The Vampire Executioner (A necromancer romance novel)

Chapter 7: I know what you are

Lucan

I knew Esmeralda was a vampire the second she walked into my office. Ok, actually it wasn’t until around lunch break earlier today, I don’t know why it had taken me so long to pick up on it, but I had.

I hadn’t felt anything when she first walked into me, but the longer I was around her, the more I felt uneasy, the same skin crawling feeling I got whenever I was around vampires.

I hated them, they were disgusting monsters who felt nothing and cared for nothing and no one but themselves and their hunger. They were unnatural, an abomination of nature, something that had cheated death in unnatural ways and become something dark because of it.

I hunted vampires in my spare time and for some extra money, usually I went for the vampires that were wanted by the law but had managed to slip away undetected or found loopholes so that the police couldn’t touch them, that’s where I came in.

The need to kill vampires ran deep in my veins, an aching need, like I must put balance back into the world again, into nature again, by killing as many of those abominations as I could.

I usually hunted with Dana, she was extremely good at hunting vampires and was definitely someone you wanted to have at your back.

The only reason I hadn’t let on that I knew what Esmeralda was is because Dana seemed to like her for some reason and Dana rarely liked humans, let alone a vampire.

I also wanted to find out why Esmeralda was really here, if it was a trap of her own doing or if she had been sent by the queen that ruled this city, if so, I would let her lead me back to her clan unknowingly and wipe all those motherf.uckers out along with her.

I watched her hugging Mrs Brooke tightly and wondered what game she was playing, the longer I looked though, the more genuine she seemed.

I had never in my life seen a vampire cry for someone else before, and I had lived a very long time. Usually vampires cried blood too, but this one was crying real human wet tears and for the first time in my life I was left baffled by a vampire.

I led them back to where our cars were parked and after some thanks and goodbyes from Mrs Brooke, I drove Esmeralda home.

I was surprised she let me know where she lived, and I was even more surprised that she lived alone in a house and not with the rest of her clan. It wasn’t very often that I came across a vampire that preferred to live alone.

I looked at Esmeralda and trailed my gaze over her, making her blush shyly and look away.

I tried not to show my disgust, did she really think I would be interested in her, a walking corpse? I looked her up and down so that I could inspect her more, her hair was dry and frizzy and pulled back into a ponytail, it was greying slightly, which was unusual, and I assumed it had been that way before she had been turned.

Her eyes were dark brown and the more I looked at her the more I noticed how very unvampirelike she looked.

She was actually overweight for a vampire, big enough to be classed as obese. Nothing about her screamed vampire, her eye colour was ordinary, her looks were ordinary, although she did look somewhat unwell with the greying thin hair and tired-looking eyes.

Vampires were usually unnaturally beautiful, part of their predatory nature, to lure you in. This vampire was not beautiful at all, she wasn’t even really average looking, I wouldn’t find her attractive if I saw her in a bar or anywhere for that matter.

The only thing that really stood out was her midnight black skin, it was striking, and I wasn’t sure if it was natural or part of her vampire power that made it so unusual.

I didn’t know whether this was a vampire trick all of its own, whether it was to lure you into a false sense of security like their beauty did except this was to make you feel she was a sweet helpless human instead of a seductress, I had no clue, but I was going to be watching and finding out.

I knew I was making her uncomfortable with my staring, so I cut it out and muttered, “see you tomorrow.” I could barely get the words out, what I really wanted to get out was my stake and drive it through her heart and stop wasting time, but I needed her to lure me back to where her clan were hiding out.

Everyone knew there was a queen or king for each clan in each city and sometimes, if they were powerful enough, even a whole country, but that didn’t mean we were allowed to know where they stayed, so I would have to be patient and hope she led me to them soon, even if I had to be tied up and blindfolded I’d still do it.

I’d been here for over six months and still not come close to finding the queen’s nest. It had taken me less than a month to kill the last queen and her clan in Montana.

It usually took me no longer than five months for the majority of clans, this queen was extremely good at hiding, so I would be patient and wait until Esmeralda sprung her trap.

She looked at me and smiled sweetly before climbing out of the car and walking up the steps to her house.

I probably sounded paranoid, but once vampires knew my true identity and what I could do they always tried to kill me, and they always failed.

I was immortal in my own right and had been around since knights were a thing, in fact, I used to be a knight and every so often I still found myself doing things or saying things that were from that era.

Dana had snapped me out of most of it, but it still showed every so often and she would have to jolt me back to the present day. Otherwise I got strange or suspicious looks from people in 2022 who weren’t used to polite and proper spoken English or gentlemanly talk or manners.

I got s.lapped around the face once for both opening the car door for my date and then offering her my hand, Dana had thought it was hilarious and every so often would randomly walk by me and slap me around the face when I least expected it ever since.

Things had been so much simpler back then, everything and everyone now just confused me, so I learnt to be more like Dana and cuss when frustrated or angry and even when I was happy, the most weird thing about it was that people seemed to like me more for it.

I drove home and was greeted by Tom, who had been waiting by the door for me. That’s when I realised that last night, although I had to tried to stay awake somewhat, so I could be prepared for Esmeralda and if she tried anything, I had eventually fallen asleep and slept like a baby.

The only time I could do that was when I was home with Tom because of his cat gift or whatever the hell it was about cats that kept the spirits away.

Esmeralda had seemed to have had the same effect somehow, and I figured it was because she wasn’t technically alive, the energy I felt from vampires was cold and empty like a void and I assumed this must be how it felt to spirits too, they couldn’t sense me because Esmeralda had been like a shield of some sort. Interesting.