100 Yellow Doors

november 26th, 2019, 11:22 p.m.

"See what happens when you leave me? You get all sad. Sulky. You were happy back at my place—"

"Because you were controlling me. Did you forget that?" snapped Julien.

He glanced at her in time to see her give a grand roll of her eyes, and then she was close, closer, leaning into his side and hooking her arm through his and pressing the gentlest of kisses to his jaw. "If it were truly all my fault," she whispered, "would you be here with me now?"

She leaned away again, tossing her cigarette into the street, and Julien slipped into a willing silence.

"Let's hurry now," said Sera, squeezing Julien's arm. "Vanya's expecting us."

And just for a second, Julien let himself pretend that this were a different time, that they were in a different place, that they were different people. He studied Sera's side profile: the upward strokes of her charcoal-colored lashes, the innocent curve of her nose, the swell and dip and swell of her lips. He pretended they were in Paris again, dancing in the rain, Sera staring at him for a moment and him asking What? What? and a kiss on his mouth and the words I was just praying for a moment that I never lose you sung like the purest of melodies in his ear.

He heard, then, the whip of cloth toiling about in the wind. Julien looked up and saw an American flag hanging proudly from a government building, and instantly, the glamour fell apart.

This was not Paris. He was not the same; Sera was not the same.

Nothing at all, he thought, would ever be the same again.

It was another twenty minutes—a duration mostly spent with Sera talking about aimless things, like visitors coming the next week, or her manicure that had prematurely chipped, while Julien only half-listened—before they met Vanya outside of what appeared to be a nightclub. It was somewhat hidden under a moldy awning, messy neon lights burning the word Sanguine into Julien's eyes in glaring crimson. Vanya stood beside the glass door, hands in his pockets, a ball cap pulled low over his face.

"Seraphine, Julien," he said in his thick Russian accent as they approached, reaching out to hold the door open for them. "Good to see you."

Sera nodded and moved to brush past him, but not before he caught at her arm—a touch which Julien pointedly pretended not to notice—and whispered to her, "It's almost time. Best hurry, no?"

Another curt nod from Sera, and then she pulled Julien with her, Vanya not far behind.

She led Julien down a narrow, wood-paneled hallway smelling of peanuts and weed smoke, the glare of the neon sign gone here and replaced only with a darkness that would have been unsettling had Julien's eyes functioned at a human efficiency. Sera turned around a sharp corner, Julien nearly bumping into her, and into a staggering, pseudo-alternate universe.

Julien stood upon a balcony, looking down at a dance floor that writhed with hundreds of bodies, dancing and sweating to obscure techno music with minimal lyrics sung in either Russian or Ukrainian. Though the room itself was shadowy—dark walls, dark floors—flashing lights in crazy colors like blue and green and pink made it seem like it wasn't. Julien was somewhat dizzy, the scents of metallic blood and salty sweat ringing in his nose as hundreds of heartbeats rang in his ears—they were human, all these people, and he had the terrible feeling that if Sera wasn't gripping his arm like a vice that he would have devoured half of them by now.

How had he let this hunger get so out of control?

"Sera," he said, and though she was right next to him he had to yell to even hear himself. "What is this place? Why am I here?"

Behind them, Vanya scoffed. "You still ask lot of questions."

Julien ignored him. "Sera?"

"Club Sanguine," she said, leaning over the balcony's railing, the lights echoing like a double exposure in her pale blue eyes. "It's one of the only places in the city where vampires and humans can mingle like this, and that's precisely why I built it."

"You...built this place?" Julien swung his gaze about again, watching as people stumbled through various stages of their night—some making out in the corner, another throwing up in the trashcan, another passed out cold on the glitter-covered ground.

Sera pressed a hand to Julien's ribs, sending a shockwave through every one of his dead nerves. "It's owned by the clan, yes," she said, tracing a circle where Julien's new brand rested beneath his shirt. "Which means, now, it is also owned by you."

Julien folded his hand over Sera's. "But I don't..."

She shook her head. "You're hungry, right?" she asked, and as she did, the music changed to an eerie, slower-paced song. One by one, as they watched, vampires swept humans close, sinking teeth into flesh. Julien winced as the smell of blood floated up to the ceiling; he kept expecting to hear screams as the humans hit the ground, but it was almost...peaceful.

"They're drugged," said Sera, reading his mind. "They won't feel a thing. Go on, already. Have your fill."

Julien's fangs slid clean, sharp, into his mouth. He wanted to fight it, wanted to turn around and shove Vanya out of the way and run and run and not look back. He wanted so badly to fight it—moreover, he knew in the back of his head that Iman would want him to fight it—but he just wasn't strong enough anymore.

He gripped the top of the railing, propelling himself over it and landing decisively on the dance floor. A young woman, laughing, glitter caught in her long eyelashes, sauntered up to him, offered her neck.

He drank, and when she slumped unconscious he reached for someone else, and drank more. He fed until the world revealed itself to him in full color, until he had forgotten at all what Iman would think, until he had forgotten about anything but the here and the now.

He knelt on the floor afterwards, his whole body trembling with pleasure, a smear of blood down his chin and his shirt.

"So much better than suckling from plastic bags, right?" said Sera from behind him.

A laugh bubbled up in Julien's chest, and he rose, turning to face her. Sera's own face was flushed with the feed, her arms folded triumphantly across her chest. "Damn right," said Julien, as the music sped up again. "I can come back here again?"

"Of course, Jule," said Sera, sliding an arm around his lower back, resting her head upon his shoulder. "Like I said—it's yours now, after all."

Julien licked the remnants of blood from his mouth, and sighed. As crazy as it was, he thought—he had never felt more in control.