The Vampire and The Paramedic (9 page)

“Oh, I love that place!” Brynne shouted,
slurring her words a bit. “That would be perfect. I can have
pancakes and eggs and biscuits and bacon and coffee. Ooo, I think I
could use some coffee.” She laughed. “Rudy, did they tell you the
baby had wings? Real, honest to God wings? It was the most amazing
thing I’ve ever seen. I mean, I’ve helped deliver babies before but
never anything like that. What a rush!”

The paramedic kept talking nearly nonstop,
describing every aspect of the labor and birth to the others. They
all smiled and let her ramble on as they cruised through the early
morning hours back to town. James would have ordinarily been
annoyed by such drunken banter but found himself smiling as he
listened to her voice. She was a remarkable, professional woman
with prodigious skills. Yet here she was learning of a new world
all around her and expounding on all she had seen and learned with
child-like delight. He let out a little laugh before he caught
himself.

“What?” Rudy asked from the driver’s
seat.

“Nothing,” James said. He gestured down the
road ahead. “Keep driving and let’s get our chatty paramedic
something to eat.”

The next few days went fast as James focused
on his other work and duties. Brynne had returned to her normal
shift at the paramedic station and despite being busy, the ancient
vampire found he missed her. She had given him a new perspective on
his world. That was something that hadn’t happened for many years,
longer than he could remember. He had shown her parts of his
community and demonstrated how the Unusuals lived alongside and
among the humans peacefully. The short internship had been
productive for him as well. Brynne’s delivery of the Fae child was
the talk of the community. Everyone was asking their friends if
they would call the human paramedics, and the answers were usually
a resounding ‘yes’. This had also raised his status among the
community. As the overlord of Elk City’s Unusual community, they
had always treated him with due respect. Now, however, it was
different. They saw him not only as their governor and leader but
also as a protector and caregiver. He laughed aloud at that
thought. A vampire caregiver! That was certainly a new concept. And
it was all because of the remarkable human girl, no the woman, who
didn’t think he was anything that special at all.

“Penny for your thoughts, boss,” Celeste said
from the hall as she entered his apartment. “What were you laughing
at?”

“I was just thinking back to Brynne and how
she just kept talking all the way to that diner and halfway through
that enormous breakfast she ate,” James said. He looked up as his
assistant came over to where he sat behind his desk. “She’s quite a
remarkable young woman, for a human.”

“Yes, yes she is,” Celeste said.

James sensed a humorous response bubbling
under the surface of her mind. “What is it, Celeste? You seem like
you want to say something.”

“I’m just happy to see you this way,” she
said. “You haven’t been in a mood like this for decades, maybe
longer.”

“What mood is that?” He asked.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Celeste replied. “I guess
you might call it infatuation, a crush, maybe love perhaps?”

James snorted. “I don’t fall in love. I’m a
vampire. I’m the overlord of this whole city and region for God’s
sake. I don’t have time for such things.”

“Whatever you say, James. But I’ve known you
for over a century and a half, and I’ve never seen you quite this
enamored of a human woman. You’ve had your infatuations over the
years. This seems different. You’ve never been infatuated and
impressed with a woman at the same time. That is what is new.”

James thought of what she said. Celeste had
known him a long time and had been his companion, assistant, and
even occasional lover over the years. She knew him better than any
did these days. She had moved on in the romance department, letting
him know that they were now friends and professional colleagues,
but she remained interested in his personal life. She was his
personal assistant after all. He guessed he was lucky that she
hadn’t started hitting on Brynne herself. Short little brunettes
seemed to be her type of late.

“Are you sure you aren’t just imprinting your
own feelings and attraction to her on me?” James asked
playfully.

“I don’t think she likes girls,” Celeste said
regretfully. “No, she is more interested in you, definitely. She
was positively bubbling over at you after that baby was born. You
should call her.”

“What? Call her?” James said. “What would I
say?”

