"Well I'm glad you're not a dude anymore," I said as I sat down in the booth across from Louise.
"For some reason, it's always been easier to do the distance glammer with guys," Louise admitted. She slid four of the eight poured shots of tequila across the table towards me and I eyed them suspiciously. Louise didn't pay any attention to me and continued. "Chicks always give me trouble for some reason. They fight me every step of the way."
I fiddled with one of the shot glasses and tried to find a reason to stay pissed, but she was plying me with alcohol after all. You can't stay mad at someone who's buying your drinks. First rule of the bar. I know it's true because I just made it up.
"You're utterly unbelievable, you know that?" I managed to summon some tiny bit of indignation.
Louise just scoffed at me.
"You still pissed about the whole dead, not dead thing?" She said, sounding very British.
It occurred to me that this was the strongest I had heard her British accent in ages. She must have surrounded herself with Brits if it had gotten so strong. Louise tended to mimic the speech patterns of people around her, but now I wondered if it wasn't somehow connected to her particular talent in glammering. That kind of connection with someone was incredible and I doubted that it was a one-way street.
"Well you could have had the decency to write, call, email, telegraph, send up some fucking smoke signals. You know: anything but silence and letting us think you were dead."
I knocked back a shot and Louise did as well. She raised a curious eyebrow at me.
"Us? Which us?"
"Me and Claude. And Sammy."
"Sammy? I didn't think she liked me that much."
"Sammy didn't not like you. She just didn't hate you. But that doesn't mean she wanted to see you dead." I glared at her. "We had a memorial service for you and everything."
"Did you really?"
"Well... I poured out some vodka on a grave that had your name on it. That counts, right?"
"I don't even like vodka," Louise murmured but looked touched and a little embarrassed that we'd gone to such an effort. "If it was the grave over in Blessed Memorial, then it one hundred percent counts. I'm technically 'buried' there. I haven't been by in ages."
"Well, this just got awkward, because I was totally lying."
"So no memorial service?"
That actually triggered a memory with me and I remembered how devastated Jaime had been about her father's death. It also reminded me of how I had felt, that deep emptiness that seemed like it could never be filled and for a moment I felt tears spring to my eyes. There was a feeling of guilt that it seemed I was crying more for myself than for Roger and the shit he had just endured dying over the past few weeks. It was a stark reminder of the pain I had felt at losing Louise and knowing that it had been because of me and there had been nothing that I could do to save her.
At least Roger's death was real.
"You know, I never told Jaime that you had died," I said, noting the surprise on Louise's face. "I seriously had not a clue how to even have that conversation. Like what was I supposed to say? 'Hey, Louise is dead and by the way she was a vampire?' I have zero clue how she even took you suddenly vanishing from her life, but I know that it had to hurt." At least Louise had the decency to look embarrassed by that. "Right now, she's passed out drunk and alone at home, grieving her dad who is actually dead. She fell asleep crying, you know that? The only reason that I'm here right now instead of being there to comfort her through this really shitty time, is because of you being not dead anymore. Plus the fact that she fucking hates me and is probably going to regret crying on my shoulder in the morning, but you know what? I'm willing to take that heat because I know how much pain she's carrying right now. What I want from you right now is answers, so can you at least give me that so I don't feel like a complete asshole for abandoning her?"
"When is the funeral?" Louise eventually asked.
"No idea. I think she's still getting used to the idea of him being gone and that's hard enough. Knowing Roger, he probably already made all of his own arrangements, just so he wasn't inconveniencing anyone."
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry. I really am. I had no choice about it, but I'm still sorry you guys had to go through all of that."
I just stared at Louise, marvelling at how alive she looked, how different she seemed now. There was the shape of my old friend there behind her eyes, but she seemed so much edgier now, harder. Not for the first time, I wondered what it was she had gone through.
"How did you get away from the Gentlemen? That's the one thing I can't figure out in all of this."
Louise looked extremely uncomfortable at this. She poured more shots instead of looking at me.
"Oh, I didn't get away from them. They killed me. Left some scars." She absently stroked her left shoulder, just a light touch and I wondered how much damage they had done to her. Louise looked me in the eye to make sure I got the point. "Nobody gets away from the Gentlemen. Don't you listen to the stories?"
I flashed back on my encounters with Monsieurs Flynn, Bryce and Sinnel, the Old Firm, the Gentlemen, and shuddered. Just thinking of them made my blood run cold, especially how close Mr Bryce had come to killing me last time.
"Nobody likes to talk about the Gentlemen. They like to pretend that they don't exist, so no, I haven't heard the stories. Apart from what you and Harry told me... that was terrifying enough. And then I met them. Three times now actually come to think of it... the last time I came this close to dying."
Louise looked surprised at this.
"How'd you manage that?"
"Turns out Harry has a soft spot for family. I was defending my family... so he kinda let it slide. Didn't even punch me in the nuts."
