Before the urge to deck this short, stout man in his face overtook him, because Vittorio was getting fed up with his boss not being able to handle stress well, he got back into his car and sped off. He could hear the boss still going off, and during his rant, he heard something along the lines of,
“You fired, Celentano!”
Vittorio cracked his side window open and he lit up a cigarette after he offered one to Marc, but the other one declined. The sedan careened on down the slope of the mountain on the freeway headed back to the city. Marc could sense deep in his mind, and in his aching bones that Radu was gone and he was never going to come back home. It could have been the reason he was plagued with nightmares for the past few nights of him and Radu standing on opposite sides of a bridge on a freezing midnight, where the bridge had been split in half by raging waters.
Dead in the Water
The berthing was freezing, and it was hard to see under the red, eerie lights of the condition “darken ship,” but it wasn’t an announcement of casualty that awakened EM1 Regina Brighton. No, it was the unbearable, loudness of the silence. When she swung her legs over to climb out of the middle rack, she took note that the berthing itself was odd, and the racks and spacing seemed taller and larger than normal. She slipped into a pair of navy blue coveralls with three red chevrons sown onto each of the two larger lapels of her uniform collar, indicating her rank. Her hands were rigid from how cold it was, and her body ached. The silence stemmed from the absence of any living souls in here except for her own, and normally though she loved being alone, this caused a shiver to run down her back.
She stepped out of berthing, and even out here too, the red lights were turned on for darken ship, and when she looked down at her black leather watch on her wrist, it indicated 3:30 AM. There wasn’t any other Sailor roaming these decks groggily to or from their watch or other miscellaneous nighttime activity that went on behind closed shop. Why were the p-ways so dark, so unusually dark, and where was anybody from the night crews, or the sounding and security rovers? There was a draft that came from the mess deck on the main level, and she continued forward in her black combat boots. No, even the mess decks weren’t lit well, though she was relieved to see only one cook on the night shift, preparing breakfast. She tried to speak with him, but he acted like she wasn’t there which irritated her.
“Wow are all cooks this rude at this time of night?” she asked him. Still, no response.
It wasn’t until she got a close look into his eyes that she saw that his eyes were completely white and opaque, like a dead fish possessed by a demon. Regina ran away as fast as she could, past the mess deck tables, and into the main passage that led to the hangar bay of the ship. Something about the ship seemed way off, and the air felt heavy with a disturbing stillness that felt animated. The ship didn’t even rock from side to side, so besides the bizarre state of the cook she’d seen, which she then further blamed on just waking up, she assumed that maybe they were pulled into port. Then though, the Sailor way of thinking kicked in and she panicked, wondering if she was late for a watch or muster of some sort.
In the main passageway there was a door labeled “Electrical Division Office” and she opened it after fumbling with the combination, but to her surprise, it was starkly empty. Everything was neatly in its place, and the blue rubber matting was pristine and shiny, and had a brand new plasticky scent to it. Even inside the drawers of the grey filing cabinets along the wall were freshly stocked with unopened rolls of black electrical tapes in their plastic packaging. She picked up the phone and decided to dial all the shops, but no one answered. She even dialed down to the engine rooms to where she knew the watch standers sat next to the phone but nothing.
What was more notable now to her was the deep shadows that didn’t budge as she approached them, as if she was watching the scenes from a security camera but instead she was in those scenes. All of the lights in the hangar bay were dimmed out, and only the moonlight from the serene, creepily still ocean shone in through the open side doors of the ship. The ocean outside was contrastingly peaceful to how queasy and mortified she felt right now, and she stepped to the platform past the flight deck elevators to observe the moon that extended from the hull to the distant horizon. The waters glowed on their own mysteriously in crystal clear emerald and celadon.
“It looks like we’re gonna be dead in the water for a good while,” a familiar voice said behind her.
Regina was a bit jumpy but not frightened, as it sounded like it was one of her electricians. She turned around and indeed, was one of her mentees and friends, a young male in his mid-twenties named Jay Wellington. He was tall, impressively built, and had short dark blonde hair and clear topaz eyes. His lips curled into a genuine smile when he looked upon her, a small, thin female with medium black hair and amber eyes large and innocent despite her seniority to him.
