Maximillian Sitz, the vampire that John Readman had pursued across an ocean and a continent, was dead. Or dead again. Once undead, now most definitely doubly dead.

Readman stood with the Seattle coroner, looking at Sitz laid out on a table in the city’s morgue. The coroner likely thought Sitz was just another drunk who had tumbled off the dock. And Readman had to admit lying lifeless on that slab Sitz looked like any other stiff, no fangs bared, no fierce blood red eyes.

“He was impaled on a beam of wood?” Readman asked aloud.

“Excuse me sir,” the coroner replied as he moved a sheet back over Sitz’s body.

Damn, Readman thought. This time, he made a conscious effort to lighten his thick Yorkshire accent, which often confused the Americans, especially here on the West Coast of the country, where Brits were a rarity.

“He was impaled on a beam of wood?” Readman asked again.

“Yes, yes sir,” the coroner said. “He apparently fell off the dock along the waterfront near Pioneer Square two nights ago. Landed straight on top of a beam sticking out of the water and ran him straight through. Bad luck, I guess.”

Not likely, Readman thought. Someone, or more likely some thing, had pushed Sitz down onto the wood piling with tremendous force.

The coroner, a short man with strands of coal black hair combed sloppily over his mostly bald head, seemed preternaturally nervous. Odd, Readman thought. It’s not like his customers are going to complain.

“You’ll not be claiming the body, sir?”

The question was almost a gentle plea. Between the Spanish Flu ripping through the city like a rabid dog and the fact that Seattle wasn’t too far removed from its days as a rough hewn frontier port town, the coroner had no shortage of corpses to deal with.

“No I won’t,” Readman said. The coroner gave a small nod but didn’t move. After a moment, he asked “Who was he to you?”. 

“An old neighbour.” Readman mumbled, holding the man’s gaze. It wasn’t a lie. Not exactly. That counted for something. He ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek, trying to digest the mystery on the slab in front of him. He adjusted his coat, turned toward the door, and took a few measured steps away.

“Thank you for your time,” he said over his shoulder. “Is there a place near here where I could get a drink?”

“Technically illegal, sir, since the Volstead Act.”

Bloody Americans, no wonder the puritanical lot was booted out of Blighty.

“But that has hardly stopped us,” the coroner said, smiling for the first time in Readman’s presence. “I’d try the Central Café. It can be a little rough, but there’s no shortage of spirits.”

Vampires like Sitz could prove dangerous, certainly. Cunning. Strong. Cruel when cornered. But your garden-variety tavern tough or alleyway brute? No. They didn’t concern Readman.

And none of them — none — could’ve done what had been done to Sitz.

The vampire hadn’t merely fallen. Something had driven him down — impaled him like a nail into the harbor pilings. The violence spoke of neither panic nor rage, but of intention. Of cold, unflinching purpose.

Readman nodded his thanks and left the building. He stood six foot two, between years of youth rugby and five years killing his way through the trenches of the Great War for country and king, he had little patience for bluster and no consternations around violence. As a lieutenant in the West Yorkshire Regiment he’d seen more death – and done more killing – than he cared to admit in polite conversation. But this was something else. Someone had broken that creature with obscene, precise force.

And for once, it hadn’t been him.

Readman stepped out onto Washington Street, the door shutting behind him with a dull clunk. Rain swept in low sheets across the cobblestones. He turned up his collar and sniffed the air. Beneath the smoke, the coal, the wet rot of the city, something lingered – faint but sharp. Old blood. Burned wood. 

Something had stolen his kill.

Vampires had been at war with the living since long before men learned to fear the dark. He had faced the monsters before – on the battlefield, in back alleys, in the dead silence between artillery shells. He had worn a soldier’s uniform then. Carried a rifle. Buried friends.

That war had ended. This one had not.

He was a soldier, yes. Had been for most of his life. But that wasn’t all he was. John Readman wasn’t just a man trained to kill.

He was also a werewolf. 

And now he had a question that needed answering: who had killed this vampire before he had the chance to? 

####

It was early November, 1919, and the evening dark enveloped Seattle. It was also raining, which Readman was used to, being from England. What he wasn’t used to was being in such a young city. He marveled at the new brick buildings – bright red like freshly plucked apples – the gleaming street cars, the ongoing construction. Damned if they weren’t even sluicing one of the city’s steep hills into Elliott Bay, levelling the topography to make room for more buildings and more people. Seattle was a city on the rise, like a teenager going through a growth spurt.

How long had this city been around, Readman thought, what, 70 years? He laughed to himself, marveling that there were souls living here older than the municipality itself.

The Central was on First Avenue South in Pioneer Square, the boisterous hub of Seattle. The place wasn’t difficult to find – there were a dozen very drunk men outside chatting up women of questionable virtue. The joint occupied the ground floor of a three-story red brick building. It certainly wasn’t trying to conceal that it was a drinking establishment  – Prohibition be damned.

Readman walked inside and recognized the layout as one favored by the Americans, especially in the West. There was a long wooden bar that stretched down the left side of the room. Every seat at the bar was taken and smoke from the cigarettes, cigars and pipes hung just below the ceiling like angry storm clouds. There were tables to the right of the bar and Readman spotted one that was open. 

He ordered a whiskey and took the glass to the empty space and sat down. The last punter had left a copy of that day’s Post-Intelligencer newspaper, but Readman was too distracted to read it.

