I always had the greatest birthdays thanks to my dad. Every year, without question, he would rise to the occasion and get me whatever I was asking for, plus countless other things I didn’t even know I could want. Anything from dirtbikes to front row seats to concerts and pay per view sporting events, the man always made it special.
Hell, for my seventh birthday, he woke me up with a trip to Bermuda. I mean, yeah I was a kid, and I didn’t really get a destination vacation as a birthday gift at the time, but when I grew up, I was grateful for the memory.
It wasn’t until this year did I realise that the trip to Bermuda was more for dad than it was for me, but explaining that would be getting ahead of myself.
I never questioned where our money came from when I was younger, I just assumed I was born into wealth and accepted that at face value. Dad never showed off the wealth exactly either, like yeah some lavish gifts on my birthday and the big holidays, but we never lived in a mansion with lambos lined up the driveway, we never hired a single butler or cleaning crew for the house that we did live in. It was a nice condo in Miami, sure, but we never thought of ourselves as better than the less financially stable.
And dad made sure of that too. “The money we have will never make us better than someone who has less.” He would always say.
“It’s not the money you have that makes you a good person, it’s what you do with the time you have.”
Dad and mom died two years ago. I still don’t know how; from what I’ve gathered, it’s something to do with the business he was, and I now am, in. I’ll never forget that day either. It was the middle of summer vacation, I was home watching Tenet, when there was a knock on the door. Our front doors are big and glass so before I even opened it, I could see the person on the other side.
They were a skinny guy in a black suit, bald but with an ashy grey beard that wasn’t pirate-length but wasn’t well shaped either. He also was using an umbrella in the middle of the day, which I didn’t question since most of the people dad had over were strange. I open the door and the ex-con image of this guy intensifies immensely. He’s got tattoos all over his face, and from what I could see on his open-buttoned chest, they continued downward. I swear, he made Post Malone’s tattoos look like amateur hour. Across the centre of his neck was the word “Noctis” with black wings on the first and last letter, extending outward to each side. “Can I help you?” I asked, not knowing if I was about to get shot, stabbed or kidnapped.
“Jamie Hawthorn?” His voice was rough, like gravel in a blender on high speed getting beat with a baseball bat.
“Yeah? Who are you?”
He pointed to his next.
“Call me Noct. I was told to come get you by my employers. Before you make a fuss about it, I worked with your father for a few years now, he trusted me to do this today.”
“To do what?” I asked. “And what do you mean by ‘what you-” before I could finish the question, there was a sharp pinch in the side of my neck, and I was going to the ground with Noct’s arm supporting me.
When I came too, I was in what looked like a college dean’s office. A whole lot of ivory and polished wood, walls covered in bookshelves and awards and photographs of important figures I didn’t know. I was sitting in a large black leather chair at a desk, with a woman sitting on the opposite side of it from me. I couldn’t make her age, she was somewhere between late twenties and early seventies. She had silver hair that I couldn’t tell if it was dyed or not, and her skin was a tanned colour, and unnaturally smooth. Gorgeously smooth. Her eyes were a deep brown, almost completely black looking, and she had this smile that was completely overshadowed by the power she exuded looking at me. I felt so small in her gaze, like with the flick of a wrist she could erase me from existence.
She was wearing a business suit, light grey and form fitting, with a crimson tie.
“Hello Mister Hawthorn, I’ve been waiting to meet you for some time now.”
Her voice was soft, powerful, and silky smooth. I could feel the velvet roll off her tongue as she spoke, but I could sense the snake bite just beyond it.
“I’m going to cut to the chase,” she started to stand as she spoke, and she began to walk from her side of the desk to mine, “as we have a lot to do in such a little amount of time.”
She kneeled beside me, only then could I truly understand how abnormally tall this woman was, and she placed her hand upon my shoulder.
“I’m not going to sugarcoat this for you, okay? Your parents are gone.”
“Where are they? Who are you?” I don’t know if I was stupefied from the drugs or from this woman’s presence, but I didn’t understand what she said truly until she continued.
“Jamie, your parents are dead. At ten o’clock this morning, we received notice that their car had been run off the road by someone in a truck who wasn’t paying attention, they died on impact.”
I felt the impact of the truck then and there. It hit me like a tidal wave and it took me down. I wanted to fall to the ground and scream and cry and accuse her of lying, but my body just stayed in place, motionless as she spoke more. “I was hoping your father would cover most of this, but since his untimely demise has occurred, it is up to me to catch you up in what happens next.”
