I think Lucy and I can be friends. We headed out last night after I got cleaned up. As cleaned up as I can get after being in that room. Henry had brought me a change of clothing during the week so at least I wasn’t overly stink. The guy thought I was going through heroine detox or something, he didn’t want me to ‘Go sell my good clothing for crack’ as he put it, so he only brought me my worst jeans with rips in them and a t-shirt. Better than just my underwear I imagine. Anyways, we headed out and I didn’t even return the key to the front desk. Never going back to that shit hole again.

Lucy’s car is just about as crappy as mine. Mine being impounded from being left too long in a parking lot, so I’m not complaining about Lucy’s 1990’s Saab Turbo. The thing looks and sounds like it is about to fall apart, but it doesn’t. We got in and as soon as she turned on the car, Lou Reed’s Sweet Jane starts playing. Now I might give hipsters and vampires equal shit for their music tastes but I can’t fault someone for loving Lou. Immediately Lucy hit stop.

“Sorry, Forgot to switch the music to the Vampire Mix before you got in the car.” These words being said at the same time as she pulls out a CD labeled Vampire Mix and looks like she can barely not laugh, and I about choke because my body can’t get its laugh out fast enough.

Lucy and I can be friends. We ended up keeping the Lou Reed on. Vampire mix can happen some other time.

Although she almost ruined the night by driving us straight to Jesus’ house in midtown. It’s a nice enough bungalow built somewhere in the 20’s or 30’s, and Jesus has someone take care of the yard, but I hate how there are always a bunch of people there acting like he is the best thing since slice bread. It is literally walking into a modern day commune.

“Fuck this Lucy, I don’t want to see that fuck.”

“It’s OK, he isn’t here, but we need to be just for a minute.”

“You go if you need to, but I’m staying here.”

Then she fixes those eyes on me the way that vampires do when they are really serious about getting their way, and she says, “You should come inside with me, it isn’t safe out here.”

I look around midtown, my home town in a way and spit back at her “Fuck you, midtown is safer than that hotel I just lived in for a week.” Her face goes blank.

“I don’t fucking believe it.” You can probably imagine the way she leaned back into her door, her mouth kinda open in shock and disbelief. I thought she was just shocked that I told her to fuck off, like I said, vampires hate that.

“You better get used to it. I really don’t like you vamps thinking you are built to command people”.

“We are.” She says but before I can pop her with another F bomb she says “… but not you. I thought they were lying. Fuck it. I’m going in. Jesus hasn’t been seen since you last saw him, so I need to go inside and see if his people know anything. Stay here if you want.” She got out of the car and of course, I followed. I don’t know what she means by ‘not me’ but Jesus going missing, as much as I hate the little bastard, is a mystery I kinda need to solve. For twenty years he has been attached to growing his little culty world. He wouldn’t of just disappeared.

The minute I show up on the porch I’m spotted by one of his trollops. They know me since Jesus has been one of the only points of contact with Vampires I’ve had. His mistreatment of me I guess is ‘brought on’ every so often by my own actions of trying to get more information out of him.

I can’t remember this girls name so we will just call her Trollop One. She’s out the door hugging me and welcoming me and dragging me inside the house, where Lucy and I are immediately confronted with an almost threatening mob of dirty hippies. “Where is he? Have you seen him? What have you done to him?” etc etc. Their frantic questions seem a bit on the aggressive side until Lucy tells them all to sit down and relax and they do. Vampires are sometimes good, I guess.

Turns out I probably am the last person to see Jesus. At least amongst his friends. No one here knew much but Lucy told them that if they heard anything to give me a call, and handed out business cards to them. When did I get business cards? Isabelle is going to need to tell me a bit more about this new ‘job’ of mine.

We search the house but nothing is out of the ordinary. Other than the house is filled with people who live together and grow food in the back yard. Vampires don’t broadcast being vampires, and generally that means they don’t tend to leave out things that hint that they exist. If they tell someone, that person can be forced to forget. If they write it down, people can make copies.

The most interesting thing about searching a house I had pretty much only seen the front room of is that I didn’t get a chance to see where Jesus sleeps during the night. I brought it up with Lucy, who laughed, and pointed at his bed, “His bed”.

“Bullshit, there are windows in here.” and I went over to make sure there weren’t any black out curtains, or shutters. There weren’t. “See, no way the sun could be reliably kept out.”.

“Twenty years you have been dealing with us? You know that is longer than I’ve been one, and you don’t know anything.”

“Yeah you people are not very good at storytelling.”

She takes my hand, and I felt like I was being lured into a trap. Vampires taking your hand.. never a good thing. She took me back to her car and we started to drive. Lou Reeds Coney Island Baby playing. I caught her mouthing the words “wanna play football for the coach” just as I was.

Terrible idea thinking a vampire could be your friend. This is going to bite me in the ass.

We went to a Quik Trip and purchased some beer, then headed across the bottoms and the Kansas river to Kaw Point. Parks of course are closed that late at night, early in the morning, but what do we care, she’s a vampire and I’m quickly becoming a drunk. Kaw Point is a park at the point where the Kansas river meets the Missouri River. If you sit at the edge of the water you are facing east, looking at the city in the distance. We sat on those rocks where those rivers meet not saying a word.

I figured once that sun started coming up over those buildings we’d high tail it to her hidy hole. Yet the sky kept getting brighter and we just sat there, me drinking my beer and her just smiling. It was very pleasant. Yet my nerves started to act up. She had to get inside. Any moment those rays would come over those buildings making my eyes see one of the best views of a sunrise you can see in this city, but making her eyes and body burn.

“Lucy, stop this, we can go now, I’m not sure what you are trying to do, but OK.”

“I won’t burn.”

“Fuck you won’t.”

“Trust me.”

“It’s your funeral.” After all seeing her burn would be the first time I’d ever seen a vampire do that.

The sunlight hit the downtown buildings, illuminating them in color. Then it shown through where the streets are and hit the water of the rivers, reflecting a deep purple that slowly changed to orange and red. It would have been more stunning if the clouds wouldn’t have been so low in the sky, but the impact was still there.

Lucy didn’t burn. She didn’t change at all. She just looked at the sunrise and smiled. When she caught me staring at her she just smiled at me.

“What the fuck?”

“I could sit here all day.”

“What the fuck?”

“We don’t burn, Alex. Sometimes it is good that people believe the stereotypes you know. Just let them, it might come in handy. Besides we don’t come out during the day for other reasons, mostly energy conservation reasons. I think you’ll find that if it takes more energy to do something, we don’t tend to do it.”

“I think I need another drink”.