Night Runner by Max Turner Page B

another bottle in his hand.
    â€œWhat is
your
purpose?” I asked him.
    He used his teeth to pull the cork from the wine bottle and poured himself a glass.
    â€œI help vampires,” he said.
    â€œOnly the good ones, I hope.”
    He laughed and raised his drink. “Not usually,” he answered. “It’s the bad ones that need the most help.”
    Mr. Entwistle sat and stared at his glass of wine. After seeing him all paranoid in the nuthouse, it was odd to see him so relaxed. Odd and reassuring. Of course, he could have used a few hours in a hair salon and about a gallon of Miracle Glow shampoo. And with his mismatched gloves and overstuffed overcoat, he still looked the part of the crazy motorcycle man. But it didn’t matter now. I trusted him.
    â€œYou know that my father was a vampire hunter?” I said.
    â€œNo,” he answered. “But I can see another lesson in irony tucked away there someplace. God has quite a sense of humour.”
    He seemed to doze off for just a second or two, then his head jerked up. “So he’s gone, your father? Or retired?”
    â€œHe died.”
    â€œI’m sorry for your loss,” he said. “But perhaps it will prepare you for your life as a vampire. You will outlive everyone you know. It isn’t easy.”
    Then he stood, removed his overcoat and held it up so that thesilver moonlight shone through many finger-sized openings. They were bullet holes. When he tossed the coat to the floor, I saw what he was wearing underneath. It wasn’t ten layers of clothing. It was like something out of a video game.
    â€œWhat’s that?” I asked.
    â€œBody armour,” he said. “Platinum.” He thumped his chest. “Sewn inside a double Kevlar weave. Cost me more than my car, but it’s worth it. Stops most small-arms fire. A bullet still feels like a sledgehammer, but it keeps the blood where it belongs.”
    That explained it. I’d watched him get shot so many times that all the wine in his stomach should have been streaming out onto the floor.
    â€œDo you have another set?” I asked.
    He shook his head.
    â€œSo, what do we do now?”
    Mr. Entwistle looked around. “You don’t have to decide on anything at the moment. Just relax. You’re in a safe house. No one knows you’re here. You can rest and get used to being a vampire. It’s no small thing. Then, once you’re ready, you can start testing yourself. See how strong you are. How fast. What it takes to exhaust you. How well you recover. How quickly you learn. What your strengths are. And your talents.”
    â€œWhat do you mean by ‘talents’?”
    â€œThat’s a loaded question.” He picked up his wineglass and spun it in his hand, then he put it under his nose and inhaled deeply. “All people have talents. Things they’re naturally good at. But when it comes to vampires, that word has a special meaning. You know, most people who get infected, they don’t become vampires. The body’s immune system fights it off, as it would any other disease. I think that’s why, in all the old stories, people had to be bitten so many times.”
    I remembered that from
Dracula
. It seemed to take three bites.And you had to lose a lot of blood too, which I guess made you weaker. It made me wonder: if you were healthy, how many times could you get bitten and still stay human?
    â€œI only got bitten once,” I said.
    Mr. Entwistle’s eyebrows rose in surprise. Then his face relaxed. “But you were young. Maybe that had something to do with it. Vampires don’t usually bite children.”
    I nodded.
    â€œYou are the only child vampire I’ve ever seen who has survived,” Mr. Entwistle continued. “But that’s not what I’m getting at. The whole talent thing has to do with the pathogen. From what I can tell, it’s like a kind of retrovirus. Do you know what