Pro-tip for Vampires #12: Advice from vampires will probably kill you.
If you think that showing up on the doorstep of the place where you died three days before is no big deal, I suggest that you try it for yourself sometime. I had already been caught off guard by the sweat that suddenly appeared on my forehead and the boiling sensation in my stomach. The urge to turn and walk away, because this was clearly not a good idea, had almost taken over, but I had persisted and knocked. The sight of Robert's stupid fucking handsome face as he opened the door was what pushed me over the edge, if I can be completely honest with you. Maybe it was the purple fucking cardigan that did it, I dunno.
Whatever it was, I gave into the surge of hatred and righteous fury that swelled up inside, and I punched that motherfucker right in his perfect fucking nose.
"Fuck!" Robert screamed as he staggered back into the house, blood streaming from his broken nose.
I stormed into the house, leaving an extremely confused-looking Claude behind. He had his mouth open as if he had been about to say something when I punched Robert, so he had kinda been left hanging.
"Bet you didn't expect to see me again motherfucker!" I yelled at the retreating Robert who left a trail of blood droplets in his path. I took another swing, but he saw this one coming and staggered out of range.
"You're supposed to be dead!" Robert protested as he backed into the living room, putting a couch between us. I flashed on a memory of shadowy figures fucking like crazy in that same room, which was immediately followed by the thought that this was one room where a blacklight should never ever be used. There was a blonde woman in a very stylish white suit, sprawled facedown on the couch in a classic "I'm fucking drunk so don't fuck with me" pose. Robert ignored her so I chose to as well.
"Because you killed me!" I accused.
Claude stopped at my side and blinked rapidly as he tried to play catch up. "Wait, he did?"
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Robert asked, appearing almost as clueless as Claude, but with a side of righteous indignation.
"I only just remembered! You killed me, you asshole!"
"Nope, nope, nope! I was trying to save your dumb ass!" Robert yelled back.
I hesitated, doubt and fragmented memories clouding my conviction. "But I remember—"
"You were so fucking high, you fell off the goddamn table and somehow stabbed yourself in the neck with a scalpel," Robert explained, head and shoulder drooping as if he was too tired for this bullshit. "By the time Louise and I got back, you had just about completely bled out. There was nothing I could do for you."
Okay, I know you're asking yourself, almost literally 'what the fuck? Why doesn't Bob remember how he died when he so eloquently described the details of his death earlier.' Here is where I remind you that this story is told in hindsight. In the few seconds that it took between Robert opening the door and me seeing his face, my imagination had worked overtime to fill in the huge blank in my memory of that night and had made some stunning leaps of logic that were obviously and fatally wrong, leading to a seriously fucked up situation. This isn't a murder mystery: it's a comedy of errors.
Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.
Claude had examined the room around us, which looked quite different with the lights on. The large living room was immaculately designed and looked almost exactly like an Ikea display, down to the little knick-knacks that looked like nobody had ever touched them. However, there was something off about the room and Claude had figured it out while I was busy pointing the finger at the wrong murderer.
"You're leaving town," Claude stated, and both Robert and I looked at him, Robert a little more cautiously, almost as if he had been caught doing something wrong.
"Who the fuck are you again?" Robert finally spat.
"The guy who's asking why you have three hastily-packed suitcases waiting at the bottom of the stairs as if you're in a rush to go somewhere," Claude said evenly, pointing to the incriminating evidence. "You have drawers open all over the place as if you're looking for something and don't have enough time to close them. Ergo, you look like a man who is running for his life, so I gotta wonder why. Or perhaps the better question is, who are you running from?"
Robert focused his light-blue vampire eyes on Claude, a sudden intensity and focus on his face. "Forget about it. It's nothing."
Claude raised an inquisitive eyebrow, meeting Robert's steady focus. He looked almost amused."Hey, Bob, is he really trying to Jedi mind-trick me?"
"I kinda think he is," I mused. I turned my attention to Robert who was unusually focused. "Is that what you're doing?"
"YES!" Robert snapped, not breaking eye contact with Claude, but my friend didn't explode or catch on fire or start break-dancing. Robert finally looked away, flustered. "Goddamit, I'm losing my touch."
"Sorry, not sorry?" Claude said.
"So vampires can use Jedi mind tricks to make people do shit? Can you teach me the ways of the Force?" I asked Robert, excited by the possibility. "But in a way that actually works?"
Robert threw his hands in the air. "Fuck you man. Fuck both of you."
