The Dhampir Dimension

by Viktoria Alukard

  Her heels click clacked on the checkered marble floor as she followed him to the outside courtyard. Here, he kept his black Subaru WRX underneath the protection of a car coverlet. After he peeled it off, he opened the door of the racing sedan for her, and she stepped in. It was the same car that she had seen parked by the abandoned cathedral a while back before any of these supernatural occurrences had begun. It had a five-speed manual transmission. He stepped in and started the car, and then they drove through the obscure density of a road in the forest.

  Before they reached the highway, the dhampir used his blinker to signal, and hesitated for a minute, carefully ensuring there were no oncoming cars from the right nor the left. They merged onto the road, and Regina stared out her window, while Enttu turned on the Bluetooth system and played some Nine Inch Nails. He liked to keep the inside of his car ice cold, so much that she formed vapor with her breath on the window. She squinted when they passed the tavern she had recognized from her self-guided hike when she first got to Romania.

  “So, that was you in my dream,” she stated.

  “What are you talking about,” he asked her, as he cruised down the road. He had a peculiarly cute accent when he spoke, she thought.

  “One time I hiked where that tavern was. And the next thing you know, I was lost in a pathway of lavender. And then a man that looked a lot like you had sex with me, and then he bit me. I am almost one hundred percent that it was you, or the heavy energy that seeps from your very being,”

  “Ah, I see. Wet dreams,” he replied in mockery.

  His shrewdness both excited and vexed her. She rolled her eyes in silence. While she looked away, he took her hand in his and held tightly. It was a good feeling to share a car ride with someone he could trust other than his detectives. Once again, having to hold back his true feelings, he concealed his love for her under his cold rigidity. Poorly. He was humming “We’re in This Together Now” to where she could notice, in allusion to her.

  He reached the Meytros Estates on the left side of the highway about five miles away from his residence, and pulled into Nicolae Blvd, which he had named after his father. The car pulled in front of the Marlboro Mansion, and he shortly, sweetly dismissed her with a prolonged kiss.

  “I will see you soon” he told her.

  “When?” she told him.

  “Don’t worry. I will find you,’” he replied.

  She checked her phone, and it was 11:00 P.M. on a Friday night.

  “I have work tonight. Don’t be gallivanting too late at this hour. I won’t stray far from you,” he told her.

  The Subaru eventually sped off, and she saw the rear red bumper lights of the car get smaller and smaller as he disappeared in the corner. She went back inside, and then soon enough, she would hit the street too, primarily to go to the pharmacy to get her contraceptive pills and some groceries that she needed. She was famished.

  At the corner of Nicolae Blvd and the main road, there was a pharmacy that displayed a sign indicating that it was open 24/7, in blue letters and a blue cross. She parallel parked the black BMW M3 and then stepped into the store for some quick purchases. Inside, the store had that sterile, clean smell of a hospital, and the A/C was on full blast. At the counter in the front was a young woman with dark hair tied in a bun, dilly-dallying on her Facebook page on the laptop near the register. Regina walked past her without saying a word and walked towards the back to grab a couple of sugar-free Red Bulls with most of the nutrition label in the local language. She then walked towards the contraception aisle, in search of a morning-after pill, but saw that there was none here, so perhaps she had to ask at the counter, and made her way there. Gently, she placed her two drinks down, and asked the girl here if they had an emergency pill.

  “I am sorry, but can you explain more what you are looking for ma’am” the girl responded, in the best English she could formulate.

  Regina blushed before she explained bluntly, “It’s a pill you take after you have sex without a condom,”

  “Oh, Plan B. Yes, we carry. How many do you need?”

  “Give me ten.” said Regina casually. The girl looked halfway mortified at her request.

  “Hmm, uh, do you need any pregnancy tests as well, or is that okay?” asked the girl, in the most harmless but very poorly worded manner. Regina raised a singular eyebrow at her strangely.

  “Uh, no I won’t need pregnancy tests, but thank you,” she laughed nervously.

