So You Might Be a Vampire

by Rodney V. Smith

  “From my perspective, all I can say is fuck you if you think you're any different from Harry. You just took his idea and reinvented it and used it somewhere else. Here you're just another fucking exclusive club for vampires. Maybe a different type of lifestyle but you're the exact same. At least Harry's Trust Fund Squad isn't fooling themselves about what they are."

  Ugh. Did I just really say all of that? I'd really had no idea all of that was going to come out until I said it, and now that it was out in the open I realized I'd just told everyone to go fuck themselves and there was no taking it back.

  Is this what sobriety does to a person? If it is, then fuck it. Take it back. Spare me from this kind of fucked up honesty.

  Especially since they were all looking at me, giving me that look that let me know just how fucked I was. How fucked was I? Oh let me count the ways...

  "And with that, I think I'm going to leave now before you all decide to kill me all at the same time..."

  "Why would we do that?"

  That voice sounded so familiar. So familiar...

  I turned and she smiled at me from the doorway..

  "Hi Bob," said my dead friend and maker Louise.

  ***

  What? You didn't see that one coming, right? Well, excuse me for keeping some things to myself. It's not I'm like trying to ruin the story or anything. Besides, I just wanted you to get a tiny taste of how I felt upon turning around in that bar and coming face to face with my dear long-dead friend Louise.

  No, not surprise. Not fear. Not anger. The other one.

  Numb.

  "You're supposed to be dead."

  "Surprise, surprise..."

  "Why did you let me think you were dead?"

  "Because for a long time, I was."

  "Now you're not. You could have called."

  "I'm an asshole."

  "You don't get to say that. You don't get to take my words from me!"

  "Fine! Whatever!"

  "You're an asshole." I glared at her and she glared back just as fiercely.

  "I missed you."

  "Fuck you."

  "Can we get past this part and skip to the hugging? Please?"

  "Fine, but I'm still mad at you."

  We held each other tightly and a lesser man may have cried, but not me. Something went into my eye, maybe I'm allergic to whatever hippie shampoo Louise has been using, but that's what caused tears to run down my face as I held on to my friend. That and no other reason, dammit. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Louise, of course, being the big softie that she was, bawled her eyes out. You'd think I'd come back from the dead or something.

  I don't know how long we stayed like that. Minutes, maybe hours, perhaps even days, but eventually the world crept back in, pulling us away from the plane where we were the only beings in existence, and that was okay.

  Carlos clapped me on the shoulder and grinned magnanimously. Marisa stood close by and it looked like she might have been crying as well. No, not tears of blood; don't be stupid. The physiology doesn't work like that. They were just ordinary human like tears.

  "Guess what, Carlos?" I said as I wiped my cursed allergy tears away with both hands and tried to look as manly as possible.

  "What?" Did I detect a little bit of caution or was that just me?

  "Louise just picked up the tab. Drinks are on her."

  Louise squeezed my arm and laughed. It was a good laugh, a good sound to hear and it made me grin. It kinda felt like I was grinning on the inside as well. Lots of happy. It was a laugh that spoke volumes, mainly being "good old Bob, always the same," and it also told me something else that put a bit of a damper on the happy. I wasn't sure of course, not yet, but that laugh told me that Louise knew everything I'd been up to.

  I looked around nervously, the words of my diatribe coming back to me as I remembered I just insulted a room of vampires.

  "Did Marisa introduce you to everyone?" Louise wanted to know, and I paused still looking for an easy way out. Nobody seemed to be too interested in twisting my head off, not even Carlos, and especially not Marisa, who should have been royally pissed since I was her guest. No, they were all smiling, none of them bothered in the slightest, all of them giving fond looks over to Lou--

  "Holy shit balls. You're their leader?"

  I have no idea where that came from, but judging from the look of approval from Marisa and Carlos, and the exasperated expression on Louise's face, I knew I had nailed it.

  "When did you find time between being dead and missing to go off and be queen of the damned?"

  "Just when I was giving him points for figuring it out so fast too." This from Carlos.

  "I'm not their leader, " Louise protested. " I just brought everyone together under a common cause."

  "And that cause is the one thing that make us vastly different from Harry's glee club." Marisa looked deadly serious about this. "It's one thing that we can all get behind."

  "What cause is that?" I was utterly clueless, but then again who wouldn't be? I was still reeling from the shock of having Louise back and there were so many things I wanted, needed to say to her, but now people were talking at me and none of what they said made any sense.

  "Have you met everyone, Bob?" This was Louise again and why was it bugging her so much anyway? I'd made the rounds earlier and had done the jovial handshake, great to meetcha, now I'm going to forget your name since you're not buying me a drink, bit of routine. Everyone had seemed so nice and good looking and yeah they were more casual about their money in the fact that they didn't care about it, but big whoop. In the end, they were more experienced vampires and much better at it than I was.