“Nice to see you at this time of night, EM1. We were all wondering about you,”
Her brows furrowed in confusion trying to decipher what he was saying.
“What do you mean? How can we be dead in the water when some of the power in the mess deck and berthing is still on?”
“You should come down to the shop to relax. You worry too much,”
With that, Wellington walked off into the darkness to the opposite side of the hangar bay. She turned away from him and looked out once more at the horizon. Out from the corner of her eye ahead, there was something the color of liquid black ink slithering by, and then whatever it was dived back into the water. Not wanting to psyche herself out, she told herself that it was probably a whale passing by. She went in the direction that Wellington had, and she made her way down the two ladders leading to the Distribution Shop. There was a single, working light fixture that glowed red from darken ship, which shouldn’t have been that way below decks, but she left it alone.
Nothing could have prepared her for what she saw next as soon as she entered the shop. She came to find everything that was touchable covered in a fine white dust. Mounds and mounds of the stuff covered the desks, flat surfaces, the walls, and the deck. It floated in the air as dense particles and had a burnt smell to it. Ash. It was ash. Her breathing became heavy as her heart rate accelerated, and against her gut feeling she walked to the back. Her hands cupped her face when she saw the sprawled, dead bodies of Wellington and two others of her comrades lying on the floor and covered with the ashy film. Frantically, she touched them and tried vainly to revive them with light slaps, but it was too late. They had been dead for a good while, though they weren’t decomposing. They were just incredibly stiff and cold, like jerky out of a freezer.
“I just saw this kid, he was alive! This has got to be a dream,” she said aloud to herself.
There was a note left atop the ash and rubble written in black ink on a ripped-out sheet from a steno pad addressed to her. It read,
“To EM1 Brighton. The shadow creatures took their lives. Don’t let them take our memory,”
Shadow creatures? Regina ran out of the shop and practically flew up the stairs with tears in her eyes and screaming in panic. Upon reaching the hangar bay, she dropped to her knees and her tears hit the non-skid floor. The ship suddenly rocked sharply to the port side and she fell back against the wall. After recovering her footing, she ran towards the growing shadow she could see approaching the hangar doors, and soon wished that she didn’t, because there awaited a monster that resembled an inky blob and it towered over the ship, reaching past the masts. It growled to announce itself, revealing pearl white teeth and the blood red inside of its mouth.
“Holy fucking shit!” Regina exclaimed.
She felt her legs weaken with having the wits scared out if her, and she was swept away by a black wave of dizziness that overcame her. Relief flooded her within when she awoke, wrapped up in satin sheets on the comforting bed of the vampire, but when she reached over to touch him, he wasn’t by her side anymo
re. Slightly, she panicked again and rose up to go looking for him throughout his residence.
In secret, Enttu had met up with Vittorio alone together in the coffee shop on the same street they had the demonic encounter of some other slithering dimension a few nights ago. It was about 7 P.M. and the daylight had tucked itself a way, lending a gunmetal sky to the dusk. He learnt that Radu, Marc’s older sibling, was inside of the power plant during the fire, and Vittorio in exchange learnt that the pillar he saw nearby the plant was responsible for a unleash of demons from a place known as the Lower Astral Planes.
“If you don’t believe what I’m telling you, call your cousin Ophelia. I’ve known her for several decades now. She is a descendant of Raphael Celentano, the little boy I rescued back in 1894 from the beasts that began to show face on Earth since then. I still can’t figure out why these things are coming back. But the last thing I wanted to do was to endanger you all. And that’s unfortunately, all I’ve done. It’s part of the reason I quit the police force. I need not another drop of innocent blood on my hands,” Enttu went on, through sips of tea.
It was the only human foodstuff he could keep down, besides alcohol, and rarely, steak about once a month.
