Dalton James could hear the heavy footsteps banging against wooden stairs.
He'd always been able to hear them. His office was very much on the old side of things. Mt.
Pleasant, Cleveland. This was Browns country and moreover, this was one of the city's worst
neighborhoods. The rent was cheap enough and the building had been everything Dalton had
desired. Even down to the shitty wooden steps which led up from the street below. A warning
system, if nothing more.
“Time to wake up, Sleeping Beauty.” Adam said as he entered.
The office door was just as sad looking as you'd imagine in a building that was decades
behind a builder's code. Thick wood with an antique knob and milky glass with no other purpose
than to be there with his name plastered on it.
Dalton James. Private Detective.
“Beauty my ass.” Dalton replied as he raised his head from the desk.
Like everything else, his desk was a relic of severe age and neglect. It had likely been a fine
piece of furniture once upon a time. The kind that you'd imagine in some upscale bank, shining
beneath fancy overhead lighting. Now it was littered with the haze of age and the scars and nicks
of everyday use.
“You said 8 o'clock.” Adam reminded.
Grumbling under his breath, Dalton stared at the clock which hung on the wall. It was rather
large and wrapped in a steel band, resembling the clock in one of any of the thousands of labor
factories around the world.
“It's fifteen after.” Adam said. Holding up his antique pocket watch.
“Shit,” Dalton complained. Taking a large cigar of questionable origin, he quickly wrapped
his lips around it as though he were snugging a newborn and flicked his windproof lighter.
Drawing several deep breaths and lighting the cigar in the process. “Had the weirdest damn
dream. Didn't sleep much.”
Adam looked at him with curiosity. Finally going a bit further.
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“The dream? Same one?” Adam asked.
“Shit, I don't remember all of the details, honestly. Yea. You and me were hunting vampires
in space. Something like that. They had me in charge of a fleet-”
“They had you in charge?”
“Yea, me,” Dalton defended. “It's my damn dream. I can be the hero if I want to be. Anyway,
it doesn't feel like I've slept a wink.”
It certainly wasn't his first sleepless night. He could remember far back, even into his
childhood. The same dream with details changing ever so slightly along the way. Those who
knew him had pushed for the tough man to visit a sleep clinic. He had, though his was housed
inside of a whiskey bottle.Page 2
“Science fiction huh?” Adam asked, tak