The blonde woman slid off the couch and sat upright, one blue vampire eye bleary and completely drunk. The left eye was covered with a black leather eye-patch. She looked at us and clambered to her feet.
"Don't mind me," Blondie muttered, and stumbled out of the room. After a moment there came the clatter and clink of someone in the kitchen and Robert shrugged at us.
"It's actually her house," Robert said by way of explanation.
"So who are you running from?" Claude asked.
Robert glared at both of us and then shook his head. "Look man, everything is seriously fucked up right now. Somebody died at my party and it's attracting all the wrong kinds of attention. Yes, I'm skipping town, and maybe you should do the same, you know, before you show up on anybody's radar. Check out the scene in New York. They got a decent community, they're a little less uptight about rules, and they have non-extradition laws, so—"
"Where is Louise?" I asked quietly.
A bottle smashed in the next room, and Blondie laughed drunkenly. "Oops!" she muttered.
Robert glanced toward the kitchen and then back at me, suddenly shifty. "Well... Louise is the one who got Beatrice to help turn you, right? That's like one of the biggest no-nos in the Vampire world. Well, that and killing another vampire."
Claude and I exchanged an uneasy look. The hair rose on my arms and a sick feeling coiled in the pit of my gut.
Robert shrugged and glanced at his suitcases, apparently ready to be done with this shit. "Look, you don't go around making vampires. Ever. That's one of the big ones. Harry'll sic the Gentlemen on any offender for sure. And if they already got to her, no one's seeing her ever again."
"You don't know Louise," Claude blustered. "She's smart, she's resourceful—"
"She's so fucking dead," Robert scoffed. "You forgot that one." He reached up and adjusted his nose with an audible click and a hiss of pain.
Claude lunged at Robert, totally losing his cool for the first time that I had seen in ages. I don't know if I saw his attack coming, but I found myself tackling him and lifting him easily off his feet to keep him away from the sneering Robert. Since when had I gotten that strong?
"You don't have to be an asshole about it!" I snapped at Robert. "She's our friend!" I released Claude.
The asshole backed away to the other side of the room. "I liked Louise too, but facts is facts man."
"This whole attitude right here is because I punched you, isn't it?"
"That and because I don't like you."
"I want to punch him again," I told Claude. "Can I punch him again?"
"Don't look at me," Claude replied. "You didn't ask me the first time."
Robert sneered at the both of us. "You got lucky man. Don't push it." He strode over to his waiting luggage. "We're done here. I'd like to get the fuck out of town if it's all the same to you."
"Are they coming for you?" Claude asked Robert. "The Gentlemen?"
"Maybe," Robert said shiftily as he made his way to the entrance with his luggage. "If your friend here had any sense, he would run before they came looking for him. Either that or off himself. They don't like Accidentals, like at all."
Blondie sauntered back into the hallway and chugged from a bottle of vodka as if it was water. I watched in admiration for a second before something occurred to me.
"Hey, before you go, could you at least give me a few tips on being a vampire? I don't know fuck all about any of this shi,t and you're the only other vampire I know..."
Robert paused at the door. "Shoulda thought of that before you hit me," he replied smugly, then relented. "Look, the most important thing you have to know is that blood isn't food, and that you only need a little, so don't go around killing people like a goddamn psycho. That's one way to end up dead for sure." Robert considered me and sneered. "I could tell you more... but one: I ain't got ten years; and two: I really don't want to."
"Wait," I said, stunned by this offhand revelation, "we actually drink blood? I haven't even felt the urge to bite anybody or anything."
"That's only because you haven't had it yet," Robert called back over his shoulder as he walked away. "You'll see!"
"There's so much I can learn from you!"
"Go fuck yourself!"
The car roared to life a moment later.
"So what now?" Claude asked.
"Who the fuck is Beatrice?"
Blondie belched long and hard and we both turned to look at her.
"Who's asking?" Beatrice said and promptly fell over into a drunken heap.
***
Ten minutes later Beatrice was in the process of raiding the gigantic hoard of liquor in the pantry, while Claude and I hovered outside the kitchen door trying to figure out our best course of action. Correction: Claude tried to figure out our course of action while I watched Beatrice, utterly fascinated.
She had found a bowl of Sweet N' Sour Gummy Worms, and one of them dangled from her lips, its multi-coloured striped body swaying from the movement. All the bottles in Robert's liquor cabinet were gallon-sized and from the way Beatrice gleefully hauled the bottles onto the countertop, it seemed she was determined to drink them all.
"You sure this is a good idea? I'm not comfortable leaving you alone with her."