“Stefan, you’ve never given me a reason to doubt you, brother. I’ve seen those horrific things with you, and my blood line might be in part to blame. Don’t tell me you never knew that I am a warlock. Even the department doesn’t know. Even Marc doesn’t know. Not even my dear wife. Why do you think your vampiric condition doesn’t bother me in the least bit?”
The dhampir stared at him disconcerted, with raised eyebrows.
“I knew already, Vittorio. You underestimate how much I learn about people. I’m a little older than you, don’t forget.”
“Well, your youthful looks deceive. You’re still almost like a son to me, and I would never think less of you. What’s going to become of all of us, Enttu? I think I was fired earlier today for refusing to go investigate a burning power plant possibly full of ghouls from another dimension that you know Marc and I are no match for,”
“You did the right thing Vittorio. If you wish, I can go talk some sense into that foolish man. He is a prick.”
“Not necessary, kid. Why don’t you come down to our little citadel and let’s plan another Cold Iron show at the Coffin?”
The dhampir looked sideways and hesitated, thinking about how Regina would fare to all this. Never mind, he’d buy her something nice and bring her along.
“I’m going to bring someone if you don’t mind,” Enttu added in.
His arms crossed on over the other as he slouched forward on the booth table. A group of young hipster females came into the coffee shop and noticed him and Celentano, and then they giggled to themselves.
“Isn’t he the lead singer of that local band? You should go get his autograph Roxana!”
One stumbling teenager that possessed bowlegged twigs for legs emerging from a high waisted denim skirt clunked her creeper heels over towards them and poorly attempted to cajole the two men into signing her chest, as well as a black and white flyer with their band’s logo. Vittorio mean mugged her, radiating such an energy that could be read from a mile away to stay the fuck away from him. The brown-haired teen was more drawn to the dhampir, who’s face rested listlessly on his hand. He shook his head sideways, kind of trying to intimate a “no.” Yet the girl kept insisting and she even went as far as grabbing him unexpectedly by his wrist, to which he adversely reacted and pulled away. A flash of electric blue filled his eyes and his brows plunged in fury.
“Bateti copacul rau. Du-te dracu!” Enttu cursed at the girl through glowing eyes.
It was enough to frighten her and then make all the girls leave the coffee shop. The two men high-fived each other, and this was the first time in a while that Vittorio saw the more human side of his friend come out of its shell.
“I’d love to meet whoever she is, Enttu. You’ve been, more boisterous lately. And that’s a good thing,”
They waved goodbye to each other and agreed to meet up in a few hours, past the time when everyone goes to bed. Sleep eluded everyone on the Supernatural Unit, especially since their undead spokesman didn’t rely much on sleep save for cat naps. He drove by a market to pick up a bouquet of red roses to surprise his woman with but made sure he concealed himself by tying his hair in a loose ponytail and wearing sunglasses inside of a store at night. No one would hopefully question him, and he could even pretend he was blind if he wanted to! He walked into the store with black aviators on and began to feel his way through the aisles, until he stumbled his way to the flowers kept in a refrigerated storage. He paid 30 Euros without receiving any prolonged stares nor anyone talking to him. It was about 45 past the hour when he arrived, and he found his black-haired lover in the corner of his office.
She jumped in his arms and was beyond happy to see him and to speak of her nightmare. He kissed her softly with his tender rosy lips, and he handed her the oversized bouquet of perfumed, blood red roses of velvety petals and bright green stems with the thorns removed. His eyes filled with concern when he sensed something was wrong by the worried look on her face.
“You had another nightmare, didn’t you?”
Regina nodded, “I dreamt of my old ship. Everything was too still. Do you know what silence sounds like? That was my dream. And all my friends I was stationed with there were dead. Alive one minute, and then dead the next. Why do I keep having these dreams even after you turned me?”
“Your psychic abilities are being greatly enhanced after you drank my own blood. Some of the dreams you have are your own visions. I have never set foot inside a naval vessel. I can only assume those visions are your own at that point. Whatever happened to us the night before might also have plenty to do with it. Remember that you are a witch and not just a vampire.”
“What do you mean by visions?”