He unbuttoned his brown tweed Cordings jacket, reached inside and removed the telegram he had received the night before from his father, Oliver Readman. In addition to being his father, Oliver was also the de facto leader of all the werewolves in England, a position his own father had held before him, and one that would now fall to John due to his older brother Archie’s death.. That is, should John not succumb to a vampire’s fangs or some other untimely manner of death before Oliver expired. 

Readman unfolded the telegram, creased and damp. The message was terse, as always:

SITZ DEAD. INVESTIGATE.

He had received the telegram when he’d arrived in Seattle via train from Chicago. No signature. There never was. He could hear his father’s voice in blocky type, plain as day and unsentimental. 

Don’t bodge this son. 

John was now the only son, his older brother Archie having been killed in France three years prior. Archie was also a werewolf but being a lycanthrope was no match for the German trench mortars that took him out.

Readman took a strong pull from his whiskey, wincing. Archie had been the smart, focused one. Both Readman boys had gone to Cambridge, like all the men in their family dating back generations. While Archie excelled in the classroom, John was the rascal – smart enough, but always more focused on the next drink and good time than his father’s grand plans for the family law firm – and the broad community of shapeshifting werewolves.

“Well father, the spare will have to do,” Readman said to himself as he finished his drink. It wasn’t bad at all, he was developing a taste for American whiskey.

Readman had pursued the vampire Sitz for several weeks, following him across the Atlantic and the United States. Sitz had fought for the Germans in World War II – most vampires on the European continent had.

It wasn’t for that reason that Readman had been tracking Sitz.  The war between England and Germany was over, but the much older conflict between werewolves and vampires remained. At the conclusion of the Great War Sitz had slipped into London and killed three prominent werewolves at a pub in Fulham, near Craven Cottage football stadium. The silly buggers were so drunk following a win by the Cottagers that Sitz managed to catch them unawares – they hadn’t had time to shapeshift to defend themselves. Sitz had apparently been following them for days, learning their routines.

“We obviously can’t let this attack go unanswered,” Oliver Readman had told his son in their stately law offices in the Lions Building off St. George’s Square in Huddersfield.

 Readman and Sons screamed – or actually whispered loudly, which was more appropriate for their clientele – staid and sober Yorkshire business values. The shelves heaving with old law books and the large, oak desks seemed to soothe the textile, coal and steel executives who were their primary clients.

The war had only just ended when John Readman had been put on the vampire hunt. Before the war he’d only spent a few years working on mundane legal issues at his father’s firm. Truth be told, John Readman had precious little independent legal experience, having graduated from Cambridge not too long before Franz Ferdinand was assassinated and the whole damned continent was pulled into bloody conflict.

Readman didn’t particularly like the law, though it was preferable to the trenches and carnage on the Western Front that he had lived through. The war had changed him. Reshaped him, inside and out. Whatever he’d been before, he wasn’t anymore. The trenches taught him how easily a man could shed one skin and step into another. Fitting, he supposed, for a werewolf.

“This whiskey’s for you pal.”

Readman raised his head and saw a hard-looking woman he now recognized as a barmaid. She was on the wrong side of thirty and had the no-nonsense manner required to work in a place like the Central.

“I could certainly use another,” Readman said, smiling. “But I didn’t order this.”

The woman returned Readman’s smile as she collected his empty glass and replaced it with another, filled to the brim.

“Guy over there paid for it, said to bring it to you.”

The barmaid left the table and Readman looked toward the bar. He saw a tall, skinny man raise his own glass and nod at him. Readman felt a charge surge through his body and had to consciously stop himself from transforming right there in the Central. His shoulders tensed and his jaw ached, but he kept the wolf from emerging.

He was looking at a vampire. 

A familiar scent drifted towards him – sharp and metallic, with an undertone of something sweet and rotten. The man wore a smart black suit, with a white shirt and a bright blue tie. His blonde hair was neatly cut and by his side was an expensive wooden walking stick with a sharp silver tip.

Silver can kill a werewolf.

“Bloody hell,” Readman said aloud, cursing himself for not identifying the fiend sooner. How had he become so distracted?

The vampire walked slowly toward him. Readman, like all werewolves, could transform at will. The only time werewolves involuntarily morphed was during a full moon. It would take about five seconds for Readman to assume werewolf form  – and if he did it would scare the life out of every drinker in the Central. He hesitated because the vampire wasn’t ready to attack.

“Mr. Readman,” the vampire said. “May I join you?” The accent was European but Readman couldn’t clock exactly where. 

Readman nodded. 

His new drinking partner looked to be anywhere between forty and sixty years old. A casual observer would remark that he needed to get more sun, but wouldn’t have noticed anything else unusual. Readman knew he was likely much, much older. Vampires could remain in an undead state for centuries, even millenniums. Werewolves had the lifespans of humans. 

Vampires’ long, undead lives made them odd and cautious – as lethal as they were, they were loathe to give up semi-immortality. Werewolves were far more aggressive – vampires 

would say brutish, reckless. 

Readman drank half his whiskey and returned the glass to the table he now shared with his kind’s sworn nemesis.

“You have me at a disadvantage, sir,” Readman said. “You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”

“My name is Christian Eder.”

“I like a drink, more than most men, but this is the first time I’ve sat across from the likes of you. Usually when we all interact there are more screams, shrieks and bloodshed.”

Eder laughed, but his eyes and expression remained neutral to the point of catatonia. He may as well have been a stone bust.

