When dawn filtered through the twisted window blinds Isaac, without opening his eyes, began sliding towards the edge of the bed to make his awkward one-night-stand-escape. He made it to the floor, took a moment to be impressed with his unusual stealth, and then realized that, instead of his clothes being strewn about, they were folded neatly on the table. Conversely, Susan’s clothes were gone. He hadn’t disturbed her because she had already made her own getaway.

As he contemplated whether he felt relieved, amused, or insulted, he saw she’d left something on the bedside stand. It was a one-dollar bill, folded into a paper airplane. On it, she had written “This is a tip for a fun night. Don’t die today!” A smiley face crowned the exclamation point.

This may have been the greatest token of affection he’d ever received, and he chuckled throughout his entire dressing process. The smile didn’t fade from his face until the hillbilly hunters pulled up to his motel room and laid on the car horn. At this point, he remembered he was escorting a bunch of idiots to fight a vampire and the mood faded. He tucked the dollar bill away for luck and headed out.

Moments later he sat in the rear seat of a large van; itself part of a small convoy. The riders engaged in no perfunctory chitchat. Everyone kept quiet—not due to any kind of introspective focus but because they were all hungover.

Slim sprawled out on the seat in front of him. Lee drove and Rocky rode shotgun. All three had open beers, opting for hair-of-the-dog cures. Country music twanged its way through the speakers, but thankfully, the headaches kept them from cranking the volume.

As they drove Isaac grew more concerned. What troubled him most about the job, other than being torn limb from limb, was that the set-up seemed so implausible. Vampires were creatures of wealth and privilege, especially elders. Slumming it in Nowheresville in the lower Midwest fell far below their status. For one to reach such a ripe old age meant it was crafty, clandestine, and powerful. Undoubtedly it had monstrous servants, traps armed with more traps, secret chambers, multiple safe houses. It was a tall order to even pinpoint one’s location. With all that, Arrangement found an elder vampire and then handed the assassination to a bunch of redneck amateurs? Nothing made sense.

“So, an elder,” Slim said, obviously toying with some kind of inquiry.

“Yeah?”

“If it’s so old shouldn’t it be kind of weak? A withered old man?”

“Vampires grow more powerful as they age. Whatever dark force flows through them is enhanced by time and blood.”

Slim let out a low whistle. “So, one that’s two or three hundred...”

“Would be a virtually unstoppable killing machine.”

He nodded, swigged his beer, rubbed his chin scruff. “So why you coming along? If you’re so sure we going to die?”

“I don’t think we’re allowed to refuse Arrangement jobs.” He could see the concern in Slim’s eyes, which just made him feel worse. “I really doubt there’s an Elder out here. I expect we’ll encounter just a younger one or maybe nothing at all.”

***

The landscape became even more rural, passing only occasional farmsteads or small, dilapidated mobile homes until they pulled into a winding gravel driveway that led to a shuttered-up farmhouse. It showed all the signs of long-term abandonment: boarded windows, overgrown weeds, peeling paint.

With no regard to subtlety, they parked in full view of the house. Isaac counted himself lucky they didn’t honk the horns to announce themselves. They clambered out and went to work unloading. The first thing opened was a beer cooler, with each proceeding to chug one while they geared up. Isaac watched the preparations, growing slightly more annoyed with each piece of equipment produced.

Initially, things were off to a good start when they pulled out the most efficient vampire-hunting weapon—crossbows with mounted lights. Isaac’s spirits lifted momentarily but then dropped in increments as the rest of the gear was revealed. Nothing else they had was of any practical use. Sure, they had pistols, shotguns, and rifles, which might be handy in a pitched fight, able to knock a vampire down and stun it long enough to stake it. But only Wallace had a stake—just one—tucked through his belt next to a hefty mallet.

