A Hero's Undisclosed Desires

Magic isn't easy folks, let no one tell you otherwise. I stand over the grave of one Parvati Gagandeep, patiently waiting for her to rise. The gal isn't making it easy for me. I sit on a tombstone right across from her modest grave, chowing down on some Mexican food. It's a really cold night out here in the Montreal Road sector of Ottawa, Ontario. Just in case you're wondering who this is, my name is Adam Jian-Yu Chao. What kind of name is that for a young Black man? Well, my father Li Chao is a native of the People's Republic of China and my mother Jennifer Gorton is a proud Jamaican. I was born and raised in the City of Golden Grove in the Saint Thomas Parish of the island of Jamaica. Life as a half-Black, half-Chinese brat in the Caribbean wasn't too bad. Oh, just in case there are African-Americans reading this, I identify as Black. I'm not pulling a Tiger Woods on you. Sheesh. You'd think people would get over their racial issues in the Age of Obama but they're even worse at it than before.

Anyhow, I'll be your multicultural Vampire Hunter and Magic Wielder for the night. How did a nice guy like me get dragged into the lifestyle of one who stalks the Supernatural for a living? I was born into it. My father hunted Demons, Vampires and Werewolves in Mainland China since his youth. And my mother is descended from a clan of powerful warlocks and witches. I guess you could say doing this crap is in my blood. Oh, and I'm not exactly Captain Normal, whatever that is. I stand five feet eleven inches tall and weigh only one hundred and seventy three pounds but I am five times stronger than any average guy my size. Also, I don't get sick often and I recover really quickly from injuries that would kill anybody else. My mother is like that too. She calls it The Gift. I wish I could say that I often wished I had a normal life and all that shit but I'd just be blowing smoke up your butt. I love doing this thing. I love fighting. I was created to kick the Collective Ass of the Universe. Before I got into this lifestyle, I wasn't doing too good. I flunked out of Knox Community College and got involved in gang life in the City of Kingston, Jamaica. My parents got really scared I was going to get myself killed, so they sent me to stay with my mother's family in the City of Ottawa, Ontario. The most boring place in the universe, man. Bar none.

I'm staying at my uncle Leopold Gorton's house in the Ottawa suburb of Orleans. He's a tall, square-looking Black guy in his late fifties. We're talking glasses, suspenders and everything. My mother's stern older brother. He's married to this tall, blonde-haired and blue-eyed, Irish-Canadian lady named Siobhan O'Malley and they have two sons and a daughter together, my cousins Lucas, Jimmy and Ashley. They all grew up to be Ottawa University graduates and Canadian government workers. My mother's side of the family is so bourgeois it's not even funny but I try not to tell them that to their faces because that would be mean. My uncle Leopold is a cop and although I don't like cops regardless of color, gender or nationality, I actually respect him. He's more okay with certain aspects of my persona ( especially my being a bisexual guy ) than my own father is. My uncle is a wise man. He kind of reminds me of James Earl Jones, only taller, younger and leaner. Too bad his own offspring don't take after him mentally. They don't know nothing about anything outside of school stuff. My cousins Jimmy, Lucas and Ashley consider themselves mixed rather than Black, and although we've butted heads over that, I leave them alone. Just because I'm technically biracial and have my way of identifying doesn't make me the supreme authority on biracial people's issues worldwide. I got enough shit of my own to deal with. No need to take on everybody else's. You feel me? Cool.

So here I am on a Friday night, and instead of chasing big-booty chicks ( or well-built and well-hung young men) of all shades like a normal brother, I'm hanging out in a cemetery on Montreal Road. I have finally run out of grub. That's not good. I love Mexican food, man. Lately, there has been an outbreak of Vampires in the City of Ottawa. Alexandra Villeneuve, a French noblewoman who became a Vampire in 1100s France, has been spotted all over Ontario by Vampire Hunters. Alexandra is one of those members of the undead who are strictly old-school. Nowadays, Vampires, Ghouls, Elves, Werewolves, Zombies, Witches, Demons and such are policed by a special branch of law enforcement known as The Special Branch. Men and women trained by the governments of America, Canada, Colombia, Australia, Tunisia, Jamaica, China, New Zealand, Haiti, Japan, South Africa, Brazil and Saudi Arabia to fight the threat of the supernatural. Most of the non-humans living on this planet are registered with the various governments of the Member Nations where they live. As long as they're law-abiding, the Special Branch leaves them alone. By the way, the Special Branch is top secret. Just like the Men in Black. The freaks of the world know them and fear them. When they break the rules, the Special Branch sends its top guys and gals after them. Why am I dealing with this bullshit when there are people who get paid by various governments to do this? Recently, the unthinkable happened.

The headquarters of the Special Branch are at a nondescript building in the City of Los Angeles, California. It's home to hundreds of men and women who are trained and equipped to defend the planet Earth from all forces supernatural. It's supposed to be an impregnable fortress. Well, recently, it was destroyed. A swarm of Vampires invaded it. Vampires led by Alexandra Villeneuve. They 'converted' many agents and killed others. What do I mean by conversion? That's when a Vampire, Werewolf or Zombie willingly infects a human being for the purpose of increasing their armies. Since headquarters got compromised in Los Angeles, the others have since been attacked. Only the bases in Jamaica, China, South Africa and Saudi Arabia remain. All others have been compromised. That means thousands of men and women once sworn to protect the planet Earth from all things supernatural now number among the hairy packs of the wolf-men, the covens of the night-dwelling blood suckers and the shambling hordes of the zombies. Someone masterminded this. Alexandra Villeneuve. My father provided me with visual confirmation of this three nights ago. I don't know how I feel about all this, man. My parents trained me to hunt the inhuman fiends of the world. However, when I applied for work at The Special Branch, they turned me down. If you ask me, my experience as a leg breaker for various gangs in Kingston, Jamaica, ought to come in handy when it came to battling non-humans. Of course, the human resources department at The Special Branch disagreed. Now, the human resources department of the defunct Special branch probably isn't human anymore. All too well because I'm dying for some payback. Against both the agency and its enemies.

