Peace and Harmony

Peace Officer Camden Shackler watched in horror as a slender vampire carelessly dropped the limp body of a woman onto the dirty ground. There hadn’t been a vamp-related death in years, especially since the creation of the Treaties.

Who did this vampire think she was? It didn’t matter. Whoever she was, she’d either be in handcuffs or dead in the next five minutes.

She looked at her partner, Peace Officer Angel Hernandez, with excited anticipation before they both packed on their Deis .45, equipped with UV rounds, available only to Peace Officers. Then they stepped out of the car.

Camden and Angel approached the vampire with guns raised, their heavy regulation boots making soft sounds with each step. Their guns were focused on the vampire’s head, after all, they had been trained to shoot to kill. There was no way they would take any chances with vampires.

The vampire only then seemed to notice her company. She stood fully erect, head tilted slightly their way, inspecting them curiously.

“Stop what you’re doing and keep your hands where I can see them,” Camden ordered.

The vampire looked amused then, and smirked, a twitch of those pink full cupid’s bow lips.

Camden couldn’t help but think that this vampire must have been taken straight out of a fashion magazine. She knew vampires were usually beautiful creatures- why would you want to spend eternity looking ugly?- but this one was absolutely stunning. She was tall, thin, and lithe, reminding her faintly of a ballet dancer. Her hair was pulled back with a fabric headband, the silky, unnaturally whitish blonde hair falling freely on her shoulders. Her eyes were even more miraculous, being a piercing ice blue that glowed with an ability all of their own. She wore a gauzy, nearly-transparent black top with a tiny black camisole underneath that didn’t quite make it all the way to her hips where a pair of skin-tight dark washed jeans laid. While she looked naturally tall, her heels placed her easily over six feet. Her flawless skin, bearing not even a freckle, was gently sun-kissed. But above all, she looked completely unbothered by the fact that she had two UV guns shoved in her face.

“You are in violation of sections A325-62S5, A352-81K3, and V54-1119 of the Shackler-Amenns Peace Treaty and in one violation of the International Entent of Intelligent Beings. I have the authority to shoot you until you are dead if you refuse to cooperate,” Camden instructed. She read the vampire equivalent of the Miranda Rights. They were notably shorter because vampires weren’t granted as many rights as humans.

“Here,” she said, tossing a pair of silver-titanium alloy handcuffs to the vampire, “put these on and slowly walk towards us.”

The vampire let the handcuffs fall to the ground, her eyes tracing their progress attentively. She regarded them like some exotic creature she had never seen, and scoffed. The vampire looked back up at the two officers and shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

Peace Officer Camden froze. The vampire spoke… weird. But not like a weird that she had never heard before. In fact, it was quite the opposite. The odd accent reminded her a lot of her boss, except without all of the stiff formality. She brushed it off; it could just mean they were from the same era. But that would also mean that this vampire was older than the Treaties themselves.

“Please, put the handcuffs on, or we will open fire,” she warned. She didn’t like having to shoot vampires, they were people, too, except they were daylight intolerant and had a strictly liquid diet. But scientists were working on that.

Besides, it was rare that she actually had to shoot one. In her entire career she’s had to shoot maybe four vampires. L.A. had become quite a quiet place since it was established as a Reformist vampire city.

The vampire gave them a polite smile. “Thank you, but I’ll pass.”

And then she was gone.

Camden fired, but there was nothing there to hit. The vampire had simply disappeared. One moment she was there, the next- nothing. But that was impossible. She should have at least felt the vampire run past her, or seen the inhuman blur as she tried to escape, but there had been nothing. In fact, there was nothing, except the dead prostitute lying at Camden’s feet, that had indicated the vampire had ever been there. Even the handcuffs were gone. Great, her boss was going to kill her. Those things were expensive.

“Angel,” she asked breathlessly, “where did she go?”

Angel was quiet, then she heard the click of the safety turn on. “Hell if I know, but I’m not explaining it to the Chief.”

She turned to look at Angel. He was a very handsome man- dark, muscled, and tall- but then, with genetic engineering these days, who wasn’t? While Angel looked like an all-around nice guy, Camden knew better. Peace Officers were specially trained to deal with vampires. Angel was a walking Terminator.

She scoffed, and tried for a light tone though she was still bothered by the vampire. “Like you ever do?”

Angel smiled at the comment and nodded to the car. “Might as well get it over with.”