She stood up, straightening herself and returning to behind the desk, looking out of a large glass window that looked over a scene I could not tell from my position. “Your father was, for lack of a better word, a proprietor of ritualistic goods. He was very talented in finding artefacts that were connected to tribal, satanic and cosmic deities all around the world, along with objects that I, and the people that I work with, are unable to truly define in purpose.”
She turned back to me, her eyes looking as sharp as a wolf’s. “He was our Seeker.”
“Okay, so my father was Indiana Jones, sure, let’s pretend I believe this,” I began to stand but realised my legs were still weak, so continued to sit, “what the fuck does any of this have to do with me?”
“Well, you see Jamie, in doing your father’s job, there’s a few…prerequisites that are needed to apply.” She approached me again, kneeling beside me but this time, she grabbed my hand and lifted it to her mouth in a flurry of motion. “Most of these requirements are hereditary, not life learned.” I didn’t even notice when her eyes went pitch black, I only noticed when she dug her teeth into my wrist.
I tried to scream, I tried to pull away and to fight her off as she tore the flesh out of my wrist and sucked the blood, but my body still wasn’t strong enough to get away from her. It felt like an eternity before she pulled away and looked at me, her face covered in my blood and her eyes staring a burning hole into my very core. Her skin looked like worn leather and she was smiling in such a way that it looked like her cheeks were torn open and extending the grotesque visage. Her hair looked like it began to float like someone who was underwater.
I felt sick, like I could fall over and throw up.
But then the feeling subsides as quickly as it began; my wrist even healed in an instant, leaving no scar behind.
“You see, Jamie,” the woman said, standing now and walking behind me, “your family has a unique gift, one that allows them to walk amongst the shadows, and be comforted in the knowledge that the monsters under your bed can’t, or to say it more precisely, aren’t allowed to hurt you. Believe me or not, but I am a direct descendant of Nosferatu himself. Yes, he’s real, but the movies had gotten him so, so wrong. My bite would have turned you into one of my underlings in a second if you weren’t your fathers son.”
“Vampires are real?” Was all I managed to mutter as I still tried to catch my breath, now from the shock of everything happening around me.
“More than just vampires, so much more actually. And in time, you’ll see more of the truth in the world, now that you work for us.”
“Who says I’m going to work for you?” There was an anger building in me, one I don’t think I’ve ever felt in my life. I wanted to rush this woman and tear her head off where she stood.
She smiled as she read my face. “That energy you’re feeling right now is why I know you won’t say no to the prospect of taking over your fathers position. We’re giving you the opportunity to hunt down the monsters that don’t want to coexist with humans and in doing so, make this world a better place. It’s quite literally in your blood to do this.”
I remained silent, mulling over the idea. That morning, I was watching a movie that I still didn’t understand after watching it for the fifth time. Now I’m sitting across from the great great granddaughter of the Marlon Brando of Vampires, being tasked with collecting artefacts and killing monsters for her.
“Where do I sign up?”
That was two years ago. Now, I’m more experienced in the field and I understand why my father was so hush hush about it all to me, because I wouldn’t have believed him anyway if he told me the truth. The woman, my boss, her name is Casey, she’s as bad as I thought she was; don’t get me wrong, she’s a total jackshit bitch, but she and her people pay good for the artefacts I collect for them. Most of them are in dens of monsters, being held by their alphas. Like last month, I found a blood grail for them, which is used in weaker vampire groups during ritual “collective turnings”, which is where they turn a group of people in one sweep.
I was taught by Noct, who believe it or not is actually a normal human guy who’s just edgy as fuck, that my blood is like heroin to a vampire. And the thing with heroin is if you do too much of it…well, you’re gonna drop pretty quick. He taught me to single out the alpha of the group, the one who turned everyone in their gang, and let him have a taste. After enough blood enters their system, they’ll begin to burn from the inside out.
And once the alphas are gone, the gang follows in tremendous fashion, all blowing apart from the inside.
I’ve now gone through countless vampire gangs, so many other monsters and some that I hadn’t even known existed until working for these people.
They told me they have groups all over the planet, with a Seeker or two in each continent, but apparently my dad was the best of the best, which is why Casey sent Noct to pick me up so fast. Once I bring the artefact to them and have them distinguish if it’s the real deal or not, they let me sell it to the highest bidder on the black market, unless it’s some world ending thing, which obviously wouldn’t be a smart idea.
It’s how dad made his money, it’s a don’t ask, definitely don’t tell kinda gig.
So now you know where I’m at in life, working for this organisation that likes to keep their secrets.
I got a call from Noct today, he said he had a different type of assignment for me.
This time he wants me to hunt something down called a Darwin? He said the artefact is it’s blood, and I just had to get a sample and bring it back to him as soon as possible.
I’ll update as soon as I finish the job.