They had no defensive equipment at all. No chain mail neck guards, no Kevlar vests, or padding on knees and elbows. No helmets. Isaac had little experience with vampires, actually none if research was taken out of the equation, but he knew in a fang-fight they’d be more likely to die from a beating than from a bite. Broken bones, crushed skulls, ripped limbs. Hunting caps and tank tops would do little to prevent such wounds.

They loaded weapons, strapped on knives, swigged beers, smoked and chewed tobacco. It was really a bunch of good ole’ boys fixing up for a weekend in the woods.

Slim came and stood next to Isaac. The hunter had a golf ball-sized lump of chaw in his mouth, making his bottom lip bulge out. “They talk?”

“Huh?” Isaac replied.

“Ticks. Can they talk?”

“Yeah. They can talk. They’re pretty much the same people they were before becoming ticks. Only fangier.”

“Seriously?”

The questions bothered Isaac. “How many have you guys killed?”

“Three.”

Hunting vampires was a dangerous profession, so Isaac was satisfied with the number. “But you never heard one talk?”

“Nah. Wallace staked them all while they were sleeping. Sure enough, they started to hissing and flailing about, but they never really talked.”

“So, you’ve never encountered one awake?”

“Nah. I hope we never do. Must be a hell of a thing to hear.” Then, as if to purposefully spoil his introspective moment, he spat a stream of brown saliva onto the gravel.

Wallace had moved to the front of the convoy and studied the house intently, one hand on hip, the other hoisting a crossbow onto his shoulder. He certainly had the look of a battle-hardened veteran. The others waited behind him for the issuance of what Isaac assumed would be a battle plan. After another minute of this posturing, he finally turned and said, “Alright boys, we got a tick to bag,” and simply walked up the drive. The others followed, advancing like a Revolutionary War skirmish line. Isaac frowned and followed several feet behind.

They were about a hundred feet from the house when they first felt it. A tingling at the nape of the neck. Goosebumps on the arms. One by one they slowed, came to a stop. Breaths came hard. Hands shook. All macho bravado ceased. Isaac felt it too—a sudden, acute foreboding. The feeling intensified the closer he got to the house. He felt his blood quicken, growing dampness under his arms, a butterfly stomach, and sweaty palms. His comrades were rooted in place and several vomited up their liquid breakfasts.

All the symptoms of fear.

It made no sense. They were still outside. These hillbillies were too bravely inebriated to already be so scared. And Isaac, well, he wasn’t one to brag, but he rarely felt afraid. The emotion had been harshly trained out of him early in life. If he was suddenly fearful when he knew he normally wouldn’t be, then the emotion had to be artificial.

A dread spell—fear magic cast on an object, in this case, the house, to keep out interlopers. That had to be it. The spell probably generated ninety-nine percent of the haunted house legends in the country. No one with powerful secrets wanted to suffer the indignity of having them discovered by nosey neighbors or petty burglars.

“Stay put,” he shouted to the team needlessly, as they were still trembling in place. He advanced on the house, moving normally now that he had ascertained the spell. Still, he marveled at the physical effects. So strange to feel the physical manifestations minus the emotional ones.

The runes were easy to find. A sequence of symbols was carved into one of the front porch stairs. Hidden in plain sight, its designer probably assumed no one would get close enough to the house to see it. The first symbol was a half-circle with a series of lines below. With his pocketknife, he defaced it by completing the circle and adding a smiley face to the middle.

The spell ceased and Isaac felt the fear wash away. The hunters behind him did as well. They straightened up, looked around at each other, wondering now what had scared them so badly, but already pretending it hadn’t happened. These men were not the type to share their fear.

Ignorant, beer-fueled courage renewed, they advanced on the house. Isaac sighed at their brashness. Without scouting the property, they just walked up in a bunch onto the porch. The windows were boarded up, no way to see inside—best to keep out prying eyes and dangerous sunlight. Rocky reached for the knob on the front door.

“Stop,” Isaac ordered. “Let me check it.” The big man, easily the most affable of the bunch, moved aside. Isaac checked the frame. Next, he moved his hands around the door itself, palms hovering about an inch away from the wood. One of the hunters started to ask something and Isaac silenced him with a hiss. From top to bottom, left to right, he waved his hands.

