(5) When all else is lost the future still remains

“I take it I’m not the first non-human you’ve run into,” Shan commented.

“Nope. I ran into a vampire believe it or not. I think I scared him as much as he scared me. He grabbed me and tried to put me under his power so he could feed.”

“Tried to? But he couldn’t? You’re getting more interesting by the minute Race.”

“Apparently a positive side effect to all this. Whatever’s fucked up in my brain keeps me from being mesmerized.” Race chuckled wryly. “The vampire and I parted ways without his getting to feed, but I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone I’d run into him. He was actually fairly harmless as vampires go, or at least he wasn’t vicious like the ones in the movies.”

“A lot of them aren’t.”

“You know some?” Race looked at him in shock and then chuckled. “I guess that shouldn’t come as a surprise given what you are.”

“I’ve known several. Some are beautiful creatures who just happen to need blood to survive, others are truly evil, and the rest run the gamut between those two extremes. Just as with humans, there are the good, the bad, and the ones who should have been destroyed at birth.”

Race leaned back, looking at Shan. “And you’ve met all those kinds, human and non-human. How old are you anyway?”

“Twenty-nine,” Shan replied with a laugh. “At least I hope I don’t look older than that. In actuality I’m just over two hundred.”

“Whew.” Race whistled in surprise. “How does that work? You’re just born to age slowly?”

“It’s comes from shifting. Every time a Were shifts they regenerate, as well as heal from any wounds they might have sustained. It keeps us young and handsome.”

“No ego there,” Race muttered. Then something occurred to him. “You said whoever sent the message could be after you because of what you do for a living.”

“One possibility. I’m a security specialist, both for setting up security systems and protecting clients when needs be. I’ve made a few enemies in the process.”

“And whoever that man was could be one of them. Can I be nosy and ask what the message was? You can tell me to mind my own business if you want to.”

Laughing, Shan said, “I think we’re sort of past that at this point. It was short and not so sweet. ‘Bang, bang, you’re dead’.”

Race snorted. “How original, not.”

“Not everyone who might want my hide is a genius by any means.” Shan frowned. “Just some of them.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Right now? I’m going to fix supper. Are you hungry?”

“I could eat, yeah.”

“When was the last time you had a decent meal,” Shan asked as he stood up. Beckoning for Race to join him he headed to the kitchen.