It was deadly quiet without me there.
That's the thing that shocked Jaime the most out of everything that had happened, just how quiet it was when I wasn't around. She told me later that it reminded her of when we'd finally broken up after the months of me stealing from her and racking up her credit cards with stupid purchases and cash advances at ridiculously high interest rates. Once the yelling was done and my stupid fucking mood-swings were out the door, there was just this sense of quiet and calm that she hadn't realized had been missing. Having me around was like having a television set on full blast with someone constantly changing the channels the instant something caught your attention and you can never find out the punchline of that really clever commercial even if you try to go back.
In case you haven't figured it out yet, I'm kinda out of the story for a little while. Unless you want to hear about my thrilling adventures of being thrown into the trunk of an ancient Cadillac with blacked-out windows and then being locked up in a windowless room while blindfolded and with earplugs in my ears. That makes for a thrilling tale doesn't it? Yeah I know, I hate those kinds of movies too.
All of the good fun stuff was happening outside so we're gonna stick with them for a bit. Anytime you miss me and wonder what I'm up to, just picture me tied up. In a tiny room. Bored out of my skull.
Okay, now we got that out of the way...
"We have to get him back," a very stoned Jaime had said only seconds before she had fallen to her knees and begun to giggle like a maniac.
Sammy's head was somewhere else entirely.
"The sun's coming up. We about forty minutes before full light."
The King nodded, one eye to the sky.
"There's a motel about ten miles back, right off the freeway," the King volunteered and Sammy nodded grimly. She hopped into the car, deliberately not looking around at Jimmy's armless body on the ground. She paused with the door still open. "You're going to have to get Jaime and put her into the car."
"She's going to be a bit of a handful," the King said. "I might need your help peeling her off my leg in a few minutes." He glanced over at Jimmy, concerned. "You mind if I take a moment to cover him up? It's not right what they did to him."
"Do what you need to, just do it quickly."
Ten minutes later they were speeding away from the trailer park, leaving the devastation of the camp behind them, but the memory of all of the broken bodies seared into their eyeballs. The Gentlemen had left a trail of destruction and bodies in their wake; it didn't seem like anyone had been left alive. Jaime was passed out on the back seat while the King drove, the vehicle seeming like a natural extension of the man. Sammy just stared straight ahead still processing everything that she had seen and experienced.
"What the hell is Jesus? I thought I saw him change into something... definitely not human."
"Jesus is older than anyone I've ever met. He knocked around Central America for a couple hundred years where they apparently worshipped him as a god. For all we know he is one. He had the name Jesus when I first met him about eighty years ago and told me he had taken it on as a joke but he'd forgotten the punchline."
"Wow." Sammy thought for a long moment. "They're going to kill Bob aren't they?"
"It's what they do. They take out the trash."
"Hey! That's my friend you're talking about? Do you really want me pissed off at you again?"
King knew when to back off. "My bad. Old habits and hierarchies die hard baby doll. But it's true. From the view point of the other vampires, especially the gentlemen, Bob is the trash and nobody like to look at the trash for too long."
"I'd like to introduce you to a friend of mine," Sammy said and she gave the King a very aggressive middle finger. "Oops, I'm sorry, it's just my fucking middle finger!"
"You don't have to be so hostile--"
"Wait! He's got a friend!" Sammy shoved both middle fingers into the King's face. "And they're both yelling fuck you buddy!"
The King just shook his head and remained silent. Sammy sat back, satisfied that her message had been delivered. She nodded towards the listening horizon.
"You better drive faster or I'm going to leave your ass in the sun to get toasty."
***
Jaime woke up sometime after midday.
It was the pounding head that convinced her that she needed to be awake and upright as soon as possible, because lying down was about to be a lot more uncomfortable, especially if the taste of bile in the back of her throat and that rush of saliva was any indication. It usually meant she was about to hurl very unfashionably all over whatever surface she was lying on and she had no intention of doing that. Having gone on several benders over the years, she had become attuned to certain warning signs from her body and as a result had perfected the ability to always make it to the bathroom on time and never ever puke on herself. She had never been able to understand how other people just didn't know when they were going to puke and always seemed to embarrass themselves or make a mess of wherever they were. In her experience that rush of saliva in the back of throat meant only one thing, and that was to haul ass to the bathroom and to gather up her hair in one hand and tie it back if she could. Puke in the hair was the last thing anyone ever wanted to deal with.
