Re-Vamping Las Vegas

by Jen Pretty

  I heard a yell and pushed past my father. Two men in red coats and black tactical gear had pinned Walt to the ground.

  “It was all for you Nia!” Walt called, though one of the men squeezed his neck so he could say no more.

  One of the Blood Guard pulled out a stake.

  “No!” I attempted to run towards him, but my father's steel arms wrapped around me. Pinning my arms to my side and lifting my feet off the ground.

  “Stop, Lavinia or they will think you were part of his crime,” my father said into my hair.

  “Whatever it is, he is innocent!” I yelled, still struggling against my fathers hold.

  “He killed the president, Nia,” my father said.

  Walt's eyes caught mine from between the legs of the Blood Guard and he mouthed the words ‘I’m sorry’.

  “It’s a mistake! He wouldn’t do that!”

  A bloody tear ran from Walt's eye towards the grass as the Blood Guard drove the stake through his heart. The light went out from his eyes as the tear disappeared in the grass.

  My father let me go, and I collapsed.

  That was the end of Walt.

  I never found out why he did what he did. But vampires came out of the closet soon after and the presidential replacement, Johnson, was awfully welcoming of our kind.

  —

  Present

  I closed the medical book and took it back to the shelf. I tipped my head to read the spines of the other books, but, I couldn’t focus on the titles, considering Matthew and whether he was my boyfriend. Seemed like a stupid title anyway. Nobody used such an immature phrase to describe someone anymore. They used partner or significant other or lover. I liked lover. It sounded fun. A lot less serious, anyway.

  That settled, I refocused my eyes on the book titles only to realize Matthew had left his chair and was standing right beside me. I straightened and picked a book at random.

  “Excellent choice.”

  I read the book cover. ‘Abnormal Psychology’. “Shit,” I said, returning the book to the shelf.

  “Why are you so opposed to having someone to talk to? Your Officer Jenkins told me you used to go to confession. It’s the same thing.”

  “He told you that? I will rip his eyebrow off.”

  Matthew laughed, but I was serious. Jenkins better not be blabbing about me to anyone who passes by.

  “I tried going to confession here, it wasn’t the same.” I flopped down on the chair in the corner. Matthew leaned on the bookcase and crossed one ankle over the other. He looked dashing and pensive standing like that. We were silent for a long time. I didn’t know what Matthew was thinking, but I was trying to decide what I wanted to do with my life. I needed something that was my own. Something worthwhile.

  “I want a job,” I said, pulling Matthew out of his thoughts.

  “You want to deal cards?”

  “I guess, for now. I need to do something other than what I’ve always done.”

  “That sounds like a good plan. A healthy plan. I would still like you to talk to someone.”

  I stood up and strode towards the door. “Can you ask Carson to get me a shift today?” I asked and then walked out the door and headed for my suite to find my work clothes. Hopefully, they weren’t still balled up in a corner somewhere.

  That day I worked a busy blackjack table. Dealing cards and taking chips. I wasn’t sure how anyone made money at blackjack considering I was taking way more coins than anyone else, but everyone seemed to enjoy losing their money.

  Halfway through my shift, a sound was niggling at the edge of my hearing. I was sliding cards from the shuffling machine to waiting gamblers, I could do that in my sleep, but somewhere on the casino floor, there was a sound.

  It was a drip.

  No, a heartbeat.

  Thump. Thump.

  I scanned the casino floor between deals, trying to pinpoint the location of the sound. It wasn’t the heartbeat of the people around me. At least none within view. This was different.

  I dealt another hand. Thor appeared beside me so I must have messed up, but I hadn't noticed. I gave him a smile and dealt another hand. The sound didn’t stop though. That steady heartbeat pumping blood around a warm body. A vein bulging in delight. Throbbing to the beat of the drum inside the chest. Bloody saliva filled my mouth, and I tried to focus on the card game so Thor would leave. The heart was mine. I didn’t want Thor to have it. The humans all around me had soft heartbeats, but I didn’t want their hearts.