  The bill was 210 Euro, which mean that Plan B was way cheaper here than it was back home. When she got back into the Bimmer, she popped open three pills from their individually wrapped bubble packs, and she popped all three pills into her mouth. She chased them down with three large gulps of Red Bull, completely ignoring the recommended dosage label, still employing the self-medication methods of a reckless Sailor. She then continued to a grocery store that was still open at night, and went in to purchase coffee, creamer, bread, and some prior-prepared Romanian food from the deli to include some elaborately-prepared pastries that almost looked too pretty to eat.

  She drove back home to rest for the night and had texted Cassandra that she would be heading back to work on Sunday. Her friend never replied, and Regina simply dismissed it as perhaps she was busy at the plant.

  Famished, she tore open a pack of cream cheese and cherry tartlets she had with a hot cup of coffee, as she lounged on the sofa. She was surprised how much she had missed out on while she stayed with the vampire. On the news, and checking her social media on her laptop, she found out that the designer, Kate Spade, had committed suicide a week or two ago, and then soon, so did the chef star Anthony Bourdain. The eruption of Kilauea in the big island of Hawaii was still occurring a whole month later, and by now, the magma flows from the fissures had entirely consumed a living community known as the Leilani Estates. In both news and social media, the verbal onslaught of liberals versus republicans and vice versa continued, this time in the wake of a new immigration issue and pinpointing the blame on President Donald Trump, or Hillary Clinton. What caught her attention was a broadcast of violent tornadoes around her hometown of Tyler, Texas, bigger than an F-6 category. Texas was a common place for these to occur, but there were also reports of them occurring in odd places, such as New Mexico, Colorado, New York, Washington State, and Southern California.

  She spoke with her parents on the phone briefly, to ensure their well-being for her peace of mind. After, she went to sleep in an eventless night, and cuddled her pillow, admittedly longing to be in the arms of the vampire again. It was starkly lonely here in comparison to the somberly comfortable presence of his that enveloped every fiber of her being.

  “Nope, I’m not in love. It’s a chemical reaction from sexual release,” she told herself over and over.

  Same night, 2:04 A.M. Thursday Morning.

  Vittorio immediately noticed how his dhampir friend had a much rosier than normal glow to his rather dead complexion and how he kept randomly singing to himself out loud, without a care in the world and indiscriminate of the audience around him. The three gentlemen were inside of a lonely coffee shop to get some lunch while they were on break. Marc was at the counter, ordering a coffee and a sandwich. Enttu ate not a damn thing, except for the hot tea he was sipping on. The ripe, awakening smell of roasting coffee beans curbed his appetite, even for blood.

  “You’re not gonna eat?” Vittorio asked, after he bit into a bacon and cheese filled Danish.

  “When have you ever seen me eat?” the dhampir shrugged, smiling sublimely. Vittorio noticed how he was acting a little bit more lighthearted than usual, and of course the impending question that lingered on the tip of his tongue came forth.

  “So, you got laid, didn’t you? How tight was she?”

  The eyes of the dhampir squinted and his eyebrows furrowed in evident anger at the uncensored boldness of his friend. From time to time, his friends pissed him off.
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  “I am not about to discuss that with you,” he subtly hissed. His cheeks had turned slightly red with anger, and Vittorio saw fire in his eyes.

  “She must mean a lot to you for you to get that angry,”

  Enttu said nothing and kept sipping his tea. Marc sat next to him and began to loudly unwrap his pastries and sandwich. His walkie-talkie in his back pocket was staticky, and he turned it down to silent. Vittorio and Marc were discussing the details and propositions for their next gig the next time they had another night off. They rambled on and went back and forth between Romanian and English. Save for the few cars that drove by outside in sporadic timing, this section of Bucharest was dead at night, though some cafés remained open. A stray cat had nestled itself on a bench directly outside the restaurant and stared inside at the table where the three men sat. It’s meowing caught Enttu’s attention, and he tuned his friends while he observed the feline in silence. It was a calico with a rather velvety, luxurious coat. The longer he looked into the green opal eyes of the feline, the more he was able to distinguish a fire in the sliver it had for pupils. His hyper aural senses picked up the lulling purr of the cat as it formed a telepathic relationship of benign acknowledgement with the graceful, long-haired vampire. Marc nudged him that it was time to get back to the patrol car, and they left the café and Enttu was the last one out. He waved a silent goodbye to the barista who was also doubling duties as the cashier.

