Rogue

                  Artemi de Luca leaned against the cold lamppost and tipped his head backwards.  Allowing a small smile to form on his lips, he reveled in the soft rain as it speckled his cheeks.  The flickering light caught the gleam of his fangs, adding to his vampiric look.  He shook a strand of his jet black hair out of his eyes and opened them to look around.  His dark, brown eyes almost looked black as he gazed off into the distance.  When he saw a small shift on the horizon, he perked up and adjusted his sweeping coat, making it seem as if he had been waiting the planned thirty minutes instead of hours.  He straightened when a car pulled up next to him, and a young man tumbled out of the driver’s seat, looking frantic.  The driver was the one that he had been waiting for, a friend by the name of Evan.
         “Artemi, I’m so sorry.  I got caught up researching at the house and—”
         Artemi cut him off with a soft laugh and a raised hand.  “I am not going to reprimand you for doing your job.”  He glanced over Evan with an arched eyebrow.  “You look like a train wreck, Evan.”
         Evan looked down at his wrinkled clothes and gave a sheepish smile.  “The chairs in your library are so comfortable that I can’t help but get curled up when I’m researching.”
         Artemi regarded his researcher’s appearance with an amused smile.  His tousled brown hair and sparkling blue eyes made it hard for Artemi to be frustrated about standing out in the rain. 
         Although Evan had only been his personal researcher for a few months, he had fit into the role better than either of them had expected.  Their situation was a unique one; being a vampire, Artemi had lived over four hundred years of both American and European history.  Because of this, he held a high position in a council of creatures like and unlike himself.  This council located new and rogue creatures to protect the human race, and Artemi was the primary field agent. 
         Evan himself was a conundrum, a find unlike any other in Artemi’s history with the council.  Artemi had found him lost and alone, a victim of a random experiment that had left him a member of a rare species of “functional zombies”.  From the research that Artemi compiled, he came to learn that although Evan classified as “zombie”, his rate of decay was much slower and more manageable.  For now, he seemed suspended in a perpetual state of partial decay. 
         After Artemi trained him and taught him how to function in polite society, he took him into his extensive mansion.  Evan had become a companion and a researcher to find out about the creatures that they needed to locate, but most importantly, a friend.  Evan was usually able to mask any zombie features, such as rotting flesh and decaying stench with makeup and strong cologne.  To Artemi’s relief, when Evan wasn’t devouring a rare steak, which was more like mutilating the meat when it came to Evan, he acted upon his good-natured personality.
         Artemi ran his slender fingers through his hair to keep it out of his eyes again.  “Alright, what did you find?”
         Evan smiled and led him to the car to dry.  He pulled out a thick portfolio from the back seat and opened it to the last section.  “It’s a vampire today.  He’s been wreaking havoc on a small section of the city.  For a rogue, I couldn’t find too much information on him.  He’s kept a fairly low profile.  The police don’t have any suspects or anything.”
         Artemi furrowed his brows and inclined his head to read the file from Evan’s lap.  He noted how little information they had for this assignment in comparison to the rest of the cases.  Typically, Evan could find enough information for them to pinpoint the rogue and track them in a matter of hours.  This time, they would have to do a little more fieldwork to solidify any new helpful details. “Yes, that is very unusual,” Artemi replied, straightening and bringing his attention back to Evan again.  “Are we absolutely certain that it is a vampire?”
         “I’m pretty sure.  All of the attacks looked vampiric.  The only evidence they found were the bloodless bodies.  The bodies were intact, and that’s how vampires usually leave their victims in comparison to the bloody mess of disfigured corpses most other creatures leave.  Guess you guys are the civilized ones.”
         Artemi nodded and settled back into the soft leather of the passenger seat, choosing to ignore Evan’s gruesome comment.  “Where do we look for him first?  You did find that out, correct?”
         “Yeah.  The bodies were found behind an empty warehouse in the industrial district.  Creative, I know.  This one must have watched all the good horror movies as a kid.”