  I wanted that beautiful heart, singing a song for only my ears.

  Mine.

  As my shift wore on, the sound was like music, forcing my movements. I moved to its beat and longed for its warm embrace.

  Carson stopped at my table with another dealer to let me know my shift was over. The man in a uniform just like mine took my place at the table and dealt cards. Carson asked me to meet him in the break room in a few minutes, so I stopped at the bar and got a drink.

  That’s when I heart the heart, so close I could touch it. My teeth throbbed with longing. It was behind the bar, but when I leaned over the counter, I realized it wasn’t a heart at all. It was the beer tap, dripping into the tray below. Drip. Drip.

  I laughed at my own foolish imagination. The boredom of dealing cards was definitely more than my mind could handle. I would need to find something more interesting to do. I wove through the slot machines towards the break room. The sounds of coins and music overloaded my hearing.

  I went through the door and the sounds faded as the door swung closed behind me. I sat down at a small table with my drink. Carson came in a moment later.

  “So, how was your first shift back?” he asked, sliding into the seat across from me. He didn’t do small talk, so I narrowed my eyes at him.

  He chuckled and scratched his neck. “All right, what are you doing?”

  “I’m having a drink with you,” I said, holding up my glass.

  “No, in the casino. We both know you could do anything and you don’t need the money.”

  “I don’t know what I want to do, Carson.”

  “Well you better figure it out, if you are still working in this casino in a year, I will kick your ass.” He smiled and then got up and walked to the door.

  “Good talk!” I called after him.

  I walked through the casino floor, towards the elevator in the lobby.

  “Hey, Nia,” an electronic voice said from behind me. I spun around to see Ben standing by the door to the casino with his text to talk device.

  “Oh, hey, Ben. How’s it going?”

  He typed for a moment and then looked up as the voice started again. “I would like to talk to you if you have time,” it said.

  “Sure, how about tonight though? Around 8? I’m tired right now.”

  He typed out a message. “Ok, I’ll meet you upstairs. My room is on your floor.”

  “Super, see ya then,” I replied.

  I took the elevator back up to my suite. Matthew had given me a key card to his suite, but he was working and I felt more comfortable in mine. I curled up on the couch and turned on the TV.

  Carson was right, I needed to find something more to do than dealing cards. I had a degree in business and another in art history. Neither gave me a career, but they were an easy and fun way to pass the time. I could go back to school. What was four more years?

  I had driven past the University of Nevada. It wasn’t too far from the casino. I could go in the morning and see what courses were offered.

  I was uncomfortable on the couch so I moved to the bed and curled into a ball. The tap in the bathroom broke the silence. The drip had returned. I would have to call Henry in the morning if he still worked here. Remembering Henry's face when he showed up at my suite to fix the tap last time and I scared him made me laugh. I bet I could pull it off again. Henry was a nervous type.

  I lay for a long time, listening to the heartbeat before I fell asleep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

&
nbsp; The heart kept beating. I couldn’t move or see, but the heart was right in front of me.

  “Come closer,” I whispered to the heart. It had to come closer.

  It kept beating or was it dripping? No, it was beating. Right there.

  I counted out its rhythm. Thump. Thump.

  I was so hungry, I just wanted a taste. I strained, trying to move. If I could just move a bit further.

  “Come closer,” I begged.

  My finger twitched, I felt it move. I was sure. I twitched it again. And then my hand. My whole arm moved across the hard surface.

  Thump.

  Thump.

  The heart was beating faster and louder. I moved my leg and then slid off the surface. I was moving. Going to find the heart and drink.

  Finally.

  I followed the sound across the room. There was a door, and I reached for it. The heart was on the other side. Beating just for me.

  I gripped the doorknob, ready to pounce. The thumping was louder, drowning out everything else. The world narrowed down to only me and the heart. It pushed blood through veins like chocolate syrup through a straw.

