Chapter 2 - Lions, Tigers, and Bears oh my!
June 12, 12:22 a.m.
The first thing Detective Pearson became aware of, before he even opened his eyes, was the stinging pain in the back of his head. "What...?"
"About time you're awake. You know, for a cop, you sure aren't that tough." He felt the stinging sensation again, this time accompanied by somebody applying firm pressure to the back of his head.
It took him a moment to place the voice. His thoughts were still scattered to the wind. "Elizabeth? Where am I? What are you doing?"
"Making sure your brains don't spill out the back of your head," she replied, her cool voice tinged with amusement. "Now hold still."
He heard something splash and then the stinging sensation came again. It took his mind a few moments to register the alcohol smell. The firm pressure against his head finally made sense. She must be cleaning his head wound with alcohol.
He took the moments in between wincing from pain to study his surroundings. He appeared to be sitting on a black leather sofa. Elizabeth was standing behind him. The carpet under his feet was as white as the walls. The only decoration he could see from his vantage point was a pair of axes nailed across each other on the wall. How odd.
"Nice...uh...house," he said lamely, trying to fill the silence. He winced as she swiped the cloth across his scalp.
"It's an apartment," she replied. "You really must have been out of it on the way back."
Pearson tried to reorder his scrambled thoughts as best as he could. "I think I remember you helping me down the alley. After that...it's blank."
"And before that?"
He wasn't sure, but he felt a sudden tension in the air, as though she was preparing to add to his injuries. The cloth was held still against his head. He swallowed nervously before answering. "You mean that guy with red demon eyes and long fangs? Nope, don't remember any of that."
He felt the tension behind him ease somewhat as she chuckled. "You're taking this remarkably well."
"Taking what exactly?"
"That's the best I can do for you," she answered instead. She walked around the couch and into his line of vision. She tossed the cloth on the coffee table and dropped into the leather armchair across from him. "You will probably need to go see a doctor. I think you suffered a concussion."
"It feels like it," he mumbled. He felt the back of his head gingerly with his fingers. He winced when he found the wound. "How is it?"
"You'll live." Her mouth curved upward on one side. Her fierce green eyes almost seemed to sparkle. "Didn't even need stitches."
He poked the wound again and winced as his head throbbed. "Still hurts."
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "My god, how did you ever become a cop? Haven't you ever been shot? Stabbed?"
"I twisted my ankle once, chasing a drug dealer. It was pretty nasty, too, all swollen and purple."
Elizabeth seemed to struggle to keep from laughing. "How did you ever survive?"
"I pushed back the pain," Pearson said nonchalantly, leaning back into the sofa. He put his arms up on the top of the couch.
"Comfortable?" Elizabeth asked. "Would you like some tea? Crackers?"
"Some answers would be nice."
The playfulness drained quickly from her face; an emotionless mask replaced it. "I thought it was obvious. You're the lucky survivor of your first vampire attack."
Pearson, who to this point had been refusing to think about the attack by hiding behind his wit and charm, suddenly felt a cold chill creep down his back. He remembered the body in the morgue and his earlier interrogation of Elizabeth.
"My god, you're not joking, are you? You're seriously telling me that I just fought a vampire? An actual vampire?"
"I tried to warn you," Elizabeth said. There was no pity in her voice. "I told you that the body in the morgue wasn't human."
"And you really expected me to believe that?" Pearson asked. He was too frightened to care that his voice sounded shrill. "Jesus, woman, a real vampire! A real, blood-sucking vampire!"
He got off the couch, his fear pushing him to move around, to deny the truth he saw with his own eyes. He paced around her living room as he tried to come to terms with the awful truth.
Elizabeth sat impassively, her eyes following his every movement. He felt that sudden tension again, like a hunter waiting to pounce. He stilled his nervous pacing and stared down at Elizabeth. "Vampires?"
She nodded. "Welcome to a whole new world. I'm sorry, but there's no going back now."
Pearson sat back down on the couch and buried his head in his hands. "How? How is this possible?" he muttered into the silence.
"If you're strong enough, I will tell you what you need to know to survive from here on out." He looked up at her. Her green eyes bored into his. He didn't know what she saw, but it seemed to satisfy her. A small smile tugged the corners of her mouth.
"Why tell me anything? Who are you?" Pearson demanded.
"I'm somebody who doesn't want to send you back out there unprepared. Otherwise, I might as well kill you now. So the question remains; are you strong enough for this?"
She held his gaze and didn't look away. Pearson plumbed the depths of his soul for his answer. His heart raced rapidly as she continued to stare at him. He noticed again, even in his hysteria, how beautiful she was.
He had his answer. "I want to know everything."
She nodded, as though expecting no other answer. "There exists a world outside your own, a 'supernatural' world, if you will. You just met one such inhabitant of that world tonight."
"Just one? There's more?"
"Vampires are only the most popular of the monsters that call this world home. There's also were-beasts."
"Were-beasts?" Pearson rolled the unfamiliar word around his mouth. "What's that?"
