Naked Came the Vampire (Hypernaturals 1)

Back in the Backseat Again

Helen kept Arnold under observation for a few days after the Juicing.

"He is different. He is pulling over women and chatting them up, but now he is not looking around. He is focused totally on them. His seduction success rate is higher as well. A goodly number of them follow him to the back of his police cruiser." Helen reported.

"Great. Just great. He is back to being everyone else's problem now, not ours." I said. Off our plate, and now a pain in all sorts of women's asses.

Helen shrugged "I do not know why he is so successful with women. This is only until we can figure out his patronage. I am not done with Arnold Romney."

Jessica agreed. "He needs to be taken out as soon as we can safely do it. I don't trust the Juice where he is concerned. Nothing about that man is right."

My life is back to normal, except for a few 'minor' (hah!) details like I am now a male Vampire.

On probation.

I also started a commune: I have four more people and another furr-child at my house. I love everything about that. Even having Helen there is kind of fun. We get along better than we did at first. We still take potshots at each other regularly, but it is less vicious than it had been for whatever reason. Maybe I am growing on her. Maybe it's that she lives with her love now, and gets some love and kissing in with Jessica.

Helen is genuinely interesting. When Danny and Lori aren't around, sometimes she'll tell great stories about sailing about in wooden sailing ships and meeting Lord Admiral Nelson, or other similar tales. I live with two women born in times before this one. It is like living with time travelers.

Helen has her own shower upstairs, but she prefers ours. It's a family conference center in there. Since it was designed for about eight people, it sort of is. 

Danny and I had a talk. He trusted me about getting out of town. He trusted me about Jessica. I needed him to trust me about one more thing, even though I lie my face off to him all the damn time.

The opening happened when we were at the gym, and he came over to watch me lift barbells. I was doing 200 pounds with many (many) reps.

"Why you only lifting 200, dude? You can do twice that easy!" Danny asked.

I never quantified how far this went once your bones absorbed lots of metals and your muscles tissues and tendons polymerized and remade themselves. What does it actually mean to be 2, 3 or 4 times stronger that of a strong human? Could Helen tip over a Volkswagen by herself, but need Jessica or all three of us to tip over a Tahoe? Two pissed off Vampire ladies made Arnold look like a marionette.

I needed to get Danny to stop paying attention to what weight I am lifting. One of the nice things about working out at a small 24-hour gym at night is that we are alone there quite often. I decided it is time.

"Daniel.. Could we have a very serious talk for a sec?" By using that version of his name he would know I am serious.

"Uh, yeah, sure dude. What's up?"

"Sit." I rotated up to sitting on the bench, and he sat down on another bench opposite me.

"I told you that I had no idea why I am strong a while back and that I needed to focus on finding Jessica."

"Yeah: Sure. Totally getting that by the way. Jessica is awesome for you. You guys just work together. Even Helen. She's cool."

"I really appreciate everything you did to help me find Jessica. Really. That went way above the call, and I owe you big time. It ended up being far messier than I hoped. I had no idea what I was getting you involved in back then or Lori... or even me when you get right down to it."