Nora's musk was driving me crazy, in the "really want to bite her" kind of way. That kind of emotion was a completely new one to me, but the smell of her was just so enticing that it made me forget just for a moment just what a fucked up situation I was currently in the middle of. Claude was inside with Nick, the moron and I was stuck outside with Nora the increasingly biteable. We could hear Nick and Claude arguing over Nora's cell phone, but I wasn't focused on that now. All I could think about was sinking my teeth into Nora's neck.
"Hey!" Nora snapped, and I broke my gaze from her pulsing carotid, which surged and swelled enticingly, promising sweet, warm blood that I suddenly wanted to bathe in, and just drink and drink. I smiled sloppily at Nora, trying to shake off this sudden obsession.
"Why do you smell so good?" I asked her and good god I felt like I was drunk. "It's like I want to drink you and fuck you at the same time?"
Nora grinned sweetly and slid closer to me, enticingly close to being a statistic in the morning newspaper. I just didn't want to taste her blood and get a high. I wanted to rip her apart and drink every single drop of her blood I could find. I would lick it from the alley until it was all gone.
"It's a perfume Beatrice gave me. Some kinda pheromone that supposed to make your kind go all loopy and stupid."
"That's what she told you?" I asked drunkenly, and that carotid was beckoning me again, so damn close, so full of blood—
I tore my gaze away and looked at the building down the alley, trying to think of anything else except drinking Nora's blood. Pheromone? Seriously? It was like Beatrice was trying to get the girl killed if this was the effect the pheromone was having on me.
"She doesn't lie to Nick and me you know. She loves us. She wants to protect us."
"And you want to rob her blind."
"She's a cheap bitch, what else can I say? Me and Nick, we got needs."
Needs. Yes, I could understand needs—
Fuck! I turned and walked away from Nora, desperately needing to clear my head.
"Hey, where you think you're going?"
"That pheromone is fucked up! I need to clear my head before I'm fucking and eating your bloody corpse and your ghost is still wondering what the fuck just happened."
I stopped about twenty feet away and let the cool night air blow over my face, just glad to be away from the smell and the stupid thoughts of blood and murder. What the hell kind of pheromones were those anyway? All of the happy thoughts had gone right out of my head and what was left in there was scaring the shit out of me. How was I supposed to think clearly and get a solid plan to get out of this stupid fucking situation with that damned smell taking over my brain?
"Will you stop pointing that gun at me? It makes it hard to concentrate, and right now I need to fucking concentrate." Claude's voice came over the speaker and I wondered what plan he had come up with to get away from Nick the idiot. He was resourceful and good at getting out of stupid shit like this.
"I've got the gun," Nick was saying now. "I tell you what to do."
Claude and Nick were now inside Beatrice's apartment, Claude doing some fast talking and actually getting Nick and Nora to listen to him on the best plan of getting inside of the apartment. He had taken charge quite easily and for a while Nick and Nora followed along as if under Claude's spell. "We cannot all go in there, not if you want to get out of this alive," he had said, mainly talking to Nora. He packed his toolkit from the back of the car while he talked. "We're breaking and entering in the middle of the night to rob a fucking vampire, who you're hoping isn't home. So if she comes back, you want your one asset—"
Oh shit, he was talking about me. I was an asset. Wow. I felt kinda proud about that for a brief moment.
Claude continued. "—waiting outside to engage the hostile. That will hopefully give Nick and me here time to get the hell out of there and be down here to back you guys up. Bob should be able to hold her off for a bit but according to him, she isn't bullet proof. Worst comes to worst; we run her down with the car. If it's worse than that, then we're all going to fucking die."
Nora looked a little rattled by this but shook her hand. "We're doing this now."
Claude gave up in disgust and checked his watch. "Whatever. It's your funeral."
He took off at a brisk walk towards the back door, toolkit in hand.
"Why do you need all that stuff for?" Nick asked, trying to keep up.
Claude had turned, deadly fucking serious.
"Are we doing this or are we going to stand here in this alley yapping about it until the cops show up?"
Nora had nodded the okay to Nick, who just looked like a lost little boy, standing in the alley with a gun that he looked like he barely knew how to use. Nick had tried to smile and then ran after Claude, trying to take charge of the situation. I could hear Claude tell him to shut up.
Right now, it was another shut up situation, and Nora was already regretting sending Nick up there with Claude. After all, Claude was the only leverage they had on me, but they had no idea how capable Claude was. I knew he would think of something to get himself the hell out of there... I just didn't know what or when. And then if I were lucky, it would be just me and Nora and her delicious smell.
There was silence from the phone, and I glanced at the smug looking Nora, and not for the first time I wanted to slap that smug look off her face. She thought she was so damned smart.
"Fine," Nick said over the phone. "You're the expert here. Can you get the door open or not?"
"It's a fucking vault of which I have no prior knowledge. You don't just show up to a job and hope for the best you know. You plan things, do your research, google a lot. If you let me have my phone back, I can look this shit up on the internet and then maybe I'll know how to open the fucking thing."