Countless taxi cabs and friend's cars had been spared the indignity of having her dinner splashed across their varied surfaces. Jaime considered herself to be a national fucking treasure.
So when she woke up, the taste of balche still strong in her mouth and her memory, and there it was, that first warning sign, she had rolled off the bed like a champ, steadied herself on her wobbly legs that threatened sudden but inevitable betrayal of the most heinous kind and had somehow managed to stumble forward, trying to find the nearest door in what was obviously a motel room.
The why or the how the hell she got there wasn't important at the moment, just that it was a motel room and since bathrooms tended to be located in the same place in every motel room she had ever been in, it made finding it a lot easier.
She made it to the toilet just in time and spent the next two minutes worshipping ye ol' porcelain god is a very determined manner.
She realized that it had not even been a week ago that she had been in a very similar motel room in a state close to death and Bob had been there holding her hair out of the way for her while she had trembled at the spasms in her stomach as her body ejected pretty much everything it didn't want, which was essentially everything.
Now Bob was gone and all she could think about was how to get him back... especially now that he wasn't there to hold her hair out of the way while she puked. It was those little gestures that showed he cared that had drawn her to him in the first place because he could be so considerate, and she missed it despite all of the huge ways he had chosen to be a complete fuck up.
"Oh good: you're up," Sammy said from outside the doorway, and Jaime whipped around, startled at not having heard Sammy enter. "How are you feeling this morning?"
"Like the Lochness monster took a shit in my mouth," Jaime spat into the toilet and then flushed. She got up to wash her mouth out. "What the hell was in that drink anyway?"
Jaime gargled, still tasting the vomit and spat into the sink disgusted at feeling this way. It had been at least 6 months since her last proper bender and that had been after she had hooked up with a real asshole from Tinder who had only been good for a weekend of sex and literally nothing else. It had been a total turn-off from guys named Chad especially since he'd tried to stick it her butt without asking; total asshole behaviour that had actually made her miss Bob.
"How's the whole vampire thing working out for you Jaime?"
"It's been a bit of a mindfuck, I can tell you that much. This whole week has been really fucking weird since it's been one hundred percent not normal. I haven't even begun to deal with the sleeping schedule and I still have to stop myself from yanking open the curtains to look outside. Do you even realize how ingrained that behaviour is in all of us? We don't even think about it. It's just so natural to say 'hey I wonder what that weather is like outside today?' and yank the curtains back to check. We actually crave the sun, did you know that?"
Sammy giggled and then managed to look ashamed of herself. "In the mornings when the sun is coming up, there's about a twenty minute window where the sun is reflecting off the building across the street and it hits my window so perfectly... it's always been so beautiful to watch, especially if you're already awake, but it reminds me that the sun is there. King slept over at my place once and on this particular morning I open the curtain, not thinking, sun blasts in right through the window and King screams. I've swear I've never seen anyone wrap themselves in a duvet so damn fast and throw themselves off the bed, all in one movement..."
"Wow..." Jaime said, nodding.
"Yeah it was pretty impressive--"
"Oh I'm sure it was. That wow was for the fact that you didn't swear once just now."
Sammy gave her the middle finger and watched as Jaime exited the bathroom.
"There's a lot to get used to. You have to change your entire way of thinking and it's going to take a while before you get it right."
"What's it been like dating a vampire?"
"Really fucking strange, but normal at the same time. I just have to make sure I don't accidentally try to kill him or poison him. If you enjoy life after dark then it's just like a normal date, but it's when you have to live with him--"
"Or have him over to your place--"
"Or that, yeah. Other than that it's really fucking normal. He's funny and caring and sweet and a total idiot at times," Sammy smiled. "Normal. I might forgive him for selling us out like he did, but don't tell him I said that."