“I’m here to tell you that, as you know, Sitz is no longer a problem for you.”

The vampire took a small sip of his own drink, which looked to be bathtub gin and tonic. Can vampires get pissed? Werewolves certainly can, as Readman knew only too well. 

“So that was your handiwork, down by the dock?”

“Yes,” Eder replied.

“Why?”

“What Sitz did in London was unauthorized.”

“There are rules to this?” Readman laughed.

“There is hierarchy and authority, as you know. What would happen to a werewolf in England who repeatedly, openly defied your father?”

Readman took another sip of his whiskey. He and the other werewolves led by his father knew that to defy Oliver Readman was an unwise choice indeed.

Eder turned his head slightly as the barmaid returned and asked if they’d like another round, but this time the menacing vibe emitted by Eder spooked her. She looked to Readman, trying to hide her discomfort.

“We’re fine right now love, thank you.” Readman said.

The barmaid quickly walked away.

“You have an unsettling effect on people, Mr. Eder.”

The vampire stared at Readman, unblinking. Readman maintained his poker face..

“You’ll understand if I don’t buy you a drink in return.”

Eder smiled, this time seeming somewhat amused. 

“Tell your father we took care of our shared problem. Tell him we’re no longer interested in never-ending fights.”

Readman laughed.

“So you want peace?”

“We want to move on. The world has changed, faster than we’ve ever seen.”

Readman thought he could definitely use another drink. Where was that damned barmaid now?

“How old are you? Twenty-four, twenty-five?” Eder asked, a question which stung as  Readman was sensitive about his youthful appearance.

“I’m more than 1,100 years old, Mr. Readman. When I was born in Cologne, Charlemagne ruled much of Europe. I’ve met popes, kings, queens – I knew Napoleon. I grew up speaking Old Saxon, Old Frankish, Latin.”

“You would’ve done well at Cambridge – I never could get my declensions straight.”

Eder placed his hand on the table and slowly dragged one long, pale nail across the wood. The sound it made was sharp and shrill – like metal scoring bone – loud enough to make nearby patrons wince and glance over. None of them lingered. They turned back to their drinks. Eder smiled, pleased with the reaction. To him, it was a game. One he always enjoyed.

“Tu stultes es,” Eder said, his lifeless grey eyes glancing at the surrounding patrons, his lips curling into a smirk.. “I was more than 400 years old when Cambridge was founded.”

Eder paused, sipping his drink.

“Millions dead in the Great War,” the vampire continued. “Much of Europe in ruins, a generation of young men – young men like you – lost. But look at what we also have now. Electricity, communication across oceans. And this, a new continent, with great, young cities rising. Europe’s time is ending. We choose to come here, a place unburdened by the past.”

Readman’s need for a drink was very acute.

“You smell it, don’t you?” Eder said, voice low and smooth. “The air here. No kings or crowns. No inherited sins. No graves under every footstep”. He leaned in, his eyes boring into Readman.

“Just motion. Forward, always forward.”

Readman leaned back, folding his arms and flaring his nostrils. “That’s a pretty story,” he said. “But it’s nonsense.”

Eder arched an eyebrow.

“You lot don’t change. You don’t come here to move forward. You come for the same thing you always want. You feast on the living. I was sent here to kill Sitz, who killed my friends. I was sent to kill vampires. I was a soldier in the war, a good one. I know how to follow orders.”

Eder continued staring at Readman, a gaze that could level a machine gun battalion with its intensity. Eder stood up, leaving his drink unfinished.

“Good night Mr. Readman. Go back to Yorkshire, leave us alone. Tell your father if any European vampires show up again in England he can do as he wishes.”

He adjusted his bright blue tie.

“But as for this continent…” He lowered his gaze, his expression deep and hostile “We’ve already sent a message. The Old World will find no foothold here.”

Eder walked slowly out of the Central, like a ship on a straight course through the rough seas of the rowdy American tavern. Readman watched him leave and was thoroughly confused. His hackles were still up, ready for a fight. He motioned the barmaid over and ordered another whiskey.

“I’m glad your friend left. He didn’t seem right,” she said as she collected Readman’s empty glass and the vampire’s half full one. 

“Not my friend,” Readman muttered. 

The vampire’s scent still lingered — iron and rot beneath the sour whiskey and coal smoke of the tavern. As a pianist started playing, Readman considered the warning from Eder.

“But your instinct,” he said as the barmaid left. “is correct.”

####

The next day Readman sent a telegram to his father. 

SITZ DEAD. COMPLEXITIES HAVE ARISEN. WILL UPDATE LATER. 

No doubt Oliver Readman would be annoyed by his son’s ambiguous message, for he favored clarity in all things. But John Readman needed more information, more finality before he could tell his father about Eder. Readman laughed as he walked out of a Postal Telegraph Office near the bright white Smith Tower, a recently-completed, 38-story arched spire terra cotta building near his hotel. What was he supposed to say to dear old dad? “Had a lovely drink with a vampire last night, he sends his best.”

Readman then went to MacDougall & Southwick, the department store north of Pioneer Square on Second Avenue and Pike Street. He bought a back “Jazz suit,” the slim-fitted clothing option favored by younger American men. He would search for vampires tonight and wanted to look less the English gentleman and more like a local, the better to blend in. 

The sun was out when he returned to his hotel that afternoon. Mount Rainier, the snow-capped volcano seventy miles south of Seattle, was out in spectacular fashion. The Seattleites barely noticed it, but Readman had never seen such a huge mountain.