"I'm all out of ideas and vampires."
"Try not to piss off this one will ya? I'm gonna go call back my new client. He's been blowing my phone up all night."
Claude exited out the front door, already on the phone. I took a deep breath and approached Beatrice cautiously. She had found a gallon bottle of vodka and now chugged steadily, putting several frat houses to shame in a single moment. Her one uncovered eye turned to look at me as I approached, and she held up a finger to indicate I should wait. So I watched with reverence as she polished off the bottle and then followed up that performance with the kind of belch that would have instantly made her the undisputed king of all frat houses, for the sheer intensity and volume. That this kind of behaviour was coming from a stunningly attractive woman who was model-tall—easily over six-feet—and who apparently didn't give a fuck what anybody thought of her, was nothing short of amazing. Girls who looked like that were usually all prissy, at least in my experience.
Beatrice turned her decidedly drunk eye on me and threw me a crooked grin."Talk fast so I can decide how much I don't not hate you." She paused as she worked through the obvious double negatives, decided she liked it and grinned.
What the hell? I got the feeling absolute honesty was going to be the best course of action."I need someone to train me before I end up dead."
"Oh, I dunno," Beatrice slurred, her eyes dropping to my crotch. "You'd make a cute corpse."
"Which is exactly the opposite of what I'm going for."
"Ha! And you're funny too!" Beatrice reached out, fast as a snake and grabbed my loins, snagging my dick with amazing accuracy. She looked surprised for a moment and then smiled as I tried and failed not a squirm. "Do you want to fuck me?"
That caught me completely off guard. "We just met!" I squealed like a prissy sorority girl.
"Not an answer!" Beatrice snarled and squeezed the hell out of my junk. I whimpered, and she leaned close to whisper in my ear. "I have something you need. Aren't you supposed to be nice to me?"
She gave an extra squeeze on the word "nice," just for emphasis.
"This is not helping!" I managed to gasp, and Beatrice relented. I cradled my crotch and sank to the floor, the second wave of pain that came from the blood rushing back into the offended parts, flooding through me somehow worse than that from being squeezed.
"Don't go anywhere. I gotta go pee the pee of the god damned."
Beatrice strode away, the surprisingly solid heels of her boots, thumping and then stumbling their way across the polished wood floor. The door creaked open and Beatrice slumped onto the toilet and peed like a horse as I watched. Amazing: twenty seconds after meeting the woman and we were already at stage three of a long term relationship.
"Tell ya what," Beatrice called out, still noisily emptying her bladder. "You show me you got what it takes to survive in this fucked up vampire hellscape, and you got a deal. I'll train you." She finished peeing and flushed. I looked up from my position on the floor as she exited the bathroom, appreciating that my balls were no longer throbbing as much but wondered how long that was going to last. I watched as she made her way over to the counter and opened up a fresh gallon bottle of whiskey.
"Are you going to punch me in the dick this time?"
"Nah, I got something much worse in mind. Sun's coming up in a couple of hours. Survive that. Prove to me what it is that Louise saw in you that was worth saving, and then we'll talk."
"Sunrise? Wait, don't we turn into dust in the sunlight or something?" I asked desperately.
"There's only one way to find out," Beatrice said and offered me the open bottle of whiskey. "Drink?"
"The way this day is going, I'm going to need something stronger," I muttered. "Got any coffee?"
***
Claude was still on the phone as I exited the house. I'd like to imagine that I was doing my most badass walk, the type of walk where your crew has no choice but to fall into step behind you. I felt invigorated and full of purpose, and for the first time in what felt like forever, I wasn't afraid.
My epic walk must have caught Claude's attention because he turned to me and hung up from his call.
"Good talk?"
"Pretty okay. She didn't even punch me in the nuts so that's a win in my book."
Claude turned and joined my march onward, matching me step for step. We were each other's crew, a crew of two, just me and Claude, and that was okay.
"So what's the plan?" Claude asked.
"We're going to greet the sunrise."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah. Apparently, if I manage to do it and survive, I've got myself a vampire Yoda to teach me the ways of the force or whatever."
Claude eyed me like I was crazy or something. "Seriously? Won't you ignite into a towering inferno of vampire bits?"
"Look, I gotta do it. For Louise!"
Claude shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Okay, fine. But we're stopping by my place on the way."
"Sure, but why?"
"We're gonna need a fire extinguisher."
<<<>>>
Soundtrack: Bullet with Butterfly Wings - Smashing Pumpkins