• tab Ethan pulled the weapons out of the van’s back, and listed through them in his mind as he went. Handgun, check. Pistol, check. Highly corrosive acid, check. Rifle, check. Dagger set, check. So far so good and he was soon done. His dirty blond hair blew slightly in the light wind, and the moonlight reflected off his glasses as Jack approached.
    tab “Hey, Ethan. Need any help?” the younger male asked as he stopped beside the taller, older man. Jack had always felt slightly insignificant next to the other two extraordinarily tall men, because even though he was the strongest of them physically, and the most agile, he was also the shortest, stature-wise.
    tab “A little with putting the stuff back in the van, I guess. Are we gonna go get our price from the police soon?” Ethan responded. As Jack nodded in reply, Ethan examined his colleague out of the corner of his eye. He was always a little off-put by Jack, and he wasn’t quite sure why. He knew about his condition, of course, and he knew how he was able to control it, but even though he knew he was in very little danger, and liked Jack as a person, there was always something. . . predatory about Jack, especially at night. Maybe it was the way his gold-flecked eyes shone like a cat’s in the moonlit darkness of the nights, or his wolfish features, but Ethan knew that somewhere in his mind that it was the teeth. Some ancient instinct in his mind told him that he should abhor anything with teeth like that. He would never get used to seeing those double sets of violently sharp canine teeth whenever the younger one smiled. Ed had assured him many times that there was nothing to worry about, it was under control, but there was always that feeling in the way back of his mind that he should never be this close to something like that…

    tab Ed soon arrived and broke the somber silence that had befallen the two with his huge grin and bright hair, and they drove to the police station and settled their payment for ridding Trenton of its supernatural infection. When they settled on a price, it was around 4:45 AM, so they hurried back to their hotel. Ed and Ethan had long adjusted to Jack’s mandatory schedule, so as soon as they were ready, they pulled the curtains tight and went to bed. Jack took the bed closest to the door and bathroom, because even though his heightened senses and night vision should allow him to discern Ed’s feet, ankles, and lower legs hanging over the edge of the bed, and obviate the danger of running into them, his bleariness at having just woken up had allowed this to happen too many times, so now he eliminated this danger by not having to pass by the bed that Ed and Ethan shared when they were in hotels.

    The three soon fell asleep.
    *********



    tab Ethan’s turbulent dreams are of snapping, tearing wolves and a lurking monster that observes the chaos from a distance just a little too far away in obscuring shadows for Ethan’s dream vision to see it clearly, but for the sole exception of its gleaming white grin that bared its double set of vicious fangs…
    tab Ed dreams of the girl he left in Oregon for this job. He relives the moment when he told her he had to leave. Tears pour from her emerald green eyes as she begs him not to leave on his dangerous mission. She reasons with the tall, red-headed man she loves, and he slowly shakes his head. He pushes her strawberry blonde hair out of her face, places his large hand gently on the side of her face, and tenderly strokes her cheekbone, wet with tears, as he explains that she can neither come with him nor could he stay with her, as his job is just too dangerous and important. As he tells her that he might not ever make it home alive, he also begins to cry in the dream world, and a few stray tears slide down his cheeks in the world of reality…
    tab And Jack’s dreams are of the night of his twentieth birthday, when a renegade vampire attacked him in an alley, and the pain of his transformation into a creature of the night over the next few days in that dark and squalid alley with the vociferous music of the night club next door pounding into his head and buffeting his increasingly sensitive eardrums. The memories switched to his first mission with Ed, when they were out to inter a rare group of zombies that were actually infectious, and flying glass had hit Ed, and he began to bleed, sending the zombies into a frenzy, and nearly causing Jack to loose control. The fact that one day something might go wrong and he could kill his friends haunted him in his dreams…
    tab Their fretful dreams continue, and as the sun falls lower and lower in the sky, restless pieces of the supernatural stir, and soon they will begin their hunt. When the sun sets, their day begins, and so does the day of the boys of the Vagabond Slayer Company; Ed, Jack, and Ethan.