So I Might Be a Vampire - Book 1 (Original Version)

Prologue: Burn Motherfucker, Burn

There is a saying about throwing yourself out of the back of a moving vehicle travelling at what feels to be the speed of light. The saying goes something like this: "Don't do it."

If this were a movie, it would be the exact time they would do a hilarious freeze-frame of me flying through the air. This would be the split-second before gravity noticed that I was doing something that I shouldn't be, but at that moment, you might believe that man could fly. Yes, it is an awkward kind of flying, legs all splayed out behind me, bloody hands bound together with duct-tape, mouth open in a full scream that would inevitably end with a stream of cuss words, their only purpose to illustrate my pain.

In the distance behind me, the car slammed its brakes and skidded to a stop, a cloud of acrid smoke rising from the tires to join the Camaro's dust cloud.

Go ahead and laugh. You know you want to. It's not like you have to deal with the pain of landing and bouncing down the desert road. It's no skin off of your back, but it certainly was several layers off mine. No, that was my particular fate at that moment, that frozen moment never happened because gravity is a bitch and has no sense of chill.

"Fuck!"

Bounce.

"Ow!"

Bounce.

"Shit!"

Roll and bounce.

"Ow!"

Splat.

"RASSHOLE!"

That, of course, was my progress down the road. It may have gone on a little bit longer than that and involved a lot more Bajan swear words I'd picked up from Dad whenever he'd happened to be around, which hadn't been much, but when he had, lots of swearing had been involved. We must've been speeding at well over 140 kilometres per hour and man, that is a lot of rolling and cursing.

I was a mass of scrapes and cuts and bruises, each one stinging and screaming for attention is different ways as I somehow managed to pull myself to my very unsteady feet. My head rang in that familiar "you just got a concussion" way, and my brain was trying to tell me something, but my senses were buried in a thick fog. I think one of my fingers was broken, but it was hard to tell. Something was screaming at me to get moving, don't look back, just get moving and run and for fuck's sake, don't look back—

I looked back.

Striding steadily toward me through the dust and smoke was Beatrice and goddamn if she wasn't the angel of death. The katana that she unsheathed as she walked added to the ensemble in a way that said she knew exactly how cool she looked, but that was Beatrice for you.

"Don't run Bob! Embrace it!"

"Fuck that!" I yelled. "How about we do the complete opposite of that?" Beatrice only laughed and sped up her walk. I tried to implore to her good side. "Let's just go someplace dark and talk about me not dying?"

"Blaze of glory Bob!"

I looked over my shoulder at the horizon where the sun was still promising an eventual appearance and then looked back to Beatrice, realizing that I was tired of running. Or maybe I was just too beat up to run. It had been a long night after all. Either way, it worked out the same: I was fucked.

I watched Beatrice rise into the air, sword held up to strike. It was a beautiful and well-rehearsed jump that sent her flying through the air over the fifty feet that lay between us. Now that I think of it, it was the kind of leap that would have been awesome in a movie, especially with the sword raised like that. From my perspective on the ground, it was utterly terrifying.