by David Paul
“I’ll happily wait in the car for this one.”
“If anyone harasses you,” the vampire said, “drive away, and do not worry about me.”
Fiona nods in agreement and blows David a kiss, which he pretends to catch before he turns around and readies himself for business.
The halfway house is a large beat-up, Victorian house that a non-profit organization uses to provide shelter for drug addicts and convicts. David walks right into the house like he owns it and speaks to the desk clerk at a station that mimics the front desk at a flophouse. The man attending is in his fifties and looks very weathered for his age. David suspects that he is a recovering alcoholic that may have fallen off the wagon a bit. His coffee cup absolutely reeks of booze mixed in with murky black coffee.
“Can I help you, sir?” The clerk asked.
David wastes no time and charms the attendant with his glowing eyes.
“Gregory Bates, please.”
“Gregory isn’t here,” the clerk said. “He’s probably down at the Safari Lounge.”
The attendant will not remember even talking to David.
The Safari Lounge is a dive bar with cheap drinks and even cheaper women. The patrons blow coke in the bathrooms, and the police and rescue are there almost every night pulling someone out of the bar for jail, the hospital, or the morgue. The place is truly a shit-hole full of the lowest grade of undesirables. No one pays attention to who is coming in and out, and no one cares. David leaves instantly and heads back to the car.
Fiona is waiting.
The lounge is minutes from the halfway house in the city. He does a quick pass by the lounge, and it seems busy. A crowd of intoxicated patrons is cheering. Fiona gets more excitement to witness. Outside, a fist-fight is in progress between two Hispanic fellows of roughly the same size. The brief fight ended with one of them catching a beer bottle to the temple. The crowd howls. The victor spits on the fallen body of his opponent and walks away. The recipient of the bottle squirms in pain, bleeding profusely from a large gash. The crowd dissipates, leaving the fallen victim on the ground. The vampire cruises by slowly.
He parks the Mercedes a ways down the street and around the corner.
“I’ll be right back,” the vampire said.
“I’ll be here.”
David is off to the Safari Lounge. The vampire steps over the bloody drunk in the entrance way. His blood is foul and isn’t appealing to the vampire. David walks in the bar and instantly sees Bates speaking with a trashy harlot from the neighborhood. They both appear to be under the influence of something else besides the alcohol. Bates is a hulking figure standing at six foot-five, and his outward appearance makes him look even more intimidating with his goatee, tattoos, and spiked silver rings.
David found it odd that a white supremacist would frequent a bar filled with predominately Hispanic and black patrons. David suspects that drugs have no loyalties, and he must have a piece of something that goes down at this bar. Bates also was a regular at the Pit, which was predominately populated with minorities. Either he doesn’t take his warped beliefs seriously, or he is involved in the drug trafficking that plagues this great city.
David looks out of place in this seedy dive bar because he is very well groomed. Everyone else looks like they have been through hell and back. David has perfect hair and a charming face.
He grabs a drink at the bar, which turns out to be watered down well vodka instead of the Grey Goose that he had ordered. The bartender is a creepy white guy with similar tattoos to Bates. He’s probably affiliated with the Aryan Brotherhood as well because he has the AB tattooed on his hands. Those letters have nothing to do with Anheiser-Busch. David is sitting directly across from Bates.
The bar walls are completely covered in mirrors, and this annoys David immensely. Vampires can see their reflections in mirrors, but they appear as their true self…the walking dead. David can see his own skeleton with pieces of rotting flesh crusted to the bones in his reflection, and he hates it. Some vampires will actually crack mirrors when they stare into them depending upon their bloodline. These little specific traits are unique to each bloodline. Vampires from the House of Vermeir are known for their superior strength, power, magical prowess, and intellect.
David sits there for a while observing Bates’ mannerisms and conduct with the trashy slut, Mira. Bates is groping her in various ways, and the two druggies look like they will be going home together. All that David can do is wait and watch looking for any clues that may link Bates to the murder. What David is really hoping to find is an entire network of cult members that he can kill off one by one.