There was silence for a moment.
"You realize we just failed the Bechdel test right?"
"Massively."
"It's really quiet without Bob around," Jaime said. "You kinda forget how much noise he makes, even when he's being quiet. I forgot that about him. I forgot a lot of things about him."
"The King says that if the Gentlemen have him, he's not coming back. Nobody's ever come back."
"You know, after that mob of vampires I had one idea of what they were like... vampires... and the whole experience was kind of icky. Left me feeling all dirty... but then I met Madame Vera and she was just something else altogether. Like wow on so many levels. She was sexy and ageless and it was like she was an example of the best a vampire could be. You look at that woman and all you can think is that the books got it all wrong and they should do it so much better. Look at her and look at Bob and there's a massive disconnect, you know? And then along came Beatrice and she scared the hell out of me."
"Eyepatch?"
"Eyepatch. You were right about that."
"I pepper-sprayed her once. Now I'm on her must-kill-list. But you... you're the love of Bob's life so she's going to have something special planned for you."
"We had some... words last night. She's very... intense."
"Murderous psychotic bitch is the word you're looking for. You're welcome."
"I fought her off you know. Actual fist fight this time. You should have seen me. It was like a scene out of one of the good Jet Li movies, all kapow and wham and boom... legs flying... I felt so powerful and fast and it was so awesome... and then it wasn't. They kept coming and I was like a machine and there was just so much blood Sammy, so much goddamn blood. I watched myself brain a dude without even thinking about it, pure instinct... and there was all of this blood and a sneaking feeling under t all that I was enjoying it. That was the really scary part Sammy. I was enjoying the violence. And the worst thing is that even after meeting the Gentlemen and seeing the really scary kind of vampire, the only thing that keeps flashing across my mind is that poor idiot Jimmy getting his arm ripped off and all of that blood soaking into the ground..."
The memory was strong, so strong that she could almost smell it... Jaime looked away from Sammy, wondering how much of her longing was written on her face. Sammy didn't seem to notice, but her body posture had changed to be more defensive and her hands had snuck into the pockets of her sweatshirt.
"Yeah that was kind of fucked up," Sammy admitted, but she was still cautious as if she knew what was coming next.
Jaime looked back at Sammy then, for the first time noticing just how supple and soft Sammy's neck looked, especially that point where the carotid artery pulsed with every beat of her heart, a steady thrum and swish, thrum and swish that she could feel in the points of her teeth, such beautiful perfect rhythm...
"I wanted to drink it Sammy. I wanted to taste the blood because I could smell it so much that I wanted to roll in it, bathe in it."
Sammy's hands were still hidden in her sweatshirt, but her entire posture said that she was ready to fight even if she didn't now she was consciously doing it and thought she was playing it cool. "You're not feeling any urges to bite anyone right now are you? Like me in particular?"
Jaime shook her head and looked away, fighting back her own urges, feeling disgusted with herself.
"Is this how Bob feels all the time? How they all feel? Cuz I gotta tell you, this is a seriously fucked up feeling."
"You're fighting it too much," came the quiet voice of the King from behind them. Sammy and Jaime turned to face him. "Once you accept that this is what you are instead of chasing after some fairytale that you can be changed back to human, it becomes so much easier."
"What do you know of it?"
The King was still in the doorway that joined the two rooms and it was the stillest that Jaime had ever seen him from the short amount of time she had known him and what she saw of him in the media. His tie had long vanished and as he stood in the doorway, pure shadow silhouetted in the reflected light from the other room, Jaime realized that there was an intensity and confidence that the King carried with him. It was the confidence of a man who can meet any challenge head-on and knew he could take almost anyone in a fight.
The King waited a moment before answering. "You're not the first to want to go back so get over yourself girl. We've been doing this for thousands of years, so you bet your ass there's been a few who've wanted to go back human. Most of the rest of us accept the gift of life we've been granted and move on with living and surviving. We look forward, never backwards unless it's for guidance and to make sure nobody is trying to sneak up on us. There is no going back. Your body has been changed at a cellular level in ways I'm not even qualified to explain, and you are more than human. Better than human. Why wouldn't you want that and all of the good that can come with it?"
