by M. D. Cooper
Vampy had to admit that Kitty had a point. She couldn’t imagine spending more time than was absolutely necessary on a world like this. That being said, people lived in all sorts of strange places throughout the galaxy. An arctic world barely rated notice.
“Well, maybe you should call me by my proper name,” Vampy said. “My nickname is a bit of a dead giveaway.”
“Jujubilee™?” Kitty asked.
“Kitty, no. The ‘TM’ is freaking weird, too. What about ‘Laaa’…” Vampy frowned as she tried to say her former name. “Laaaaa.”
“No dice,” Kitty replied. “I can’t say my old name, either. Not that I care to. I am The CatWoman™.”
Vampy rolled her eyes. “Yeah, you remind me hourly.” She considered her options—of which there were few good ones. “OK, how’s ‘Ju’?”
“ ‘Ju’?” Kitty turned and gave Vampy a narrow-eyed look. “That sounds like someone slurring the word ‘you’.”
“Got a better idea?”
“ ‘Juju’ or ‘Billie’. You pick.”
Vampy groaned. “Seriously? This sucks. How are we ever going to go undercover on an op again?”
Kitty shrugged. “I think it’s fun. Forces us to up our game.”
“My game was just fine. OK, I don’t want a name that sounds like a goat, so I’ll go for ‘Juju’. Sounds like candy. That’s more my style.”
“You got it, Juju.” Kitty pointed at a blue and pink sign hanging out over the walkway. “Look, this place is called ‘The Lady’. Just our kind of joint!”
Vampy suspected that ‘The Lady’ catered to people with amorous intent, but trying to explain that to Kitty—who had spent a decade thinking that ancient pilots preferred to dress like dominatrices—would be the very definition of futile.
However, seeing whatever went on at The Lady would be far better than wandering the town’s cold and empty streets, or going back to the Van.
“Sure.”
“Woohoo!” Kitty exclaimed and skipped down the street, tail waving in the air behind her.
She reached the establishment’s entrance and beckoned for Vampy to catch up. Vampy sighed, but didn’t pick up her pace.
She didn’t exactly know why, but she suspected that it was because vampires really shouldn’t rush about. It ruined the whole mystique.
Kitty was almost hopping up and down by the time Vampy reached her, and held open the door. “C’mon, slowpoke, get in already.”
Inside lay a short hall bounded by another door—a prudent measure on such a cold planet. Vampy waited for Kitty to stomp the snow from her boots before pulling the second door open, only to be assaulted by a cacophony of sight and sound.
Given how dour and sedate everyone they’d passed on the street had appeared, Vampy hadn’t anticipated anything more than a bar with a few half-naked men and women waiting for someone with enough credit to take them up to a room.
What she hadn’t expected was a veritable circus.
The massive room was garishly painted, with bright lights sweeping back and forth, illuminating men and women navigating tightropes high overhead, while others swung on bars and flipped through the air, catching themselves on poles and sliding down them, some even landing in small pools of water.
On the ground floor, dancers twirled around the tables, while the patrons clapped along to the loud music being performed by a live band at the far end of the room.
As Vampy looked about, she saw more and more performers hanging from ropes, spinning high above, sitting in alcoves along the walls, or even walking on their hands across the bartop.
“OK,” Vampy admitted, taking in the sights. “This is pretty amazing—nothing like I expected.” She looked over to see that Kitty’s face was a mask of pure rapture.
“Take this,” Kitty said, handing her pistol to Vampy before running to a pole and shimmying up its length to a platform high above. From there, she leapt to a rope, and then to an alcove high on the wall.
She almost missed, and would have come crashing to the ground, but Vampy saw Kitty fully extend her claws, sinking them into the wall in order to pull herself up. Once in the alcove, she proceeded to lick the back of her hand as though the near miss had been her intention all along.
Vampy quickly tucked Kitty’s gun into her jacket, suddenly wondering whether or not the establishment frowned on armed patrons.
“Take your jacket?” a woman’s voice called out over the din.
Vampy looked over to see a coat check with a harried-looking woman inside. The room behind her was almost stuffed to the brim with massive parkas and jackets of all types.
“Uhh, no,” she replied, not wanting to turn in her coat while it had three handguns inside. Not to mention that she was certain the yellow jacket was somehow a part of her body, and the idea of being separated from it felt odd.
“Sorry, miss, it’s club policy. Everyone has to check their coats.”
Vampy resisted the urge to say it was a dumb policy, and slowly pulled off her coat, carefully folding it over her arm. “How’s this?”
“Sorry, I do have to take it,” the woman said, holding out her hand. “You’ll get a ticket to claim it later. I won’t lose it, I swear—hot outfit, by the way. You and your friend really like black.”
