“Required Immediately: Genuine vampire, must be able to authenticate verity.

Guaranteed returns. References required. Sincere inquiries only. Apply with phone
number in care of this paper, Box 544.”

I wasn’t really going to ask for references.

My ad appeared on Tuesday, to run for a week, and the replies began to arrive on
Thursday.

I was careful. I had to be. Most of them were kooks.

After the week, I winnowed out the obvious fakes and the religious nutfarmers trying to
save my soul – one of whom turned out to be my mother, I’m pretty sure - and narrowed
the replies down to seven.

As a test, I made appointments - from payphones - with each of them for midday and
four agreed. Of course I cancelled those and scratched their names off my list.

That left a tantalizingly verisimilitudinous three who had politely requested a meeting
after sunset.

I rented a room in a rundown Parkdale rooming house and arranged to meet them there,
one at a time, armed against both the infernal and the mundane.

The first merely identified himself as the Earl. I hoped it was a pseudonym for ‘the
Count’. I was to be disappointed.

It was almost eleven thirty at night when the horrible grating sound of the door buzzer
sounded in my temporary room. I didn’t realize I’d been dozing in the thirty year old
kitchen chair that was, with its twin, the only furniture in the room. I jumped up and ran
out into the hall. I could see the Earl through the inner door, smiling at me and waving.

I cringed. He was wearing glasses, a baseball cap and a plaid lumberjacket. Of course,
the first thing I thought was ‘Renfield.’ I was wrong.

Before I opened the door, I asked who he was looking for.

He pulled an imaginary cloak over his face and said, through his elbow, with a bad
Lugosi accent, “Good evening!”

I opened the door anyway. His hand went out immediately. “Hey there! Name’s Earl.
‘D call myself Count Earl but that sounds like a Sesame Street character, eh?”

I stared. “Um...” I shook his hand hesitantly.

“Can I come in? There’s always vampire hunters around. Fearless, those guys. Get it?”
A movie reference, Polanski. He brayed at his own joke. Someone down the hall
shouted something about ‘Shut up, it’s almost midnight!’

I ushered him down the hall and into the room. He looked around. “No mirror?”

I had a small hand mirror in my pocket for just this moment. “Sure,” I said, pulling out
the first test. He posed, I don’t know why. I held the mirror at an angle off to one side.
No reflection. I stared back and forth at him and the mirror.

“Do I pass?” he said.

“So far, “ I managed to say, hoping I was hiding my existential astonishment.

You see, I didn’t really think this would work. I didn’t really believe in vampires or
ghosts or even God for that matter. But Lucia had begged me to do this. I loved her
more than I loved my own life. So I had done what she asked.

Thus I found myself face to face with a real vampire. A real vampire. My head spun.

But I couldn’t give anything away until I figured more out about him. I slipped the
mirror back into my pocket.

“Have a seat,” I said.

“Not sprayed with holy water, is it?” he asked. Although armed with holy water among
other things, I hadn’t even thought of doing that. “I’ll stand,” he said.

“No, no. I’m not trying to kill you. I need you.”

“For what? Those ‘guaranteed returns’ from the ad?”

“Exactly.”

“So cut to the chase. I have to feed every night.” He raised his eyebrows and puckered
his lips. “You don’t look like one of those idiot Goth kids...”

“Not me. My girlfriend.” Was he reading my mind?

“Oh, she’s sick! You want me to vampirize her! Or do you want me just to kill her?”

“You were right the first time. I don’t want to lose her.”

“Yeah, true love. But what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Don’t you want to live forever?”

“Not like that...”

“But it’s okay for her.”

“It’s what she wants. It’s what she needs right now, too. Or she’ll die.”

“You know she’ll be dead if I do her, right?”

“Yeah. I guess. But she’ll still be with me here on Earth.”

“Not really how it works, but okay. Listen, if I do you, you can do her. You’ll be
together until the end of time.”

I realized he was staring right into my eyes, and sounding more convincing with every
word out of his mouth. I should have seen this coming, since I’d read Lucia’s research
assiduously.

“Don’t look at me like that, please, Earl.”

“What? I’ve got nice eyes, don’tcha think?”

