Claude had picked the minivan mainly because it was one of the vehicles less likely to be stolen, but also because breaking into and then hot-wiring this particular model tended to be a hell of a lot easier. The touch button ignition that was supposed to be a premium feature because of the biometric lock also had that same feature as it's biggest weakness. Several bugs had popped up before it had been shipped, but the manufacturer had simply ignored it since the bug popped up on in one out of ten thousand cases, at least according to their data. The truth was that the bug had made it into 100% of the vehicles and people like Claude who had access to certain information found on the black market, quietly took advantage of that feature. And I do mean quietly, since boasting about vulnerabilities in a system is really the quickest way to get said vulnerabilities shut down.
For the love of Pete, please note that I'm trying to be discreet here and I'm carefully not mentioning any other information about the vehicle, other than it is a minivan and uses fingerprint sensors. You can figure out the rest from there if you're so inclined.
Claude didn't even need to touch the car. He just called up the App on his phone and within twenty seconds the car was unlocked and roaring to life, the perfect getaway vehicle.
What wasn't so perfect was Hester and the one person entourage in the form of the barely dressed Chastity who Hester had drafted into service. This definitely did not fit into Claude's plans, which had involved escaping from Hester, which as you might have noticed, did not in any way involve brining him along.
It was easily the worst escape ever.
Hester wanted nothing to do with the metal monstrosity.
"I have chosen to ignore the existence of such beasts, but this does not mean I intend to drive in one.," he had said rather haughtily.
"Get in the damn car you fossil!" Claude had yelled. He had decided that he had no fucks left to give for this crusty old vampire who flipped from loving him to wanting to kill him from one minute to the next. Might as well live dangerously since absolutely nothing was going according to plan.
Chastity stepped in between them. "You do not speak to the master that way," she said.
"Get him in the fucking van or Beatrice will be here soon to tear our heads off," Claude snapped and gunned the engine, ready to go.
Had that been a look of panic from Hester at the mention of Beatrice? Claude definitely thought so.
"I have decided," Hester declared as Chastity turned to him imploringly. "Your world is nothing but a dream, and you are a demon sent to torment me."
"Great! Awesome! Spectacular! Can you at least do your dreaming inside the car?"
"He's right Master," Chastity said. "The vile one will be coming after us soon."
Hester allowed himself to be led into the back of the minivan, and Chasity guided him into a seat, but awkwardly since Hester resisted all the way. Once he felt the leather seating however, a look of ecstasy came over his face and Claude was reminded once again just how disconnected Hester was from all things modern. Then again, Hester could have been aware of the modern age anytime in the past ten years and he might have just simply forgotten.
"All in? Comfy? Let's go!" Claude pulled the van out of its parking spot and pulled into the light late night traffic, aware of sirens drawing closer from different directions. Two light up ahead he could see the strobing red and blue of the nearest squad car, no doubt responding to the explosions at the diner.
He glanced out the window and was glad to see Chris Hannigan and Paul quickly making their way away from the diner, Chris talking excitedly. Apparently he was still having the best night of his life.
"Damn, that was quick," Chastity noticed as she strapped herself into one of the captain's chairs. "Is that for us?"
"Response time in the city usually cuts in half at night. I'm actually surprised they took this long after the first explosion."
Claude adjusted the mirror as the squad car sped by, siren blipping and echoing in the night air. He noticed Hester staring into the distance.
"Has he gone comatose again?"
Chastity was hesitant. She reached out to snap her fingers in front of Hester's eyes; Hester turned his head to look at her.
"I will destroy that she-bitch. She is an abomination..." Hester's eyes unfocused and he turned to stare into the distance again.
"Why does he do that?" Chastity wanted to know. "It's like he just... switches off."
"He's six thousand years old. Think about that. Six thousand years of memories in a brain that can't hold any more information. Personally I think it's the brain trying to repair itself without killing the body, so maybe it's shutting off everything that isn't a vital function."
Chastity climbed into the front passenger seat and Claude glared at her.
"What do you think you're doing?" he asked. "You might want to be back there for when ol' crusty the vampire wakes up."
Chastity grinned slyly and Claude was instantly suspicious. He knew girls like Chastity, who had the advantage of not being brainwashed vampires, and when they were smiling and being friendly, that was the time to cover your balls and protect your throat.
Carpe jugulum, as Madame Vera would say. Seize the throat.
"You seem to know a lot about us vampires," Chastity said. "Is this why the master picked you?"
"Will you please stop calling him that? His name is Hester and he is fucking psychotic."
"He will usher in a new age of blood and we will put you humans in your rightful place!"
Claude just gave her a look.
"And you consider this a good thing?"
"Obviously! Vampires were born to rule—"
"How long have you been a vampire? You sound new."
Chastity was petulant and haughty. "I've been a vampire for over eleven years—"
"Then you know Harry has certain rules in place, even how long you have to be in training before becoming a vampire, right? All of that training is supposed to weed out any idiot with thoughts of world domination and vampires taking their 'rightful place' you know. It's not just because he wants to torture you for ten years."