Vampy almost smiled, but then remembered her teeth. “Yeah, it’s our jam.”
A notion came to mind, and she twisted her jacket and tied it around her waist.
The woman was about to protest, when the yellow jacket—including the few, gun-shaped bulges in it—shrank down into a slim yellow belt.
“Holy crap!” the woman exclaimed. “That’s really cool! Where’d you get that?”
“New Eden,” Vampy shrugged nonchalantly, trying not to think of where the guns had disappeared to. “They’ve got a lot of cool shit there.”
“Wow…you’ve been to New Eden? I’ve never been anywhere.”
“Well,” Vampy winked at the woman. “You’ve been here.”
Any response the coat check woman might have given was lost in the general din as Vampy turned toward an empty stool at the bar that dominated the center of the room.
She sat down and ran a hand over her hips—which felt slightly wider than before. Somehow, the weapons must have sunk under her ‘skin’. If a gun was on each hip, she wondered where the third had gone.
Handy trick…I can see using that again. So long as the things come back out.
“What’ll it be?” a tall man asked from behind the bar as he mixed a drink for another patron.
“Uh…whiskey. Top shelf,” Vampy requested, setting her thermos on the stool between her thighs.
She had no idea if she could stomach whiskey after her transformation, but the best stuff ought to go down a bit smoother, at least.
The man nodded, and Vampy turned to see if she could find Kitty anywhere.
It took a few seconds, but she finally spotted her friend atop one of the highest ledges, peering down at all the activity below her.
Vampy chuckled and turned back to the bar as a glass with two fingers of whiskey was set in front of her. She nodded to the bartender and picked it up, swirling the contents for a moment before shrugging and throwing it back.
The drink burned its way down her throat—which she expected—then hit her stomach like a pile of bricks.
“Ohggg,” she groaned as her gut began to cramp.
“Too much?” a woman next to her asked, and Vampy nodded.
“San?” Vampy asked.
“Far corner,” the woman pointed the right direction with a concerned look. “You going to be OK? I’ve never seen someone get hit by a drink so fast.”
“Yeah,” Vampy gasped as she grabbed her thermos and rushed in the direction the woman had indicated, weaving through the tables and nearly crashing into a waiter.
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“Watch it, lady!” he called out after her, but she didn’t slow.
The roiling in her stomach was reaching critical levels, and she knew that slowing down would lead to disaster.
Vampy spotted the door and pushed into the san, racing across the room and into a stall seconds before her stomach revolted and emptied its contents into the bowl. Most of what came out was blood, and she began to feel weak as the nourishment left her body.
Stars…that was extreme.
Her knees were shaky, but she managed to wipe off the seat with one hand and her mouth with the other before triggering the flush cycle to dispose of the evidence.
With a long sigh, Vampy leant against the stall’s flimsy wall, and looked down to see her thermos on the floor. She grabbed it, not caring about cleanliness, and poured the contents down her throat.
She felt better, but still not great.
A
She straightened up and stepped out of the stall, nearly running into another woman. “Shoot, sorry.”
“Don’t—hey, what’s on your face?” the woman asked, eyes narrowing.
Vampy reached up and wiped her lips, lowering her hand to see it smeared with blood.
“Shit, was that a fang?” the woman exclaimed, taking a step back. “Crossbar spy! There’s a vamp—”
Vampy reached out and clamped a hand over the woman’s mouth muffling her voice. Panic flooded her, and she pulled the woman back into the stall, trying to avoid her flailing limbs and well-aimed kicks. She realized that, despite her captive’s frantic attempts, she wasn’t even close to breaking free.
Well…vampire strength sure is nice.
She took a deep breath, reveling in the woman’s fear-filled scent.
What a smooth neck…
Vampy ran her nose along the soft skin, and licked it slowly. The woman began to scream again, the noise echoing through the san, even with Vampy’s hand over her mouth.
Vampy’s fear over being discovered peaked at the same time as an insatiable hunger overtook her, and she opened wide, her fangs protracting and sinking into the woman’s neck.
Hot blood rushed down Vampy’s throat as she sucked vigorously for half a minute, until she realized the woman had gone limp, and quickly pulled her mouth away.
“Shit shit shit,” she whispered. “What in the stars did I just do?”
The woman’s head lolled to the side, and Vampy checked her pulse. It was weak, but still there.
A coughing snort came over the Link.
Vampy hadn’t even thought about that. Her main concern had been whether or not the woman was dead.
Vampy heard the door open, and two pairs of footfalls followed, accompanied by giggles and whispers. She held her breath, praying to whatever stars were listening that whoever it was would leave quickly.
