“We're not in high school,” I pointed out.
“And you have to admit you're probably a little vulnerable right now,” Tom jumped in with a condescending tone. “I've been dating Christy. Ed asked out your uber hot sidekick. No one would blame you for feeling a little inadequate after your little failure to ask out that prospect from your office.”
I turned to Ed. “You told him?”
“How could I not?” Ed replied with a shrug.
“My god, I’m surrounded by assholes,” I said, putting my head in my hands.
* * *
They let me wallow in my own misery, standup guys that they were, for a few minutes before Ed changed the subject. “I think we're overlooking something major here. Forgetting Bill's imaginary orgies for a second, what the hell would be ballsy enough to take on a bunch of pissed off vampires? That's the part that worries me. If there's something nastier out there than your buddies, Bill, I'd sure as shit like to know about it.”
“No idea,” I said, eager to move away from any further mental torment, lest my roommates eventually convince me that the whole thing happened only in my mind. Fuck them and their Vulcan mind tricks!
“Did you see whatever it was?”
“Only glimpses,” I replied. “Whatever they were, they were big motherfuckers.”
“Werewolves?” asked Tom.
“Nah. I don't think so,” I answered. “Besides, didn't Sally say werewolves were just make believe?”
“She could've lied,” he countered, a little defensively. “I don't know about you, but it just doesn't seem fair to live in a world where vampires exist and werewolves don't. I mean, if there's no war between the vamps and the lycans, then there's no reason for Kate Beckinsale to run around in skintight leather.”
“Girlfriend or not, you really need to get out more,” Ed replied.
“And yet you both dare to pity me,” I pointed out before getting back on track. “No, let's assume Sally wasn't bullshitting us...at least this once. That still leaves us with something really nasty out there. Whatever it was, it wasn't human - and it sure as shit wasn't afraid of vampires.”
“Why can't supernatural monsters ever be friendly?” Tom asked.
“Tell me about it,” I agreed. “I'd just about give my left kidney to meet Casper and find out he was an honest to goodness friendly ghost.”
“Did this Khan guy...” Ed said, and then immediately held up his hand to Tom, “no Trek jokes. Save it for later.” He then turned back to me. “Did the Khan give you anything on them?”
“He wasn't all that talkative. Not a whole lot of deep meaningful conversation coming out of that one...unless you speak Mongolian, that is.”
“What about from your buddy Ozymandias?” Ed continued.
“James? No. He was a little evasive. Said I didn't need to know, that I was safe in the city...oh wait! I think he called them something.”
“What?”
“Not sure,” I replied. “I was kind of busy shitting my pants at the time. What the fuck did he call them?” I thought about it for a second. “It was something that started with an A, I think.”
“Alligator?” Tom chimed in. “Maybe the vampires are warring with the alligator people.”
I sighed, turning to him. “You know, you might want to give a warning to your new girlfriend. She might want to avoid trying to fuck your brains out, since you already have a major deficiency in that department.”
“Let's concentrate here,” said Ed. “A...what, Bill?”
“No idea.”
“Maybe we should get the dictionary,” Ed suggested. “We could start going through the A's for anything that sounded threatening.”
“You're out of your mind,” replied Tom. “We do that, and we'll be up all fucking night.”
“All!” I suddenly shot out.
“All what?”
“It was all-something,” I said, trying to concentrate. “Give me a second. It's right on the tip of my tongue. All...all...alma! I think he called them the alma.”
“What the fuck's an alma?” asked Ed.
“Sounds like a fat chick name,” said Tom, rather unhelpfully.
“I'm pretty sure the vampires weren't attacked by a pack of fat chicks.”
“Maybe they heard that vampires were made of cake,” Tom replied with a dickheaded smirk.
I turned back to Ed. “Let's ignore him now, shall we?”
“Gladly. Well, it's not much to go on, but I guess we can look into it,” Ed said, and then yawned. “But maybe tomorrow. I don't know about you guys, but I'm kind of beat.”
“Sally took that much out of you?”
“Heh,” Ed chuckled. “When you're dating a girl like her, you tend to overanalyze even the smallest of things. You know, stuff like will she rip my arm out of its socket if I try to hold her hand? It makes for a slightly more stressful than average evening.”
Attack of the Mighty Mongolian Monsters
The thing about phantom, non-immediate threats is that they tend to be easily distracted from. Thus our research into giant vampire-hating beasts was almost immediately derailed by our normal everyday activities, be that as they may. A quick check of my email the next morning provided me with the realization that I’d missed several days of work without bothering to let anybody know. I may be an immortal creature of the night, but I was young enough that the fear of unemployment was still ingrained into my mind. I thus kicked my ass into high gear and dove straight into work, all thoughts of Mongolian mist monsters forgotten.
