How Not to Vampire - Season 1

15. Enemies Make the Best Friends

"You're leaving town," Claude stated, and both Robert and I looked at him, Robert a little more cautiously, almost as if he had been caught doing something wrong.

"Who the fuck are you again?" Robert finally spat.

"The guy who's asking why you have three hastily-packed suitcases waiting at the bottom of the stairs as if you're in a rush to go somewhere," Claude said evenly, pointing to the incriminating evidence. "You have drawers open all over the place as if you're looking for something and don't have enough time to close them. Ergo, you look like a man who is running for his life, so I gotta wonder why. Or perhaps the better question is, who are you running from?"

Robert focused his light-blue vampire eyes on Claude, a sudden intensity and focus on his face. "Forget about it. It's nothing."

Claude raised an inquisitive eyebrow, meeting Robert's steady focus. He looked almost amused."Hey, Bob, is he really trying to Jedi mind-trick me?"

"I kinda think he is," I mused. I turned my attention to Robert who was unusually focused. "Is that what you're doing?"

"YES!" Robert snapped, not breaking eye contact with Claude, but my friend didn't explode or catch on fire or start break-dancing. Robert finally looked away, flustered. "Goddamit, I'm losing my touch."

"Sorry, not sorry?" Claude said.

"So vampires can use Jedi mind tricks to make people do shit? Can you teach me the ways of the Force?" I asked Robert, excited by the possibility. "But in a way that actually works?"

Robert threw his hands in the air. "Fuck you man. Fuck both of you."

The blonde woman slid off the couch and sat upright, one blue vampire eye bleary and completely drunk. The left eye was covered with a black leather eye-patch. She looked at us and clambered to her feet.

"Don't mind me," Blondie muttered, and stumbled out of the room. After a moment there came the clatter and clink of someone in the kitchen and Robert shrugged at us.

"It's actually her house," Robert said by way of explanation.

"So who are you running from?" Claude asked.

Robert glared at both of us and then shook his head. "Look man, everything is seriously fucked up right now. Somebody died at my party and it's attracting all the wrong kinds of attention. Yes, I'm skipping town, and maybe you should do the same, you know, before you show up on anybody's radar. Check out the scene in New York. They got a decent community, they're a little less uptight about rules, and they have non-extradition laws, so—"

"Where is Louise?" I asked quietly.

A bottle smashed in the next room, and Blondie laughed drunkenly. "Oops!" she muttered.

Robert glanced toward the kitchen and then back at me, suddenly shifty. "Well... Louise is the one who got Beatrice to help turn you, right? That's like one of the biggest no-nos in the Vampire world. Well, that and killing another vampire."

Claude and I exchanged an uneasy look. The hair rose on my arms and a sick feeling coiled in the pit of my gut.

Robert shrugged and glanced at his suitcases, apparently ready to be done with this shit. "Look, you don't go around making vampires. Ever. That's one of the big ones. Harry'll sic the Gentlemen on any offender for sure. And if they already got to her, no one's seeing her ever again."

"You don't know Louise," Claude blustered. "She's smart, she's resourceful—"

"She's so fucking dead," Robert scoffed. "You forgot that one." He reached up and adjusted his nose with an audible click and a hiss of pain.