  I turned the doorknob and swung open the door at the same moment as I pounced. It wouldn’t escape this time. It had been teasing me for so long. My prey, just out of reach, but not anymore.

  My teeth sunk home and pulled the first delicious mouthful. The prey tried to pull back, but I held on tight and pulled another swallow of life into my body. The taste was like nothing I had ever had. I was so hungry, I kept pulling until my prey subsided and collapsed into my arms. My pliant donor. My precious heart. As I continued to swallow, I wondered if it would ever end. Would the heart keep beating forever? Would it bring me back to life? Would it fill me until I burst?

  The moment stretched on as the heartbeat slowed. And then the most dramatic final beat rung through my ears as I released the heart and felt my own chest shake with a resounding thump.

  My body could hardly contain it. The beat was strong and vibrant and pulsed hard enough I could feel it like an entire marching band inside my chest. I put my hand over it and savoured the moment. The beautiful life that lived inside me. It was perfect.

  I looked down at the heartbeat finally, but it wasn’t a heartbeat.

  It was a man.

  It was Ben.

  And he was dead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Things moved quickly after that. My heart beat a staccato as security guards and Matthew raced off the elevator. Too late to save him. Too late to save me.

  I covered my mouth, like that could take back what I had just done.

  “It was the heart. It was…” I realized how foolish that sounded.

  “What have you done?” Matthew asked. “What have you done!” He repeated, much louder.

  “I’ve drunk from the heart,” I said, still unsure if I was awake or asleep.

  “How could you do this?” Matthew asked, stepping over Ben’s lifeless form.

  “I thought he was the heart,” I said, but it made little sense to me either.

  “What heart?” Matthew yelled the question like he could get me to make sense if only he spoke loud enough. Bloody tears sprung to my eyes like I had any right to cry when I had stolen a life.

  “Sir, do you want me to call the Blood Guard?”

  “Nobody is doing anything,” he said over his shoulder before turning back. “Tell me what happened?” Matthew grabbed my shoulders and his fingers dug in painfully. I deserved the pain. I deserved much worse. The gravity of what I had done was setting in. It was a line I had never crossed.

  “I killed Ben.”

  “No!” Matthew yelled. He turned to Thor, “You didn’t see anything! Someone clean up the mess!”

  “You can’t hide this, Matthew,” I pleaded. “If the Blood Guard find out, they will kill you too.”

  “These people work for me! I am Lord of this city!” he roared. The men around him bowed their heads and averted their eyes. Even if they were loyal, word would get out. Someone with aspirations of having a city would tell the Blood Guard and they would find the evidence they needed. This whole building was monitored 24/7. There were vampires watching us on TV monitors right now. There, on the ceiling outside my door was a plastic dome. I looked at its blinking eye in the center. Watching, judging.

  Matthew followed my line of sight and a sound of anger and despair churned from his throat as he slammed his palms to his forehead.

  “You know it won't work. Matthew, please?” I begged.

  Matthew put a hand on either side of my face and searched my eyes for the answer he longed for, but it wasn’t there. There was no solution to this problem.

  “Please, don’t call my father. My poor mother’s heart would break.” Then I pressed my hand to his chest. “You have to do it.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Please! Matthew. I killed Ben. He is dead.” I collapsed to the ground and rested my head in my hands. Ben had a whole life ahead of him. I had robbed him of the one thing I longed for. The one thing I could never have. I reached out and took his hand in mine. It was still warm, but wouldn’t be for long.

  “Sir,” Thor said from behind Matthew.

  When he didn’t respond I looked up to find Matthew’s face a mask of grief and sorrow.

  Thor looked down at me with sadness, but he had a stake in his hand.

  “Please Thor? Don’t let my father come. I can’t bear to have his face be the last I see on this earth.” My words choked out.