My roommates must have also gotten back to tending to their lives because we didn't speak of it again, at least not for the time being. Fortunately for me, I was still technically on my vampirecation, thus between my nights being free (yeah, yeah, I don't need to be reminded of how pathetic that is) and my enhanced vampiric typing speed, I was able to catch up to my workload in just a few days and maybe even push a little bit ahead of schedule.
In some ways, those few days were kind of nice. Aside from my powers and tendency to drench all my food in blood, I actually felt kind of normal. It was relaxing.
Needless to say, it didn't last.
On Thursday night, I got a somewhat frantic call from Sally. Tom was out with Christy again, and Ed was off puttering around somewhere. It was probably for the best, as they'd no doubt want to tag along on any adventures I was stupid enough to find myself in. Anyway, my phone rang, and Sally's voice greeted me.
“I think you need to get over here,” she said.
“What - no hello, how are you?”
“We don't have time for this crap, Bill.”
“We never just talk anymore,” I said with a fake sigh and then smiled. Regardless of the urgency, it felt good to have Sally on the receiving end for a change. “OK, so what's up?”
“There's something here!”
“Define something and here.”
She mumbled something under her breath before continuing. I didn't catch it, but I would have bet money that there was also an accompanying eye-roll. “I'm here outside of the office. Something just burst in a little while ago, and all hell broke loose. Whatever it is, it's been calling your name.”
“My name?” I asked. Oh, here comes that sinking feeling again.
“Yes, your name.”
“Did you see what it was?” I asked into the receiver.
There was a pause. “No, I...”
“You what?”
“Fine! As soon as the ruckus started, I got out of there.”
“Nice display of leadership there, MacArthur,” I quipped.
“Fuck you.”
“I knew one day you'd beg me for it.” Hot damn, I was loving this. Although if something had Sally frazzled, then perhaps now might not be the best time to enjoy rubbing it in. Ah, fuck it! I could help out and enjoy Sally's discomfort at the same time. “OK, aside from running away, have you done anything?”
“I sent Brian and Dusk Reaper in to see if they could root it out,” sh
e answered, no doubt swallowing whatever venom she wanted to hurl at me.
“And?”
“And Dusk Reaper came back out...or ran back out. Brian didn't.” Shit! I was kind of hoping it would have been Dusk Reaper who bought it. That guy was a serious douchebag. Yeah, I know, horrible thing to say, but true...so sue me.
“Alright I'm heading over. Try to barricade the door until I get there,” I said.
“Way ahead of you, boss,” she said and hung up.
Just great! A rampaging beast was just dandy all in and of itself. A rampaging beast that knew my name - well, that was...actually, that wasn't particularly surprising. I had almost started to expect things like this to happen. Weird. That still didn't solve the mystery of what was causing chaos in the coven's office, but it took the edge off a bit.
I paused for a moment before leaving, very much considering borrowing the shotgun that Ed kept stashed under his bed. He had appropriated it back when we had to deal with Jeff. It had served him well in that ordeal, assuming you consider blowing the head off our geriatric former neighbor to be a check in the win column. Poor Mrs. Caven. She was an old, frail, and nosy-as-all-hell senior citizen who had lived downstairs from us. Jeff kidnapped her, wrongly assuming her to be my mother, and had subsequently turned her into a bloodthirsty monster. We had attempted to rescue her but had been too late to do anything more than put her down for good.
Oh well, no use crying over spilled milk.
Considering I had half a city and several trains to traverse before reaching my destination, I decided against the gun. It was almost a pity to do so. Note to self: talk to Sally about stocking a small arsenal on coven premises. Actually, scratch that. Now that I think about it, the words Sally and arsenal in the same sentence kind of give me the heebie-jeebies.
I thus grabbed my jacket, and, armed only with my wits, headed off to save the day...hopefully.
* * *
I arrived at the office about an hour later, which, all things considered, was a pretty good pace. Although thinking about breaking my midtown commuting record was probably something I shouldn’t have been worrying about right at that moment in time. But hey, sometimes it's the little victories that really matter.
I walked up to our floor and came upon Sally, Dusk Reaper, and a few other assorted coven members standing outside the main doors.
“Where the fuck have you been?” hissed Sally. She was clearly having a bit of a stressful day. I didn't make it any better.
“Nice to see you, too. Sorry; I would have been here sooner, but I had a brief moment of sanity in which I had to question the wisdom of facing an unknown monster that’s been shouting my name. Fortunately for you, it didn't last.” Sally wasn't so stressed so as to spare me the eye-roll I knew was coming from that one. The pleasantries finished, I continued. “So did any of you see anything?”
“I did,” answered Dusk Reaper.