Usually, human sacrifices are done for an audience of followers. It is very rare that one person would do it for his or her own amusement. The police are only looking for one suspect like he is a random murderer. Hopefully the demonologist that the police are working with will alert them of the basic modus operandi of the devil-worshipers. In a sense, David is actually counting on the ineptness of the investigating department so that he can take care of these matters by himself. David finishes his drink, and the bartender slithers over to offer another, but David declines.
“You have to drink if you want to stay at the bar,” the bartender yelled rudely. The awful music on the jukebox is very loud.
“Or buy drugs,” the vampire said. David let the bartender know that he isn’t stupid. The bartender throws him a dirty look. David flips a fifty-dollar bill on the filthy counter and orders another drink. “Hey buddy,” David said, “this time make that a Grey Goose and not some sorry bullshit excuse for vodka. Maybe your other customers are too stupid to know the difference, but I’m not one of them. Keep the fifty, and leave me the fuck alone until I ask for something else.”
The vampire’s patience is already past the point of being worn thin.
The bartender doesn’t even respond to him and quickly takes the fifty-dollar bill and puts it into his pocket. A few moments later, the bartender returns with a drink. David sips the beverage, and it is made with genuine ingredients. He nods as if to say thanks, but deep down, David is envisioning ripping the bartenders head off. The brief vision of doing it in his mind brings him joy. Having to deal with the scum of the Earth will take its toll on anyone, and there is no exception for David. The ancient vampire has almost the entire range of human emotions coupled with the complications of the curse, and that can make him extremely volatile at times.
Most creatures of the night do not have a conscience or remorse for their actions, but David is slightly different than the rest. He is truly a unique being that struggles with his emotions rather than giving into them. The infinite churning of time has ground the old vampire down. He isn’t alive, and even with small moments of pleasure and humor, his existence is a prison sentence. A part of David wants the end of the world so he can rest his weary bones and be freed from it. Another smaller part of David has some hope and a desire for justice and redemption.
On the whole, this creates duality and conflict within himself. This constant inner conflict spanned over centuries has David’s emotions on fire. David could easily give into the fury that he is feeling and kill everyone in the Safari Lounge. There is that little nagging devil pushing those buttons inside his mind, prodding him to react with rage. Instead, David is focused, waiting patiently and observing his prey.
A drunken female patron approaches David.
“Hey, gorgeous,” the drunk said. “Maybe, you should buy me a drink.”
“Why should I buy you a drink?” The vampire asked.
“I’ll come home with you,” the drunken woman said, “and I’ll make you scream all night.” She feebly attempts to persuade him by being forward. Her low cut shirt reveals some skin. The drunk squeezes her weathered saggy tits together playfully. The vampire is not interested.
“I almost want to scream right now because of your breath,” the vampire said. He backs away from her. The female is obviously intoxicated and painfully unattractive as well. She i
s starting to cause a commotion that other patrons are watching.
“You asshole!” she yelled. “You could have had this sweet ass all night.” She tries to slap David, but he catches her hand. The patrons take notice of this exchange.
“Sit down back at your table, and do not utter another word to me.” David uses his charm powers to calm her down and to make the drunken woman leave him. The stumbling ugly drunk walks slowly back to her table as if nothing had happened between herself and David. The others at her table immediately start to stare over at David. It’s obvious to David that they are looking for an altercation, and he will gladly oblige them if they pursue the notion.
Without further hesitation, another drunken mutant approaches him. Meanwhile, Bates and his floozy are still at the bar flirting and groping one another boldly in a classless manner. The man to the side of David is a pretty big fellow that is all juiced up on cocaine, and he is drunk. His lazy numb tongue and the white residue on his upper lip give his fix away to the angry vampire.
“Why don’t you buy her a drink?” he asked. The drunk rambled on in a pathetic stupor. He could barely speak. “Mister Big-shot…with all your money…Are you too good for her or something?”
“I don’t want to buy that nasty skank a drink,” the vampire said.
