The Wrong One

Chapter 2

Blinking repeatedly, Nick finally came to. He was in and out of unconsciousness but he wasn't sure if it was the blow to his head, the other blow to his head, or if it was because he was hanging upside down from a basement ceiling. Taking a quick glance around, this situation clearly was not ideal for our young hero. Across from him on a table, he sees his hunting gear he had on him sitting there, clearly it was being examined. Now how exactly did he get in this situation again... Oh right, because he was being stupid.

A couple of weeks ago Nick was tracking down a vampire in Virginia. It generally preyed on younger women who were out late at night. Super standard stuff, totally something he'd be able to handle. He'd be in and out, done as quick as he got there. Nick even figured out the vampire's hunting patterns and narrowed it down to two locations...

Like a fool and not looking at anymore details, Nick, of course, picked the wrong goddamn location.

While staking out a park with some dense foliage, Nick caught sight of a man sneaking around and hiding behind bushes. Thinking this was the vampire, Nick threw a garlic bomb in his direction. Obviously garlic doesn't actually work on vampires, but these bombs had microscopic silver particles mixed in, the garlic gas just being an agent to disperse the material (and a clear homage to the whole garlic vs vampires thing). The silver content wasn't enough to kill a vampire, it was supposed to weaken it (at least a little) and give Nick a little bit of an edge in combat. So, it turns out this guy was a mugger and upon being hit by a garlic grenade and seeing Nick charging him with a katana, took off screaming, probably thinking the young Helsing was some kind of crazy person. That kind of left Nick standing there and feeling like an idiot and upon going back to his Jeep and looking at his notes, he saw where he went wrong. Generally this never happened, but it was a learning experience and even though it only happened two weeks ago, Nick now triple checks his notes.

So, here's the kicker in Nick's little predicament.

This mugger goes and blabs about this dude who chased him with a sword and sprayed him with garlic. Guess who hears about this? Yeah, you guessed it; the vampire he was hunting. And then on, the hunter became the hunted and then he got clubbed, went down, got back up, got clubbed again, went down and stayed down, and now he's hanging from the ceiling in a basement.

Nick then comes back from his recollection of where he went wrong when the door to the basement creaks open which is then followed by footsteps. "Here we go." Nick thinks to himself as the shadowy figure stands in front of him. "I see that you're awake." The vampire says and Nick glances around the room again before looking back (was it up or down?) at the vampire. "Must've been the smell." Nick says and chuckles before getting a hand placed violently upside his head.

Grunting in pain from the blow and the swinging, Nick looks back at the vampire. "You treat all your house guests like this? No wonder you don't have any friends." He says and laughs to himself again. "For someone whose about to die and be used like cattle you sure talk a lot." The vampire retorts harshly. Nick grins a little bit as the vampire places a bucket under him. "I'm chatty. It's part of my charm. And also," Slipping from his coat sleeve and into his hand was a small silver knife. He quickly swings and cuts the vampire across the eyes, the creature reeling back and howling in pain as Nick made quick work of the ropes binding his feet together. He hits the ground with a this and a grunt but quickly gets to his feet and puts the silver knife in the vampires spine, rendering his legs useless until the knife is removed.

Walking towards the table which had his weapons sitting on, Nick shakes his head. "What kind of idiot doesn't tie up their captives hands? He chuckles and then pauses. "Don't answer that. Probably the same idiot who reads his own notes wrong." Nick says and picks up his sword from the table. It was a katana made out of a silver and steel alloy. As strong as steel but also had the ability to kill vampires. A great deal of his arsenal was either made of or at least dipped in this silver steel alloy. "I'll kill you, you bastard!"

The vampire yells at Nick as he reaches to try and grab the knife in his back. "You see, you say that, but," with a quick swing, Nick takes the vampire's head clean off as his remains burst into smoke and ashes.

Taking another look around, Nick sighs to himself. "This never happened." He says to himself as he gathers his gear and puts them back in their respective places in his coat. And with that, he gets some gasoline and sloshes it around the house before striking a match and lighting the entire place up like a firework.

Before the authorities arrive, Nick flees the scene.

Finding his way back to the Jeep, Nick opens the trunk and then opens a secret compartment in the trunk before throwing his gear back with the rest. If he was pulled over, he didn't want to have to explain why an automatic hand-crossbow was in his jacket, or a katana, silver throwing disks, the garlic grenades, knives, sharp sticks, or pointy rocks were on him. The only thing he kept on him were the small silver knives that were up his sleeves, the only way that you'd find those is if you were looking for them.

Once he put his gear away in the secret compartment, Nick hops into his Jeep and turns the ignition. His next stop was Georgia; a vampire he's been tracking for almost a year is headed that direction and this is the closest he's ever gotten to them. He just hoped this little setback didn't cost him any time, this vampire was a slippery son of a bitch. At first he was tracking him through Europe and four months ago, it seemed the bastard hopped on a plane and came to America. Lots of missing people but not a lot of bodies found, this vampire was good at what they did and its now Nick's mission to put a stop to it.