On the train, I had some time to think about what might be after me and thus had a theory. Not sure how it would have gotten here. Then again, a few months ago I didn't even believe in vampires. So who was I to say what was and wasn't possible? “Let me guess,” I said to Dipshit Reaper, “about nine feet tall, built like a bulldozer, and screams a lot?”
“No,” he replied.
“No?” OK, that was unexpected. Not that I should be all that sad about it. Facing off against a creature that had almost turned my rib cage into paste wasn't exactly número uno on my priority list. “What did it look like then?” I asked with a little uncertainty.
“I'm not sure,” Dusk Reaper said. “It was too fast to get a good look at. I think it was pretty small, but I've never seen anything move like that. It was like this tiny little whirlwind. It went after Brian before I could even think of doing anything, and...”
“And you ran like a pussy,” I finished. Dusk Reaper had been one of Jeff's supporters, just not a particularly brave one; however, I made it a point to assert my position as alpha dog to him at every turn, just in case he ever got any bright ideas.
“So what do you think?” asked Sally.
“Tasmanian Devil?” I offered unhelpfully.
“Well, then you get to be Bugs Bunny, especially since it was calling for you,” she replied.
“It knew my name?”
“Dr. Death,” said a female voice to my left. I turned to meet it. It was one of the younger coven members (aside from me). Eliza, I think her name was. I didn't know her too well, other than she was one of the conscripts who helped man Sally's suicide hotline scheme.
“What was that?” I said, turning to her. I can't say I minded doing so. Much like all of the other women in the coven, she wasn't exactly hard on the eyes.
“It was calling for Dr. Death,” she answered.
Hmmm, aside from James and the occasional mocking by Sally, nobody called me that anymore (my subconscious aside). James didn't exactly fit the definition of tiny, and Sally was standing right here.
“Alright, let's do this, I guess,” I said and then turned to Sally. “Are you in?”
“I’ve got your six,” she replied.
She unlocked the door and held it open. I had no more than crossed the threshold when it slammed shut behind me and I heard it being locked. Somehow, I was not surprised. Maybe I should’ve been nicer on the phone.
The place looked like a bomb had gone off in it. Papers were everywhere, desks were overturned, and there was a man-sized hole in the wall with a pile of dust in front of it...no doubt Brian's last stand. Dusk Reaper was right. It did look like a mini tornado hit this place.
Speaking of which, I should have been paying attention for the perpetrator instead of making a mental checklist for the cleanup. While I was busy observing the damage, something slammed into my back and drove me to the floor.
“FOR THE LAST TIME...” a shrill voice screamed. Strong hands grabbed me and flipped me over. It jumped on top of me, and a small, familiar face filled my vision. “BRING ME...oh, Dr. Death. It is finally you!”
“Gan!?”
* * *
“Open the fucking door, Sally!” I shouted from the other side. “I have your monster.”
“Did you get it?” she called back.
“Yeah, I got it,” and she was gonna get it for locking me in.
The door unlocked, and Sally opened it. The other vampires stood behind her, peering in with curious eyes. Goddamn, sometimes vampires can be such pussies.
“Did you kill it?” Sally asked.
“Not quite,” I replied, gesturing to the small girl standing next to me. “Sally, meet Gan. Gan, meet Sally.”
“Gan?” replied Sally, completely flummoxed.
“This is your whore, I presume?” Gan asked, looking up at me.
“What did you call me?” snapped Sally.
“A whore, obviously. A woman of status would never dress like that in my culture. What else could you be?” Gan asked matter of factly.
Sally turned beet red, which was really impressive considering her lack of a heartbeat. She looked like she was about to let fly with something, but I interrupted.
“Well then, now that the introductions are out of the way, what are...”
But Sally wasn't done yet. “What the hell did you think you were doing in there!?” she yelled at Gan, her courage apparently restored now that she had gotten a good look at the big bad monster.
Gan ignored her, continuing to look up at me as she replied, “Your whore is insolent. You should whip her.”
“She'd probably like that,” I said, which caused Sally to turn even redder. Soon, I'd be able to fry an egg on her forehead. “But Sally does have a point, Gan. Why were you wrecking the place?”
“Your servants did not immediately heed my command to bring you forth. Thus, I felt a lesson was in order.”
“You killed one of my coven members,” I pointed out.
“It is little matter. But I shall make you another if you wish.”
“That's quite OK. Maybe so
me other time,” I said quickly. I looked up and noticed that all the other vampires present were still gawking at us. I had lots of questions for her, but I neither needed nor wanted an audience. “OK, everyone, show's over. There's a lot of cleaning to do. Get to it before I let the rest of the coven know about this.”
There was some mild grumbling, but soon enough all of the vampires present, save for myself Gan and Sally, had gone back into the office to start the not-so-tiny task of cleaning up. In at least one way, Gan was no different than any other kid; she could make a hell of a mess with very little effort.
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