by J. X. Evans
Ulrik cracked his neck to the right, then to the left and licked his lips and his face up to the point his long tongue could reach. Only half his face now covered in blood where his tongue could not easily reach. The same blood the wall and ceiling were now colored by. He put the Voltmeter back in his satchel and slowly walked towards the sound of giggles and cheerful shrieks coming from further into the house.
Ulrik stood by the living room entrance hands crossed, resting his weight on the doorframe, his face hidden in shadows cast by the numerous flickering candles around the room, staring in silence at the pretty picture of the little girl and her mother playing tickles. She doubled over on the carpet trying to catch her breath. She stopped laughing when she saw his shape leaning against the door frame.
“Who are you, mister? Mommy look.” little Kate said, sitting with her knees on the carpet, pointing a stubby index finger towards Ulrik.
“I came to turn the lights on sweetie. It is alright, don’t be scared. Do you want to come help me?” Ulrik said, placing his hands on his knees and leaning forward so he was closer to the little girl’s eye level, and as a result both the child and her mother could now see his blood splattered face. Kids generally feel more safe and calm when big adults kneel low to talk to them. But it seemed that for some reason, his gesture had an opposite effect on little Kate’s mood. The kid’s eyes filled with tears almost instantly and she turned her head to bury it in her mother’s apron.
“JOHN!” Mrs. Brakas shouted jumping to her feet, pushing little Kate behind her. Slowly, she started moving towards the other living room entrance that lead to the stairs for the upper floor. “JOHN! JOHN!”
“Please madam, you are scaring the kid.” Ulrik said in a matter of fact manner and stood back up. He started walking slowly towards the remaining Brakas’, waving his hands back and forth at his sides with every step. His pale eyes gleaming in the candlelight. His face a bland mask, not a crease on his pale skin betraying any emotion he might have. His sturdy leather work boots were leaving muddy stains on Mrs. Brakas’ fine carpet, but for once Mrs. Brakas made no complaints about the mess.
The two women started running. Mrs. Brakas dragging Kate by her arm behind her. She was hyperventilating from fear and shock as she was running up the stairs towards the bedroom as fast as her strong shapely legs from years of pilates and spinning training could carry her. Kate was crying, partly because of the big man’s scary face and partly because her mother was crushing her delicate, little hand with her own while dragging her forcefully behind her, as if to it rip from its socket.
Mrs. Brakas fell hard, scraping her sheen on the corner of a wooden step, leaving it bloody. She got up and started climbing again, sparing only half a second to look behind her shoulder for the crazy killer that had probably already killed her husband and now was after her and her daughter. She saw nothing in the dim lit base of the stairs and the dark corridor stretching long and silent behind them.
Mrs. Brakas reached the second floor and turned right at the second door, or where she remembered the second door being. In the darkness she misjudged the distances and hit the wall, bouncing backwards and dropping with her ass on the floor once again. The wall reached a hand to help her stand back up. She took it, last time she checked, walls did not have hands and were certainly not polite enough to help anyone even if they did have any.
She froze as her fingers discovered the hard smooth skin of a big heavy hand, small but sharp nails lightly touching the back of her hand. How did he come up here so fast? Was there another person in the house already? She knew she had to do something, but she could not move even if her life depended on it, which it definitely was. Something warm and fluid started spreading through the crotch area of her arctic-blue colored sweatpants, turning them to a darker navy-blue. But the heat did nothing for her quivering knees.
“Mom?” little Kate asked in a scared, meek, trembling voice rough from crying, clutching her painful right hand into her left one.
And then Mrs. Brakas found her senses. She yelled to Kate to run, get out of the house. And she started kicking and screaming and scratching at the heavy of a hand that lightly held her own. But she might as well try fight a bull or lift a mountain. The strong man calmly immobilized her by holding her hands on the floor on either side of her head and laying on top of her, while she spit at him and shook her head and legs, trying to hit something, anything. Then the man darted his head to the side of her neck as if to kiss her, or whisper something in her ear. He moved so fast that his brain should have been turned to mush on the inside of his skull. She tried to bite his ear off, lifting her head and opening her mouth wide… but everything was suddenly so much better, the whole deal was probably one of her husband’s stupid, farfetched practical jokes, she would deal with it later. She closed her eyes listening to the sound Katy’s cute little feet made as she was running down the wooden stairs… kids shouldn’t run down the stairs… it’s dangerous.