  Outside, the winds stirred in intermittent gusts tinged with the patchouli-like aroma of impending rain. Lightning flashed across the dark clouds formed across the sky of dawn, and gentle rolling thunder followed. The clouds had blocked out the moon completely within their forming stratus. He was about to be the last one in the patrol car that they parallel parked in front of the coffee shop on that cul-de-sac. Suddenly, all the street lamps and all of the lights in every establishment of that block went out. He withdrew his weapon from his holster, and he ordered his two partners to remain in the confines of the car. They all turned their walkie-talkies on to each other’s channel. Vittorio, in the driver’s side, kept the patrol car’s headlights on and he kept his eyes forward looking past the blonde and slender black-clad silhouette of his undead companion treading onward.

  “Tepes, you see something?”

  “Turn the car completely off, its affecting my night vision,” Tepes ordered through the staticky channel.

  The car lights shut completely off, and he was surrounded by absolute darkness, save for the very faint dark light of the overhanging stratus and thunder. Heavy rain began to fall, and his combat boots splashed as they stepped into forming puddles. Inside the car, as pitch blackness surrounded them, Vittorio and Marc kept their weapons on their laps in case of danger. Enttu heard the meowing of the cat ahead of him, and with his auric vision, he saw the thermal image of the feline run away from him. He followed it, and before he knew it, he had run into a ravine at the corner of the street, where there was a caged-off city drain in front of him that eventually emptied out to the Danube. The walkie talkie in his back pocket buzzed, and his blonde hair matted to his skull from saturation of the rainfall. The stratus high above opened to reveal the moon, an eclipsed blood red moon that cast an ominous crimson light upon this sector of the city. Everything around him displayed as a negative print of contrasting black and red. He sent a message to Vittorio.

  “Celentano, Tepes. Hey, do you guys see the moon right now?”

  “Yes, it’s making everything on the street look like it was a real-life negative photo print. It’s downright creepy.”

  He didn’t reply, because he was soon drawn to a pair of red eyes lurking in the dark behind the steel bars of the storm drain. The calico startled him as it came running out between the bars into the opposite direction until it was far behind him. Unwisely, he stared back, unaware of what else could have been in front of him. When he looked back ahead, he took a few steps back when the languid frame of Regina stood before him. She was catatonic and dressed in a doll-like negligee with torn, bloody stockings and Mary-Janes. She began to sing some lullaby in an unnaturally high-pitched voice that sounded more maniacally sinister in contrast to her outfit. It was ill-fitting, and he wondered if she knew. Her stockings were torn, and he smelt the dark red ribbons of blood that ran down her thighs. He caught a glimpse of the illuminated side of her face that shone dark red from the lunar eclipse. Her eyes were completely white, face a bluish white of fresh death, and her teeth revealed two rows of razors in place of teeth.

  “Regina. You…...you can’t be her. This is a sick illusion!” he said out loud to himself.

  The disturbingly identical doppelganger of Regina in trashy doll cosplay robotically sped past him and flashed him the evilest grin from a bloodied mouth full of razors. She laughed demonically, before she suddenly burst into black swarm of tiny bats. They all came flying toward him, and he covered his face with his cape in a fashion likened to Bela Lugosi. He then began to swing the blade of his katana at the bats, and he killed them all and severed off their wings and heads. Their tiny, maimed bodies hit the ground, and when they hit the ground, all of the street lamps and electrical power suddenly cut back on, and crystalline rain still fell all around him. The pile of dead bats had vanished, and he found himself alone in the ravine.