Which is why I'm watching the grave of my friend Parvati Gagandeep right now. Parvati and I go back a ways. To be honest, I kind of have a crush on her. Correction, I had a crush on her. For she's dead now. Too bad, though. You should have seen her while she was alive. Tall, slender and athletic, with light brown skin and short Black hair. Her figure is willowy like that of many East Indian women but she's got one hell of a booty on her. She is originally from the Punjab region of the Republic of India. A cool Canadian gal educated at McGill University who became my only friend in the City of Ottawa. Parvati is the daughter of Darshan Gagandeep, an RCMP guy who's actually a member of the Ottawa division of The Special Branch. When the local unit got hit by an army of vampires, wolf-men and other non-human entities, Parvati's father was turned into one of the undead. He went home and infected his family. I burned him to a crisp last night, along with his wife. Parvati was already put into the ground by the City of Ottawa. Now I must wait for her to rise, before putting her down.

Midnight at last. Parvati finally rises. I listen to hear as she claws her way out of the earth. And then she's out of the grave. My old friend looks pretty much the same way she did when we first met. Cute as hell, and as always looking hot in her stylish business suit. Three days in the ground did nothing to diminish her beauty. How I cursed her father Darshan for infecting her. If I'd been him, I would have ended my own life rather than infect my own family. Of course, once a human being becomes a vampire, he or she has little to no conscience. I look into Parvati's eyes and she looks into mine. Smiling, she calls my name. I smile coldly and salute her. Parvati notices the silver-tipped wooden stake in my hand. She stops smiling. Gently, she asks me if it really must come to this. I nod sadly. Upon hearing that, she freezes. For a moment, she looks exactly like the beautiful, innocent young woman I fantasized about falling in love with. The one who saw that there was a decent, compassionate man underneath the arrogant, bitter and forthrightly bisexual misanthrope I happened to be. The gal who helped me register at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario to continue the civil engineering training I began at Knox Community College in the City of Clarendon, Jamaica. The only woman other than my mother who believes in me. Even though I've slept with dozens of beautiful women ( and twice as many hot young men) I cared for Parvati like I cared for nobody else before. And the funny thing is that ours was a platonic friendship. Yeah, the lady meant a lot to me. That's why I hesitate.

Parvati doesn't hesitate. She leaps on top of me. We struggle fiercely on the ground. I am strong and so is she. I've pitted my strength against legions of non-humans in my lifetime. She bats the stake away, and I reel in pain. Growling in anger, she sinks her wicked claws into me. The claws hurt but I'm not worried. For I'm not one hundred percent human. There's a touch of the supernatural in my mother's Wiccan blood, and mine. I cannot become a Vampire, or a Werewolf, or anything non-human...because I'm already non-human. Perhaps Parvati senses this, and maybe that's why stops short of sinking her fangs in my neck. I stare into her eyes and she stares into mine. She tells me that it doesn't have to be like this. I tell her that it's my sworn duty to protect humanity from the likes of her. She laughs and tells me I'm no more human than she is. I tell her that I'm nothing like her. Parvati shakes her head, and tells me that humanity's days are over.

With that, Parvati pushes herself off me, then offers me her hand. After a brief hesitation, I rise on my own. She smiles, and continues with her little spiel. Lord she sounds confident. Parvati tells me that the non-humans of the world sense what mankind is in denial about. The devastating quakes in the Republic of Haiti, Chile and Turkey. The floods in Pakistan. Hurricane Katrina wiping out New Orleans years ago. The disappearance of Bengal Island. The mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder affecting bees around the world. Emblematic of a breakdown of fauna and flora. All of those signs indicated that the planet Earth was in the grip of major changes, and mankind might not survive those changes. The non-humans sensed these changes, and sought to replenish their ranks by mass-converting humans before the arrival of a doomsday event. I stared at Parvati, stunned. There was no deception in her eyes. She nodded calmly. I looked at her, and at the fallen stake.

Parvati tensed, but did not move. I asked her to come with me. If what she was saying was true, then I had bigger problems than merely stopping non-humans. The survival of the entire human species was at stake. I tried to convince her of this. Parvati shook her head, and dashed off into the night. Standing at a distance of a hundred feet from me, she whispered something only my inhumanly sharp earing could pick up. Three little words which have broken the hearts of men and women since time immemorial, and also sent them soaring to previously unimagined heights of joy and fulfillment. She said she loved me. Well, I loved her too. Emphasis on loved, rather than love. If only...I shook my head as she ran away. Sighing, I picked up my stake. I walked back to the main road, where I parked my Kawasaki motorcycle. I revved it up, and took off for Orleans. Mankind and planet Earth under collective assault from forces both natural and supernatural. I had to get back to my family. I have a world of work ahead of me. Time to let the humans know what's really going on in their communities. It's going to create worldwide panic. Governments will be toppled. Chaos will be everywhere. And maybe, just maybe, mankind will be shaken out of its stupor and save itself.