         Artemi laughed and shook his head, running his hand down his face in fake exasperation as the other grinned at his own joke. 
         When they arrived on the scene, they crept beneath the crime scene tape and around the massive concrete skeleton.  Artemi glanced back at Evan and thanked the high heavens that despite being a zombie, Evan could be as stealthy as he.  That had taken quite a while to master.  He led his researcher over to a bloodstained section of pavement, which seemed to have been a parking lot before a murder scene.  “So this is all we have to work with, I see.”
         “Yeah, it’s kind of a pathetic start, but we will figure something out, I’m sure.” 
         Artemi gazed around as Evan began scouring the area for any sort of clues.  He strained his ears for a sign of the rogue still being there, which he figured unlikely.  If this one was like the others, the rogue knew nothing of what he was doing or where he was.  Leaving Evan to his work, he stood and made his way into the building itself.  He heard his companion look up but when Evan didn’t make a noise to stop him, he continued into the depths of the warehouse. 
         He skirted around a pile of pallets wrapped in plastic and cobwebs.  The support beams above his head moaned and creaked along with the wind and the rain, threatening to open up and expose him to the elements.  He shivered in spite of his cold, vampiric body temperature and pressed deeper into the building.  He whirled around at every sound, cursing himself for being so jumpy.  Forcing himself to relax, he slunk passed conference rooms and filthy trucker bathrooms to another expansive room filled with pallets and forklifts.  He wrinkled his nose as a stench reached his nose, making his stomach churn and writhe inside of him.  After pausing to think for a moment, he finally placed it as the sharpness of a musty attic mixed with the metallic scent of old dried blood.  Figuring this unpleasant aroma was not something archetypal to a warehouse, he took a deep breath and followed it farther into the building. 
         His head snapped to the right when a flash of color crossed his peripheral vision.  He stared in the direction that the color—he thought it had been red but he couldn’t be quite sure—had disappeared in.  Without dropping his gaze, he pulled his phone from his pocket and pressed down the two to speed dial Evan’s number. 
         He answered in the middle of the first ring.  “Hey Temi, where are you?”
         “I am in the connected warehouse,” he replied in a hushed tone.  “The first warehouse connects through conference rooms to another.  I think I found something.  Come if you can.”
         “Okay.  I’ll be there.”
         He flipped the phone closed with a soft snap and took a deep breath, longing to go towards the movement but forcing himself to stay in one place so that Evan could locate him.  When his researcher finally arrived, he leaned in close to whisper with him. 
         “What did you find?” Evan inquired, straining his voice to remain quiet.
         “Do you smell that?”
         Evan took a moment to sniff the air and when he processed the smell, his face crumpled into a look of displeasure.  He nodded and bit his lip.  “That’s really rancid.  What is that?  Not me.  I put cologne on today.”
         Artemi ignored his friend’s attempt at a joke.  “I am not sure, but right after I stumbled across that, I saw something.  We are looking for something red I think…but I am not sure of the color.  Whatever it was, it moved with great speed.”
         “A vampire on speed…” Evan mused but quieted in an instant with a disciplinary glare from Artemi.  “Right, sorry.  Important task at hand.”
         Artemi couldn’t help but crack a smile no matter how hard he tried to force his expression to stay neutral.  He led Evan around a stack of pallets and stopped abruptly when a vampire leapt from the top of the pile and landed in front of him, hissing and snarling with his bloodstained fangs bared.  Blinking once to focus his eyes, Artemi threw his arm back to warn Evan and emitted a low growl, his already dark eyes becoming fully black as he showed his fangs as well.  He could almost decipher what Evan was saying behind him but he chose to ignore him.  The vampire before him was clad in old clothes, the shirt a vibrant red, due from the color of the fabric as well as the bloodstains.  Artemi had the rogue in his sights, and he couldn’t lose him. 
         He hissed at his researcher when he jerked him back but ceased when Evan slammed him back against the pallets with brute zombie strength, making the structure teeter dangerously above his head.  Artemi shook his head to clear himself out of the vampire mentality in order to be coherent.  “What are you doing?  He is right there!”