“Ask her to dinner again,” Celeste suggested.
“Find out when she’s off work and offer to show her the town again.
You could take her to Sensations and go dancing.”

“I don’t dance,” James insisted.

“You used to.”

“Well, I don’t anymore. I stopped that when
Studio 54 closed in the seventies,” James said.

“But you liked it then, and I suspect you’d
still like it now, in the right company,” Celeste encouraged.
“Look, I’ll check in with Elk City Fire Department and inquire
about her schedule for another remote assignment here. Once you
know when she’s off you can give her a call and see if she’d be
interested in going out to dinner and experiencing another night
out in the Unusual community.”

“But don’t you think she’ll know it’s a
date?”

“Of course she will,” Celeste laughed.
“You’re so cute when you’re like this. Yes, she’ll know. She’s a
bright young lady. I also know she’ll say yes. Trust me. We women
know these things.” Celeste headed back to her office down the
hallway. “I’ll call and get her schedule for you. You can take care
of the rest,” she called over her shoulder as she walked away.

———

James pulled up out front of Brynne’s
apartment building, a low three-story garden apartment style with a
courtyard in the center. He parked the silver Lexus in one of the
marked visitor spaces under one of the streetlights. He was
nervous. He could hardly believe after sixteen hundred years on
this planet and all that had happened to him over that time that he
was still nervous when courting a woman. He snorted. Get ahold of
yourself man. This isn’t your first time at this rodeo. He opened
the door and climbed out of the car. He keyed the lock on the fob
and walked into the central courtyard of the apartment complex. He
looked around to orient himself and then figured out which door was
Brynne’s. Her apartment was on the ground floor with a small square
concrete patio next to the door. There was a small glass topped
table and two outdoor chairs there that formed a nice little
sitting area. He rapped politely on the door a few times and took a
step back to wait.

“Just a minute,” he heard Brynne say from
inside. “I’ll be right there.”

James turned and looked around the courtyard.
There was a central grassy area in the middle surrounded by an oval
sidewalk with other walkways leading out to the corner entrances
and the parking lot like spokes from a wheel. There were other
residents out walking to and from their residences. It was still
early, and some were clearly returning home from work in various
professional outfits. He heard the door open behind him, and he
turned around.

Brynne was standing in the doorway, her hair
down out of its usual ponytail, draped across her shoulders. She
had put more makeup on than she had worn on previous occasions, but
still tastefully applied. He caught just a hint of floral perfume.
Her short royal blue dress accentuated her curves, and the scooped
neckline showed just a hint of cleavage and her silver cross
pendant. His eyes rose to hers from there and she smiled.

“Do I meet your approval?” She asked in a
playful tone.

“I think you’ll do just fine,” He replied.
She blushed, and he gestured at the walkway to the parking lot.
“Shall we go?”

James and Brynne walked beside each other to
the car and he went to the passenger side to open it for her,
unlocking the doors with the key fob in his pocket. She smiled at
him as she climbed into the passenger side front seat.

“Aren’t you the gentleman,” Brynne said as
she sat down. “Thank you.”

“I did live through the golden age of
chivalry. I picked up a few things,” James said. He waited until
she was settled and then pushed the door closed before crossing
around to the driver’s side, climbing in. “I thought we’d catch
dinner at Sabatani’s and then we can go to a night club Unusuals
frequent called Sensations.”

“That sounds fun,” Brynne said. “I haven’t
been dancing in a while.” She buckled her seatbelt and tugged it
tight across her lap. “Let’s go.”

James nearly groaned. He was hoping to avoid
the dancing part of the night, but clearly the lady had a few plans
of her own. The vampire pulled the car out of the parking lot and
headed downtown to the entertainment district. He hoped he didn’t
need to know any new dance moves. Surely things hadn’t changed that
much in forty years.

“I went back to the Barrens to check on
little Ellie Brynne,” Brynne said. “She’s doing very well. Did you
know those wings actually work? She was flitting around the inside
of the trailer nonstop while I was there. Fairy babies certainly
get mobile a lot faster than human babies do.”

