22

Soap Opera Vamp I sat in my car outside a laundromat called the Soap Opera. It sat on Indiana Ave in Perrysburg, Ohio, a little town about an hour and a half southwest of Toledo and just across the Maumee River. The shop was a small two-story building that could have used some paint 10 years ago. A bright yellow sign with the business name in black and red, and advertising its drop-off service, stuck out perpendicularly from the wall between the two front-facing, second-floor windows. The

April

2017

17

A Ghost of a Chance Bliss had been called out on another assignment, something to do with an animal mauling outside Salt Lake City, Nevada. “Stefan, you got this,” she said. “I mean, it’s just a haunting, right? No biggie.” Right then, I should have run. The expressions, “It’s just a …” and “No biggie” used separately were bad enough, but together­, they were sure to trigger Murphy’s Law and that was the last thing I needed. I wasn’t sure about our contract, but I think it had to do with

March

2017

09

A Stake-Out in Motor City The house I watched from my position across the street was a non-descript saltbox style in lower-middle working-class section of Detroit. I originally wondered why my blood sucker didn't live in one of the many run-down or condemned houses in some of the seedier sections of the city, then it came to me- food quality. Its food in this area was more likely to be healthy and strong. Father McGregor, the parish priest and our contact, had explained that his soup kitchen

February

2017

29

Monster Hunting is Eel Advised My depth gauge read 25 feet. The water was cool, and a little murky, but clear to twenty-feet in any direction. I was working my way down the limestone face of the river bank, looking for a cave entrance in the rock wall. My high-lumen spot light blazed my way forward but as of yet, nothing. Two days ago, I was sitting on Morpheus – my favorite couch - in what my mother, Lady Elizabeth Southwell used to call, ‘the parlor,’ when my cell phone rang. The voice of the

January

2017