“Forget I said that. I don’t want to worry you. Can you be ready in an hour? I want to take you out somewhere. Wear something sophisticated,”
“I already cleaned up,” Regina sighed, “give me about twenty.”
He had to conceal it from her, but Enttu was just as much in a mental haze as she was, if not, even more, trying to solve the mystery of the emergence of evil again. For countless decades it seemed to have tucked itself away after he broke contact with the Goddess Selene when he went on his blood-drunk vendetta that was at its all-time high in the 1940’s during the Nazi Regime. This wasn’t even the start of his holy murders, he had avenged the deaths of his Selenian coven beforehand, starting with the murder of his wife. In the year 2007-2014, he begun a string of vigilante-style killings in which he tortured, maimed, and killed pedophiles and drug traffickers. Celentano and Mocanu never knew this about him until late 2017, but to his surprise, not an intimation of disturbance was ever shown nor felt, even psychically. His lover came down in about the same timeframe she said she would take, and she was a stunning goddess, embodying what a streetwise queen of darkness would look like.
She chose a simple black velvet shift dress that hit mid-thigh, short sleeved and with a mandarin style lace collar, and wore patent black, red-bottom pumps, and a long black satin duster with a red silk lining. Her arms were adorned with elbow-length black lace gauntlets. Her jewelry was simple gold diamond earrings. Makeup was red gloss and copious amounts of black mascara. He loved her like this, almost effortlessly beautiful, as much as he didn’t mind if she wore even more or less makeup. She was perfect to him. He escorted her to his shimmery black Subaru WRX and then he got in the driver’s side of the vehicle after he texted Vittorio that he’d be on his way soon. This was too good to be true, evidently a given from the bizarre shit that came from associating with the undead.
“I just want you to relax tonight. There is a bottle of wine for you in the backseat just in case you become bored with our ‘guy talk’” Enttu told her between q
uotations, as he shifted from 2nd to 3rd gear on the road.
“Who are we going to go see that you need me inebriated?” she coquettishly inquired, while touching a fingertip to her lips.
“I simply want for you to ease your mind. I will stay near you to guard you. It’s a guarantee that a beautiful woman like you is going to looked upon with lustful stares. However, I don’t want the stress of what you’ve experienced get to you so severely that you wish to burn to death under daylight. I couldn’t bear the thought of it. I mean well,” he elucidated.
“There’s no way we can get blood instead? You weren’t kidding about the serious craving for blood. It can get a hold of you,”
“I’ve learned to control mine. If you chase it with alcohol, it helps immensely, because it relaxes all your systems overall, but mainly your parasympathetic which sends and receives signals from your circulatory system’s deficit of red blood cells which we metabolize due to the vampirism virus we’re either born with or infected by. In turn sends response stimuli that we translate as cravings,”
“How do you know so much about this matter?”
“For one, I’m a vampire. Though the correct term for myself is a dhampir, I’m half human because of my mother. She was turned after my younger sister was born. Secondly, I studied Vampire and Dhampir physiology and anatomy back in the 1800’s. Nothing much has changed. We’re literally born sick.”
Regina listened attentively whilst staring outside to the road ahead and watched slanting rain fall. It was a pleasant change to weather-less, sunny California, as she was a pluviophile.
“Besides, I keep a cooler in my trunk full of blood packs. Trust me, any vampire would be foolish not to,” Enttu added in. Subconsciously, she blocked him out and his words seemed like a great undefinable stir. He stopped talking when he felt that she was ignoring him, and sulked internally, and played some industrial gothic metal from his phone to go off into his own world
They finally arrived at their destination, at an empty, three-story brick building in downtown Bucharest. The Subaru crept into a subterranean parking lot with forty parking spaces, but only 2 were taken up, a red Ferrari, and a gunmetal colored Mercedes C250 coupe. They pulled up right next to these two cars. Enttu must have driven the humblest car out of all three, and it was still a very impressive vehicle with sporty streetwise edges and detail. The rear spoiler wing added sass to the car. He escorted her out of the car, and they walked towards an elevator in the basement lot that led up to the third floor.
The Dhampir Dimension Page 35