"No, wait, we're wrong," Piker was obviously frustrated at himself.
"What do you mean? How could we be wrong? The mo'ili'ili karst makes sense, that's where any vampire would hide if they didn't want to be found." Alan insisted.
"You're partly right," Piker agreed. "It's exactly where any vampire would hide may be up to thirty or forty years ago or even longer. You see what we're doing here, right?"
"No," Alan shook his head, "I'm not following you."
"We're doing to vampire lore what tourists do to us when they come to Hawaii for the first time. They already have a preconceived notion of who they expect us to be. Ergo, grass skirts, coconut bras, grass huts., luau, Elvis, Don Ho....you get it?" Piker waited for the light to come on in Alan's eyes, considering that he was the 'tech know' and the I.T. guy.
"Right!" Alan hissed. "We automatically went for the old lore, hidden in basements, dungeons, and somewhere under the city. As we here in Hawaii adapted and became a modern city, so did Vampires have to adapt so they wouldn't be so obvious to hunters like us!"
"So, we know there's a vampire somewhere in this area, and we don't know who it is," Piker walked over to Alan to show him a map from South King Street all the way up to Wai'alae and 3660 on the rise. "Is it holed up in some transient apartment building, or is it more upscale?"
"I don't know, but let's think about for a second, if you were a vampire.......where's the last place that anyone would expect to find you?" Alan asked himself more than he asked Piker. They both looked at the map for a second until Piker cocked his head to one side and placed his finger on a location.
"Dude, no one would expect to find a vampire here."
"Shiiiiiiiiiit," Alan exhaled.
.............
TWO DAYS LATER
The school day let out early, and while the older girls were eager to head to the mall to see and be seen, the younger girls waited in the pickup lane for their parents' to whisk them away in their expensive vehicles. Letta adeptly let herself in through the door, which led down to the basement. She needed to change out of her school uniform and into something more suited to the shopping mall. Grabbing two brass handles, she pulled open a full drawer from just beneath her ornate casket. It had an orange velvet backing and was sectioned off for different uses. One for shoes, jewelry, hair combs, perfumes, and makeup. There was an old hairbrush with an intricate carving of a dragon on the handle. If one were not the owner of the hairbrush, one would be reticent to touch it. It gave off an ominous vibration as if it once belonged to the devil himself. Letta brushed back her sunny colored golden locks and let it fall about her shoulders. It contrasted with the black angora sweater she wore along with her jeans. The black heels on her feet looked menacing like they could become razor-sharp talons at any moment. Satisfied, she closed the drawer and turned to leave but found that she had company.
"How did you get in here without my knowing?" She demanded of the stranger. " I didn't even sense you."
"That doesn't matter. What does matter is that you've been found out, there are two men on their way here to kill you," the man's voice had an underlying power which made Letta uncomfortable. She could tell that he wasn't like other men. He hadn't fallen victim to her hypnotic beauty.
"And you? Aren't you here to kill me?" Letta asked harshly.
"I'm here to buy you time to pack up and leave. Take with you what you have, and go...if these men find you, they will kill you." The man assured her of the fate she would suffer from such confidence that she could not deny his claim. However, he was still just a man.
"Why help me?" In a second, her age-old arrogance brought her face to face with him with blinding speed. It was an old tactic that always worked on humans because it was something they were never prepared for. It gave them such a fright that they had no time to react. It could be used as a display of power or to kill someone right off. To her detriment, the man held a swordfish bill just in front of his stomach when Letta impaled herself on it. It had been blessed on the grounds of the ancient Paka'alana heiau in Waipio valley in ancient times. It was a holy object which few knew of but tried to possess. The vampire crumbled into ashes before the feet of the well-dressed man.
Just then, he heard a voice from behind him, "Mr. Napualawa?"
"Gentlemen," Boy smiled and acknowledged their presence.
"What are you doing here?" Alan asked.
"A misunderstanding about a curse," Boy replied as he pointed to the ornate coffin and the trinkets. "Looks like it was just a bunch of schoolgirls playing a prank...it was nice to see the both of you." Boy excused himself and made his way out of the basement.
.............
Many years ago, in London, when Boy was still in college for a study abroad trip, he was nearly killed by a vampire. Letta's mother, Leticia, intervened and saved Boy's life by chopping off the head of the offending vampire. Boy was thankful, and he and Leticia stayed in contact for many years until one day, Leticia called Boy to inform him that Letta had been bitten by the wife of the very vampire she'd killed that night in London. It was revenge for the slaying of her husband.
"Convince her to leave town," Leticia begged Boy. "It's all I ask."
"And if I can't?" Boy replied.
"Do what you must, but make it quick, don't let her suffer." The phone went dead after.
Piker and Alan never found the vampire they were looking for, and they never asked Boy as to why he had been in the very location where they suspected the vampire of being.
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