“Could you be mine… Would you be mine… Won’t you be my… meal!”
Edwin cackled from within my skull. My target was a handsome boy, if you could see past the bloodshot eyes and beer breath. Judging by the two Greek letters on his sweatshirt, the drunken moron who was lucky enough to be ushered into Mercy Brown’s Neighborhood—aka my vampire stomach—was a college boy. He’d be fun to play with. Yes, I know you aren’t supposed to play with your food. But when it’s so damn cute, why the hell not?
Rip him apart! Drink from his wounds right here in the street.
I shook my head. Edwin always wanted me to go right for the kill, and usually in some kind of torturous way. The kid would have made a fine client for the folks who ran the murder motel in the Hostel movies. Edwin didn’t share my craving for blood, my craving for the taste of human souls. It was pure sadism, inflicting pain and suffering on others, that he desired, that he insisted upon… that I had to fulfill if I ever wanted him to shut the hell up.
The soul of my little brother, Edwin, was warped and twisted on account of spending roughly the last hundred and thirty years in hell. Now that he was stuck in my head as a kind of familiar, I had to deal with him.
Poke his eyes out! Bite off his fingers, one by one!
“I’m not doing that, Edwin.”
Do it, do it, do it.
Fuck, that kid had been annoying when we were both human. He was nine. I was nineteen. He was hardly tolerable then. This was patently unbearable. He only really talked at all when I was on a hunt—something about the presence of humans, the proximity of potential victims, seemed to bring him out. Other than that, his interjections into my head were few and far between. I was thankful for that, at least.
I might have found Edwin’s sadism mildly bearable if he were at all creative about it. I mean, if he told me to rip out his heart through his anus and wring out the blood into my mouth, I still wouldn’t have done it. But at least the entertainment value of his suggestions would be redeemable.
Rip out his intestines and eat them in the street!
I shook my head.
Ramon—my vampire boyfriend—had a penchant for dismemberment. That was gruesome enough. But Edwin’s flavor of choice was disembowelment. Way worse… and not nearly as delicious. Who wants to eat bowels, anyway? Not much blood, a whole lot of shit and bile. But it wasn’t the taste, per se, that Edwin craved. It was the torture of it all, the pain, the anguish. It reminded him of hell, and in some kind of screwed-up way, he found it comforting.
Giving him what he wanted would wouldn’t shut him up. It just gave him a taste for more. Accommodating Edwin’s craving for the gruesome was sort of like enabling an addict by helping him score his next fix. In the end, it would only make things worse.
One thing Edwin didn’t understand is that vampires are not especially gruesome creatures. Even Ramon’s proclivities weren’t out of some innate craving for the macabre. It’s all about the unique and intoxicating flavor that accompanies the blood contained in a severed limb. It ages just enough that it’s comparable to a fine wine. An acquired taste, no doubt. I gave in to Ramon’s methods once before, and while thrilling, they brought on more headaches than they were worth. Most vampires, if given the choice, prefer to keep their meals clean. And that’s precisely how I intended to feast upon the frat boy I’d targeted. Pull him into a dark corner, bite him, and drain him just enough that it raised his blood-alcohol content while leaving him with enough to recover. He’d likely forget the whole thing on account of his intoxication. It was the method Nico, my now fully-deceased sire, had taught me. It was what I intended to stick to.
I didn’t even need to bother trying to seduce the fraternity boy. He was already checking me out. I couldn’t blame him—I’m a vampire fucking princess. My short skirt, knee-high boots, and perpetually toned body were enough to drive most men mad with desire. Even ugly people, when they become vampires, somehow become attractive. It’s a part of what we are, one of our hunting mechanisms. Though some vampires are more alluring than others. As my late sire often observed, I had a particularly irresistible allure. Typically some humans could resist some vampires, some of the time. In all my years, however, I’d never met a single man—or woman, for that matter—who could turn me down. For my victims, I was a wet dream turned nightmare.
But with Edwin in my head, my whole existence was a nightmare. He stayed silent most of the time. Didn’t say much at all until it came time to hunt. Then he was in my ear like a gnat on a hot summer day. While to Edwin’s chagrin I wasn’t going to engage in public disembowelment, I did still need a meal, and this boy was cute enough—and probably tasty enough—that he’d have to do.
“What’s your name?” I asked with a sly smirk, looking the boy up and down—not so much to check him out, but to give him the impression that I was.
“Um,” the frat boy chuckled like a moron. “I’m Brian… yeah… just Brian.”
“Well, Brian… how would you like to have some fun?”
I swear, if they ever made a real-action film of the nineties MTV cartoon, the boy could have been cast as Butthead. He was cuter than I imagined Butthead would be, but he sounded just like him. And given he seemed so nervous talking to me, I expected he hadn’t had much luck with girls. Again, a lot like Butthead. The thing about boys: even if they’re cute, if they don’t have a lick of confidence about them their good looks are wasted on most ladies. Such fellows, though, tend to still have a bit of innocence about them. He was probably a virgin. That meant unless he’d done something incredibly heinous in his life, he’d be delectably sweet.