“Uh...”

“And I have a very sexy mouth. Look at these lips...” His tongue moved across his
upper lip, leaving a sheen.

“Um...”
“Even if I don’t really do ya, do you still want to maybe just do it? Right here? Right
now?”

This wicked thing moved his mouth towards mine, raising his hand towards the back of
my head. His fangs sparkled in the ordinary room light.

I thought I heard Lucia’s voice whispering to me across the city and I snapped out of it
and I snapped.

It was an old magician’s trick I’d prepared. My right arm went up in a warding gesture
and holy water sprayed from my sleeve out across his face. He screamed like a rock
star’s groupie, pulling back from me and my left hand came out of my pocket to stiff-arm
an oaken stake into his chest. Adrenaline.

“You son of a bitch!”

He collapsed in a cloud of yellow smoke. Then his clothes fell in on his crumbling bones
and there was only a stained grey skull lying on the floor staring at the door.

A roar came from the next room through thin walls. “I said shut up!”

I sat down hard on the kitchen chair.

I’d never deliberately killed anyone before.

Oh, Jesus. What was I doing.

I was saving Lucia, that’s what.

I looked at my watch. I had twenty five minutes until my next appointment.

I took off my loaded jacket and cleaned up. On a whim, I put the skull in my gym bag.
Maybe I could get it coated in lucite.

It didn’t take very long to finish up and after a few minutes I was sitting down again, but
calmer and thinking of Lucia.

I’d met her three months ago at a science fiction and fantasy convention. She was
dressed like Lily Munster and I like the Grand Moff Tarkin. We both reached for the last
copy of a vintage issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland when our hands touched. For
me it was like a mild electrical shock, almost like the first moment of an orgasm. She
stared at my reaction. “Easy there, my lord. There’s world enough and time.”

I fell in love as I had never been.

She didn’t tell me she was sick for a few weeks and when she did, I decided I’d die with
her.

Then she told me her plan.

Now here I was. Vampires were real and I’d just destroyed one.

There was another one on its way to my door. And another one half an hour after that.

I reloaded the holy water, a little worried about my supply since it was hard to get
nowadays, but not impossible if you know who to ask. Lucia had done the research well.

I thought to phone her and tell what had just happened, but I didn’t want to disturb her
rest. She was so frail and getting weaker. I let a sob go, then got myself under control.
Moments before my watch said midnight, the wretched buzzer sounded again. I
shrugged back into my jacket, quickly re-arming the tricks and weapons, then took a long
deep breath.

I opened the door to the hallway and went to meet the person who had called himself
only Tim.

A fedora shadowed his face. He mouthed my name and I nodded. He tilted his head
back and let go a sort sharp howl. I stared.

After a moment, mist started seeping through the framework of the outer door, then it
became denser, more like smoke, then it began to coalesce and condense behind Tim. He
stepped aside. Igor? I was still staring.

Suddenly, standing where Earl had stood so recently was a delicately featured woman
with reddish blond hair held by a tight cap. She wore a black turtleneck under a grey
jacket.

I did not move towards the door at first. I was still rattled by my own crime, my nerves
still stung and singing.

We stared at each other for a moment, then she opened her moutth, raising her upper lips
in an emotionless snarl to reveal her fangs. Perhaps she thought she still had to convince
me.

I nodded and let her in. The other, obviously a servant, followed her into the hallway. If
he was her bodyguard, he had secret skills not apparent in his small size and graceless
bearing.
She held her hand out as if she expected me to kiss it. I merely grasped it for a moment
and let it go. “I am Countess Lokia Pekkonen. You know Tim.” Her accent was soft
and fluid, sexy even.

Well, well. A vampire countess. And Finnish. “Come in, please.”

We went into the room. There was a fly buzzing about. Tim stood by the door, eyes
constantly moving, always on the fly. Ah, now this was Renfield!

Pulling the chair so that its back was against the wall, she sat down without being asked.
She glanced around. “Yes, very good. One of my own priest-holes is only a few blocks
over.” She smiled. She looked at me. “I smell holy water on you. And garlic blossoms
somewhere.” In a baggie in my gym bag. Probably not the best place for them right
now. Too late. “If you offer me a stake dinner, I must politely refuse.” She smiled again.
So did I.