  The itch to have a drink came back with a vengeance and with that came the level of irritation that came with Junkie Bob, the same level of irritation that had led to my fight with Claude earlier. I glanced at Louise, knowing that she knew that I was still just a junkie, meet the new boss same as the old drug, and knew exactly what she would say to me about it. Of course being a junkie and in urgent need of a fix right fucking now, I decided that I just didn't give a shit what she thought or what she would say. One little drop of blood wasn't going to fuck me up. I just needed a taste is all...

  "Louise, why are you avoiding the question?"

  "We need to talk, you and I."

  "More avoidance." I turned away from her, to the assembled vampires, their names still not occurring to me, and me still failing to care. "Anybody want to take a shot? Anybody want to tell me what makes you all so goddamn special?"

  Silence. No one dared answer. They just looked at me and then all of them turned to look at Louise. Their leader.

  A touch on my am and I turned, no idea of what to expect, just feeling irritable and getting more pissed off that nobody would even look at me anymore. Louise was there and the instant I looked into her eyes, my demands floated away, meaningless emotions, just noise, inconsequential chatter.

  There was a brief flicker of thought at the edge of my mind, something urgent trying to get my attention, but that got swept away in a moment and all I could see, all I could think about at the moment was Louise's eyes.

  It seems that not everything you hear about vampires is a lie after all.

  She glammered me.

  ***

  Shut up. Before you start protesting and correcting my spelling, ask yourself who the expert is here. It's me that's who. Bob the mother-fucking-vampire. And up to that point I hadn't even suspected that it was something we vampires could do, but get this: it's something I had been doing all along and I never even knew it.

  That's how good we vampires are at it. Usually it only affects humans, when a vampire really wants a human to do something, you know… things like have a one night stand with lots of wild animal sex and give blood willingly and then, of course, never tell their friends about the kinky sex with that one dude. That kind of stuff.

  I had just attributed the sudden bounty of pussy coming my way to my natural charm which had finally
decided to manifest itself, or just that women found vampires to be damn sexy. I certainly wasn't about to complain, after all, I was living out all of my deviant sexual fantasies with pretty much any tattooed slut I decided I wanted to take home, and that was so fucking awesome. Why the hell would I examine it too closely? It might turn quantum on me and vanish just from the act of observing, so hell no, thank you very much, please go fuck yourself.

  This act of hypnotic wonderment is usually spelled "glamour" so you can unfuck yourself, but as far as Louise was concerned and as she explained, there was nothing glamorous about it at all. It was the act of inserting your thoughts directly into someone's mind and soothing them, telling them that everything was okay, everything was not fucked up and that this was exactly what they wanted. Just a little push in the right direction, and someone, some human, who resisted could soon become your fiercest supporter.

  It didn't always work of course, people who outright hated your guts just hated you so fucking hard that they were naturally immune to you and any attempt to glammer them ended up just making them hate you even more. In those cases, some over confident vampires would end up in very painful or even life ending situations since the glammer A) could only be done while the vampire was calm and B) had no affect on swords swinging down at heads.

  The glammer is also not supposed to work against other vampires. In fact, it was completely forbidden to even try to glammer another vampire. So forbidden that it was actually written down in the bylaws and articles somewhere and the punishment was severe and painful and took a very, very long time.

  So there Louise was, inserting herself into my mind, and calming me down like some obedient dog, and I went along with it. I had no other choice. She told me to shut the fuck up and come with her, and of course, I did.

  Don't give me that look: you would have too.

  "You didn't have to do that," I protested when she finally let go of my mind and explained what she'd done after I rather pointedly asked what the fuck she had done to me. It's amazing what people tell you when you ask nicely.

  "You were being a spaz, Bob. And stupid. Are you aware that not a single one of those vampires in that room is less than a hundred years old? Any one of them could snap you like a twig anytime they wanted, and you were beginning to piss them off."

  "What are you talking about? You're the leader, you got my back. Besides, there are rules against killing other vampires."

  "You're a smart guy Bob, but you're fucking stupid sometimes. I told you and I meant it. I'm not their leader. I just brought them all together. They've been doing this vampire bit a lot longer than I have."

  "Just how old are you anyway?"

  "My human birthday is August nine, nineteen twenty-one. Do the math."

  I couldn't so I let it go. I was more concerned about the whole point about the other vampires being all over 100 years old. Even Marisa.

  "Well, you still didn't have to do that thing with the thing. Not cool, Dude! Not cool!" The ease with which she had just slipped in and seized control of me still freaked me out. It had just been too easy. "Can anyone do that too me? The glammer thing?"

  "Not everyone, no. You'd fight them because you already have barriers up. But you trust me, you like me... maybe a little too much, so it was easy for me to get in there. I doubt I'd be able to do it so easily again now that you're aware of it though..."

  It struck me then how easy all of the other vampire must have it, the ones who had years of grooming and planning and mentors to guide them. I'd picked up some of the literature from Harry's office, but I'd been lazy and got distracted by the internet while I was looking up something from one of the pamphlets and I'd never gotten back to it. Claude had found them though and had tried to get me interested, but the only thing I could think of at the time was how much I really, really needed a drink.

  "So I suppose if you'd been around to teach me, I could have learned about this and some other vampire shit, yeah?"

