by Ana Calin
“You know why he didn’t respond to your calling, Rux,” Irina, says, sitting down at the foot of the bed. “He can’t resist the originator’s compelling power. There has been another attack on a Red Diaz location during the night, we—”
“Exactly what I thought,” I stop her. “He didn’t come to me, because he went somewhere else. That’s why you and me are going to one of those locations tonight. We have to stop him, reason with him.”
Her eyes dart around the room as if she can’t even understand what I’m talking about, let alone agree with it.
“Let us, let us,” she tries, “Let’s at least talk to Tristan about this.”
I shake my head vehemently. “If Tristan hears what we’re planning—what I’m planning—he’ll only be in our way. He might not even let us get close to the hotel exit. On the other hand, I wouldn’t want our vampires at a Red Diaz place anyway. I’m not trying to cause a bloodbath. You and me, that’s doable. Two chicks looking for a good time.”
Irina knits her nicely arched, chocolate eyebrows. “Rux, that would be suicide for you.”
“Why suicide?”
“Those places are full of vampires. If we draw attention—me, a vampire, together with a human girl.... They’ll think I brought a snack in order to join their ranks.”
“Let me remind you that I’m not quite entirely human. I became immortal when Vlad took my blood.”
Irina still seems uncertain.
“We won’t be causing trouble, luv,” I say quietly. “I’ll only be there, thinking of Vlad, sending out a stronger calling, because I’d be at a place that he’s attracted to anyway. But I can’t do it alone, so please. You’re the only one I can turn to.”
She hunches a little and looks to the door, chewing on her lip as she goes over all this in her head.
“If I refuse, you’d find a way to do it without me, wouldn’t you?”
I don’t reply, but just stare at her, determined. It’s all she needs.
Lord Dracula
A FOREIGN POWER IS steering me. I’m aware of it, and yet there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I trudge through the sewers under the city of Bucharest, joining the others.
I feel like a remote-controlled hit man but, strangely, I’m fully aware of what I’m doing. As are all the others that have gathered here like clusters upon clusters of sick vampires, their eyes ruby red, vicious thin veins spreading down to their cheekbones.
I was able to get a glimpse of myself today, too, in a puddle. I was never a pretty sight with the brutal face showing centuries of war, the beast-like long hair and the large physique that always made me an anomaly among men, but now I look like a fucking animal bred for cage fighting.
But that’s not what bothers me. Killing, especially mobsters, whether human or undead, was never a problem to me. If anything, it feels liberating to do it again.
Yet my heart clenches with guilt as I remember what I did after I bit all the vampire men surrounding the mobster’s table—I drained the vampire girls that threw themselves at me to defend their bosses and their pimps; a clear case of Stockholm Syndrome.
The guilt for having betrayed Rux is unbearable. I could feel her calling, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to pull my fangs out of the last girl’s throat, frenetic for vampire blood.
The girls are dragging themselves after me right now, together with their pimps and other minions, ready to join this army of rabid creatures that serve some evil bastard’s purpose. I retreat to a corner like yesterday, wanting to crouch down and succumb to self-loathing while I think of a way out of this. But the vamps follow and start touching me like I’m all made of gold.
“Get away,” I grunt, yet they continue. They try to caress me like I’m a god, their mouths open, their eyes full of admiration.
“You are the great Dracula,” one of them says, sounding like a drugged woman. A vamp with fire red hair, very tall and very skinny, leather shorts and net stockings, a bra that doesn’t have much to cover. The blood has already solidified in two thick dots where I bit her, but there are crusty streaks all over that side of her body. I push her hand away and come to my feet, making to trudge deeper down the sewers corridors, when her pimp speaks.
“So it’s true, you’re really the big man.” His voice is rough, aggressive, the same voice in which he defied me at the club, before I bit him. A black crest of hair runs through the middle of his head, the sides bald, and he has thick stubble.
I ignore him, and try to walk away, but then another one stands up and places himself in front of me. I just stare at him, wondering if he’s an idiot.