David deliberately instigated with the large drugged out man. The little devil inside him keeps poking him with a pitchfork. David is allowing the curse to influence his actions and words. Even though David has excellent control over his actions, the drunken man is infuriating him and keeping him from his duty. This is making it harder for him to subdue the natural tendencies of the vampire. A vampire’s natural response to perceived aggression is lethal aggression directed back to the original aggressor.
Vampires have so much power and prowess that they get insulted when a lesser being taunts them. A provoked vampire might casually poke his clawed finger through someone’s heart, ending his or her life quickly and in effortless fashion. Sometimes a vampire can go mad with bloodlust and tear a place to shreds like a ferocious werewolf would. David has such urges, but rarely acts upon them, which is a minor miracle in itself. David doesn’t sense inherent evil in this man, only the sad sicknesses of drug dependency and depression. This quells his anger a small bit and brings him back to his senses a little.
“Neither do I,” the drunk said. The drunk laughs heartily. Surprisingly, the situation went exactly the opposite as David thought it would with the drunk. The elder vampire was deciding on whether to charm him or cause a scene like a wild lycanthrope would. He didn’t expect to actually get through to the drunk with legitimate conversation.
“Here,” David said, “buy your whole table some drinks.” The generous vampire gives the man a fifty-dollar bill. The drunk laughed loudly again. It was worth the fifty dollars to David. That meant that he didn’t have to kill everyone in the bar. Fifty bucks was a bargain. He shakes David’s hand. The vampire reluctantly shakes his hand back, but inside he’s burning with white-hot rage.
“My man,” the drunk said.
The nagging little voice inside of his mind is telling him, “Imagine the audacity of a mortal to even converse with a superior being such as yourself.” The vampire struggles to smile in a friendly manner. Those tiny voices torture the vampire until they just give into being the creatures that they were meant to be. Somehow, David avoids going kill crazy in this bar full of losers and social misfits. This illustrates the constant struggle that David must face on a daily basis.
His struggles are very similar to a human with anger control problems or impulse issues. David’s bigger struggle is that he is predisposed to act in accordance to evil. It’s not like he could go to counseling to rid himself of these impulses or find new angles on how to combat against it. Counseling could potentially help him with his own thought process, but will not help alter the curse in anyway. David has in fact sought counseling over the years, but none of the counselors believed that he was a vampire. They were convinced that he was either insane or a brilliant liar. In the end, David had to erase their memories and move on with no insight from his appointments.
“Thanks, buddy, have a great night,” David said. He mustered a semi-friendly response to the drunk.
The drunk graciously accepts the drink offer and buys the skank and several of his buddies a round of tequila shots. Everyone screams afterward and pounds the shot glasses on the table. Bates looks over at the table and acknowledges the ruckus, but goes back to talking to his floozy. David sips his drink and bides his time. So far, Bates has only proven to David that he is a lowlife.
Finally, Bates gets up from the bar and makes his way over to the bathroom. David follows. The bathroom looks like it is modeled after a third world country jail, and it smells worse. Graffiti litters the filthy walls. David eyeballs Bates while the lowlife urinates.
“What are you some kind of fag or something?” Bates asked. Bates immediately goes on the offensive towards David and looks him in the eyes.
“Why don’t you piss all over yourself?” David asked. The vampire finds the need to amuse himself at times. David’s eyes are burning red, and Bates does exactly what David had suggested. Bates is completely under David’s vampire charm. David is wasting no time with Bates.
He senses hidden evil.
“Why did you buy the demonroot?” David asked.
“I like to put a little bit in bitches drinks to fuck them.” Bates is no stranger towards drugs and black magic, so his knowledge of demonroot’s existence is not unlikely. Small quantities of the substance can stretch a lot farther then traditional date rape drugs, and it is more effective.
“Is this something you do frequently, Bates?”
“Every weekend, I find some dumb whore to fuck,” Bates said. “They deserve it because they are all cock-teasers.”
