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“A brother from Langley,” Felix tells James Bond the first time they meet, and it isn’t a lie, exactly. He used to work for the CIA. But that all changed when he met Red Grant.
It had been a routine raid. But somehow it had all gone south, and Felix had found himself dangling from a meat hook in South America. They had had questions for him. He hadn’t answered. That’s when they’d brought in Grant.
The moment Felix saw Grant, he knew something was wrong. It was his smile - his teeth were sharpened, like a shark’s. He told himself it was just some sort of body modification. Grant was just trying to look tough.
But as the interrogation went on, the sun outside began to set, and Grant seemed to grow less human in the shadows. His already pale skin blanched to white, patterned with grey, and his eyes turned a solid, glossy black, and he seemed to grow larger. His questions became barely coherent, beastial growls.
And then he got hungry.
Felix tries not to remember what happened to him in that cell, even if it comes back to him in his nightmares. He survived. That’s what matters.
When he woke up, he was in the hospital, and his arm and leg were gone, and his face was a wreck. And there was a man waiting to talk to him.
“Do you know,” Agent Gregg Beam said, “what you were attacked by?”
Felix drew in a breath, and shut his eyes against the terrible memories. “I . . . sir, if I try to tell you what I saw, you’re gonna think I’m a fucking head case. They must have drugged me with something.”
Beam met his eyes. “No,” he said. “You know what you saw.”
“Then what the hell did I see?” Felix demanded.
“A vampire,” Beam said, leaning back in his chair. “They’re not like they are in the movies, of course. Some of them are closer, some of them aren’t. What you just met - we call that a ‘Wolf.’ Every vampire bloodline is different, but we group them together by their ‘tells.’ A Wolf is a vampire that thinks and acts like a wild beast - they usually eat flesh as well as blood. That’s where the old myths about werewolves come from. Sometimes they really do resemble wolves . . . sometimes it’s other animals.”
Felix stared at him. It seemed unbelievable. And yet the cold, brutal hunger in Grant’s black eyes kept coming back to him. “Who’s we?” he said.
“HNT,” Beam said. “Homeland Neutralization Taskforce. It’s a generic name . . . because no one has to know what we really do. This is all top secret. I’m only telling you this because you’ve got a top-level security clearance with the CIA, and you’ve got first-hand experience with the bloodsuckers now. I’m here to offer you a job.”
With HNT, Felix learned about vampires. He learned about Counts, vampires who look nearly human and whose ‘tell’ is psychological. They’re named, not after their sometimes-aristocratic delusions, but after the myth that a vampire can be stopped by giving him a thousand grains of rice to count. Sometimes, that works with a Count. They are all bound by their own rules, elaborate and unbreakable. But you can never be certain. Every vampire works differently, and the only thing that works every time is a stake to the heart.
He learned about Roses, vampires who seek to corrupt and seduce humans, how they often hide their tells with magic, how they can seem inhumanly beautiful until they strike.
He learned about Deads, vampires who can never hide their tell, who lurk in the shadows because they cannot pass among the living. These are the monsters of myth, barely human in appearance, each different from the other.
Wolves, Counts, Roses, and Deads. The one thing that makes them all the same is their insatiable hunger for human blood or flesh, and their lack of a conscience. Many vampires operate like serial killers, attacking their victims in the middle of night and leaving them to be found drained dry in the morning. But others leave their victims alive - an even worse fate.
“You’re damn lucky we were able to kill Grant,” Beam told him. “Once a vampire’s fed on you, it’s got its claws into you. You’re forever under that vampire’s thrall; your thoughts are an open book to them, and you’ll do anything for them. The only way to free yourself from being a thrall is to kill the vampire that fed on you - or to drink its blood in turn. But you wouldn’t want to do that. People who drink vampire blood become a little bit monsters themselves. They’re bonded to that vampire just as surely as they were if they were its thrall. The only difference is that the bond goes both ways now.”
It takes more than a feeding to turn a living human into a vampire. It’s a long and involved ritual, and it culminates in killing the human. Six days later, they return, undead. But they’re not the same person they were when they were living.
