Protip for Vampires #200: being a psycho killer is purely optional.
If this was a movie, we would do a smash cut to me and Claude bursting into my apartment and picking up the conversation at an oddly convenient spot that also made it seem like we hadn't been driving in the same car for the past fifteen minutes. It wouldn't matter that we were both bursting to fill each other in on everything that had happened to us. After all, I'd been having my own hilarious adventures while Claude was off being the big damn hero in his own action movie of a life.
Since we're not doing that, we're just going to pick up from where we left off: driving into the night at questionable speeds in the Escalade that was currently masquerading as Claude's car. I say that because I had yet to see Claude with the same car twice and had long ago stopped asking if the car he was driving was indeed "his" car. As an international professional thief in high-demand, Claude had an evolved opinion about the fluidity of ownership.
"First of all, holy shit: what a night!" exclaimed Claude, the aforementioned professional thief, actually breaking his cool to grin excitedly. It was a familiar sight, a reminder that this was my friend of twenty years, the one guy who always had my back no matter how much I fucked up.
"I don't think I can do this vampire thing," I blurted out and then shook my hands rapidly, trying to shake off the twitchy feeling that the ebbing adrenaline rush had left me with. "Sacudiendo el mal," as my mom would call it. Shaking off the bad vibes. My damn heart was still racing, but that might have been due to the feeling that I had narrowly escaped what is professionally termed as "murder by Beatrice". "Fuck!" I added for emphasis.
"What do you mean 'can't do this'? Last I checked you were in all the way. I watched you kill a dude tonight, dude!"
"That was revenge," I scowled, and there was that unease again gnawing at my gut: that complete lack of guilt on my part. I'd always thought that I would be an emotional disaster if I ever had to actually kill someone, but with Sebastien, there was no emotion at all, only a feeling of vindication, and that freaked me out more than me actually freaking out. "That motherfucker had it coming," I muttered, and looked away from Claude, not wanting to see the look of judgment in his eyes.
"To repeat an earlier theme: holy shit," Claude murmured.
I tried to shake it off again.. "It doesn't matter anyway: Sebastien is a vampire." I thought about it for a second. "Was a vampire. Is... Fuck it: dude gets to come back in a couple of days and he will probably be a complete asshole about it too. So it's not like I actually killed a real person."
"Are you hearing yourself? Are you listening to the words coming out of your mouth?"
"Yes, I am, and that's one of the reasons I don't think I can do this. It's not all capes and castles and nubile young women with questionable judgement about strange men biting them on the neck. Vampiring is hard."
"Little late for that now," Claude murmured.
"I don't think I even get a castle." I shook my head, suddenly exhausted. "This has been the longest day of my life, dude. I'm fucking done right now. I want nothing more than to pass the fuck out, hide under the covers and stay there for a week. I don't want to think about being thrown off roofs by scary vampire chicks, and I especially don't want to know about any crusty six-thousand year old vampires trying to get into my fucking head, because fuck that shit. Bob is out." I paused and grabbed Claude's cellphone from the center console, held it out in front of me at arm's reach and dropped it.
The phone clattered on the dash, and Claude raised his eyebrow at me. "What the hell was that?" he asked, and then his brain caught up to him, part of that shared experience where we both know what the other is thinking. "Was that you dropping the mic?"
"That was me dropping the mic," I confirmed.
Claude steered the car into a parking space on the street, and it was only then that I focused on where we were—my apartment. "Next time, do it with your own damn phone," Claude muttered. He glanced my way and shrugged. "So what's got you so freaked out?"
I found myself blushing, my cheeks burning as I tried to figure out how to say the next part. It was so fucking surreal to actually feel embarrassed after all I had been through, especially with my best friend. I fumbled with the door as a way to distract myself, trying to buy time.
"I drank blood tonight," I blurted and opened the door, thankful for the crisp air of the night as it cooled my burning skin.
I shot a glance at Claude, who only nodded thoughtfully. He didn't seem to be judging me at all, just processing what I had told him, and trying to figure out what it meant.
"Like from a real person?" he asked.
"Yes a real person," I admitted irritably. Suicide Blonde's beautiful face flashed across my mind, and I was unable to resist a smile. "It's fine though: she was totally into it, and I didn't even have to kill her," I replied and then uncertainty popped up its stupid head to say hello. "At least I don't think I did..."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"I kinda-sorta immediately blacked the fuck out. Next thing I knew, I was passing my not-flying pop quiz with flying colours. Pun intended."
"It's a terrible pun. You should work on that."
I looked away to the empty courtyard between the two buildings at the front of my complex, my skin prickling as a feeling of dread came over me. Claude was still sitting in the car, engine running. "You're not coming in, are you?"
"Nope. The goal was rescuing your ass. Did that. Now I have my own ass to tend to."