"Don't give him his phone Nick!" Nora yelled into the phone. "Make him open the vault!"
Claude's voice was closer as he yelled into the phone. "You want this thing open, I google. No google, you go fuck yourself."
Nick spoke up then. "I'm giving him the phone Nora."
"Don't you dare give him that phone. You're in charge—"
"You damn right," Nick said, and the phone went dead.
Lights splashed across the alley as a car turned in, lighting up Nora's enraged face as she began to call Nick back. We both turned then, not knowing what to expect. The flash of red and blue strobes and blip-blip! of the siren assured us that yes it was the cops, yes they had seen us and no, they really didn't want to have to chase us so please don't even think about running, oh and by the way, we were most assuredly fucked.
***
"Why are you squinting like that? You look constipated."
I'd been trying to glammer Nora for the past two minutes and either I sucked at it (a huge possibility) or she was immune to it for some reason. Every time I had done it in the past, it had been such a reflex that I hadn't known I was even doing it, but it certainly explained why I went from being Mr. Celibate-By-Circumstance to picking up almost any chick I decided I wanted. I hadn't changed my personality, so I know it wasn't my charm, but you know, for a while it had actually felt pretty good. Louise had filled me in on the whole glimmering thing, one of the true parts of the vampire mythos which I had already discounted as being not real, and I'd seen Beatrice use it on Sammy, but I don't think I'd gotten a chance to try to use it deliberately. Unfortunately, it was turning out to be harder than I had thought it would be.
"Seriously, stop it."
"You really should have listened to Claude you know. He's good at not getting caught."
The cop car was parked in the alley behind us, strobes cycling lazily and washing the alley with pulses of red.
I wasn't that surprised to see them here and was surprised that Nora hadn't known any better. Look, even in the worst of neighborhoods, and especially in a commercial area of downtown, there is a damned good reason you don't go waving guns around and threatening people. It doesn't matter if you're in an alley: someone, somewhere will see you and call the cops.
"Sonofabitch was right," Nora breathed, as she watched the officer talking on his radio. The other officer, the tall black one at the front of the car, hadn't moved or spoken since they had gotten here, and his hand had never moved off of his gun.
"Claude is very, very good at what he does," I whispered to Nora, then smiled very unconvincingly at the tall black cop. What was his name again? Oh yeah, He'd never told us. I glanced over at Nora.
"Claude knows exactly how not to get caught. You should listen to him like really, really listen."
"I'd just love to get my hands on whoever called the cops on us—"
"Good luck with that. The call could have come from anywhere. Just like Claude said."
Take a look around next time you're downtown and ask yourself this question: exactly how many of those buildings are office buildings and which ones have commercial space at the bottom with living spaces on the floors overhead? Bet you never considered that before, right? The city is always all around you and people are always there, and they can see you. All it takes is someone from some high up floor happening to take a look down into the alley across the street at the right time. The longer you're there waving your gun around, the more chances you're giving for the random person to be not so random, and if Mr. Random is like most decent human beings, he's going to pick up the phone and call 911 to report the fact that there might be a murder happening in the alley across from his building. Of course, his motives may not be the most altruistic, since any violence especially in the alley across from his building, is going to bring a swarm of police and emergency vehicles and completely make the life of everyone else miserable. It's self-centered, yes, but it's also what keeps a lot of people alive, believe it or not.
So moral of the story is simple: fucking listen to Claude.
"We got a call that there was some kind of altercation down this alley. Did you see anything or anyone else?"
"No sir, we did not."
"What the hell are you doing here this time of morning?"
"We were waiting for our friend. We were supposed to meet at her place after the bar, but it looks like she's taking her time, officer." I glanced at Nora and then said smugly: "You can go and knock on the door if you want. Maybe you'll have better luck."
The tall black officer spoke up now, and it was like waking a sleeping giant. The voice was deep and impressive and promised that if you dared to lie, he would find out about it. Nasty things would happen as a consequence, maybe some injuries that occurred while evading arrest, nothing he could do about it, sir.
"We passed by the other end of the alley five minutes ago. There were four of you here."
I looked at the officer, heart pounding in my throat, and looked him right in the eye. Maybe my glammer would work this time. "No officer. It was just the two of us."
The officer just cocked his head.
"Is something wrong with your face? Are you constipated?"
What the fuck? Seriously? I quit trying to glammer him out of sheer disgust with myself. Why I hadn't taken the time to learn how to do it properly was completely beyond me and no doubt would have just left Claude or Sammy shaking their heads and rolling their eyes at me.
"It's nothing. Just failing at the whole Jedi mind trick thing."
The officer leaned in closer to me, definitely invading my space now. "You're a vampire."
Nora looked from me to the officer and then back to me, mainly because I had begun to stammer some stupid excuse I hadn't even had time to form properly in my head yet. This wasn't supposed to happen could not be happening and what the hell was I supposed to say anyway?