After he’d washed and changed, Readman headed out into the night. Clouds and a light drizzle had returned and small puddles on the ground reflected the street lights – little moons dotting the pavement.

Readman found a speakeasy near the Central and had a whiskey, then was on the hunt again. He walked around Pioneer Square and farther north into the growing downtown neighborhood. It was a Friday night and Seattle was bursting. Drunken sailors from the ships in the harbor mingled with loggers from the rural work camps who were busy blowing their weeks’ wages. Well-dressed men, like Readman, went from restaurant to drinking establishment, lovely young ladies in that season’s dresses on their arms. It wasn’t Picadilly Circus, but it was lively.

After several hours Readman had resigned himself to not finding any undead. He checked the places he knew they liked to haunt: The old apothecary where gas lamps never fully reached the corners. A jazz club on the periphery of Chinatown, west of Pioneer Square that reeked of absinthe and perfume always had a few patrons who never blinked, but came up empty. A Catholic chapel repurposed into a speakeasy where, he assumed, blood would run cheaper than liquor.t 

Nothing. 

He even wandered down to an abandoned cannery on the waterfront where fog rolled in thick and low, covering everything in a cold sheen, but found only drunk men, tired women, and a city too young to be haunted. The silence unnerved him more than the hunt ever had.

He had just begun walking back to his hotel when his senses twitched. He looked across Second Avenue and saw two young women walking north, arm and arm with two young men, and laughing. Readman slipped into the dark shadow of a building, the better to watch.

He saw the men’s eyes slowly turn crimson red.

Vampires. Finally.

Readman backed into a side alley, a pair of black alley cats in a doorway stared at him, their eyes tiny yellow dots in the darkness.

Readman began his transformation from man to beast – his new suit jacket ripped as his shoulders, arms and back grew and his jaw extended from his face with a wrenching sound like stone scraped across stone.

           The alley cats bolted from their position, fleeing with a speed that would have them in Tacoma in a few minutes if they kept it up.

Readman felt a powerful surge through his body – a lightning bolt sparking a raging wildfire within. Fur the color of tree bark covered his skin, he added 10 stone in rock hard muscle to his weight and three inches to his height. Teeth like sharp icicles descended from his upper jaw and claws as big as steak knives shot from his fingers. Only his brilliant blue eyes remained the same. Readman stood, a werewolf once again. His senses were keen and he felt the strength of the animal – a familiar, welcome and liberating experience.

He bounded across the street, conscious to stay in the shadows. The vampires, ready to drain the life from their unsuspecting victims, hadn’t yet noticed the werewolf tracking them.. Directly behind the fiends, Readman emitted a ferocious roar, a sound like large rocks being fed into a locomotive’s steam engine.

The young women shrieked at the sound and started running, unaware that the companions they were fleeing were the undead . The men held their ground; they were not afraid.

These vampires, knowing exactly what type of creature makes such a racket, turned around. They both had black hair and the typical unhealthy pallor of their kind. 

They stared at the werewolf, heads turned to the side cockily. Then they leapt toward Readman – vampires can move with what seems like fast, controlled flight – so speedy that humans have a hard time tracking them.

Not so for werewolves.

Readman knelt and allowed the first vampire to pass over him before bolting upright and catching the second blood sucker in a left shoulder rugby tackle, which knocked his enemy clear into the wall across the street. The force of the blow temporarily stunned the vampire. The second fiend lunged toward Readman, fangs bared. Readman blocked the attack with his left arm and snapped his jaws shut, nearly catching the vampire with his huge teeth. The vampire backed away, intimidated by the ferocity of the werewolf.

Readman turned and saw two other vampires had joined the fight from a neighbouring alley – including his drinking partner from the night before – Christian Eder. Readman growled as the vampires surrounded him and slowly moved in.

Readman turned just as Eder flew directly at him, wielding his silver-tipped cane like a sword.

Eder thrust with surgical precision, more a test than a true attack. Readman feinted to his left, but the vampire followed like a shadow, closing the gap with ease. Eder pushed forward again and Readman parried the blow with his right hand, though the force of Eder’s attack snapped one of Readman’s claws clean off.

This was the obscene skill that had killed Maximillian Sitz. 

Pain flared, but Readman swallowed it. He was too busy watching Eder move – graceful, relentless, precise.

“You’re fighting as well as they did at the Somme.” Eder said, his voice calm and cold.

Readman marveled at Eder’s speed and skill – the old fiend had learned much about fighting in the past thousand years. 

Readman lunged, claws flashing in the dark, but Eder wasn’t there. He ducked low, flowed around the strike like water, and with a flick of his wrist plunged the silver tip of his cane directly into his left shoulder.

The pain was immediate and all-consuming – like liquid fire poured straight into his spine. Readman howled and staggered back, collapsing onto one knee, then onto his back. He had been shot during the Battle of Verdun, but this was far worse. It felt like lava cascading through his body.

Eder leaned over the werewolf, his eyes flaming circles.

“You ruined a perfectly good night” the vampire spoke. “Your kind always do.”

He gave the cane a slight twist, just enough to make Readman scream, then yanked it free with a wet, sucking sound. Readman gasped, his vision swimming. The world was turning away.

“You were warned, John Readman. Leave us alone. Next time, I won’t stop at pain.”

The vampire turned and with his allies disappeared into the night, their footsteps vanishing as quickly as their scent. Readman lay in agony, his blood pooling into the seams between the cobbles, steam rising as it mingled with the cold rain. The world swam and warped around him.