  In the distance, a blast suddenly diverted his attention, and he went running back to the patrol car, where the detectives were standing outside of it. They looked up and were staring at the third floor of an apartment building behind the café that set ablaze. Instinctively, he had the urge to go in and save whoever he could, but Vittorio told him to hold while he called the fire department. The dhampir was impatient and of course ignored his partner’s heed, to which Vittorio took great offense to. Vittorio was a commander and Enttu was but a lieutenant.

  “Tepes, that’s an order!”

  The dhampir didn’t take kindly to the unexpected and attempted rank subjugation, and he bared his fangs and red eyes at his partner and cursed him in Romanian. He flew up to the burning building alone right into the blazing inferno, that easily could have killed him. Inside the third floor, there were families already on their way downstairs, and they were immediately frightened upon the sight of a vampire breaking in through the window in the hallway.

  “Everybody move! There’s a vampire in the building!” yelled one startled man.

  This only caused further chaos, and some of the people fell and stumbled down. Before the group had reached the threshold that led down to the stairs, the ceiling above was beginning to crackle in threats of crushing everyone to death. Before a steel beam was able to fall and block off the escape route, Enttu caught it and held it in place, as he levitated up in the air. He barked at the crowd to keep moving, as his arms were shaking, struggling to hold the thousand-pound beam in place. Worse yet, it was beginning to sear the skin of his palms from the rising scorch of the licking flames. If he held on any longer, he could have caught on fire and burned alive. He hissed in pain as the flames licked dangerously close to his face. Consequently, his skin was starting to sizzle as if he’d been exposed to sunlight. When no other person traversed down the stairs, he let the beam drop, and it blocked off the route. He descended from the ceiling and cursed under his breath as he looked upon his burnt palms.

  They were completely peeled of the first layer, and the bloody muscle tissue was in full exposure. That would take some time to heal itself. He thought his work here was done, and by the time he was about to leave, the fire department had arrived, and they were escorting all the inhabitants outside onto the street. He sighed in relief and was prepared for a possible argument with his companion. Heavy black smog that he was immune to was stooping lower and clouded his vision. It irritated his lungs and got darker on the way back out to the night outside. Suddenly, he crashed into a somebody he hadn’t noticed in the corridor before and was about to grab their hand to help them escape, but then he noticed the long bl
ack bloody claws of a pale, dead white hand extended out to his. It then attacked him and scratched him deep enough to leave bloody gashes on his forearm. When he focused clearly through the smoke, he made out that it was the doppelganger of his new lover, the ghastly face of a marionette grinning back at him.

  In the distance, there was a sound of a crying baby, and it was as if his mind and the demonic entity’s mind were in sync. They both looked in the direction of the sound, and then, at each other, defiantly. The being sneered at him,

  “You wouldn’t kill me, you’re in love with me, and you want to fuck me all day and all night,” the demon laughed, revealing its razor teeth. Blood ran down her lip as she sunk the razors into her bottom lip, evoking a visceral reaction even for the dark-hearted vampire.

  “The only thing I will do is fuck you up, demon!” he yelled back at her.

  He ran after her as she headed straight towards the sound of the baby and launched a shuriken at her which struck and impaled itself into her back. The demon stumbled to the ground, and he successfully managed to sever her head off. Her remains began to vaporize into a black cloud, sending her right back wherever she came from. He kicked open the door where the baby’s cry came from, and indeed he saw a white bassinet in the corner of a bedroom with blue wallpaper and a dirty beige carpet.

  Carefully, he marched toward the bassinet, and he peeled back the baby blanket. Behind the blue cashmere cover, there was the tender face of a beautiful brown-eyed baby boy, teary eyed, who resorted to suckling on the green jelly pacifier in his mouth. Enttu reached out his almost-healed index finger to the baby’s nose, and the baby cooed as he latched on with his tiny palm. The dhampir swaddled the tiny boy in his arms, carefully supporting his head on his forearm, and he turned to head back out towards the door to exit. Then, he was confronted yet again, not by the doppelganger of Regina. No. This time it was a much worse, more perilous apparition that blocked the doorway.