         “You might want to have a look at this.”
         Artemi furrowed his brows but turned to look at the vampire nevertheless.  When he beheld the cowering creature, he felt his heart melt inside of him, and his expression softened without him forcing it.
          The vampire before him looked young; he couldn’t be more than a teenager.  His clothes were tattered, disheveled, and didn’t fit quite right.  Dirt streaked across his pale face, making his platinum blond hair and sapphire blue eyes stand out even more than they already did against the dark wall.  He slid down to the floor and drew his knees up to his chin, wrapping his arms around them tightly.  He was shaking and hissing every now and then, almost as if it was a defense mechanism. 
         Artemi knelt down next to him, keeping his movements slow and controlled as not to startle the young creature.  He smiled and offered his hand as a greeting.  When the vampire glanced down at his hand and back up at his eyes, he withdrew his hand and settled in the dust next to him.  “Hello.  My name is Artemi and this is my friend, Evan.  Who are you?”
         The boy regarded him with suspicion again, and just when Artemi thought he wasn’t going to get an answer, the boy spoke in a whisper.  “Ian.”
         “Are you the one killing all of the people around here?”
         Ian dropped his gaze and a soft sob shook his body.  He nodded wordlessly and tightened his grip around his knees, hiding his face in his arms.  “Am I going to get in trouble?”
         “No, of course not…you do not understand what you are doing.”  Artemi looked up when Evan reacted by shifting as if he wanted to say something.  He glanced over at the young boy before shaking his head to keep Evan quiet.  “How were you changed, Ian?”
         “I don’t know.  I was walking home after I spent the day at a friend’s house and the next thing I knew, I was here and hungry for blood.  I guess someone attacked me.  I don’t remember anything, though.  I’m sorry…”
         “And where did you get the clothes?  Those do not look like something a boy your age would wear.”
         Ian raised his head mere inches to look at his torn sleeves.  He brushed a tear away and rested his chin on his arms.  “Mine were covered in blood.  I figured I couldn’t be running around with blood covered clothes when I was doing all that stuff.  I knew I’d be caught.  So I found these in someone’s trash.  I figured their dirt was better than blood.  I dumped mine where I didn’t think anyone would find them.  These have some blood but not nearly as much…”
         Artemi stood and motioned for Evan to follow.  When Ian made a move to get up, Artemi shook his head.  “Stay here.  I am just going to talk with Evan for a moment.  We will be right back.”
         Ian nodded, a miserable look on his face, and curled back into the corner.
         Evan sighed and glanced over at Ian when they had moved out of earshot.  He raised his eyebrows and looked at Artemi.  “Well…what do we do?”
         “I do not believe that we should take him back to the council.  Am I horrible for suggesting such a thing?”
         Evan drew his shoulders up into a half-hearted shrug.  “I—I don’t want to.  Who knows what they would do to him.  He seems like a sweet kid.  It’s just a matter of if we want to have compassion like you had with me earlier today.”
         Artemi had to smile at the memory but dropped it as quickly as it had come.  “I am going to make the executive decision between what we should do and what we want to do.  I just hope that it is the correct decision.”  He led Evan back over to Ian and offered his hand, this time, earning a hand in return.  He pulled the boy to his feet and smiled at him.
         Ian twitched under his gaze, avoiding Artemi’s eyes.  “You’re going to turn me in, aren’t you?”
         Artemi shook his head and rested his hand on Ian’s shoulder.  “No.  The council would want to know about you, but I think that we can pull a few strings if you promise to cut back on the rampage killings.”
         Ian nodded, his blond hair flopping back and forth as if it had a mind of its own.  “Yeah.  I want to be trained the right way.  I don’t want to kill people anymore.”
         Artemi smiled at both Ian and Evan and nodded once.  “Divine.  Now let us get back to the house where you can eat and dress yourself properly.”  With a final smile, he led them both out of the warehouse, tearing up Ian’s file once they settled into the car.