“Of course the wings work,” James said. “What
good would wings be if they didn’t. Only the female Fae have them,
though. As she gets older, she’ll only be able to cover short
distances. Someone once explained it to me as having something to
do with wing surface area to weight ratios.”

“Well, I don’t care what the scientific
reason is for it. It’s still about the coolest thing I’ve ever
seen, except for the birth itself.”

“You act like you’ve never delivered a baby
before,” James said in surprise.

“I haven’t,” Brynne replied. “I assisted in
the hospital during my maternity rotation so I’ve seen it done, and
I’ve had the training as part of my paramedic degree. But that was
the first time I’ve delivered a baby on my own.”

James was impressed even more. “I had no
idea,” he said. “You seemed so confident. Like you had it all under
control.”

“I had an instructor once who told me that
the fastest way to lose control of a difficult medical situation
was to lose control of yourself,” Brynne said. “I was scared to
death. You and Celeste were there looking over my shoulder, and
Jenny was so young and inexperienced. I went through the steps I’d
learned, took some calming breaths and just kept going.” She looked
over at him as he drove. “I thought Celeste might take over. She’s
been around long enough to have gained some knowledge of
childbirth. Why didn’t she?”

James laughed. “Celeste? Help deliver a baby?
I don’t think you understand how things work. Celeste never had
children of her own before she was turned, and vampires don’t get
invited to many births, even in the Unusual community. If you
hadn’t been there, I would never have been invited to see that.
We’re creatures of death, even to those who work alongside us.” He
smiled and glanced over at Brynne as he drove. “It was pretty
incredible to witness, though. I had never seen a baby born either.
I’m glad you were there and that I was able to witness it and your
part in it. You just took charge and barked orders like you knew
exactly what you were doing. The fact that you were unsure and we
didn’t know it makes it even more impressive.”

He continued driving during the lull in the
conversation taking the exit to head downtown. He didn’t want to
keep heaping compliments on her, but he couldn’t think of anything
else to say. She was remarkable, and he wanted to tell her how
special he thought she was, but he couldn’t yammer on about that
all night.

“Hopefully, your actions there in the Barrens
that night will encourage them to call you and your colleagues for
help when they need it,” James suggested.

“Oh, they already have,” Brynne said. “We’ve
been there several times since that night. They’ve been very
receptive, and my friend Tammy said that they keep wanting to feed
us when we show up like we’re due some sort of tribute or
gift.”

“That’s common, Brynne,” James said. “The
people of the Barrens are very old fashioned. When they recognized
you as one of their own, your fellow paramedics got lumped into the
same category, sort of like they were members of the same tribe.
You are all family to them now, and family gets fed.”

“That explains a lot,” Brynne said. “Bill
told us that he was sure they were trying to set him up with an
older widow woman who lived next-door to the location of their last
call in the Barrens. We all told him he was crazy but, given what
you just said, I think he might have been telling the truth.” She
chuckled to herself. “It’s kind of perfect. He thinks he’s God’s
gift to women, so it’s good for him to be a little uncomfortable
with some similar attention himself.”

James liked hearing her laugh. It lifted his
own spirits to hear it, which he guessed was a good thing. He
tended to brood and mull over his long unlife a lot. This was an
unusual situation for him, feeling upbeat and positive. He hadn’t
felt like this for decades, maybe centuries. This child of the
world, this woman of barely thirty years had wrought this change in
him, and she had done so in a remarkable time frame. For a creature
of potentially unending time, the days and weeks since he had first
met her at the accident had seemed a mere heartbeat. Could it last,
would it last? He couldn’t be sure. He could make sure this evening
would be everything he wanted it to be. This would be the first
date by which all other first dates would be measured.

James and Brynne arrived at Sabatani’s and
were personally escorted to the same corner booth by the owner,
Kristof Algar. He was jovial as he led James and Brynne to the
booth, talking of the day and listing the specials on the night’s
menu.