“What do you say we find a dark corner somewhere?” I asked, batting my lashes.
“Uhhhhh….”
Dear Lord, this kid was helpless. Not that he had reason to be nervous. For all he knew, I was just a good-looking girl looking for a cute boy and a good time in the French Quarter. Most girls aren’t monsters. Granted, I was an obvious exception to that. But Brian didn’t know that.
Bite his nose off…
“Shut up,” I snapped back at Edwin.
Brian scrunched his brow, clearly confused.
“Not you,” I said. “I was talking to the voice in my head.”
“Um, you hear voices in your head?”
I shrugged. “Doesn’t everybody? You know, let your conscience be your guide. Jiminy fucking Cricket.”
Brian pressed his lips together. “But most people don’t talk back to their conscience.”
“If only you knew what my conscience was saying.”
“Do I want to know?”
“You definitely do not.”
“Just so you know, I’m a psych major. You should probably talk to someone about that.”
“A psych major, huh? What year?”
“I’m a freshman at LSU.”
I rolled my eyes. He probably hadn’t even taken more than one or two courses in his major. Hell, I’d lived through the history of psychoanalysis. Freud was alive when I was turned, and really came into his own during my first few decades as a vampire. I’ve even fed on a few shrinks in my time. It was a great way to snag a meal, frankly. Appointments were always in close quarters, in rooms no one could see into due to doctor-patient confidentiality. So long as I could get an appointment in the evenings, after dark, it was a simpler and less risky way to get a snack than pulling some schmuck off the street and luring him into an alley—like I was trying to do with Brian. “So you’re basically an expert, then,” I said.
“I didn’t say that…”
“Tell me, Brian. Ever been with a crazy chick before?”
“Not really. I mean, I’ve dated a few, but…”
“I’m not interested in dating you, Brian. Trust me, my interest in you is purely carnal.”
Brian’s cheeks rouged. I could hear his heartbeat accelerating as he tried to picture, in his mind, what he thought being “carnal” together might entail. Whatever he had in mind, he was surely going to be disappoin
ted. “But I don’t have any… you know… protection.”
I smirked. Elevated myself on my tip-toes and whispered in his ear, “You won’t need any protection… not for what I have in mind…”
He shivered as I tickled his earlobe with my tongue before taking his hand in mine. At this point I was certain he was mine.
Rip off his face and wear it!
Since Edwin was in hell when Silence of the Lambs came out, I was willing to give him at least one point for creativity. Still, I chose to ignore him. It would make him even more insufferable later, but I refused to give in.
“How much have you had to drink tonight, Brian?”
“Just a few shots. A couple beers.”
He was surely underestimating his actual alcohol consumption. Still, it was more than enough. It also meant that with that much in his system, I could drain less of his blood and help him black out, to make sure he forgot. My bite would filter the alcohol out of his blood as I extracted it. I wouldn’t need to gorge myself and, truthfully, I only needed a little drink to take the edge off. Before Edwin was stuck in my head, I only really needed to feed every few weeks. Now, with him in my ear constantly, I fed more regularly. It helped keep me level-headed, and it was all I could do to prevent myself from going bloody mad.
I pressed Brian against a brick building in a dark alley. His breaths quickened, his heart beating fast. He sighed in ecstasy as my fangs pierced his neck—they almost always do. I was right—he was sweet as honey. His body collapsed like a rag doll in my arms.
I left him in the fetal position behind a dumpster. He’d blame himself for drinking too much in the morning, and if he remembered me at all, it would be a dream.
So boring. You didn’t even break a bone or leave any marks…
Edwin was right—the venom in my bite healed my victims in minutes after the bite. Just goes to show: vampires are designed to be discreet. It’s one of the many tools in our arsenal that makes us so dangerous. What Edwin wanted me to be—what he was himself—was a whole other kind of evil. And it repulsed even me.
CONTINUE READING BLOODY MAD >
Scared Shiftless
COPYRIGHT © 2021 BY Theophilus Monroe. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover Art by J CALEB DESIGN
For information:
www.theophilusmonroe.com
1
I COULD SMELL the vampire from the opposite side of the room…
No one else knew he was there. But as they say, the show must go on.
I clung to my microphone, belting out the last note of Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.” It was a crowd favorite, and I had the voice for it. Most humans couldn’t say that.
If angels really sang, as one critic who saw one of my performances wrote in the local LGBTQ+ publication, I’d be a member of their choir.
Not that I was an angel. We didn’t sing praises to God. We only serenaded our meals.
At least, that’s what I used to do. Before I was bitten.
That’s how we hunted humans: shifting into whatever form they found most alluring, wooing them with song. Then dragging them down to our watery lair… for dinner.
How was I supposed to know, on that fateful night, that a vampire had made her way onto my menu? Even more, how could I be expected to realize that if I was bitten by one, I’d lose my abilities? That I’d be stuck like this…
By day and by night I was Nicky—total diva.
By late-night I became Nyx—every vampire’s worst nightmare.