“Shit…is that blood?” one of the voices said.
“Yeah…oh, gross, it’s a thermos of blood….”
“Tara,” the first voice dropped to a whisper. “There’s a vampire here…Crossbar.”
“Back out slowly, I have the cops on the Link,” the second voice replied.
She set the woman she’d drunk down on the toilet, hoping she’d be OK—and that she wasn’t going to become a vampire—and took a deep breath before striding out of the stall, scooping up her thermos and walking to a sink where she turned on the faucet.
The two women stood at the door, their faces frozen in fear, staring at Vampy as she washed the blood off her face.
“What?” she said, glancing at the two women. “Can’t a girl drink in peace?”
“Y-y-y-you’re…” one of the women—Tara, if Vampy had the voices right—stammered.
“A vampire, yes,” she replied, wiping her mouth clean, then rinsing off her thermos.
The two women were still standing stock-still, and Vampy sighed. “You’re blocking the doorway.”
The other woman nodded stoically. “You’re an infiltrator from Crossbar. Here to steal our energy module. We’re not going to let you out.”
“Oh yeah?” Vampy asked and slapped her hands against her hips, glad to feel her pistols emerge.
Stars…this might just be magic after all.
She raised the handguns, aiming one at each of the women. “Move.”
Neither budged, and Vampy realized that they might literally be frozen in fear.
Fine…
Vampy opened her mouth wide and hissed loudly, taking a menacing step forward.
That pushed them over the edge, and both women screamed, clambered through the door, and ran down the hall.
Vampy turned down the corridor in the opposite direction from the bar, and came to an intersection. She guessed at which way led out, and shortly came to a large door. Above it hung the universal exit sign.
Strident cries came from somewhere behind her, and she poured on the speed, not slowing before hitting the crash bar. An instant later, she was out in the frigid air.
She barely noticed the cold while casting about to gain her bearings. During their time in the bar, dusk had progressed into a cloudy night, and the back alley was almost pitch black.
Finally in my element, she thought while running through the narrow space to the street beyond.
After taking a moment to glance up and down it—and not seeing anyone—she dashed across. No sooner had she made it back into the shadows than the wail of far-off sirens reached her ears.
Vampy shook her head as she rounded a corner, rushed across another street, and dove into the adjacent alley. She only had one more block to go before she’d get to the ice cream shop. Not that making that destination would see them home free by any stretch of the imagination.
After a minute, she reached the end of the alley that the ice cream shop backed onto, and stopped in the shadows.
A black shape dropped down next to her, then Kitty flashed her a broad smile. “This is fun.”
“For you,” Vampy said, listening to the sirens grow closer.
“What was it like?” Kitty asked, pushing her goggles up onto her forehead.
“What was what like?” Vampy asked, knowing what Kitty was on about, b
ut not wanting to discuss it.
Kitty wasn’t having any of her evasion. “Drinking fresh blood, right from the bod. Was it as good as they always say it is?”
Vampy rolled her eyes. “I don’t know…I was all caught up in the moment. Blood is blood.”
“Liar,” Kitty’s eyes narrowed. Then she looked Vampy over. “Hey, where’s my gun?”
“Oh,” Vampy looked down. “I wrapped my coat around my waist, and it turned into this belt…my guns were hidden inside my hips—it was really handy, actually.”
Kitty circled around her. “Yeah, well then, where’d mine go?”
Vampy twisted her lips. “I’m kinda scared to find out.”
“Your right thigh looks a bit thicker than your left,” Kitty said, a finger on her lips as she considered. “How do we get it out?”
“Uhh…I think I just have to want it out.”
She concentrated, and the gun emerged from her right thigh and fell to the ground.
“Thank stars…I was really worried it was somewhere else.”
Kitty laughed. “You don’t think you’d notice if you had a gun in your hoohah?”
Vampy shrugged. “I was thinking buttcrack, but thanks for that image. Anyway, I don’t know how these things work. This magic is crazy. It can do anything.”
“Aha! You admit it. It is magic!”
“Maybe,” Vampy hissed. “That’s not important right now. What is important is what we’re going to do next.”
The sirens passed by, roughly a block away, and not long after, the doppler effect from their increasing distance stopped changing roughly where she gauged The Lady to be.
“We could just go back to the ship,” Kitty suggested. “Pretend this never happened.”
Vampy’s gaze locked onto Kitty’s. “Really? You don’t think they will be able to figure out where we came from? We don’t exactly look like locals—plus, the car that took us from the spaceport into town would have certainly had cameras.”
“Oh, yeah.”