it. It was three stories, with four bedrooms and baths, and a large kitchen that he’d modernized soon after he’d inherited the house. It also had the requisite living and dining rooms, plus two parlors, one of which he’d turned into his home office. He’d probably still be living in his old apartment in the Quarter if his parents hadn’t been killed in the 2015 terrorist attack in Paris while they were there to celebrate their thirtieth wedding anniversary. A hell of a way to end their lives he often thought, but at least they died together and were undoubtedly happy—until the last few terrifying moments. He’d moved into the house a month later, after packing up most of their clothing and other items he didn’t need, which he gave to some of the shelters in the city. Modernizing the kitchen was something they’d planned on doing—someday—so he did it in their memory. “And because it was God awful,” as he’d told a friend at the time. He parked in the garage, then walked across the plant-filled patio to the large deck spanning half the rear of the house. A wall of windows reflected the early evening sunlight as he unlocked the glass-paned door at one end, which opened onto the kitchen and dining nook. Before heading upstairs to change clothes, he turned on the coffeemaker. His bedroom, the same one he’d had growing up, faced the street with a balcony above the front porch. The day was warm but not uncomfortable, so he opened the doors and windows to let in the fresh breeze, stepping out onto the balcony to take in the view of the river less than three blocks away. “Nice night,” his neighbor Tom called up. “It is,” Burke agreed. “I see you’re taking advantage of it.” The older man laughed. “My grass needs mowing before everyone accuses me of trying to turn my front yard into a jungle.” “If that happens, you could borrow some of the lions and tigers from the zoo to inhabit it,” Since their homes were only a few blocks from Audubon Zoo, it was a logical, if silly reply. “I think my wife might object.” “Probably.” Burke gave him a wave and went inside. Stripping, he hung up his slacks and shirt then went to shower. When he was finished, he put on a pair of well-worn jeans and a dark blue T-shirt and went down to see what he could fix for dinner. An hour later, feeling well fed but not stuffed, it was time to see what trouble he could get into—or keep other people out of. He gathered up what he needed and took off. * * * * “You really should rethink that,” Burke said under his breath as he watched a young man who looked as if he couldn’t be more than twenty, if that, stalking a very inebriated tourist who had apparently decided to use a dimly-lit side street to get where he was going. He meant the tourist, but it applied to the young man as well. When they came to the entrance to one of the ubiquitous courtyards that dotted the Quarter, Burke heard the tourist mutter, “This is a good a place as any to take a piss.” The young man was right behind him, obviously waiting for the right moment to attack. Burke drew his silenced pistol from his waistband holster, slipped into the narrow entryway, and fired twice. “Got you,” he whispered as the bullets tore into the young man, one of them piercing his heart. Almost instantly, all that was left of him was dust drifting down to the pavement. The drunken tourist was blissfully unaware of what had transpired as he unzipped and then pissed into the water of a small fountain in the center of the courtyard. Just as well that he hadn’t seen anything. It was always touch and go, trying to convince a vampire’s potential victim that they had been imagining things. Usually Burke was glib enough to carry it off. Occasionally that wasn’t the case. Then he had to swear them to secret, lying by telling them if they revealed what they’d seen the vampire’s sire would find and kill them. “Even I’m not strong enough to keep that from happening,” he’d say, and they believed him. Being New Orleans, even if they didn’t keep their promise most people would figure they were so taken with the vampire legends which flooded the city that they were playing into them to boost their egos. As soon as the drunk had staggered by him, Burke took time to reload his pistol with more silver bullets. He hoped he wouldn’t have to use the gun again, at least tonight, but he never counted on it. Returning to the street, Burke walked the half block to Bourbon and strolled toward Esplanade, staying hyper aware of the people around him. From there, he made his way back to Canal Street then across to Royal where he repeated the process—and the same on Chartres and Decatur. Nothing piqued his interest, or his senses, as far as what he was searching for. It was his routine every Friday night. Saturday nights he cruised either the Central Business District or along Magazine Street, which ran from the Garden District to Uptown. The rest of the week, being a working stiff, he couldn’t afford to stay up late enough to do much good and still be in shape for his job the following day. If I could clone myself so there were ten of me, maybe I could rid the city of the real vampires who haunt it. But he was only one man, and human. A man with a special gift.