And then, footsteps. A large figure emerged from the shadows, face obscured by long, tangled brown hair. They knelt beside him, silent. Readman tried to speak, to lift a hand. But darkness surged in.

And swallowed him whole.

####

Readman awoke in human form, lying on a cot in what looked to be a humble wooden shack. His upper body was bare, save for a large bandage covering his wound. He was sweaty, weak and confused.

But John Readman was alive.

“He’s awake now.”

Readman turned and saw an older woman moving toward him. She had long black hair gone to grey and strong brown eyes. She sat next to Readman, removed his bandage, and replaced it with a fresh one.

“You need water,” she said as she stood and retreated to a makeshift cooking and kitchen area.

Now a younger man approached. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with the lean strength of someone accustomed to hard work rather than show. His skin was a warm umber tone – Native American – and he dressed plainly in a brown work shirt and blue waist overalls. His black hair was short and his eyes were brown, like the older woman’s.

“Hello,” he said.

“You’re… Indians” Readman weakly exclaimed.

“Can’t get anything past you.”

“My name is… John Readman.”

The man nodded.

“I know who you are, Mr. Readman.”

“John.”

“John. You can call me William Smith, you’d have trouble pronouncing my actual name.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m… not sure what’s going on.”

The man who identified himself as Smith pulled up a chair and sat by Readman.

“Your father contacted us. There are several werewolf packs in the coastal tribes in what is now Oregon, Washington state and British Columbia. He asked that we keep an eye on you, discreetly.”

Readman didn’t know whether to be elated or offended.

“Thank you very much. I didn’t realize, I guess I assumed…”

“You didn’t think that werewolves were confined to the Yorkshire Moors, did you John?” Smith said. “But we’re more like cousins. I’m from the Haida people. Our home are islands off the coast of British Columbia, north of here.”

Readman slowly sat up, and gladly took the glass of water offered by the older woman. He drank and Smith continued.

“I’m known as a Konakadeit. In England you prefer the moors and the woods. We gravitate toward the coast and waterways. We’re sometimes called  ‘sea-wolves.’”That blonde vampire, the one who stabbed you. He could’ve killed you no problem. He’s the fastest creature I’ve even seen – and believe me, we have our share of daemons and other monsters in our wilderness.”

Readman finished his water and the woman refilled his glass.

“Everything happened so fast. When I got there, the vampires were leaving,” Smith said. “I grabbed you off the pavement and ran to Elliott Bay, then swam with you until we were well south of the city..”

Readman took another large sip of water. Oliver Readman had an even farther reach than his son knew. Once again, he was impressed, intimidated and upset – his father didn’t trust him enough to handle the situation on his own? Or had he known just how dangerous it might be?

“Where are we now?” Readman asked.

“About ten miles south of Seattle, a little town called Burien. This is Martha, she’s from the Duwamish tribe. She has been a great help.”

Readman nodded his thanks to Martha.

 What to do?

There were still vampires out there, vampires who had bested him. But Eder had spared his life. And Readman had to admit, he was no match for that fiend. A truce with vampires? Would they stay away from England? Hard for Readman to believe, but then he never thought a vampire would spare a werewolf’s life when he’d defeated him in battle.

“I met the blonde one before, in the Central. He told me they wanted to stop fighting werewolves in England. That they wouldn’t bother us – apparently some sort of epiphany after the war.”

Smith considered this.

“He did spare your life – and he directed the others to leave.”

Readman had failed, he had lost. Sitz was dead, but not by his hand. And vampires were still on the loose, albeit half a world away from England. Maybe this was OK, but what could he tell his father?

“If I return to England, what will you do? Surely you don’t want vampires here?”

Smith stood up and paced the small cabin.

“We didn’t want you here either. By ‘you,’ I mean Europeans. But that’s done, we must deal with the world as it is, not as we’d like it to be John.”

Smith returned, sitting next to Readman.

“If they stay in the cities, they won’t bother us much. If that changes, then we’ll have to confront them. For now, I’m inclined to return to the islands. And like I said, those vampires will discover there are things as scary, if not scarier, than them in this ‘new world.’”

Readman had fought vampires since he was a teenager. He’d fought them in France and Germany during the war. He expected to be fighting them his entire life. He realized now just how much that defined him, defined werewolves. Everyone, after all, needs an enemy.

Could Readman change? For that matter, could his father?Readman finished his water and put the glass down on the dusty wooden floor.

####

The Yorkshireman spent a week recovering at the humble, rural cabin. Each day Martha tended to Readman’s wound and applied a salve made of local plants – it smelled like sour milk, but worked to ease his pain. He ate small meals of smoked salmon and potatoes.

Each evening, the Konakadeit, the sea wolf Readman knew as William Smith, returned in human form to talk. They sat on the small porch outside the cabin, the birdsong and gentle breezes contrasting with the urban cacophony of Seattle.

“You’ll be fine soon,” Smith said.

Physically, Readman was well on the mend. But he was not fine. He’d received a kicking from a vampire and been told to go home.

“I’ve seen evil, and vampires are evil,” Readman said.

He’d learned not to wait for Smith to reply. In their conversations, Readman did most of the talking, but oddly he found his new companion to be very easy company.

“They are like the trenches and mustard gas from the war, agents of death, nothing more.”   