“Thank you for coming,” I said.

“You have a secret plan,” she said. “Perhaps you want the gift of immortality, but need
to be convinced. Or seduced.” I shook my head. “Perhaps you think you can destroy me.
Revenge, perhaps? Did I feed on some member of your family? A dear friend? A loved
one?”

“Oh, no! No, no! I don’t want to hurt you! I want you to do that last one. Feed on a
loved one.”

“Ah.” She caught Tim’s peripatetic eye. “Again.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“Is she – she?” I nodded. “Is she terminally ill?”

“Tuberculosis.” Saying so brought my heart into my throat again.

“Consumption! The wasting disease! So often my ministrations caused those same

symptoms, masking my victims or my lovers’ true plight as I granted them my gentle
graces.”

“She doesn’t want to die, ma’am,” I said, unconsciously adopting Tim’s form of address.
“And I don’t want her to die, either. That’s why I placed the ad.”

“I can cure her body with a kiss. You are a good man. But you must know that if I do
this, she will not be the same person you knew. There will be changes.”

“Yes, I do know. And so does she, I’m sure. But we want to be together.”

“So, in earnest of your intent, let me taste you.”

“I’d really rather you didn’t.” I hoped she didn’t see me shudder.

“I’d rather I did. Tim.”

He pulled a gun on me, suddenly losing what half-wit malaise had seemed to possess him
earlier. His eyes never left me.

I twitched my right shoulder just so and a grenade fell out of my sleeve into my hand. A
vial of holy water hung off the grenade like a charm. The grenade’s pin was on a
deadman’s switch idiot string. If I just dropped the grenade, the pin would be pulled.
Tim got it. He was no vampire, to come back from being blown to pieces. I didn’t have
a death wish, but I was in love and driven, Orpheus to Lucia’s Eurydice.

“Ma’am?” he said.
She didn’t want to lose a good servant, or the opportunity Lucia presented as my
‘guaranteed returns.’

“Well played, sir. You show promise. Where is this girl?” She rose, raising a hand to
half gesture around the room.

“Not here,” I said. “I had to be sure she’d be safe if you got me. Sure you’d agree. She’s
uptown.”

“My limo is outside,” she said. “Let’s go.”

“Can’t you just – I don’t know – turn us to smoke and teleport us there?”

“That just works for me. And it’s more for effect, impresses the villagers. Even Tim has
to take the limo or public transit most of the time.”

I grabbed my gym bag and headed for the door. Tim held the door open for us both and
winked at me as I passed.

I held the front door open for them both, then ducked back in to the small vestibule. I
sprinkled a few drops of holy water on my buzzer, just for the hell of it.

As we got to the limousine, a bat flittered across a streetlight and then I saw a shadowy
figure approaching across the front lawn of the neighbouring house, moving from hedge
to shrubbery like a cloud across the moon, cape billowing soundlessly. I heard a muffled
‘shit’ as he stumbled for a moment that resumed his mysterious aplomb. I assumed he
was probably my twelve-thirty.
That assumption was confirmed when a few moments later, a dreadful scream pierced the
night. My quondam neighbour’s infuriated demand for silence could be heard even to the
edge of the street. I laughed at them both, adding a villainous chuckle.

We drove away, arriving at Lucia’s apartment building in about twenty minutes.

We went up the elevator , down the hall and I opened the door to the apartment.

“Darlin’!” I shouted. “It’s me. I have guests!” There was an answering sigh and soft
cough from the bedroom down the hall.

“Ah,” said the Countess, breathing in. “Lavender. And a hint of patchouli. How exotic.
No garlic flowers. How pleasant. But - ” She was suddenly cautious.

“Ma’am!” cautioned Tim sharply, pointing to a crucifix on the wall above the piano on
the other side of the living room.

“Sorry,” I stammered and ran across the room, pulled it off the wall and hid it in the
piano bench. “Really sorry. I guess it’s like child-proofing a house...” I joked weakly.
“You don’t think of everything.”

“Not funny,” she said. She held her fist to her throat, catching her breath. “Are there any
more such surprises?”