4. SEXY PASTRIES
Monday morning or more like noon, by far the worst morning… or even noon for that matter, of every single week. Mark woke up to the sound of his alarm clock shrieking once more after the second snooze, by far the worst sound in the whole world, and especially worse on a Monday. He dragged himself from under the covers and out of bed and straight to the bathroom. He voided his bladder, washed and put on his brown colored contact lenses with mechanical motions. He stretched, yawned and got dressed. The leather duster that he would usually be wearing was left in Perry’s caring hands for extensive and expensive repairing, maybe even recrafting if the marvelous piece of gear was beyond saving. Mark had some trouble even beginning to understand how the thing worked. Custom made, Perry was planning to present it to the Order before too long. He was stupidly anxious about it, but the thing was nothing sort of a miracle and it had saved him a lot of pain in the previous night and in many instances before that. Perry had fixed the complex crafting inside dusters because it was a single piece of clothing that could cover a person’s whole body while being relatively inconspicuous, and because you could easily hide equipment underneath them. He had even added a custom made hood to the thing, which made sense, since the head is an important part of yourself. It needs protecting just like everything else, maybe even a little bit more so than that. And beside all that stuff, Mark found it cool as hell and he would be wearing it even if it had no defensive value at all. So, the cool armor-serving piece of cloth was unavailable, and he had to go with the less cool, less eccentric, less eye turning, more stylish in the collective view of modern day fashion specialists…the regular leather jacket. Yet, what do modern people know of fashion? They are the descendants of people who kicked the top hat and cane out of style, or the cowboy boots. He put the jacket on and zipped it up. It was kind of chilly on the second floor of the building. He placed a couple of weapons in custom made pockets and straps on the inside of the jacket. ‘Never leave home without some kind of weaponry on you’, Rob’s wise words. He grabbed his lighter and the bag of rolling tobacco from the desk and shoved them in a pocket. He took his hand back out, holding a crumpled up twenty euro note in his fist, one of the few unexpected joys of wearing old forgotten clothes. It is either that or the confirmation that you really have lost all that weight and your scale is probably not lying to you after all. Mark had no trouble with his weight though, his lifestyle took care of that and then some.
After getting served that unexpected piece of luck in the form of crumpled up money, he marched down the stairs and into the empty café. And the sound of soft instrumental music coming from the four speakers in the four corners of the warm room, beckoned him go back to sleep. He spilled himself in a tall wooden stool by the bar, sleepily banging his forehead on it. Gravity did more than he expected and his head rebounded gently from the counter. He stood back up, rubbing his reddened forehead and cursing himself for his stupidity. On the bright side of things though, he was generally feeling all better, as if he was not even touched by
a three ton killing machine mere hours earlier. One of the many advantages of having the powers of a Knight of the Order.
The cafe was a pretty shop, it had a certain warmth to it and a character, that’s for sure. There was a long thick wooden bar, accompanied by comfortable high stools that seemed to have been crafted with Mark’s dimensions and analogies on mind. Which meant that it would probably be slightly too tall for most people. And when Rob had been carving them, he probably had his own dimensions in size, the fact that Mark was almost as tall had probably been a happy accident. Behind the bar lied the coffee machines, for espresso, frape, French and more. There were two sofas, one green and one red at two opposite corners of the shop, the first at the left near the entrance and the second at the right, near the stairs to the second floor. A big bookcase filled with books, comics and a few board games for personal and customer use, was located next to the red sofa in the right side of the room. Small round wooden tables were scattered across the room with four comfy wooden chairs with different colored pillows surrounding each table. There was an old juke box, which was still working, barely. It was leaning against an unpainted space of brick wall next to the one and only pool table where Mark and Perry were frequently playing against one another. They were keeping score for every single game, it was 158-142 in Perry’s favor, and that did not sit well with Mark. The score was written in red chalk on a small blackboard on the wall right above the pool table next to a poorly drawn sketch of Mark’s teary-eyed face.