“Seriously? What the hell you doing?” Cash finally asked, seemingly annoyed he hadn’t killed anything yet.

“I’m feeling for spells on the other side of the door. Some magic gives off a wave, a vibration, like holding your finger to someone’s wrist to find the pulse. It’s faint, but you can feel it if you know what you’re doing.”

“And?” asked Wallace.

“Nothing here that I can feel.”

“Shit, whatever.” Cash shouldered past him, reached for the knob.

“That doesn’t mean there’s not a regular trap. A shotgun wired to the knob wouldn’t emanate any magical auras.” This gave Cash pause. “Go on,” Isaac goaded, “break it down.” The hunter bristled, clearly struggling with one instinct to kick the door and another to punch Isaac in the face. Instead of either, he stood there like a dipshit doing nothing.

Quickly tiring of the standoff, Isaac finally moved to the door, standing to the side in case of some kind of projectile trap. He reached for the knob, stopping when he noticed the rest of the team still stupidly lined up in front of it. Resisting the urge to twist the knob and see if a cannon fired and killed them all, he gestured at them angrily, like an irritated teacher to unresponsive students, and they finally nudged each other out of the way.

A gentle twist of the knob revealed the door to be locked. He dug into the Everbag and produced a key. It was old-fashioned, heavy iron at both ends, but the barrel of it was calcified bone—specifically the index finger of a very talented, but long-dead thief. Literally a skeleton key. He tapped it on the knob and smiled as it unlocked itself with a satisfying click.

He pushed the door open and peered in but could make out nothing in the gloom. Wallace took point, shining his crossbow light into the house. “Just the first room. No further.” The leader nodded and one by one they entered. They secured the first room with the most disorganized lack of professionalism Isaac had ever seen. The group just strolled around and shined their lights all over the damn place.

The room was empty. Nothing but run-of-the-mill furniture covered in dust and cobwebs. Three doorways led out. One to a flight of stairs up. One to a kitchen. The last to stairs down into blackness.

“Don’t leave the room. Start pulling those boards off the windows. Let the sunlight in.”

This order made sense to them and they got to work at it. Except for Cash, who just leaned against a wall and made childish faces. Isaac ignored him and kept up his inspection. The doorway leading upstairs was clean, as was the entrance to the kitchen. However, at the top of the basement stairs, he noticed something of interest.

Sunlight pouring in from a newly liberated window highlighted a drop of liquid in the center of the doorway floor. He borrowed a flashlight from Slim, panned the light up one side of the frame and across the top, where he found another. A liquid bubble hung there, defying gravity, directly above the spot on the floor.

“What is it?” Slim asked as the curious others gathered around.

Isaac thought for a minute to suggest someone watch the other stairway, in case some kind of monster came stomping down but figured eh, what was the point? “I think it’s a drowning pillar.”

“A what?” several asked in chorus.

Isaac knelt, looked closer for marks he knew had to be there. Around each drop was a faint circle, a barely visible scratch on the wood. Lines ran from the circle across the floor, up both sides until they joined with the circle around the drop at the top. “See these? The rest of this place is dry. These should have evaporated. But they won’t. They’re special.”

Frank adjusted his hat. “Like retarded?”

Isaac resisted the urge to furiously rub both temples. “They’re magical. To be specific, both drops are probably water taken from a drowning victim. One drop from each lung. The magical lines connect them.”

“What’s it do?” asked Wallace.

“If someone were to step across the line a pillar of water would engulf them and drown them on the spot.”

“Bullshit!” This, of course, came from Cash, who despite his supernatural profession continued to deny the existence of the supernatural.

“Oh, for fucks sake,” Isaac said. “Then trip it Cash. Step right on in. It’ll save me the trouble of disarming it. And frankly,” Isaac wrinkled his nose, “you could use a bath.”