“The soul,” Beam said. “You can bring the body back from the dead, and the mind. But not the soul. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. That’s why vampires can do what they do, feed on the living, without a second thought. It makes you into sort of a sociopath. That’s why you must never allow yourself to be captured alive by vampires. If it happens - your best hope is a quick death. The other options are worse.”
Felix has gone on more missions than he can count for HNT, by the time he comes to Casino Royale. He’s hunting Le Chiffre - a vampire in league with the world’s terrorists. He’s a Count, of course, nearly human except for the blood that drips from his eye when he’s upset.
That’s where he meets James Bond.
They’re sitting at the bar together, and James orders a dry martini. “One,” he says, “in a deep champagne goblet.”
“Oui, monsieur,” the barman says.
“Just a moment,” James says. “Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel. Got it?”
The barman blinks. “Oui, monsieur,” he says.
“Gosh,” Felix says. “That’s certainly a drink.”
James laughs. “When I’m, er, concentrating, I never have more than one drink before dinner. But I do like that one to be large and very strong and very cold and very well-made.” He smiles, self-deprecating. “Sorry. I take a ridiculous pleasure in what I eat and drink. When you get to my age, you’ve learned what you do and you don’t like - and you don’t see the point in drinking what you don’t like.”
Felix laughs. “You’re only about my age,” he says. “We’re too young to be that set in our ways.”
“I’m an old soul,” James says, laughing, and really, Felix should have known then.
But James is so unlike a vampire. Yes, there is a certain coldness in his eyes, something threatening that people sense when they meet him - but once you get to know him, there’s nothing cold about him. He throws himself into everything passionately. He knows the perfect restaurants to eat at, or so he claims, he knows the right way to serve alcohol, and none of it, as Felix might have assumed at first, is pretension. James doesn’t care if other people think his tastes are sophisticated. He simply cares very deeply about everything he devotes himself to, from food, to drink, to women, to golf and scuba-diving.
Felix thinks he could fall in love with a man like that. And in Florida, when James saves Felix’s life and pulls him out of the water before the sharks can get to him, unties him and helps him up, Felix thinks he might have already fallen.
But then their next mission takes them to Turkey, and once again it all goes south. It always seems to, when vampires are involved. Felix is tied up, concussed, ready to be the vampire’s next meal, and James is tussling with a Wolf twice his size to get to him.The Wolf is a gigantic, muscular woman with tiger stripes in her long mane of ginger hair, and she has the claws of a tiger too, and the teeth.
And then, from the building above, a shot rings out, and Felix sees blood spout from James and the Wolf.
“James!” Felix shouts, because there’s so much blood, the wound is so big, there’s no way, there’s no way James can survive -
And then he sees that the blood flowing out of James’s chest is sluggish and black, just like the Wolf’s blood. Vampire blood. And Felix knows that James Bond died a long, long time ago.
James recovers first, the wound on his chest already healing, and grabs a wooden stake out of his suit jacket. In one movement, he slams it into the Wolf’s chest, and watches her die.
Felix sees the coldness in his eyes as he looks down on the woman. That’s the thing about vampires, he thinks distantly. They don’t even care about their own kind.
James puts a hand to his earpiece. “You shot me, Moneypenny,” he complains. “You’re supposed to hit the other guy.” He rolls his eyes at whatever he hears, and drops his hand.
Then he turns and stalks towards Felix, and Felix feels his heart rate speed up, his human blood pounding in his veins, and knows James can hear it. For the first time, he’s afraid, genuinely afraid, of James. “Don’t - ” he starts, and then stops himself, because he knows it’s useless. Vampires don’t have mercy.
James drops to his knees next to Felix, and rips through the ropes holding him. “Felix, are you all right?” he says.
“Yes,” Felix says, and then, “Are you going to kill me now?”
James stiffens, and then glances down at his ruined suit, at the black blood staining it, and back at the dead Wolf. He looks back to Felix. “I’ve just fed,” he said. “Don’t worry. Besides, I can control myself. I’m an old hand at this.”
