Freddy Valler--2

   I was used to being known, of course. I wasn't the best or most seasoned Hunter out there, but I was damn good for a kid. Especially for a kid. In fact, I was better than most grown men, which was something I wasn't ashamed to admit. I had worked hard to earn my nickname, The Black Death, and the stories that young trainees told about me late at night, when the trainers were no doubt asleep. I was used to the awed, or angry, whispers behind my back. But that was from men, and a few women, who had the same profession I did: kidnapping, and killing, those monsters you used to believe in when you were a kid, the vampires and werewolves and boogie men that you realized didn't exist as you got older. But they do, and I'm the one who those freaks are afraid of.

    So, people knowing who I was wasn't exactly a surprise, but when the recognition came from a town who knew nothing about what really lurks in the dark, well, I wasn't happy. Understatement of the year. Still, I managed a small smile, and hoped it didn't look like a sneer.

    "Huh." Was all I said. I think I heard her mutter, "Man of few words, my ass. More like man of none," but I could have been mistaken. After all, who did she know who would talk with her about me? And who would know that if I didn't have anything important to say, why say anything at all? I preferred silence to incessant  chatter. Unfortunately, I was a healthy teenage male, and many of the gorgeous young women I, ah-hem, fraternized with liked to talk. Though it was more like babbling, the kind where you could vow of sex or any vice just to get a pair of earplugs.

    I glanced at the board and pretended to do a math problem, though I was just doodling a exaggerated cartoon of Mr. Ito. His mustache was twice as big, his head twice as shiny, and he was facing off with Dracula. I don't know why, but I think it'd be pretty entertaining to watch the life get sucked out of him by a girl who was centuries older than him, but looked twenty years younger. I think, for once, Dracula was the good guy here. Of course, she didn't go by Dracula anymore, but by Mary D. Vlarine. Vlad the Impaler wasn't the vampire, but his illegitimate sister, Marissa Dracul, was. Bram Stoker was a friend of hers, so he wrote a story in which her brother was the villain, though, in my opinion, Vlad Tepes did that all by himself. Count Dracula? What a sham. There was nothing handsome or hypnotic about that bastard, just merciless and psychotic. Mary, now there was an amazing girl. Okay, so girl is a stretch, though she only looks about eighteen or nineteen.

    I added a sword to Mary's outfit, and a shiny set of white fangs, and I was done. Not a bad picture, if I do say so myself. I knew I was a good artist, but that was just from my early days of sketching ghouls, banshees, and shifters.