"I feel like a monster, okay? I can literally feel the changes in my muscles, in my blood. Even my heartbeat is different--"
"Once again for clarity: You ain't the first. Every single one of us has gone through feeling like you are. It's one of the reasons Harry insisted that we change how we introduce the chosen ones to the vampire life, and we do it slowly, over a ten year period. We do that so nobody goes off half-cocked and turns into a monster on us. We can usually spot the psychopaths a long time before the ten years is up, so that's a plus. It's the accidentals like you and Bob who are troublesome. Personally I think your problem is that you like it too much."
"So what's the plan here than? You're going to take me under your wing? Teach me how to become a better vampire?"
"Something like that."
Jaime was already shaking her head. "No. We don't have time for that. Give me some pointers or something, but we gotta put a plan together to get Bob back. Those fuckers have him and we have to get him back."
"Nobody comes back. This isn't a rescue mission Jaime. You have to realize how insane this entire thing is. The Gentlemen were not made into vampires. They were born that way. They have always been vampires, nothing else. Why do you think they scare the ever loving shit out of the rest of us so much?"
Jaime looked over to Sammy for confirmation and Sammy just nodded.
"They don't answer to Harry. They kinda do what they want. Harry has some great ideas and they respect that cuz he's the one who brought us into this century and made the big changes that needed to be made, but that's about all they respect."
The King continued. "If they do decide to take Bob over to see Harry that's one problem. They'd be taking him into the heart of vampire society where you would have to go through at least four hundred vampires before you even got to Harry himself and then you still have to deal with the Gentlemen. If they take him off to wherever it is they go, that's a huge damn problem, because first we have to find them and then we still gotta deal with the Gentlemen. Either way, it's a losing proposition."
"If we go after Bob, we're going to die." Sammy said with a thousand yard stare that made her look like she was longing for a cigarette. "Simple as that."
Jaime gritted her teeth, her mind racing, unable to come up with a solution.
"Godfuckingdammit!" She finally swore, and held back from punching the wall as hard as she could. "Goddamn fucking damn!"
"Her potty mouth is almost as bad as Bob's," the King noted wryly. "They must have been great together."
"They were good and then they weren't. It got bad fast," Sammy said. "You know Bob: if there's something to be addicted to, he's your man."
"He always treated me well, and loved me like no one else," Jaime said, her mind still racing. "It was really, really good and we loved the shit out of each other. But at some point you realize that love isn't enough. After all of the drugs and the lying, and stealing, you have to know where to draw the line to not have your entire future fucked up by another person. That's the point you walk away and try your hardest not to look back, no matter what."
"So what made you walk away, if you don't mind me asking?" the King said idly, deliberately ignoring Sammy's frantic signals to stop, not to ask that question.
"I never told Bob, not until much, much later you know. He and I spent so much time together in the past week and he never once brought it up and I know he wanted to, but I think he's afraid of asking and getting a straight answer from me, because then it makes it real all over again and then we'd actually have to deal with it together... I don't think either of us wanted that." Jaime drew herself up and then just slumped, emotion washing over her. "I left Bob because I realized that as much as I loved him, there was absolutely no way that I wanted to have children with him. I didn't tell him, didn't give him a choice because I knew he would try to talk me out of it... or worse, that he wouldn't. So I left him and then a week later I had the abortion."
There was silence for a long moment. Sammy sat back down on the bed and the King just stood there, really not knowing what to say.
Jaime exhaled slowly, trying to get her gather her composure.
"So how many vampires did you say I need to kill to get my ex-boyfriend back?"
###
AUTHOR'S NOTE: So this chapter as originally supposed to be published before the Christmas chapters but there were some issues i had to get ironed out and then everything got freakishly crazy... so here it is now, a little late, but I think you're getting a sense of what's going on. And yes, they're all holed up in the same damn motel. Fun time are ahead. VOTE, SHARE, COMMENT!