I’d tried to keep those worlds separate. Until this bloodsucker, whoever he was, dared to stalk Nicky’s audience.
He’d crossed a line.
For most folks, Leotards and Lace was just another hole-in-the-wall gay club. Hell, I wasn’t even gay. And I wasn’t one of the drag queens normally featured on stage.
Big misconception. Just because you’re trans and you sing it doesn’t make you drag queen. Most of the queens weren’t trans at all. But it was a place I could perform—and singing was a part of who I was. The only time I ever really felt like myself was when I was on stage.
Gina had finished her set, to the hoots and hollers of a semi-rowdy crowd, just before I took the stage.
I didn’t elicit the same response from the audience.
When I sang, the crowds were hushed. They listened intently. The cheers came all at once—after I’d finished my number. Some of the crowd came for the queens. Others came to hear me.
The club owners didn’t care. Everyone paid the same cover charge.
And now that I was on stage, Gina’s fans migrated to the back of the room where she made an appearance to fraternize with her fans.
The damned vampire was talking to her…
It wasn’t the first time I’d seen a vamp on the prowl. I’d seen other vamps follow his routine a dozen times before. He bought her a drink, he flirted with her, locking eyes with her, capturing her with his vampiric allure… irresistible to most humans.
But I was a professional. I had a song to sing. And another one after that.
I finished the Whitney number, and the crowd erupted in cheers. I gripped my microphone tightly, brushing one of my long sliver-white strands of hair out of my face and tucking it behind my ear.
I was slated for a second song. It was my signature number—my version of Roberta Flack’s rendition of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.” Haunting, but oddly seductive. Based on experience, half the crowd would be making out with each other before I vocalized the last note.
The house band started to play, but my attentions were fixed on the back of the room as the vampire took Gina by the hand and led her out the door.
I might be a professional. I was committed to two numbers. But I’d be damned before I let this vampire bite my friend. My second number wasn’t going to happen. Not tonight.
I dropped my microphone and took off through the crowd.
I didn’t have my weapons on me. I usually had a stake, a crossbow, chains, several cloves of garlic… But that didn’t mean I was helpless. I had my methods.
Most people were surprised how quickly I could run in heels. Truthfully, my kind—elementals, that is—can move incredibly fast even if we’ve temporarily (or in my case, semi-permanently) assumed a human form. I didn’t notice much of a drop-off in my speed in heels. Hell, I was so used to them that I might have even been faster in heels than in running shoes.
I pushed my way through the audience to the back of the room. I ignored the man who grabbed my ass as I made my way past all the bodies; I didn’t have time to exchange gropes for slaps.
I pressed forward, shoving people aside as I reached the back of the room.
I looked outside.
Leotards and Lace wasn’t in the worst neighborhood. Not the best, either. It was in Kansas City’s historic West Bottoms district. It was fairly safe during the day. At night, it was a bit of a different story. A lot of red-brick buildings, mostly abandoned. Most of them originally erected in the early twentieth century for manufacturing, now converted into loft apartments, artist studios, and eclectic shops and other attractions.
With all the tall buildings and alleys, a scream, even if someone was bold enough to investigate it, would be hard to track down from a distance.
And since vampires also moved fast—almost as fast as me—I had to find Gina before the vamp bit her. Vamps don’t tend to waste a lot of time once they have their victims alone.
I sniffed the air.
I could smell the undead. Most people co
uldn’t; humans have a notoriously bad sense of smell. Most vampires didn’t realize they had an odor. A skunk doesn’t know its own scent. But other supernaturals—elementals, like me, and probably werewolves—could smell a vampire from a hundred yards away.
They were that rank.
It was a distinct, pungent odor. A bit like iron.
And I knew these alleys better than the vampire. If he lived nearby, or frequented this area, I’d know it.
A lot of vampires hunt outside of their regular stomping grounds. It was still wiser, from a vamp’s perspective, to hunt in a variety of different neighborhoods. Less chance of getting caught.
Vamps are like any criminals, and hunters are sort of like detectives. They’re creatures of habit who tend to repeat their behaviors. And we look for patterns.
This was common knowledge for the older and wiser vampires. While they were more likely to get stuck in a routine—the old-dog-new-tricks sort of thing—those who’d been around a century or two had so many different habits in their stalk-and-feed routines that they were harder to track. Not to mention, older vamps didn’t have to feed as regularly.
This vampire was, I wagered, either older or an out-of-towner. And he was about to meet his match.
I followed his scent down an alley not far from the bar. And I saw him. He had my friend, Gina, pressed against a wall. He was whispering into her ear.
The bite was coming…
“Hey, asshole!” I shouted.
The vampire turned, eyes glowing red.
“What you been smoking?” I asked. “I mean, I’ve seen bloodshot eyes before…” I looked past his shoulder and nodded at Gina.
She took off running in the opposite direction, grabbing her phone from her brassiere.
I had to do this fast—stake this vamp and drag his body off before the police showed up. So far, I’d evaded any problems from the police. But since they probably didn’t even realize vampires were real, I doubted they’d respond well if they caught me staking one and dragging his body through an alley.
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