“You’re the father of all vampires, right? We’re supposed to be bound to you,” he says daringly. “Some say no vampire can kill you, because then all vampires that are bound to you by venom would die. But we respond to another master now. We do someone else’s bidding, not yours. Fuck, you even obey him yourself.” He grins, clearly trying to intimidate me. I’m not sure if I want to bite his head off, or laugh.
“This new venom cursing through us might be a blessing instead of a curse. Maybe it freed us from the slavery to you.” He holds his finger in my face, enthusiasm filling his voice. I want to bite his head off, real bad. “Maybe we can now kill you cruel bastard. Is it true you hang vampires from the stalactites in your cave?”
Other vampires murmur, moving closer. I can see it in their eyes, they think they have me cornered, preparing to attack like hyenas. Bloodlust surges in my veins and I run my tongue over my fangs.
“Oh, I’m going to enjoy this,” I say under my breath.
The hyena that spoke last and the pimp give each other a glance, and they charge first, the others following. I grin—I’m going to feast on them.
I let the hyena get close, doing nothing to protect myself until he throws himself at me. The bones in my face protrude in an instant, surely making me look even scarier judging by the gasps all round; my knuckles grow, my claws shoot out, and I slash the hyena in the air. My hand being much larger than his face, my claws cut through half his head like through butter. He splashes into the filthy water on the floor in a twisted position, his body twitching, his face disfigured and his brains trickling out of his head through the four slices that reach to the back of his skull.
Vampires turn and puke, while the pimp, now closest to me, stops brusquely and stumbles backwards. He falls on his ass, looking up at me with eyes so scared he seems a fucking sheep dressed as a wolf.
“You don’t do much for me, you piece of shit,” I grunt through my teeth. “Except maybe stink.” I turn away, my eyes falling on the red head, who keeps staring at me like she worships me. She’s not the only one.
It’s disturbing to see how a display of my brutality—this being nothing more than a mild demonstration of it—can get people to admire me. It’s one of the things I never understood about humans and supernaturals alike, why they worship their tormentors.
I move down the narrowing tunnel. In my beast form I’m even bigger than usual, and it looks heavy when I move slowly. I drop down by a wall, placing my forearms on my knees. The hyena’s blood drips from my claws into a small pool of water in front of me.
I don’t even bother to try and morph back into my human-like form. The vampires still clustered at the entrance to this small tunnel stare at me in awe and admiration.
I remember how I tore into the first vampire’s throat at Rux’s conference, and the horrified look on her face. I lower my head, pressing my lips together, my wild hair falling to the sides and shielding my face from the onlookers.
For years I managed to present myself as a knight in shining armour to her, but now the magic turned to dust. How could I even hope this love story would last? How long did I think I’d be able to hide from her what I really am? How long would I have been able to resist my thirst, even if all this hadn’t happened?
Maybe biting the sick vampire and turning into some psycho’s tool to take over the Bucharest underworld was the best thing that cou
ld have happened to Rux. She’s now free of a monster that tried and failed to be something else for her sake. It will hurt at first, but eventually she’ll realize she’s better off without me.
The red head giggles, watching me full of hope out of ruby red eyes with thin veins under them that spread to her cheekbones. I can tell she thinks we’d make a great pair, she and I. I remember how I betrayed Rux, ignoring her calling so I could keep drinking this vamp’s blood, and it’s like a stake through my heart.
I drive my fangs into my lower lip, drawing blood and causing myself pain. Everything I do, hell, everything I am is a an offence to Rux. She’ll never be able to forgive me for this.
I’m still struggling with the shame, guilt and loss inside when I feel the urge to go again. The urge to get up and start walking, steered by that invisible force that sends me to kill those who stand in its way. All the other vampires feel it as well, as if they smelled prey and it was time to hunt.
They move aside as I stand and walk in the middle of them, following me like an army. They might not be compelled to do it, not by blood or venom, since they respond to another lord now, but because they fear me. And with fear, comes respect.
