Bill The Vampire - 01

by Rick Gualtieri

  After dragging the corpse into the kitchen (damn thing was starting to creep me out), I spent the next several hours asleep on the couch.

  Waking up to a face as pretty as Sally's is a dream most men have. Waking up to that face yelling, “Get up, dipshit!”... not so much. I can only imagine how many speech writers bemoaned the loss of such an eloquent orator when she decided to become a stripper.

  “Come on, wake up!” she again yelled.

  “Okay, okay, I'm up,” I finally muttered.

  “You sleep like the freaking dead.” (Well, duh!)

  “What's the emergency?” I asked.

  “Most of the coven is usually awake by now. Gives us all time to get dressed, do our hair, put on makeup... you know. So we're all ready in time for sundown.”

  “Sorry, left my eyeliner back in Brooklyn,” I grumbled.

  “Just as long as you didn't leave your deodorant. (Bitch!) My point is that some of the others, particularly Jeff, could be popping in soon. I want to have one more surprise for them. Follow me.”

  I got up and followed her to the bathroom door. “Punch it,” she ordered.

  “Why?”

  “Because it was looking at me funny,” she sarcastically quipped with another eye roll. “Just do it!”

  Okay, whatever. I pulled my arm back and did as I was told. My hand collided with the door with a meaty thud.

  “What the fuck was that?” she snapped. “I said to punch it, not give it a little ass-slap. Like this!” She turned to the door and let loose with a right jab that left a fist sized dent in it.

  I looked more closely at the damage she had done and asked, “Is this metal?”

  “Yeah, it's a security door.”

  “Why do you have a security door on the bathroom?”

  Another fucking eye roll! I swear there was going to be a head shaped dent in the door in about thirty seconds. “Isn't it obvious?” she asked. “Sometimes the larder in the basement is full. We use this in case we need to lock up any refreshments.”

  Great. A bathroom/meat locker combo: just what every apartment in SoHo needs.

  “Now smash the shit out of it!” she continued. “They'll be able to tell if I did it. Your hands are bigger.”

  “Let me guess. You locked yourself in the bathroom last night to escape my evil wrath.”

  “See? You are learning.” She suddenly started patting my head. “Who's a good boy?”

  I decided to focus my annoyance on the door. I tensed up and then started to rain blow after blow on it. By the time I was done, it looked like I had made a fairly frenzied effort to break in. When I stepped back to admire my handiwork (damn, I kill me), I realized Sally had dragged the corpse back out of the kitchen and dropped it next to me.

  “This next part's gonna get a little messy,” she said, grinning at me.

  Suffice it to say, she was right. A few minutes of swinging the dead body violently against the door left the place looking like something out of a horror movie. Sally tore up her dress from the night before and tossed it into the pile of gore to complete the effect. Anyone walking in out of context would think that a freaking grizzly bear had attempted to tear its way into the bathroom. I'm pretty sure that was the plan.

  About fifteen minutes after we finished, we heard sounds on the stairs.

  Sally quickly turned to me, said, “Sorry about this!” and then slashed her nails down the side of my face. Fuck! It felt like she had steak knives on the ends of her fingers. What is it with people maiming the shit out of me lately? Before I could protest, she ducked inside the bathroom and locked the blood-splattered, half-broken door.

  Without thinking, I ran over and started pounding on the door. “You fucking bitch! I'm gonna rearrange your fucking face!” I screamed, which is apparently what she wanted, as, right there and then, the front door opened and in stepped Night Razor, followed by Firebird, Starlight, Dread Stalker (it's like the retarded Justice League) and two other male vampires whose stupid comic book names I didn't know.

  I stopped my attack on the door and stared at them. They, in turn, were frozen in place, trying to take everything in. It must have been quite the scene to make a pack of apex predators just stand there, looking aghast. It was Sally who ended the moment. Before anyone could say anything, the bathroom door flew open (catching me in the face in the process and nearly dumping me on my ass). Sally came running out, covered in gore, and wearing nothing but a bloody towel.

  She threw herself at Night Razor's feet and just started whimpering, “Thank god! Thank god!” I'll give credit where credit is due. She was pretty damn convincing, even to me.

  Night Razor narrowed his eyes at me. Whether or not he bought the little scene in front of us, he was at least smart enough to know that it would make him look bad to act like it. He simply nodded toward Starlight and Firebird and said,

  “Get her cleaned up.” When neither of them moved, he added a little compulsion to his voice, “DO IT!” That was good. If he needed to use mind tricks to get them to move, it said that they were pretty well freaked.

  They gathered Sally up and slowly helped her toward the bedroom. As they passed by me, the redhead, Firebird, spat,

  “You... inhuman animal!” and just as quickly averted her eyes.