  “No, Nia. Call the king,” Matthew ordered sealing my fate. My father would look down on me with disgust. He would be the one to command them to kill me. His face would be the last I saw.

  “Please, Nia. Let me talk to him. Let me do this for you.” He crouched in front of me. Brushing my hair back for my face, but all I could do was stare at Ben. At what I had destroyed.

  Matthew spoke to his men for a moment before scooping me up off the floor. He carried me away from Ben’s cooling body. Setting me down on the bed, he flicked on the heated blanket. I didn’t deserve comfort. I didn't deserve Matthew’s body stretched out beside me, or his gentle fingers smoothing my hair.

  I deserved the darkness. The pain and nothingness.

  “Tell me what happened,” he whispered.

  I swallowed, refusing the tears. “I heard the heart. Do you hear it?” The bathroom taps. Drip.

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

  I laughed, but there was no humour to it. “Because it makes no sense. There was a drip. In the dungeon, I lived in. It was a heart. I heard it beat. I called to it and it called back.”

  Matthew lay back on the bed beside me and stared at the ceiling, considering my words.

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “It’s never my fault, is it?”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  —

  Fall 1971

  We had just outed ourselves to the world and there was a growing movement that supported our rights. Mostly because we were wealthy and held various positions of authority. Father had entered politics a decade ago and moved his way up so he was in a prime position. I was sure he had orchestrated the entire thing. He was meticulous, and the day we came out to the world, we weren’t just welcomed, they worshipped us.

  The president was already a disciple.

  “Today is a good day for America and the world,” President Nixon droned on, making the absurd normal. That was my father’s genius.

  “We welcome these people, who have lived peacefully among us all this time, into our society. My fellow Americans, join me in welcoming to the stage, the king of the vampires, King Garth.”

  The crowd gathered at the white house clapped and cheered and acted as though the monster before them was a saviour. His very presence was proof that life existed beyond their imagination. He embodied the magic they wanted to believe in. I puked in my mouth a little.

  I turned away from the TV in the wind
ow of the electronics store and continued down the street towards my favourite bar. It was full of old tired working-class people. They suited me at the time. Everyday people who struggled to stay alive and drank to forget about it. I dined on people who passed out behind the bar at closing time. I had no joy. It died with Walt.

  One night I went behind the bar to see who hadn’t made it home and found a man standing over the body of a young woman. He looked up at me and the street light shone on his face. I would later learn his name, but on this night, I turned on my heel and walked away. It was 2 years and a dozen more bodies before they caught him.

  I always wondered if draining that serial killer might have saved my soul.

  —

  Present

  The following morning, the Blood Guard escorted me through the casino. Matthew was hot on our heels. They had taken Ben away, removing all trace of him. The scent of blood no longer hung in the air.

  “Don’t worry, Nia. I’ll be in the car right behind you.”

  Poor Matthew. Tragedy struck anyone who happened to get too close to me. I was cursed from the day of my birth. When I came screaming into the world, they should have just hit me over the head with a rock.

  They escorted me to the back seat of an SUV. The tinted windows hid the fact that it was reinforced inside with heavy steel. The vehicle was made for transporting vampires.

  I curled up on the seat and slept my way across the country. I dreaded seeing my father’s face. His stern eyes, his scowling mouth twisted in rage. He would not forgive me this. He was most likely selecting his new heir now. A king must have an heir.

  They pulled me from the back seat in the gated front yard of my father’s home. He had moved to Beverly Hills when he retired from politics and took over his kingly duties.

  Matthew sat in his car just beyond the gate. It seemed they would not let him in. He looked like he wanted to tear down the fence, but we both knew what would happen. Father could easily replace Matthew with another keen vampire with high aspirations.

  “Oh, my baby,” my mother's voice rang through the air like a sweet bell. Tears welled in my eyes and I stumbled as I turned away from thoughts of Matthew and towards the person who had loved me with all my failings.