Rux
JESUS CHRIST, NOT EVEN a long black dress looks decent on me. I always have to wear a size bigger because of my boobs, but even so they push against the fabric, and swell, causing massive amounts of cleavage. The dress only hints at my waist, but my butt is big and round, too, and the fabric moulds to it no matter what I do.
“I should wear a sack,” I tell Irina as I shift and pull at the dress.
“A sack wouldn’t be much help either.” Irina walks to me with a smile on her face. She doesn’t reflect in the mirror, because she’s a vampire, but her outfit does. “No matter what you wear, you’ll always look delicious. You have a stark hourglass shape, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Except maybe plastic surgery.” She bends a little to my ear. “I heard Lord Dracula started drooling over you from the very first evening. Never forget you were the only woman he’d desired in his bed for ages.”
Memories ripple in my mind, the feel of Vlad’s broad hands on my hips, then grabbing my breasts greedily. I remember the way he sighed in delight, closing his eyes to relish the sensation, and it stings my heart like poison. He used to desire me above all else. Now there’s something he wants more—vampire blood.
I switch my attention to Irina, distracting myself from the pain.
“You look dashing.” I check her out. The shiny dress goes perfectly with her muscled limbs—it’s strapless, and it ends mid-thigh—and her skin is just the right shade of tan for the pink gloss on her full lips. She’s fastened her straight hair in a stylish ponytail on top of her head, enhancing her model-like appearance. But then it hits me.
“Aren’t we going to draw too much attention with you dressed like that? Our only purpose there is to focus on Vlad, in the presence of what he wants most these days—Red Diaz vampires.”
“Rux, we will draw attention whether we want to or not, simply because we’re new.”
“My point exactly, no one will know we’re new if we lay low.”
Irina laughs like I just said the most childish thing ever. “You don’t go to a Red Diaz club and lay low, Rux. These aren’t the kind of places that anybody just walks into. These clubs are only for known customers of the Red Diaz—addicts, clients for hookers, stuff like that. The Red Diaz will most probably assume we’re prostitutes, too, or girls looking for men to pay for our fun. Either way, they’re gonna want a cut.”
A shiver goes down my spine. It’s a new feeling, this kind of fear, really. Before Vlad, I had the demon that was always there to intervene if anyone made me uncomfortable. The Lord of Doom himself, the primordial brother of the Fates, Moros. I’m his descendant, and I can still feel his power rippling low, like a lukewarm soup deep inside me, but I can’t use it.
“I never thought this would happen,” I tell Irina shyly. “But for the first time in forever I wish I could still use the demon’s power.” It hits me. “I do still have the blackness in my eyes, though.”
“Yes, but.” Irina bites her lip, as she always does when she’s thinking about how to put things. “These are vampires we’ll be dealing with, probably vampires with superpowers. It’ll take more than unnatural black eyes to scare them, or even get them to stay away.”
“Help me out here, Irina. I just want to draw Vlad to me and reason with him, help him fight this compelling force that’s steering him. I don’t actually have a plan.”
She grins, and behind the façade of the beauty queen I glimpse centuries old wisdom.
“Which is exactly why I look like this. I do have one.”
CHAPTER III
Rux
It’s remarkably easy to get past Tristan. He just accepts my best friend is taking me out in order to help me relax a little.
“It may even force Lord Dracula to show himself,” she argues. “Especially if some poor guy comes on to her.”
“All right,” Tristan says, getting out of our way. “But stay in the Old Town, so we can get to you fast.”
“Yes, of course.” Irina takes my hand and drags me out.
We walk to the Old Town, the historical part of Bucharest. I love this mystery-filled city, it has a vibe of mysticism and timelessness, almost like Transylvania. The historic buildings in the Old Town, the pubs and clubs with vibrant people and music, enhance that sensation.