The hunter took an angry step towards the magician, but Wallace moved to intercept him. He snatched the smaller man by the shirt. “Either step in and prove him wrong or keep your mouth shut. I’m getting tired of this crap.”

A moment of silence descended as the team waited for Cash to either take the dare or back down. Finally, he said, “Whatever asshole. Y’all go ahead and do your little magic bullshit. I’ll play along.”

Isaac sighed in disappointment. Cash was smart enough to not step into the spell but too arrogant to admit such intelligence. The trap could have been triggered, Cash would’ve been killed, and the world gene pool scrubbed just a bit cleaner. Win-win-win.

Returning to the task at hand, Isaac rubbed his chin in thought. His former master would have advised him to just chuck one of the hunters into it. Not only would that be the simplest way to disarm it but then he’d have access to two lungs full of water he could use to make his own dastardly drowning pillars in the future. But Isaac was not like his master. “Anyone got a sponge?”

The group murmured to one another in confusion until Rocky raised a hand and said, “I have one I use to wash my truck.”

Isaac asked him to get it and when he did, he instructed him to cut the sponge in half. He handed one half to Lee and left the other with Rocky.

“Now then, at the same time, I need you both to slap those sponges down over the droplets and press as hard as you can. It may have some pretty serious pressure blowing out but...do not let go.”

Now that they were involved the hunters looked a bit nervous. It was so much easier to not believe in such magical nonsense when they didn’t have to lend a hand. The two hunters got into position. Isaac raised three fingers, lowered each in turn. “Go!”

Rocky and Frank pressed their sponges to the spots. Immediately came a rush of water, like a burst hydrant. It sprayed around the edges of the sponges, geysers in both directions, water from nowhere, and both men swore at the sudden velocity, strained their arms against it. The rest of the hunters stumbled back, shocked and splashed.

“Holy shiiiiiit!” Frank yelled.

“Hold it! Not much longer!” Isaac shouted.

A pool spread across the floor and flowed down the basement stairs. Both men were soaked, and the water showed no signs of abating. Isaac swore, drew his knife, inserted it between the doorframe and the wall, eyes squinted against the spray. The frame was old, slightly rotten, and gave quickly. He tore a chunk away, breaking the magical lines that ran along it. Like a shut valve the water stopped.

Both men removed their sponges and wiped their eyes to stare in disbelief at the drenched doorway. Isaac pulled a plastic bag from his Everbag to collect the sponges. He didn’t know if the water had any magical properties at this point, but it couldn’t hurt to keep.

“That was the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen,” Slim said, open-mouthed, tobacco juice on his chin.

“Lucky the wood was old.” Isaac tossed the broken piece aside. “Nice work,” he said to Frank and Rocky, who both nodded back, still breathing heavy. “Let’s check the rest of the house. Then we’ll head into the basement. It’s the most likely spot.”

Wallace had Rocky and Frank guard the basement door as they searched the kitchen and the second floor. They had no problems now letting Isaac lead the way and waited patiently for him to check each doorway. There were three bedrooms and a bath upstairs. All empty. The windows weren’t even covered, with sunlight streaming in, illuminating floating dust motes in their beams. This concerned Isaac. He had assumed any vampire lair would have all sources of sunlight obstructed so that daytime interlopers had no haven to find.

With the upper floor cleared the group assembled around the still dripping basement door. The water trap had clearly rattled them, and no one seemed eager to take the lead. It was absolute darkness down there and the flashlight beams illuminated little past the stairs. No one moved.

“You know what?” Cash said to Isaac, “I was wrong about you. I think it’s a great idea that you tagged along so you could go first and check for traps.” He jammed his flashlight harshly into Isaac’s ribs. “So, lead on.”

A procession of annoyed expressions cycled across Isaac’s face. He wasn’t sure which was worse—being out-witted by Cash or having to walk point into a basement where possibly lurked an elder vampire.

The Cash part, he decided. That was worse.

He started down the stairs.