"Who said I needed rescuing?" I grumbled. "I was thinking that I was going to have to rescue you. I even came up with a brilliant plan. It had ninjas and everything. I immediately forgot it of course, but from what I remember it was going to be epic."
Claude shook his head. "Get some sleep, Bob. We'll catch up tomorrow after you've had some rest and time to think. Right now, I've got to figure out where my client is. The job is getting... complicated."
"You mean the job I'm not supposed to ask about?" I asked. "The one that has you working undercover for one of the city's vampire bosses and messing about with a psychopathic six-thousand year-old vampire."
Claude shrugged and tapped the side of his nose. He nodded at me, a sign that he was definitely changing the subject. "I'll see you sometime tomorrow, and we can figure shit out, okay?"
"You're honestly not going to tell me what's going on with you?"
"It involves vampires, blackmail, doublecrossing, and general backstabbing in epic proportions. It's a freaking telenovela in its own right. Right now you're already exhausted, plus you're opting out of the vampire thing, so you really don't want to know all the details, right?"
I tried to suppress a yawn and failed, my limbs suddenly heavy. "I still wanna know what's going on with you, dude. Every time you say the word 'vampire,' I'm just going to substitute 'accountant,' in my head, so I can pretend they don't exist, how about that, eh? Eh?"
Claude raised an eyebrow at me. "That doesn't make any sense."
"At least accountants get to be bored," I glared daggers at him. "All I ask is for a couple of hours where someone isn't trying to kill me. Boredom sounds so awesome right about now."
"Accountants don't have gorgeous Countessas."
I deadpanned Claude. "Please do not seduce Lady Vera. That woman has a core of cold hard steel. I don't know who scares me more: her or Beatrice."
Claude waggled his eyebrows suggesting that he had his own damn plans and they might or might not involve seduction of a certain gorgeous Countessa. Bastard.
"I make no promises. Get some rest, and I'll see you mañana."
I lowered my voice and intoned dramatically in a deep Morgan Freeman-style voice, "Narrator: This was the last time Bob ever saw Claude."
"Oh, shut up. I'll see you tomorrow afternoon at three PM sharpish."
"Yeah, fine. Whatever man," I grumbled.
"Call your mom!" Claude yelled, but his voice cut off as I slammed the door. I gave him a non-committal thumbs up and then watched him drive away into the night. I waited until his rear lights rounded the corner before turning to make my way inside.
I crossed the courtyard quickly, glancing at the still scorched flagstones that was the only evidence Claude and I had run experiment #8: Fun With the Sun. I burned of course, a moment that cemented in our minds that while most of the vampire mythos was bullshit, the one where vampires caught fire in the sun just had to be the one they got right. While painful, it had given me some hope that as long as I stayed in the shadows, I could still go out during the day with the difficulty level set to "fuck you."
I had once let a friend use my place to film a scene for a webseries, and the small crew had lit the shit out of my apartment, enhancing everything for the camera. It was so bright that when they left, the entire place had felt so ordinary and dull. This is what coming home felt like after the insanity of the past week. It was a huge mind-fuck, like stepping out of a dream, but more importantly, it was a return to normal. Crossing the courtyard felt like such an ordinary, mundane thing, something that I'd been doing every single day for the three years I'd lived there.
Even better, nobody tried to kill me.
Not even once.
My apartment door was a welcome sight. There was something slightly off about it, but I couldn't figure out what, so I just focused on the tarnished brass, good old 5B. My hand went into my pocket and... I cursed at the nothingness there. Of course I didn't have my key. This was a brand new suit, and I didn't even know where my keys were, or my wallet for that matter, but guess what? I still did the old pat-the-pockets dance, just to be sure. The only thing I still had that belonged to me was my phone.
"Oh, for fuck's sake!" I breathed, fumbling my phone out. I was ready to call Claude back to let me in with his spare key, my thumb already moving to push his number on the screen, when the lock on my door turned with a click, and the door creaked open.
My heart stopped in my throat as an eye peered out at me, and for a split-second, I had the panicked hope that it was Jaime. Jaime had returned after being thrown out of HTDK by Sebastien, and she needed me.
It wasn't Jaime. Duh.
The face that looked at me from the other side of my apartment door belonged to Doreen, one part of the duo who had attacked me on Julio's orders. Her familiar blue semi-mohawk was loose and spilled down the side of her face, completely ruining its intended air of menace. When she sneered, the combination of her towering height and solid muscle was imposing as hell, but her smile lit up a room. She was the sweetest tough girl I had ever been punched by.