Guided by the GPS on the smart device around her wrist, Irina brings us down a narrow alleyway to a thick iron door—one of the Red Diaz hottest places. The first suspicious thing about it is that there’s no line, like I saw in front of the other places here in the Old Town. Irina bangs on the door with no success.
“What do we do now?” I breathe, bracing myself against the cool of the evening.
She sniffs the air.
“Now we wait.”
“For what?”
“For that.” Movement at the end of the dark alley draws my attention. Irina’s vampire eyes glint dangerously in the night.
“Our entry cards.” She grins, her pearly smile as fatal as her eyes.
Two men in suits with open collars approach. They’re already tipsy. I catch a strange scent in the air, something like incense or marijuana. First I think it must seep out from the club, but the iron door is as well sealed as a nuclear power plant. The smell intensifies as the men come closer to us, and the moment the first one smiles widely, I realize—Irina is emanating pheromones, which work as an aphrodisiac on them.
“So you have a superpower, too,” I whisper in awe just as the men take their final few steps to us.
“Gentlemen,” she says sweetly, her voice a drug in its own right.
The one most enthralled is jovial and fleshy, while the other seems a heavy smoker and drinker with a haggard face and huge dark circles under his eyes. They’re both around fifty, I think. The haggard one assumes a bored attitude, his mouth crooked in an expression of general disdain, but I know that’s just a mask. Some of his less obvious body language shows he is under Irina’s spell, too.
Irina hooks her arm around the jovial guy’s, and lets him bang on the door a precise amount of times, and with a certain rhythm like it’s some sort of password. The metal viewer plate whips aside, the bouncer looks out at us, then unbolts the door.
We walk in. Irina has barely exchanged words with the men, but her laugh and her scent seems to be leading them like puppies, even though they apparently act normal.
Once inside, I crease my nose. This isn’t a club, it’s a weed-smelling, semi-dark grotto with flashing laser lights that give me an instant headache. The music is so loud it’s like someone is punching me in the head.
My eyes need time to adjust to the lighting, and I bump into people, panicking, because I’ve lost Irina. Then I feel a hand on my back.
“Keep moving.” It’s the haggard guy, leading me towards the bar.
I’m relieved
to see Irina there, leaning over the counter and laughing out loud at the bartender, the jovial guy by her side. She’s offering the bartender a good view into her cleavage, and her jovial companion seems lost between her boobs as well. They may not be large, but the woman is sporty and sexy, and in that red dress.... Wait a minute, have I ever seen her wearing any other colour?
I sit on a barstool by her side, coughing from the smoke of weed, and Mr Bored takes the seat beside me. He signals to the bartender, then leans down to my ear.
“What will you have?” he rasps, sounding as wasted as he looks.
“Vodka tonic, please,” I manage, and cough again.
He orders, then scans me up and down.
Wow. The first time I’m actually at a club with a man, and it feels like crap. The subliminal text behind the guy’s entire attitude is something like, ‘It’ll take more than tits to get my interest, girl, show me how you can entertain me.’
I smile shyly, sipping from my Vodka tonic, answering his few, apparently disinterested questions with yes, no, and ‘I grew up in Britain’ when he asks me about my strange accent.
“I’m a producer at Fox Ro Media Studios,” he says in an attempt to get me to try harder to win his favour.
“Oh, then you probably shouldn’t be wasting your evening with me,” I call over the music, looking directly into his eyes for the first time. He stiffens and jerks back instantly—of course, the blackness, he sees it clearly, because we’re close. “I work with books, you know, research, libraries, stuff like that.”
He leans farther away from me and says something, but movement close behind him draws my attention. Two big guys with tattoos, golden chains and leather jackets step in, one of them pushing aside Mr Jovial, the other one pushing the producer. They’re vampires, it’s clear by their white, flawless faces, and the irises so full of blood they seem black.
“You’re coming with us,” they say to Irina and me, not waiting for an answer. They grab us roughly by our elbows and practically haul us forward, treating us the same way I saw pimps treat hookers in movies.