Claude gunned the engine as he pulled the car out onto the onramp to the highway and smoothly joined the flow of traffic. There was a Highway Patrol unit that pulled up next to them almost immediately but Claude wasn't worried. Nobody was looking for them yet. By the time anyone noticed the car was missing, he would have moved on to another vehicle that nobody would be looking for; at least not for a month.
"You don't know what you're talking about," Chastity said, but she looked conflicted as her brain strained to start working again under Hester's glammer.
"Think about it. You will never hear Harry or any of the older vampires talking about wiping out the human race. They've gone and set up a system where you guys can co-exist peacefully and invisibly with us humans and you know why? It's not just numerical superiority. It's because at the end of the day, you don't take a hammer and destroy the machine, not when it's running smoothly, and especially not when your kind hates getting their hands dirty."
"That's not true!" Chastity protested, and then her brain caught up with her. "Oh wait, you're totally right. Not a single one of the chosen ones have done an honest days work in our lives..."
"The problem is that Hester is stuck thinking like he was six thousand years ago and the world has changed a lot since then. When I found him, he was stuck in a life support type pod where Beatrice had been doing some research on him. Experiments. She had whole binders full of information about him, but unless she's spent decades becoming an expert in all kinds of biological research..."
"I was thinking of doing something like that..." Chastity glowered. She was deep in though. "You know, actually doing something different with my life..."
Claude continued. "My point is, I don't think Hester was supposed to be in Beatrice's care. I think she stole him from wherever Harry had him stashed. And I don't think Hester was the only one."
"That's a big jump in logic, going from one to many."
"Not really. Where there is one, look for others before they sneak up and shoot you in the face. My personal motto."
"That's one hell of a motto."
"Works for me so far. I have yet to be shot in the face." Claude smiled. "I think if you ask around, you might find that there are some questions you just won't get answers to, either that or a lot of double talk. You might think you know your origins, but like a lot of what the rest of us humans think we know about you vampires, it's likely to be mostly bullshit."
Chastity thought for a long moment.
"How many others do you think there are?"
"No idea. From the way Hester was talking, there used to be thousands like him, so if we can account for murders and accidental deaths in an immortal population over thousands of years of pissing off humans... maybe anywhere between a dozen to a couple hundred."
"That's a very vague guess."
"That's a very vague question."
Chastity looked out the window and Claude glanced back at Hester, who was still checked out.
"What do you know about Beatrice?" He asked. "Have you ever met her?"
"I've seen her a couple of times, but there have been stories about her, especially after the 'incident' at the club a couple of weeks ago. I think that's when a lot of us started to get angry with Harry, when we saw that he couldn't protect us. When we saw that we could still die..."
Claude looked at her and nodded. "What were their names?"
"Sara Meuller and Francisco Montero the Third. Sara I met in prep school and Francisco about a year ago, but we connected really fast, you know? I found out about it a week later when I kept expecting them to come back from Madame Vera's... but they just didn't." Chastity's brow furrowed in thought. "How did you know?"
"You sounded like you lost someone. You can usually tell if you know what to listen for."
Chastity gave Claude an appraising look. "You're very observant."
"Like I said: I like to stay alive."
"Why can't I glammer you?"
"I'm totally not answering that question."
BZZT! BZZT! From Claude's phone. Claude fumbled it out and glanced at it. It was a text from Sammy.
"Hey, where are you? Trouble with Beatrice at the condo. With Bob and Jaime heading out of town. Can you come?"
Claude glanced at Chastity and made a split second decision.
"Can I trust you?"
"Probably not. But I kinda like you, so I'll give it a shot."
"I think it's going to be in our best interests to keep Hester down as long as possible. Would you agree with me on that?"
Chastity was suspicious.
"How do you plan to do that?"
"First we're going to need to get some 5-Hour Energy. After that, it's going to be pure guess work."
"You want to give him an embolism?"
"Or five. But yeah. I don't think we can get him to drink any coffee, but it's the caffeine that does the trick so 5-Hour Energy drinks or Redbull might just be the way."
Chastity was horrified. "You've been thinking about this a long time haven't you?"
"My best friend is a vampire. I've had some time to think about it. I'm a worst case scenario type of person."
"How do you know I won't attack you? Kill you?"
"Have you actually ever killed anyone in cold-blood?"
"It's part of our final initiation. We have to kill someone in front of them. They chose my cousin Abby. She used to run away a lot so it was easy for them to take her. And I had to kill her so I could become a vampire."
"That's seriously fucked up. I'm sorry."
Chastity looked out the window, deliberately not looking at Claude.
"I can still see the look in her eyes sometimes you know. That look of betrayal..."
They drove in silence for a long moment. Claude clicked on the radio and for a while they listened to Chris Martin tell them about how he had no peace of mind and also how the spies came out of the water, and at the end of it all there was an unspoken agreement that they wouldn't try to kill each other, especially without asking, since that would just be rude.
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Author's note: Sorry this one took so long guys, but I had to find the right tone and circumstance that I felt comfortable writing. I took a few wrong turns until I finally came back to the core of Claude: first and foremost he's a thief and right now he's stealing a car and the vampire king. Plus I didn't kill Chastity so I had to do something with her...
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