The last time I had seen Doreen, she'd been covered with Tanya's blood. Tanya had up to that point been Doreen's girlfriend and partner-in-literal-crime. Mister Flynn, (remember him? One of the brutal vampire-enforcers known as the Gentlemen?) glammered Doreen and instructed her to murder Tanya, which she had done without a second thought. It had been brutal, and she cried while doing it, but she did it, unable to disobey. Beatrice calmed her after the Gentlemen left, using the mind-control of the glammer in a different way. Mister Flynn was forceful, while Beatrice made Doreen want to be her best friend in the entire world, and it worked to ease Doreen's pain. After that, Doreen cheerfully cleaned up the mess in the bathroom and disposed of her girlfriend's body while Beatrice took me to meet Harry. That had been seven days ago.
"Oh, hi, Bob," Doreen said with a huge smile and looked past me, searching. "Is Beatrice with you?"
"No," I replied, fighting to find the right words to ask what the fuck she was doing there. Oh wait: "What are you doing here Doreen? Have you been here all this time?"
"Of course I have," Doreen admitted, as if it was perfectly obvious that she would be there. She opened the door wide for me to enter. "I'm waiting for Beatrice. She is coming back isn't she?"
I entered, not sure I wanted to answer that question and shook my head. Then I saw the apartment and reacted in the only way I could.
"Whoa, you did all this?"
"Welcome home, I guess?" Doreen said, "I did a little tidying up and... stuff?"
Doreen had done more than tidying up or "stuff." I already felt like a visitor in my own apartment. Doreen had made herself at home while I had been gone. She'd replaced the front door, along with the broken frame, so my key wouldn't have worked anyway; the repairs and fixes didn't stop there.
Black sheets of foam-core board had been placed into the windows, cut to size with plastic handles on the backs to pull the boards out as needed. The formerly functional curtains were replaced with what looked like the type of blackout curtains normally sold at Ikea, perfect decor for a vampire who had no intention of sleeping in a goddamn coffin. Doreen also mounted my flatscreen on the wall and judging by the way Coldplay sounded coming out of my speakers, she also rewired my stereo system so that it now actually worked with the 5.1 speaker setup. All things I'd been meaning to do, but hadn't gotten around to. A quick glance at the bathroom where Mister Bryce had caused most to the destruction, confirmed that the door and wall had been repaired. It was as if the Gentlemen had never existed.
There was a gigantic mural of nude Beatrice on the wall behind the television. It ran the entire length from window to corridor and was both magnificent and creepy in a semi-stalkery kind of way. It was rendered so perfectly that it felt as if Beatrice might emerge from the wall, her pointed fangs ready to bite and tear--
"Wow," I whispered and glanced at Doreen, who blushed, seemingly proud of and embarrassed by her work at the same time.
"I dabble a little," Doreen said, way too modestly. "Do you think she'll like it?" she asked, and looked me in the eye, seeking approval from me. There was the light feel of her mind, nothing more than a slight brush, and all of a sudden I understood a lot more about this woman who had previously been the muscle for Tanya's criminal activities. I sensed that she had probably never heard a word of praise for her talent, and that somehow her brief contact with Beatrice had brought that out, even if it was only to create a tribute to Beatrice herself.
"It's really good," I nodded lamely and smiled at her, noticing the bed that had been made up on the couch. Even with me gone, Doreen had still decided to sleep on the couch. "I'm going to go pass out for a week," I murmured, making my way towards the bedroom. "Thanks for doing all of the repairs, I guess."
"It was the least I could do," Doreen murmured. "Sorry about before, you know, with Tanya. Sorry I hit you."
I paused for a moment, hand on the bedroom door. "Sorry about Tanya," I said, and there it was, that twitch in Doreen's left eye at the mention of Tanya.
"Don't worry about it," Doreen said with a smile, "I have Beatrice now, and she'll be here soon." She looked me in the eye and without any irony or fear, said, "You can drink my blood if you need to, you know. It's no problem."
I didn't know what to say, so I didn't.
"Good night, Doreen."
When I flopped face down onto the mattress, the last thing I expected to see was an extremely naked Julio in the corner, bare ass on my carpet. Julio, my former drug-dealer. Julio, who had helped Sebastien ambush me, just before I was shot in the face. Yes, that Julio was tied up, gagged, and bruised, like he had seen the wrong side of Doreen's fists.
"Doreen!" I called out, really not wanting to move. "Why is Julio in my bedroom?"
"Midnight snack? He's my gift to you. I figured you had to come back sometime... or Beatrice."
Julio's eyes went wide at that, and I sighed slowly, really too tired for this.
"Please get rid of him," I groaned, dimly aware that Doreen was already standing in the doorway. "And no, you don't have to kill him."
I don't remember anything after that. I dreamed of ancient vampires with too many goddamn fangs, and beautiful painted women who wanted to kill me and whispered sweet words of seduction into my ears.
No escape... no escape...
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