“Not that I know of. Really. I’m sorry.”

“Dangerous,” she said. “Your girlfriend will face such hazards all the time. If she
doesn’t learn quickly – if you don’t think of everything - all this effort will be for
nothing.”
“She’ll learn. I will,” I said. “Please come.” I led them down the hall. I knocked gently
and opened the door. “Hi, honey. This is our saviour, the Countess Lokia Pekkonen,
she’s –“

“A five hundred year old Lapp vampire witch, fled the old land looking for fresh blood,
for novelty,” the Countess said. I stared at her.

Lucia had been lying face to the wall, with the blankets over her head like a hood. When
the Countess spoke, she turned to face us. “Darling,” she said. “Oh, thank you!” She
looked at the Countess. “You’re really a vampire?”

“As real as your disease.”

“She did the smoke thing,” I said. “I saw it.”

“Who is he?” Lucia nodded her head at Tim, too weak to raise her arm to point.

“That’s Tim – “

“A vampire’s forty year old accountant,” he said.

It all happened in a moment.

There was a blast of sound, a gust of smoke, the stink of gunpowder, then a hole was
ripped in the comforter over Lucia’s body as Tim screamed and fell, his chest and arm
ripped away.

Lucia shed the blankets, jumped to her feet – in street clothes! - , threw a large pistol to
the floor, and to my utter shock had a crossbow in her hands. She fired it immediately
and its bolt pinned the Countess to the wall. Leaping to the floor, she dropped the
crossbow and grabbed a wooden stake from behind her bedside lamp and a mallet from
under the blankets.

“You bitch!” screamed the stricken vampire. “It burns! It burns!” She tried to pull the
bolt from her shoulder and the wall. A thin trail of yellow smoke flowed from the
wound.

“No,” said Lucia, hale and healthy before me, as though a miracle had occurred. “I am
Van Helsing’s great-great grand niece and a member of the Ordo Matutinalis.” A
surprise to me, I assure you. She came forward brandishing the stake.

The Countess hissed. “Vampire hunters! I have often hunted your kind too, favouring
your blood for its passion and obsession! Which line are you? Which family? Van
Helsing? Feh! No matter, I have likely taken your grandmother or your uncle or your
child! And those I did not feed upon or turn, I killed messily, or my wolves did, or my
servants! I am old and I am powerful! You cannot take me, you sick little girl! You
weakling, you infant!” As she spoke, she began to fade to smoke. No longer held by the
crossbow bolt, she jumped away from the wall, nearly tripping over Tim’s still writhing
body. She kicked him, cursing, as she became flesh again. She bent and grabbed Tim’s
gun and was back standing before even Lucia had time to react. “I will kill you easily
though you bear all the perilous charms of Christendom about you.” She fired at Lucia
and missed, was knocked back a bit . The roar was deafening in the small bedroom. She
tried to fire again but there was only a click. “If not today,” she cried. “One day! One
day, mortal child of fools and fools!” She threw the gun at Lucia and began to to turn to
smoke again. I stared at Lucia and raised my right arm with a jerk. Holy water sprayed
out into the wraith the vampire was becoming and there were sparks like microwaved
tinfoil. She recondensed with a grunt, moaning, and stood there panting, her hand raised,
hoping to hold us back by force of will. Lucia pounced, raising the mallet, aiming the
stake and bringing them together as the stake hit the Countess’s chest. In a moment my
lover was lying in a pile of clothes, dissipating yellow smoke and a disarticulated skull in
a grey cloche cap.
I helped her up. “You’re what?”

“Later, my love.” She brushed herself off. “We have to get out of here. The neighbours
are going to report the gunshots and we’ve got to be well away. Grab the skull.” I did.
Oh, good, I thought. Now I have two. “We’re a real team now! Sorry I lied to you but
they can sense vampire hunters. You had to believe what you were doing. She’s twelfth
this year.” Thirteenth, and one really annoyed, but I’d fill her in after. She kissed me as
she had never kissed me before and I was in love all over again. “Now let’s get the hell
out of here.”

We did, and now I’m a vampire hunter too. Turns out I’m good at it.