  Sensing an opportunity, I sneered and said, “Keep talking, baby. I like my food a little spicy.” She gasped and moved to drag Sally (who couldn't quite stop herself from giving me another eye roll... must resist urge to really kill the bitch) a little more quickly toward the bedroom.

  Despite outnumbering me four to one, only Night Razor dared to step forward. He stepped up and we stared at each other, eye to eye. Yeah, he could cream me into pulp if he wanted to, but I couldn't let him know that in front of the others.

  “When are we going out?” I asked with an even voice. “Because I'm still hungry.”

  * * *

  “You owe me a fucking door!” was the first thing Jeff said to me as we set out alone into the Manhattan night life.

  “Bill me,” I shot back.

  “I'll do better than that. Just one more thing I'll be taking out of your ass just as soon as Ozymandias is off my case.”

  “If you think you can,” I said, feeling the last of my tough guy persona starting to drain away.

  “You can cut the shit now!” he suddenly rounded on me. “I don't know how you've managed to get Sally running scared, but we both know you're full of it.”

  “If you say so,” I said, getting the distinct feeling my voice was going to start cracking any minute now. Amongst the crowd I was safe. Out here, alone with the guy who both killed me and shortly thereafter beat the snot out of me, I wasn't feeling so good. This is about the time my battlemage would throw down a smoke illusion and run for the hills.

  “Just a week ago,” he snarled, “you were this scared little rabbit who wouldn't even make a kill. Yes, Starlight told me about that. And now, just a few days later... bam... suddenly you're the big bad fucking wolf. Sounds a little too convenient to me.”

  I said nothing. I didn't trust my voice to come out without sounding like a whine. Besides which, silence can be a good thing. Let him form his own conclusions. Maybe, despite all his bluster, he, too, had a shred of doubt about me.

  “And that's why I brought this,” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out one of those mini HD camcorders I've seen in Best Buy. “You better shed a lot of blood tonight, because the second you come across as anything other than a complete beast, your little house of cards is gonna come tumbling down. You might as well call yourself Dr. Dead.”

  Okay, so maybe there wasn't much doubt there, after all. Shit! Who would have thought vampires would go all high tech? That's a bit of a mind scramble. This was going to require a bit of luck to pull off.

  * * *

  I seriously did not fit in with this crowd. I'm actually surprised the bouncer let me in at all. From the looks of the people grinding on the dance floor, I was some combination of to
o un-cool, too poor, and too uncoordinated to be here. Judging from some of the tittering conversations my overly acute vamp-ears picked up, I may have been a tad too intelligent, as well. Ye gods, what a vacuous crowd. The club's name was Vicarious, a fitting moniker, considering the looks of things. It was situated pretty far uptown, almost on the fringe of areas of the city where one might traditionally avoid walking alone after dark. Of course, a good chunk of that was overplayed by people from out of town. The city was a lot safer these days than it had been just a few short years ago. Even so, safer or not, I still personally wouldn't hang out near some areas of the Bronx at night minus a small army of friends.

  I was not overly surprised at Jeff's choice of hunting ground. It was far enough away from the coven's base of operations so that it wouldn't be too obvious where any attacks originated from (although Sally had mentioned to me that the elders in any given area made it a point to keep the wheels of justice well greased so as to make sure a good deal of vampire related activity was either misdirected or went unsolved). The club was also an ideal place, in that the crowd was mostly young, stupid, and hopped up on any of a number of drugs. On the way there, Night Razor explained to me, as if speaking to a slow-witted, socially inept child (I resented that first part at least), that it wouldn't be too hard to spot someone in a place like this who could easily be seduced to leave the club for darker areas. For most who fell into this category, it would probably be a few days before anyone thought to miss them.

  I, in turn, pointed out that maybe someone who looked like him could pull that off, but I was a bit rusty in the seduction department.

  “You are just all sorts of fucking pathetic, you know that?” he scoffed. “I know your type. Weak, scared of their own shadow, probably still living at home with your parents.”

  “I have my own place, thank you for asking.”

  “Okay, sorry. Please excuse me,” he mocked. “Let me guess, you live right upstairs from Mommy. Lets her still pack your lunchbox and wash your underwear. Am I right?”

  I tried to ignore his taunts, be the better man, but he apparently took my silence for affirmation, as he then said, “Yeah, I thought so. As I said, pathetic. It's almost not going to be worth the time it's going to take to rip your fucking spine out (okay, well at least that was a step closer to him not wanting to kill me), but I'm still going to.” (Or maybe not.)

  I tried not to show that his last statement had brought me a fair way along toward a complete panic attack, and, instead, gave him attitude right back.

  “This is all really fascinating. It’s good to know I don't need to pay for a therapist as long as I have you around. But it's kind of ignoring my original point,” I said, trying to steer him away from thoughts of brutally murdering me.