“So you enjoy date-raping random women you meet in bars?” The vampire asked.
“Yes,” Bates said. Bates laughs a twisted laugh. “It is more fun than having their permission.” The twisted laugh is what got to the vampire. David sensed no remorse or guilt in that laugh. In fact, the lowlife was proud of what he had done.
“Have you ever murdered any of the women?”
“I killed a bitch once,” he said. Bates continued with his man of the year speech. His cold blue eyes were burning with truth. “She laughed at my dick because I couldn’t get it up one night, so I killed her. Fuck her.”
“Did you have anything to do with the Coelho murder?” The vampire asked.
“That bitch on the news that got carved up by that psycho?” Bates asked. The vampire nods. “I saw her picture on TV…that bitch was fine.” David realizes that Bates has nothing to do with the satanic murder at all. Bates laughs again. “I wish I could have fucked her too,” Bates said.
“Zip up your pants, Bates.” The lowlife follows his instruction. David also realizes that Bates is a serial rapist that never got caught…that all changes tonight. Bates was a freebie that fell into David’s lap. “It’s OK to prey on innocent and unsuspecting victims, Mr. Bates,” the vampire said.
David buries Bates’ head into the wall above the urinal, shattering every bone in his face. Broken dingy tile litters the floor.
The bloodied Bates has a skull fracture and a pulverized face. The dripping blood from his wounds excites the vampire’s senses. Bates is now the unsuspecting victim as David buries his fangs deep into his neck. His body quivers and flounders until it goes limp from the blood-loss. David quickly throws the corpse into a stall, props it on a toilet, and then quickly shuts the stall door.
The bathroom door opens.
“My man!” A voice said. The large drunk who he bought drinks for earlier strolled in and gave him a high-five.
“You never saw me. I’m a ghost in your mind.” David blanked out the drunk’s memory. “Don’t go in that stall. It smells like death in there,” the vampire said.
David walks out of the bathroom and heads straight o
ut of the Safari Lounge. The bartender watches his abrupt exit. The vampire doesn’t look back. It wouldn’t be the first time that they found a corpse in that place.
While walking back to the car, David pulls out his cell-phone to call Xavier Rawley.
“I found your boy,” David said, “and he isn’t who we are looking for.” Rawley feels uncomfortable talking on an open phone line. “Let’s talk in person at the same place as before.”
“I’ll be there in a bit,” David said.
He hangs up and jumps into his Mercedes. Fiona is asleep in the seat and wakes up when he closes the door.
“Babe?” She asked. Fiona is a little bit foggy from just waking up. “Is that you?”
“Yeah it’s me, my love.” He fires up the black Benz and speeds off.
“We have to head back to Rawley’s house. I’ll explain later,” he said.
“Did you find the guy that you were looking for?” Fiona asked.
“I found him, and he wasn’t the right guy.”
“So he is innocent?” She asked.
“Babe,” the vampire said, “he was a serial rapist that never got caught.”
“How do you know?”
“I asked him, and he told me the truth.”
“So you let him go?” Fiona asked.
“I wouldn’t necessarily say that I let him go,” the vampire said. David tries to crack an innocent smile. “This guy was a rapist who admitted to raping a different woman every weekend. He poisoned their drinks with small doses of the demonroot to incapacitate his victims before taking advantage of them. The lowlife also found it comical to violate these women. Let’s just say that he will never rape another innocent woman, and he went out like a king.”
David has a small smirk and playfulness in his eyes.
“What do you mean, a king?” She asked.
“Baby, read the paper tomorrow, and that will explain everything.” He smiles at her and drives off.
“If you say so,” Fiona said. She laughs with a puzzled look on her face. They are just in time to catch a midnight show if they wanted to. Fiona knows that David is on his way out again. “I’ll be asleep.” Fiona is rapidly losing interest in this endeavor because she really isn’t that involved. For her own safety, David is keeping her out of the danger as much as possible. The altercation in the Pit was a little too close for David who wants to protect Fiona.