"You know there's no such thing as vampires right?" I was desperate at this point, not knowing how I was going to escape from this. I briefly asked myself, what would Harry do? The almost immediate answer to my question: He wouldn't be in this mess to begin with.
I stammered on, still trying to come up with a plan. "I mean seriously dude, look at my teeth. Nothing much going on there."
His partner (and I could read the name tag now) Officer Daniels stepped in now.
"I wouldn't worry too much about it Jeff. Let her sort it out."
"What do you mean 'her'?" I blurted out without thinking about it.
Jeff leaned into me again, his hand still on his gun and breathed into my face, the last name I ever wanted to hear:
"Beatrice. She's coming."
I moved without thinking, the fastest I have ever moved in my life, and it was all instinct and flailing lack of skill. I wish I could say I moved like Neo in the Matrix and was all fluid and kung-fu master, but it was a stark reminder that the movies just make everything so much cooler. In the movie, I'd definitely know some martial arts, and I'd be on wires and well-trained, mainly because it looks fucking cool. You wouldn't want to see the reality me real life fighting since it was usually very short, lots of grappling, close body hits and lots of luck... but this time in my head, at least, I was a fucking kung-fu master, and nobody was going to get in my way. After all, these cops were only human.
So this was me head butting Jeff right in the teeth, and I thought I heard something crunch, but at the same time, I was glad he hadn't been talking because I would have had one hell of a mouth print on my forehead if he had been. He reeled back, blood beginning to gush from his broken mouth, but I was already moving, my knee rising at speed to nail him squarely in the nuts and fuck yes that was going to hurt, but that was not my problem. I shoved him backward, reaching forward and separating him from his gun... and that's when I noticed just how fast I was moving because everything else was going so slow. Nora was turning to follow the action, a look of surprise still on her face, and the other officer was still beginning to react, a definite "Oh shit!" making his mouth form into a giant "O", even as his hand crept slowly for his holstered gun. So I did the first thing that came to mind: I threw the other gun at him, really fucking hard.
Normal speed returned in a flash, leaving me wondering for a second what the fuck had just happened and was that something that really going to keep happening? With normal speed, consequences kicked in and kicked hard. Jeff hit the ground, blood spraying everywhere even as he grabbed his balls and gave a silent scream as pain registered everywhere with a vengeance.
The thrown gun (seriously, I threw the fucking gun?) hit Office Daniels square in the chest, marking the one time in my life that my bad aim was a good thing since I had been aiming for his head and it might have killed him as sure as any bullet. The impact of the gun on his chest was hard and loud and he instantly stopped, choking as all of his air was pushed back out forcefully. And then he dropped to his knees, clawing at his chest and I knew I had broken something, perhaps his sternum.
Panic was still king, though, and I turned now to Nora.
"Get the fuck out of here Nora—"
Nora was staring up at the sky, and I knew it was already much too late.
I looked up, and Beatrice was hanging gently in the air, a vision of terrible grace and insane beauty.
***
There are a few things you have to understand about vampires. Most of what you know is wrong on so many levels, but there are some small nuggets of truth, as I was coming to find out. Like the glammer thing for instance. I was slowly figuring out that yes we vampires can manipulate human minds through some kind of fucked up hypnotism. Don't fucking ask me how it works okay? If I knew I'd be telling you right now and, I would know how to turn it off and on. As it is, it doesn't always work, at least not for me. Beatrice had apparently had quite a few years to practice different things, so she was really good at it. I'd only had a year as opposed to her one hundred plus, so fair is fair: she was just so much better at everything than I was. She was also the only vampire I'd met who could actually fly. It was more of a levitation thing really since she didn't have any means of controlling speed or direction once she was actually in the air, and flapping her arms only made her look stupid, so that was an option.
However, if there's one thing that you can always count of vampires discarding, even though it fucks with them just like everything else, it's physics.
So that's why I grabbed the first thing that came to hand, which happened to be one of Officer Jeff's missing shoes and I threw it at Beatrice as hard as I could. And while the shoe was in the air right on target, this time, I turned and got the fuck out of there.
The plan was this: shoe hits Beatrice, force sends her spinning wildly out of control since she can't control her movements and gravity is waiting for any excuse to remind her of its existence. In the meanwhile, I get to someplace safer and try to warn Claude somehow or the other. Like all plans, it had its problems and kinks, and one of those problems was Beatrice.
She saw the shoe coming, so she just dropped like a rock. The shoe missed, and she landed on the ground, a pissed off angel of death and blonde fury, and yes, she looked fucking cool doing it.
"You better run Bobby Boy! Run!"
I'm ashamed to say that I listened.
Terror took me, memories of the reality of Beatrice, the horror of her fucked up love came back in full. I'm ashamed to admit it now, but at that moment I had no choice, and you wouldn't have done anything different.
I ran. I ran like the wind.
*************************************************
AUTHOR'S NOTE
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