"Harry does not let things slide," Louise noted thoughtfully. "Is this the Montreal incident? Vampire by the name of Daemien?"
"Yeah... I killed him," I said. "How'd you know about that?"
"Oh, Montreal hired me to kill you," Louise admitted as if it was no big deal. She continued, completely ignoring my reaction. "When I saw it was you they wanted to kill, it just got... complicated. I had to figure out if you'd gone bad or if you were worth saving. Did not help that you were shagging Beatrice."
Holy shit. Well, that changed everything. Things finally started to make sense, albeit in a really fucked up way.
"When you say 'hired to kill me'--" I said, that one point still bugging the fuck out of me.
"One sec," Louise held up a finger to quiet me.
"But--"
Louise glared at me, the kind of glare I imagine someone who had been hired to kill me would make and I shushed. She looked down a message on her cellphone instead. She then glanced towards the bar and nodded. I looked over and there was Agent Craig casually walking up to the bar and deliberately not looking at us. He was sporting a black eye.
"Well at least these guys are predictable," Louise murmured. "Don't worry: he's safe. I only kill vampires."
Wait, what?
"Say who-what-now?"
"Oh Bob, we have so much to catch up on."
"I hate you so much right now."
"Oh don't get your knickers in a twist. It's not like your entire life is ruined because of me."
I deadpanned her. "My entire life is ruined because of you. You turned me into a vampire."
"You were dying, I felt guilty."
"You should feel guilty. You're the one who killed me. At least nobody was paying you to do it that time."
"To be fair, I only almost killed you. Only almost." She poured another round of shots as she talked. Four for her, four for me. It was almost mesmerizing.
"My life is still ruined!"
"How is that exactly?" Louise twirled a shot glass in her fingers. "Let's see now: while not a vampire, you had a shit job, had a bad breakup with a woman who hated you, were utterly addicted to heroin, had no and were possibly going to end up either dead or in jail within a year."
Louise knocked the shot back and slammed the glass down with more force than was strictly necessary.
"And where are you now, almost one year after I turned you? Still got the same shit job, you've upgraded from no girlfriend to an utterly toxic relationship with a psychopath--"
"You only say that because you hate her."
"Ohoho! I only say that because I know her."
Touche. I wasn't going to let her know she had scored a point though.
"Beatrice really, really likes me--"
"And yet she still scares the shit out of you. I can see it on your face. You love fucking the crazy chick, it excites you, but you're always wondering when she's just going to snap and rip your head off one day, just because she's bored."
"You don't know her like I do--"
"Oh I know her exactly like you do," Louise said with a lecherous wink. "Our history is passionate, hot... and sweaty." She smiled at the memory. I wondered if it was the same images I had in my head of Beatrice and Louise kissing passionately, naked, then shook it off. "We've done some fucked up shit together. Why do you think Harry instantly assumes that she and I up to something?"
I let that one sit for a minute. The image of Beatrice and Louise kissing flashed un my head again, trying to distract me. Dammit Louise.
"Are you up to something?" I eventually asked, dreading the answer. "From where I'm sitting, it looks like you two hate each other, but everybody is saying something different. For me, the fact that you stabbed her in the fucking eyeball is all the evidence I need, but that's just me."
Louise grimaced in thought, almost looking regretful. She shook her head and smiled tightly.
"Do you know why I'm here Bob? Why I'm really here?"
"Since stealing my girlfriend--"
"Psycho girlfriend."
I ignored her. "--is off the table, and your apology for ruining my life sucks--"
"What? That was a great apology!"
"It was the worst apology!"
"Even with the tequila?"
"Meh," I said. "I'm easy, but not that easy. Anyway, I'm assuming you're still trying to pull off the biggest heist in vampire history," I said. "You and your crew of jacked-up vampires want to steal the Old Masters and hold vampires around the world hostage. Whatever the hell that means."
Louise smirked and then laughed.
"You're funny Bob," she said, "and you're almost there, but Claude has got you thinking like a crook." She leaned in closer, and I couldn't help but lean in to listen. "I don't just want to steal the Old Masters. I want to murder them all."
It was a great moment of revelation that was completely lost on me. I nodded, trying to look impressed, but Louise wasn't buying it. My fake awkward smile wasn't selling it as much as I wished it would.
"That's great," I said with fake enthusiasm. "That's awesome. It would be really impressive if someone would actually tell me what's so great about the Old Masters so that I can be properly impressed. Also, what the hell does any of this have to do with me?"
Louise grinned broadly and poured us each a shot.
"If you think my last apology was shit, you're absolutely going to love this one." She handed a shot glass to me. "I want to make it up to you Bob. I want to make this entire past year completely worth it, but more than anything, I want to make things right between us."
"Just spit it out already!"
"I want to train you Bob. I want to make you into a badass vampire."
### AUTHOR'S NOTE###
Welcome to Chapter 10