  He gave a contemptuous sigh, and said, “I can't believe you even need to ask this shit. You're a vampire now. A superior fucking being!” he looked at me from the corner of his eye, “In theory, anyway (fucking douchebag!). Still, there are plenty of ways you can seal the deal.”

  “Very well, enlighten me, oh, master of the night,” I snipped.

  “For starters, there's compulsion. It doesn't work as well as it does between us... or most of us. Usually, though, a vampire can plant a suggestion in the mind of a weak-willed human, if they concentrate enough and are of sufficient skill and power. But since you have neither (fuck you!), I guess that's out of the question. Relying on charm and charisma is probably also out for you.”

  “It's great to hear about all the ways I'm not going to score. Really, it is. But how about something that might help me?”

  “You could show them your fangs,” he answered. “Some girls still go nuts for that Twilight bullshit. There is, however, one method that never fails, even for someone like you.” He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small vial which he then tossed to me. I held it up and examined the contents, a fine white powder.

  “You want me to coke them up?” I asked incredulously.

  “They don't call it whore bait for nothing.”

  * * *

  The second we entered the club, Jeff ditched me - so much for this being a father/son outing. Of course, before doing so, he warned that the next time he saw me, I better be covered in blood. Wonderful! But when in a meat market, it’s best to get shopping.

  Okay, so that turned out to be easier said than done. My first few attempts to strike up a conversation were met with me being completely ignored. My third was a bit better. I got laughed at when I tried to show off my fangs, but better reaction than indifference, I suppose. Guess I don't look effeminate enough for that one to work. It was then that I spotted a girl sitting alone at the bar. She was a cute, petite thing in a white dress that left little to the imagination (including that she was either chilly or sitting under an A/C vent). Most importantly, judging from the empty shot-glasses in front of her, she looked to be pretty well on her way to Margaritaville.

  I approached her and tried to think of the best way to strike up a conversation. In the end, however, I couldn't come up with anything appropriately smooth sounding. So, I opted instead to just dangle the vial of drugs in front of her face and say,

  “Hey. I got coke.” Okay, so maybe there's some small part of me that can understand all of Sally's eye rolls.

  Credit where credit is due, Jeff was right. Her eyes immediately lit up at the sight. She gave me a naughty little grin and licked her lips. “You thinking maybe a blow for a little blow?” she purred. Damn, and to think I've wasted the last decade or so trying to actually talk to women. I was about to respond with something appropriately cool like, “okay,” when I saw her eyes go wide at the sight of something behind me.

  “What the fuck do you think you're doing?” I heard an angry voice growl. “You macking on my woman, asshole?”

  I spun around and came face to face with the owner of the voice. He was an ugly son of a bitch, with a shaved head and several bad tattoos running up and down his tightly muscled arms. Twenty-four years of instinct came into play and I immediately tried backing down.

  “Sorry, man. Just a mistake,” I said as I tried to slip the drugs back into my pocket.

  However, the girl, proving that all women are sisters in that they all share a gene that lets them become instant bitches, decided to 'help' the situation along.

  “This fucker was trying to slip me something, Mike,” she said in an accusing voice. Oh, shit.

  “Oh, yeah?” growled Mike, balling his hands into fists. “Trying to slip my girl some X? Probably only way a faggot like you is gonna get laid.”

  I was about to try the old “I don't want no trouble, pal” routine to weasel my way out of this, when I suddenly remembered. I'm a goddamn, supernatural creature of the night. Why should I be taking shit from anyone? I could take apart this whole place with my bare hands if I wanted to.

  I decided to play it tough.

  “Back off, fuckface!” I sneered. Oh, yeah, this felt good. “Your bitch is a lying little slut. Before you came back, she was practically begging for my dick,” I said as I got in his face. I could get used to this alpha dog thing.

  We both made a move at the same time. I was faster. I was stronger.

  Unfortunately, he was better.

  Several years back, I saw this movie called Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires. It was a low budget flick that pitted kung-fu masters against vampires. Here were these karate guys kicking the ever (un)living shit out of a pack of vampires who had ravaged the land. At the time, I had laughed. Maybe I shouldn't have.

  Before I knew it, I was immobilized in an arm lock, and my face was being repeatedly smashed into the top of the bar. I was just starting to see a head shaped dent appear in it, when I felt multiple sets of arms grab hold of me. Security had arrived to save me. Of course, by save me, I mean drag my ass to the exit and toss me out into the street. Well, that could have gone better. Figures that the one time I try to pick a fight, it turns out to be with someone who could do a re
asonable impersonation of Chuck 'the iceman' Liddell.

  I could feel whatever damage had been done to my face already starting to heal, so I picked myself up and hurried away. No way was I about to sit there and wait for Jeff's laughing face (and camcorder) to catch up with me. As it was, I very much doubted he had missed my unceremonious exit from the club. Hopefully, he hadn't also captured it on tape. If so, I could count on a lot of bad times in my foreseeable future.