Smith rolled a cigarette and snapped a match on the deck’s floor to light it. Smoking seemed to be the sea wolf’s lone vice; Readman had many, but he’d never acquired a taste for nicotine.

“Time is the biggest agent of death, makes the rest of us look like amateurs,” the Indian said. “Is time evil? Perspective is everything.”

Readman had gotten used to Smith’s philosophical statements, finding most interesting but irrelevant. This observation though instantly struck him, like an absent minded pupil being rapped on the knuckles by a headmaster.

“I’m going to return to Seattle. I need another audience with the vampire.”

Smith stubbed his cigarette out and waved the smoke away.

“Do you want me to come along?”

Readman shook his head. 

“No thank you, you’ve done more than enough my friend. I need to do this myself, for my own sense of …’perspective.’”

Two days later Readman was back in the Pacific Northwest’s largest city. He settled his bill at the hotel and paid for one more night. He changed out of the plain work clothes Smith had given him and into more urban attire – brown slacks, a blue dress shirt and, because a fall chill had gripped Seattle, a khaki double-breasted gabardine trench coat left over from his Army service. They were among the last items of clothing left from what he brought from Britain. Being a werewolf was hell on a clothing budget.

It was early evening and Readman had dinner at a train car diner near the waterfront, seagulls loitering outside hoping for scraps. Readman ate steak and potatoes. The food was good, but not as tasty as the small meals he was provided during his convalescence.

He ate slowly and drank several cups of strong, black coffee. He suspected Eder would return to The Central and wanted to give the vampire time. After 9 p.m. Readman left the diner and walked several blocks north to Pioneer Square. It was a weeknight, but the area still pulsed with people, undeterred by the dark and the cold.

Readman walked into the Central, which was filled with drinkers, loud voices and cigar smoke that again clung to the ceiling like snow on a roof. He scanned the bar and there was Christian Eder, standing by himself, his back turned to Readman. He had his silver-tipped cane, the sight of which caused a jolt of phantom pain to surge through Readman’s body.

He strode over, and Eder turned to face him, having sensed the werewolf’s presence.

“I owe you a drink,” Readman said.

The vampire looked Readman up and down. He was dressed in the same black suit and blue tie as before.

“Or maybe you’d prefer a new tie?”

Eder cocked his head but didn’t smile.

“A drink would do, thank you.”

Readman got a whiskey for himself and gin and tonic for Eder. They walked to an empty table and sat down. Readman took a strong pull from his glass.

“You are persistent, even for a werewolf. I just might remember you 100 years from now.”

Readman unbuttoned his trench coat.

“You told me you want a new start.  Yet you are the worst of the old world, you’ve simply come to new hunting grounds, free of your old predators.”

It was Eder’s turn to sip his drink. He studied Readman closely, his dead grey eyes a mixture of curiosity and contempt.

“A lecture from a werewolf? You are every bit the killer I am.”

“I don’t target the innocent.”

The vampire laughed, a genuine, if sinister, cackle.

“Tell that to the next cow you slaughter on a full moon.”

Readman would not be baited. Maybe he couldn’t defeat this vampire in a fight, but he fancied his chances in a war of words, no matter how many languages Eder spoke.

“A logical fallacy if I ever heard one, Mr. Eder. Cows are not people. You’d fare poorly in the debating halls of Cambridge. It’s not the livestock I’m worried about here.”

Eder scanned the barroom, looking left and right. He made a show of slowly twisting the blue cuff link that peeked out of his jacket sleeve.

“You didn’t learn as much as you think at Cambridge,” Eder said. “You think a few years spent reading books in musty libraries can surpass the experience of being on earth for more than a millennium?”

“I’ve lived enough to know about right and wrong,” Readman barked.

Eder ignored the jab, voice low and measured.  “Lived. I lived in Cologne, once upon a time. I was a tradesman, a blacksmith. I spent many years at the forge, met many travelers from every corner of Europe. I learned more from them – from their stories, their faces – than you’ll ever find in your books”.

Eder rolled his cuff between thumb and forefinger. 

“I built homes. Raised a family. Buried them. Tasted pain, long before I ever tasted blood. You think living once makes you wise? I’ve lived twice, and will keep on living. Tell me you wouldn’t change after a thousand years of watching people make the same mistakes over and over.”

Readman felt the lawyer in him want to dissect the words, while the wolf in him wanted to snarl at them.

“Do you see this?” Eder whispered. His eyes lowered to the scarred oak of the table between them. His fingertips traced the grain, following the faint spiral where rings blend into rings – years stacked upon years.

“Every ring of a tree is a season. Storm, drought, fire, growth. This is me. Layer after layer. Nothing erased. I carry them all, as much as you protest otherwise”.

“Difference is,” Readman spoke “I remember every mistake I make. You’re hiding behind your centuries”.

Readman realized he had struck a nerve – and was yet again surprised by how still the undead could be – present, yet unmoving. Eder had the posture of a flag pole, a striking contrast to the slouching, manic movements of the drinkers all around them.

After what seemed like several minutes the vampire spoke.

“Mr. Readman. If vampires killed as much as you think, there’d be no people left. Napoleon didn’t know I was a vampire, most people never do. I’ve lived among you for a thousand years. In that time humanity’s population has grown exponentially. If we’re the killers you think, we aren’t very good at it.”

Readman took a sip of his whiskey and removed his trench coat. It was warm in the bar. The windows were partially fogged over from the heat and perspiration in the dank tavern room, but Readman saw sleeting streaks of rain that had begun outside. Staring out the window, his voice lowered, almost conspiratorial.