Just fed, Felix thinks. God. On who? He struggles to get to his feet, and James helps him up. James’s hands, Felix notices for the first time, are deathly cold. Felix feels sick to his stomach. He’d thought James was his friend. More than that, he’d started to love him.
James grabs Felix’s face in his cold hands, and peers into his eyes. “Concussion,” he declares. “I’m taking you back to your hotel room. I’ll drive - you’re in no fit shape to.”
Felix wants to refuse, wants to flee. But it’s starting to dawn on him that if James wanted him dead, he’d already be dead. Clearly, he’s more useful to James alive than dead. And James is right: he’s in no shape to drive.
“Okay,” Felix says. “But I’ve got another stake in my jacket. Just because I’m injured, that doesn’t mean I’ll be easy prey.”
James’s eyes go cold and dead. “Don’t worry,” he says, his voice clipped. “I’ve got better things to do than drink your blood.”
The drive back to the hotel is dead silent. Felix concentrates on not throwing up. He doesn’t want to think about who or what he’s sharing a car with.
But at the other end, James gets out first, and helps Felix stand, supporting him with one arm. The vampire is avoiding his gaze, and it’s a curiously human gesture, as if James can’t bear to meet Felix’s eyes right now.
They make it up to Felix’s hotel room, and James pauses at the doorway, still supporting Felix. “Can I help you to your bed?” he asks, carefully.
Felix blinks. James has always been careful about asking for permission before inviting himself into Felix’s space - but it’s only now that he realizes why. Like the vampires of myth, James can’t enter a dwelling without an invitation. He’s a Count, then. Rules on top of rules . . . If Felix steps across the threshold without him, he will be safe from James.
But James hasn’t killed him yet, so Felix says, “Come in.” James helps him to the bed, and Felix collapses, putting a hand over his eyes. God, his head hurts like hell.
There’s the sound of water running in the bathroom, and when he opens his eyes, James is stepping out with two glasses in hand. One of them is filled with water; the other, if Felix doesn’t miss his guess, is filled with Felix’s best whiskey. Felix considers objecting to the theft, and then decides he’d rather have James drinking Felix’s whiskey than Felix’s blood.
James sets the glass of water down on the bedside table next to Felix, and sits on the edge of the bed. “Don’t fall asleep,” he says. “You’ve got a concussion - it’s important you stay awake.”
“That’s not how it works,” Felix says. “Urban myth. Sleeping with a concussion won’t do you any harm.”
James shrugs. “That’s what they told me last time I got a concussion. Back in the war - WWII, I mean - when I was alive.”
The words hang in the air. Felix closes his eyes again. His heart hurts. He feels like he’s mourning James’s death, even though he knows James died long before Felix ever met him. The thing that’s standing here, talking to him - that’s not James Bond. Everything Felix thought they had shared together was a lie.
“Did you know from the beginning who I really worked for?” Felix says, forcing his eyes open.
“The CIA?” James asks, taking a sip of his whiskey.
“No,” Felix says, quietly. “HNT.”
James stiffens, and his eyes flicker to Felix’s face, as if he’s hoping Felix might be joking. “You’re a vampire hunter?” he says.
“Yeah. Trained and licensed, for five years now,” Felix says. He wants James to know that if James turns on him, it won’t be an easy fight. Felix has tricks up his sleeve.
James turns his face away, his shoulders stiff. After a moment, he says, very carefully, “MI6 knows what I am. My . . . particular abilities are useful, and therefore sanctioned. So if you kill me, there will be trouble. You’ll have killed an agent of the British government. That’s the kind of thing that causes a diplomatic stink.” He downs the rest of his drink.
“And if you kill me, or try to turn me, or enthrall me,” Felix says, “You’ll be attacking an agent of the US government. A bigger diplomatic stink.”
James draws in a breath and turns away, every line of his body tense, and Felix thinks he’s trying to restrain the urge to murder Felix right then and there. And then Felix catches a glimpse of James’s reflection in the window - some vampires have them - and he sees pain written on every line of James’s face.
