How Not to Vampire - Season 2

1. Death and All Her Friends

"You got it 'John,'" I said with an obvious wink that failed when I couldn't get my eyelids to behave themselves.

Claude continued, ignoring my idiocy. "Guess who they asked me to get out of the tank not fifteen minutes ago. Hint: looks like you, sounds just like you, is totally you. And you are not part of the job, so please don't blow my cover. We've got two minutes before I'm supposed to hand you over to the Countess."

My euphoria was fading, and now that I was standing, I realized I was wickedly thirsty, oh, and I was still naked and slick with the pod-goo. Claude threw a towel at me, which I almost dropped in my stupor, still trying to get my bearings.

A fine metal mesh grating covered the floor, and the walls were lined with metal bands and black glass, with the occasional sign of technology either projected onto them or built-in. I got the sense that behind each glass panel, there were a lot more pods like mine. It was like a high-tech morgue with an identity crisis. About twenty feet up on the back wall was a coat of arms that looked like the de Biers Company logo, the wolf and the bat prominently displayed. There was a motto emblazoned beneath, in Latin, of course.

EN CRUOREM NOS PARTIR

Claude saw me looking. "In Blood We Share," he translated for me. "Appropriate for a place run by vampires, right? Welcome to the Wellness Centre, or as everyone who works here calls it: 'Countessa Vera's House of the Dead.' Classy, right?"

An extended workbench dominated the center of the room, well-lit by a series of overhead lights, an array of technology and medical equipment taking up most of the surface. Only one part of the table was pristine, empty except for a slim, shiny black laptop computer.

"You're going to feel a little groggy for a few minutes," Claude said and pushed a button on the wall. There was a click as machinery hummed to life in the walls. "That gel they had you floating in is a powerful narcotic, so the sooner you wipe it off, the more awake you'll be."

I stopped drying myself off, perking up at the mention of "narcotic" and looked longingly back at the pod Claude had rescued me from. Never had a man-shaped plastic mould looked so inviting. Electrodes lined the entire interior and had no doubt been attached to me, disconnected before I fully woke up. The mould itself stuck out of the sleek black metal and glass wall with a complicated pneumatic looking arm holding it at an angle. The pod now hummed to life, and it now slid upward on the arm, turned horizontal, and disappeared into the wall, the glass closing behind it with a barely audible click. There went any hope of returning to the powerful narcotics. So close... so damn close.

"Am I going to have to slap you again?" Claude threatened, surely recognizing the longing look on my face for what it was, and I sighed regretfully.

"I am so confused," I admitted. "Is that really you? I'm so confused." I repeated. "I think I may be losing my mind." I looked around the strange room and felt so lost. "Either that or this is a dream sequence, and I really hate those."

"You and me both, buddy. Right now, it feels too much like the universe is fucking with us."

I beamed and grabbed his shoulders with barely contained joy. Finally, someone saw my lifelong problem for themselves."This is what it feels like for me every day," I enthused, then faltered as I remembered where we were. "So, what is this place? It looks like a cross between Star Wars and Alien. And speak real slow. Maybe some of it will seep in."

"It's the vampire morgue. It's where they bring vampires after they've been killed, instead of the regular morgue. Here you can heal and return from the dead... instead of having your organs extracted and placed into bags like they do in a real morgue. For some reason, having the brain scooped out and weighed makes it really, really hard to return from the dead. There's a whole system in place that's been there for years to make sure vampires don't end up permanently dead. Which is where you come in."