“You don’t stop killing. You just get quiet about it. You feed on the edges where no one’s looking. I know you’re doing it. Homeless men under bridges. Drunk women stumbling out of cabarets. Soldiers no one will miss after the war. That’s why your population never dwindles. Because you’re selective. A kill’s still a kill, Eder”.

“This is tiresome.” the vampire snorted.

“I can’t change what I am anymore than a wolf can change its nature,” Readman said, leaning forward for emphasis and staring into the Deamon’s dead eyes. “But curses have rules. I know when I’m dangerous. I know when I’ll lose control. You, though… You’re the real liar. Vampires can’t change.”

 “No? Do you think I’m the same as I was a thousand years ago?” Eder asked. “Believe me, in my past I would not have let you survive our encounter. I would not leave the werewolves of England alone to seek a new start. And I would not have killed Maximillian Sitz simply because he disposed of a few of your kind.”

Eder, quite satisfied with himself, smiled, steepled his fingers and waited for a reply.

Readman knew Eder had made a point, no matter how much he disagreed with him. Readman motioned to the barmaid, the same woman from the night before. She returned with another drink for the werewolf, but the vampire had hardly touched his gin. Eder waved her away.

The Central had cleared out some as the night wore on. There were fewer people at the tables around the vampire and the werewolf and most of the drinkers at the bar had left. The occasional snap of billiard balls from the pool table in the back – like the sharp sound of horses’ hooves striking pavement – was now the loudest sound in the room.

“The curse” Readman spoke at last, the words rolling off his tongue like a half-formed accusation.

Eder tilted his head, chin lifting slightly in a gesture that was both challenge and curiosity. “What of it?”. His voice was smooth, though there was a faint tightening at the corner of his mouth.

“How.” Readman pressed.

Eder considered him for a moment, then exalted softly through his nose. “This vampire – the one who cursed me – hailed from the great sailing culture of southern Greece. Corinth, to be precise”. He spoke slowly, flattening certain syllables as if he were testing the words after centuries of silence. “He had travelled the world many times over before Julius Caesar was born. He gave me immortality. A chance to see and learn more than you’ll ever know.”

“A chance to kill forever, that’s what he gave you.” Readman scowled.

Eder’s eyes flickered briefly towards the barmaid polishing glasses at the far end, then returned to Readman’s glare. “What of your mongrel transformation?” he asked, voice like a knife slipping between ribs.

“My great grandfather was hunting in Danby High Moor. He thought he was tracking a wolf that had killed a neighbor’s sheep, but he happened upon a werewolf. That creature bit him, but didn’t kill him. That bite turned him, and consequently all of his male descendants, into lycanthropes.”

“And so here you are,” Eder said. “Pity that long lineage didn’t leave you with the ability to move faster during a fight.”

Readman took a quick drink of whiskey.

“Our kind’s transformations are cyclical, predictable,” Readman continued. “We cannot alter our fates. And believe me, many have tried. It’s not easy going from man to beast and back again. But it does teach that you can’t change nature.”

“I do almost pity you, Mr. Readman,” Eder said.  “Your life is so short, so meaningless, you don’t have time to evolve.”

Readman assessed Eder once again. The vampire was tall, but slight. Formidable, yes, but Readman recognized the cockiness of the bully within. Eder was trying to convince himself of something more than he was trying to win this debate.

“My mortality is my strength, Mr. Eder,” Readman said. “I may die tonight…’

“You just might,” Eder hissed.

“Or I may die in decades. I don’t fear death, like you do. Time is a trap for vampires, binding you to your true self. You’ve no reason to change.”

At long last the vampire finished his drink. He slowly tapped his silver tipped cane on the bar’s wooden floor, the percussive beat sounding like soft knocks on a bedroom door.

Was this a nervous tic? A subtle threat? A bit of both, Readman decided.

“You’re afraid, Mr. Eder. Afraid of your own nature. Your friends were not out to show those ladies a good time. They were going to kill them. And presented with a suitable victim, you too could never pass up such an opportunity.”

“You’re wrong, I spared your life. And here, in this new city, things can be different.”

“Vampires don’t feed off werewolves – you fight us. You know the taste of our blood is sour in your mouths.”

Eder’s cane tapped faster now. 

“A test then, Mr. Eder, of your newfound resolve. Prove to me that you are a new creature in this New World.”

Readman called to the barmaid once again.

“Another whiskey and a gin for my companion please love. And perhaps one for yourself?”

The woman walked over with the drinks on a tray. She was blonde, pretty in a distressed sort of way. Her bright green eyes were suspicious but also somewhat innocent. 

“I’m not supposed to drink with the customers, but it’s late. And old George back there…”

She pointed to the bartender, a short, squat man whose body looked like a rolled bale of hay. He was bald, with unruly thatches of black hair that sprouted just above each ear. George was busy with his own large glass of whiskey as he slowly polished the brass fixtures by the cash register.

“He’s past the point of caring tonight.” the barmaid smirked.

“What’s your name love? I’m called John, and this is Christian.” Readman said, voice warm enough to draw her in. He gestured toward the empty chair beside him, and after a beat of hesitation she sat.

“It’s Carole.”

“Carole, are you from Seattle?”

“No,” she said. “I followed my ex out here a few years back. I’m from Ohio. He came to work in the lumber yards on the coast. We split up soon after we got here and I’ve been carrying drinks in one dump or another ever since.”