“I’m not a mindless killer, you know, Felix,” James says, sharply. “I don’t want to kill you. You’re my friend, even if you are a damn hunter. I saved your life back there. I’d do it again, given the chance. I’m not going to kill you.”
You’re my friend. Felix wants so badly to believe in those words, to believe in James’s humanity. But he’s seen too much of what vampires are really like, under their masks, to let himself be that easily deceived.
“Vampires don’t have friends,” Felix says. “You don’t have a conscience.”
James draws in a breath, his head still turned away. He’s silent for a moment, and then he says, “You’re right. I don’t have many friends. And my conscience . . . well, it’s always been on shaky ground. But I thought I could trust you. I thought we understood each other.” In the window, reflected, his lips twist into a miserable little line.
Felix’s heart hurts, and he tries to tell himself he’s being manipulated, but James looks so bitter, so honestly betrayed, and Felix hates it, never wants to see that kind of pain on James’s face.
It occurs to him that James never was a very good actor. He can tell a lie, but at his core he struggles to pretend to be something he isn’t. Could he really pull off a performance this good? Now, and every time in the past that he showed warmth towards Felix?
Or is this genuine?
Felix sits up a bit in bed, even though it hurts his head, and shifts just slightly closer to James. “I thought so, too,” he says, quietly. “And I want to believe you. But I don’t know if I can trust you. Hell, someone like you already ate half of me. How much of it was a lie?”
“I’m really not a master manipulator,” James says. “I’m just trying to make the most of my life, whatever form that takes.” He turns to face Felix again, and then, as an afterthought, reaches for the glass of water, and hands it to him. “You should drink. The fellows from Medical always say hydration’s important after a concussion. For humans.”
More than anything else, it’s that little gesture that convinces Felix. He takes the glass of water, and downs half of it. His throat is tight. A moment ago he thought he’d lost a friend. Now he’s realizing that isn’t the case, and it’s almost too much for him. He looks up at James. “James - thanks. For - everything, really. If you wanted me dead, I’d be dead already. I shouldn’t have accused you of wanting to kill me. How many times have you saved my life now? It’s getting to be a bad habit with us.”
James looks over, and a corner of his mouth lifts up in a wry little smile. “You’re not completely wrong, you know. I won’t hurt you - I’d never hurt you - but - well, you know what my job is. License to kill . . . I really am sort of a monster.” He says it lightly - not happy about it, but not self-hating, either. “Ever since I was turned, everything’s been colder, more distant. I don’t feel things the way I used to, and killing doesn’t bother me anymore. But I’m still me. There are still things and people I care about. If there weren’t, why would I bother living? I’ve lived more than my fair share of time. But I like living. I like food, human food, and I like people, and I like swimming in the ocean and playing golf and gambling at cards. You have to remember what’s important in life, or you start to lose yourself. And it’s not even a question of becoming a monster - it’s a question of becoming a miserable bastard. You’ve got to hold on to the people who make you human, or you won’t be anymore.”
This sudden outburst of philosophizing is so James that it makes Felix’s heart ache again. He can’t help but believe him. He reaches out for James’s shoulder, and then stops himself, uncertain. “James - can I hug you? I mean, will that be too much for you?” There’s still blood on Felix’s head where he was struck; head wounds bleed out of proportion to their size, and Felix knows vampires can be overwhelmed by their urges.
James tilts his head. “I’m not much of a hugger. Too English for it, I suppose. But . . .” He shifts a little bit closer. “I’ll be fine. Like I said - I’m an old hand at this. Even if I was hungry, I wouldn’t attack you. You’re safe with me.”
Felix reaches out and pulls James into his arms, anchoring himself against his friend. James’s skin is cold and dead under his touch, but Felix can feel him shifting and breathing against him, very much alive. Very much human - in his own way.
“Sorry, James,” Felix says. “I owe you one.”
James chuckles, and shuts his eyes, letting the hug linger. “You certainly do. More than one. But don’t worry - I’m still a reckless bastard even now that I’m dead, so you’ll have plenty of chances to repay me.”
“I’ll look forward to it,” Felix says.