His Louie

Alexander POV The heat of the day was oppressive as it beat down on the dark curled head of the young man that graced my home with his presence. The sweat from his excursions coated his forehead as he continued on with his training. More and more these days, I find myself drawn to my computer screen checking the security footage. Hoping for a glimpse of the captivating young man with the long black curly hair. A truly ridiculous pass time for one as old as I. But, as the other vampires in my kiss slept away the long hours of the day in their various rooms or coffins. I, Alexander Durand at the ripe age of 300, a distinguished member of my kiss am once again sitting here lusting after a human through a computer screen that I have never met. I'm like one of those. What did Angel call them? "Internet creepers". It felt more like a school yard boy stalking a first crush if i was honest with myself, which again is a preposterous past time. I need a hobby. That isn't this. Being a skulking spying vampire, assuaging my boredom by obsessing over a human. In all honesty, if I just wanted to drain him, that would be acceptable. But no, I did want to taste him, but I also wanted to know how soft his hair was. I found myself wondering if I would be able to smell the sun on his skin. Ridicules, and it stops now. Damn it. I closed my laptop and, for good measure, unplugged the dammed thing, forgetting that wouldn't changed anything. It didn't need to be plugged in to work, but alas, a concept that escaped my mind at the current moment. I got up and enclosed myself in my coffin for the day, hoping against hope that his visage would leave me be. Louie POV Since I moved here to Louisiana from Texas, I have moments of wondering if this was a good idea, if this is what mom and dad wanted for me. If accepting the invitation to train with V.I.C.E. was a sound decision. I guess it's better than working day in and day out at my dead-end job in Texas. Coming home to my empty apartment and ruminating on the death of mom and dad having to remind myself that I was 10 when it happened there was nothing I could have done. "That's enough for today, boys" commander Berk yelled across the training field, bringing me back to reality. Breathing heavily, I gathered my shirt that I shed an hour ago, due to the overwhelming heat of the day. Making sure to also gather my water bottle, and taking note of many of the other "whelps" as they called us. Checking to make sure they also didn't leave anything behind. Not wanting the dressing down and extra training that followed as punishment for leaving a mess and or your things on the training field once training had concluded. We all head for the double doors of the dining hall for the best part of the day lunch. We are part of the vampire integrity and concealment endeavor or V.I.C.E. It's a program created by both the vampire council and the witch collective, a cooperative between the two species to protect humans from us and us from normal humans. Witches stop getting burned at the stake and get to use the vampires' considerable wealth to train and house future witch generations. The vampires get daytime guard dogs that train and replace them themselves. Everybody wins. Which is why, at 25 years old, I am in the middle of nowhere Louisiana training to be a VICE officer. Not all witches have to participate. It's like the military for normies, but smaller scall. There are witches and vampires everywhere in the world, but each country has its own council or collective who makes the rules for them. "Louie!! Over here!" I turn to see Nicky and James standing next to the building, so I join them since we are on break. "I thought we could have a smoke while we wait for the line to get shorter". Nicky said cig between his lips, "want one?". "Sure", I take it and draw on it while I look them both up and down. I've only been here for 3 months but Nicky and James have become my go-to-friends. They have both been slowly filling me in on the dos and don'ts of the witch world. All the stuff that we won't be taught in our history classes or find written down anywhere. The ins and outs of witch culture, a lot of it just feels like gossip to me, but hey, I'm never bored. Nicky wipes his face with his shirt, trying to clear it of dirt and sweat. He is all muscles with slicked back brown hair and a goatee. Standing at 6'1, already pretty mean looking, but add in the tattoos that cover his arms, not many people find him approachable. Which is a shame Nicky's a good guy. James, on the other hand, is 5'8 with close-cropped hair, dark chocolate skin and very clean cut. Also, a cool dude, but James is a very to the point kind of guy, no sugar-coating with him. "Hey, so I hear they are taking us to the vampire side soon" Nicky says as he exhales a puff of smoke. "Did you hear about when?" I asked. "No, but Jacobs keeps bringing it up any chance he can, and gets more excited every time, so probably sooner rather than later," Nicky says. "Yea, that would figure Jacobs struck me as the snack type. I guess we won't be seeing him on rotation." James says, rolling his eyes. "Snack type?" I ask confused. "Oh yea, I forgot you grew up in the human system so you wouldn't know." Nicky said, nudging James with his elbow, "why don't you tell him, since I'm too polite to scare the man". James' face gets more serious as he checks around to make sure no one is listening. "Alright, but don't ask anyone else about it. Everybody knows about it, but it. It's not OK to talk about. Hell if the commanders hear us they would run us all into the ground just for calling Jacobs a snack." James says, lowering his voice. "Yea OK but why are you calling him a snack?" I ask again, even more confused. "Every new cycle for training they take the whelps to the vampire side to see where they might one day be working, and every cycle without fail one of the trainees gets singled out and gets extra attention from one of the blood suckers., it's never obvious according to the rumors, like there hiding it from the other vamps, but then the trainee disappears and nobody makes a fuss and acts like they were never there." James finishes seriously. I laugh in disbelief. "Come on, how many times could that have actually happened sounds a bit far-fetched." I say, looking between them both. Nicky smiles and chuckles nervously "Yea, I thought the same thing but apparently it's happened twice in the last 50 years." James nodded, "yea so just be careful when we go, that's all I'm sayin." I put my cigarette out. "Well thanks, I guess, let's go get some food. I'm starving." The three of us head toward the entrance of the dining hall. I'm happy to have something else to speculate on. Even if I'm sure that it's all just rumors, V.I.C.E. Wouldn't just let us go missing. But it was nice to see that James had a prankster side. Now I just had to find a way to pay him back for trying to scare me.