  Louise wasn't stupid. "Fuck you Bob. There's literature and a bunch of people you could talk to about it. You were just lazy, so don't you dare try to pass it off on me. When I left, I had no choice in the matter. No fucking choice. I even got Marisa to get a message to you but apparently you were too busy to pay attention. But I am sorry it turned out this way for you."

  "Yeah, me too."

  "How long have you been clean?"

  "Couple of months, but I'm not really keeping track. Claude keeps track though. He keeps me honest, and sometimes I really, really appreciate it. Other times not so much."

  "At least you're off the smack for good. Jaime would like that."

  "Fuck Jaime. She doesn't want anything to do with me. She's already moved on with her life. New job, new place... new boyfriend..."

  "You should go see her Bob. See her before it's too late and you never have the chance again."

  Something about the way she said that raised the hairs on the back of my neck. I grinned nervously and looked out over the darkened landscape of the Hotel Astoria. A sudden gust of wind shook the copse of trees that marked the boundaries of the property. In the distance, about a mile away, the lights of a lone car on the highway left a streak of light on my cornea.

  We were standing on one of the third-floor balconies, high above everything else, far away from the other spot of life and light in the otherwise empty hotel. It would have been spooky to anyone passing by and that was appropriate I guess. After all, this time there were monsters inside the house.

  Louise looked wistful, her hair being whipped around in the sudden wind and I was glad to have her back, even with the whole glammer thing and what not. It was good to have my friend, even if she was about to say something portentous.

  "If you're about to say something like 'there's a storm coming,' I'm outta here." I was joking, but I meant it just the same. I didn't need this level of drama in my life. I was already a junkie and that was drama enough.

  Louise didn't smile. She just looked at me and I knew what she was going to say and I knew it was going to be dramatic.

  When she looked out at the darkness, I turned to look with her. There was a fleet of 6 cars approaching the hotel fast. This could be nothing else but trouble. And drama.

  "The storm is already here."

  Fuck it. I got out of there.

  ***

  As I ran down the old corridors of the Hotel Astoria, Louise somewhere behind me, the relief and mixture of other emotions I’d gone through on seeing her alive, all of those fled from my mind. My fight or flight instinct had finally decided to kick in with a vengeance after doing some quick calculations and after deciding that it didn't care who or what was coming in those cars since the signs were all pointing to a high chance (99% to be exact) of me getting majorly fucked up, all communication between feet and brain had been shut off until further notice, thank you very much.

  A better man than I would have taken time to muse or wax poetic over the old and scattered pieces of art that decorated the old, dark and stained mahogany corridors of the hotel. There were paintings and corridors that could tell you tales of times long gone if you cared to listen or had the capacity to appreciate. Since I didn't care or appreciate, the hotel's stories were wasted on me, but feel free to go visit sometime, and I'm sure it will keep you entertained for hours. I'd already glanced at the art while I walked upstairs with Louise and it had all been lost on me as more pretentious vampire trappings, someone's idea of subtly flaunting their riches and age. One of them Louise had pointed out to me, and it only stuck in my head because it was the first time I'd even seriously considered the possibility of there being a force to even out the existence of vampires. It was a painting of Aeris the Red battling John the Vampire Slayer.

  "What happened to his teeth?" That was what I had wanted to know at the time. Louise had given me a look since I had ignored everything else she'd said about it being commissioned from Renoir, and it being one of the great unknown works of the nineteenth century or some shit.
I had instead focused on the thing that was bothering me: John the vampire slayer's mouth was open in a grimace of rage, and his incisors were clearly missing.

  I should have pressed for more, but I was preoccupied at the time. Louise had still been explaining where she had been, the cliff notes version, and I was still being pissed off that she had glammered me. The details would have been fascinating, and even as my cowardly feet so expertly propelled me down the corridor, past the painting, I still had the presence of mind to wonder about the missing teeth, and, by the way, what exactly did she mean "vampire slayer"?

  "Goddammit Bob! Stop running!"

  "Can't!" I yelled back, then corrected with honesty: "Don't want to!"

  Here's the thing: my brain had made connections way before I was aware of them, decided just to cut me out of the decision making process so that I could actually be around to be filled in later. So I ran, not so much “to” as “from," since the "to" always seems to take care of itself. And I moved fast, faster than I ever had before. While I ran, I felt like a vampire, strong, fast, powerful and suddenly very observant. Those things you don't see earlier either due to distraction or some vampire fucking glammering you (yes I was still pissed about that), and when seen together and in context, all of those tiny pieces began to make a scary kind of sense. For one, there were an awful lot of paintings of vampires fighting vampire slayers... and they weren’t always winning.

  In fact the last ten paintings I passed, as I ran for the great staircase in the middle of the hotel, those didn’t feature any kind of vampire winning of any kind. They slanted more towards the utter and complete dismemberment and annihilation to the point of extinction of vampires. In some cases, it looked like the painter had been given two colors to best bring about the sheer amount of devastation shown in the paintings: red and dark red. That’s how much blood there was.