The barmaid smiled suggestively at Readman and looked over at Eder, whose stare spooked her slightly. She turned back to Readman and laughed, arching her pale white neck just a bit. Readman learned back in his chair, one arm slung lazily along the backrest, posture deliberately casual. It was theatre – all of it. Every gesture calculated to needle the vampire, to press him closer to the edge.

Readman watched Eder closely as she settled in – watched the vampire’s eyes, the way they didn’t blink. The way they resisted flicking towards her throat for the briefest second. Readman was gambling with her life to make a point. A lawyer’s eye for detail, and a predator’s instinct for weakness. 

Carole continued talking about the Central, the scarcity of affordable flats – what she called apartments – in Seattle, the stinginess of loggers when it came to tips. Readman kept one eye on her and another on Eder.

The trap was the temptation. The woman’s proximity. The warm thrumming inches away. Readman wasn’t just testing Eder’s willpower. He was forcing him to confront the lie he’d been telling himself for centuries: that hunger could be tamed, that restraint meant redemption.

“Drinks on me,” Readman said seductively to their new companion. His eyes never left Eder’s face. “Please, enjoy.”

Readman was just beginning to admire the vampire’s control when after a few minutes Eder’s dull grey eyes slowly turned amber, then light red. His stare turned into a terrifying tunnel vision, focused entirely on the barmaid as his eyes grew an ever darker shade of crimson. Readman tensed and leaned forward, ready to pull Carole away. Just as he was about to grab her arm Eder bowed his head and covered his eyes.

The barmaid turned to face Eder.

“Is he OK?”

“Can’t hold his gin,” Readman said.

“Carole!” George the bartender bellowed. “I’m not paying you to yak. Go collect the glasses off the tables.”

“Right, right,” Carole shouted back. “Well, back to work.”

The barmaid left and Eder’s eyes snapped downward and stared at the floor. Readman said nothing, the silence at the table a stark rebuke to the vampire. The bartender opened the tavern’s front door to air the place out and the pelting, cold rain hitting the stone sidewalk  sounded like the Lewis guns the British soldiers incessantly fired into the battlefield void from the muddy Western Front trenches.

Eder finally raised his head. His eyes had returned to their familiar, barren grey shade and when he opened his mouth Readman saw his dagger-sharp incisors sliding back into his upper jaw.

The vampire lifted his glass, finished his gin and placed the container back on the wooden table. The Daemon and the wolf stared at each other, the stillness between them an extension of the age old conflict between these two very different sorts of creatures.

“It would seem the old ways are difficult to leave behind,” Readman said softly.

Eder had deflated, like a Zeppelin slowly losing air. He finally stood.

“Perhaps… Seattle is not the right place for us,” Eder said. “We need someplace a little more civilized on this continent. Maybe San Francisco would suit our needs.”

Eder reached into his suit jacket pocket and flipped a coin at Readman, who caught it with his right hand.

“All the best in Albion, Mr. Readman. Auf Wiedersehen,” the vampire said as he turned and slowly walked out of the Central, disappearing into the damp darkness when he slipped through the door.

Readman looked at the small, round coin. It was gold. He traced his thumb over the faded, raised portrait of a man and the inscription, dulled by the passage of time but still easily read: AMALRICVS REX DE JERUSALEM.

After a few seconds Readman realized this was a Crusader Coin. Rex means king in Latin and Readman remembered from his studies that Almaric had been one of the rulers of Jerusalem many hundreds of years ago. These coins were made to note the idiot Christian soldiers who trekked to the Middle East to do battle with the Muslims – foolish, misguided wars hardly being a twentieth century invention.

He estimated it was minted in the twelfth century, possibly later. The gold itself was probably worth a hundred American dollars – several months’ wages in 1919. If a dealer knew the provenance of the coin, it would sell for considerably more.

Readman reappraised Eder. He was a fiend, no doubt, but the vampire had his own, almost archaic sense of decorum. Giving the werewolf the coin was his way of admitting defeat without directly saying so.

“Hello, we’re closing now,” Carole said.

The barmaid’s statement snapped Readman out of his contemplation. He looked around, realizing the only people left in the joint were Carole, George the bartender and himself.

“Have I got time for one more?” Readman asked, reaching into his pocket and handing over money to settle the bill.

“Sure honey. George will be a while yet.”

She returned with a large glass of whiskey and set it before Readman. He handed her the Crusader Coin.

“A tip for you Carole. Take it to a coin dealer or a bank, it will more than make up for the skinflint loggers.”

The barmaid stared at the gold trinket with some puzzlement, but thanked Readman. She returned to the bar, staring at the piece all the way.

Readman sipped his whiskey. The only sounds in the bar were George whistling as he collected the last of the empty glasses and the crackling pops from the logs in the fireplace that Readman hadn’t even noticed until now. The rain had stopped, and a cool breeze blew through the Central. Readman smelled only salt and sea, no blood, no burnt wood, no hint of menace.

He took a deeper drink and thought of his brother Archie. He remembered the scores of friends who also never returned from the Great War and the werewolves he’d known who had been slain by vampires. Finally, he pondered what he’d tell his father. And for the first time in his life, he realized he didn’t care what Oliver Readman thought.

“Difficulties do not daunt,” Readman said, his regiment’s motto an apt statement as he finished the last of his American whiskey in a dark, nearly empty tavern almost five thousand miles from his home.