“Morning.” Mark said to Rob, who was sitting calm and silent on the red couch reading his paper while petting Sir Paws, the huge black Maine Coon cat that was purring with evident pleasure, his head and front big paws prompted on both of Rob’s large quadriceps. The huge black cat was the shop’s very own mascot and soul. The coffee shop was named in his honor after all, ‘The Black Cat Cafe’.
“How is the head?” Rob asked without glancing up from the paper.
“Good as new. I took the stitches off.” Said Mark, giving it a little knock and going around the bar to make himself a coffee, flirting with a sexy piece of freshly baked apple pie in a glass container on the bar, placed there to keep it steaming hot and delicious, its insides runny and juicy, its outside warm and soft and enticing.
“How about dodging next time, gave any thought to it?”
“I’ll make a memo,” Mark said, only a little bit annoyed by the hurtful comment. “You did not wake me up for training today.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Why?”
“Well, for one you were hurt and you needed rest. Secondly you have to start getting yourself out of bed and to the training room. And lastly, I slept late yesterday, so I needed rest as well.”
“You know cannot hear the alarm clock if my life depended on it. Otherwise, fair enough though.” Mark smiled while taking a big inhale from the rim of his cup of the freshly made double espresso. “So, anything interesting in that paper? You are not usually paying so much attention to it.” He grabbed a carton of milk and poured a measure in a cup and shoved it under the steam-foam machine.
“There was a homicide in Athens yesterday evening. A husband and a wife were found in their home with their throats torn open. The neighbors heard noises and called the police. Their young daughter is missing. No signs of breaking and entering. Husband was a high profile lawyer, so it made news. Same thing happened about two months ago in Thessaloniki and Limnos, or so it says here.” Rob said, with a light frown painted on his face.
“You think it is down our side of the street?” Mark asked while putting a ludicrous amount of sugar in his steaming, freshly made cappuccino.
“Maybe. It would be wise to ask around either way. There are some reports from all over the world about vampires acting up lately. Nothing much, but it is better to be on the safe side of things.” Rob said, turning his attention to Sir Paws who was demanding it by force, extending a long heavy paw and stepping on the paper at the exact segment that Rob was reading.
“When have they not done that? You would think that they would have learned by now that it is not worth it. Better to follow the rules of the accords.” Mark said, adding cinnamon to his cappuccino and taking a gulp. It went down nicely, warming his throat. He finally grabbed the piece of freshly baked apple pie from the counter, without trying too hard to resist the pastry’s temptatious flirting. The accords were an understanding, drafted a long time ago, after the vampire wars that took place during the dark ages. They were an understanding between The Order and the rest of the ‘supernatural’ creatures possessing some form of intelligence or reason. The bottom line being, you don’t harm humans and we don’t harm you. Stay in your lair, your sewers, your whatevers and our swords stay in their scabbards, our fingers off our triggers, our boots far away from your throats, or the immediately next logical place where one could place a boot upon.
Perry walked out of the little kitchen located in the back of the shop, behind the bar, carrying a platter of freshly baked cheese cake, giving Mark who was still eating the piece of apple pie a deadly stare.
“Sorry, they are just so delicious. Good job.” Mark said around his stuffed mouth, not actually being sorry at all.
”There can’t be more than ten vampires permanently living in Athens, or the whole country for that matter. They never gave us any trouble, why would they start now?” Perry said, opening another glass case upon the long bar to put the cheesecake in. And it was looking even sexier than the apple pie. Cheese rarely doesn’t.
“All I know is that we do not have much to go on. The bodies will be in the police morgue and it is better to be safe than sorry. I think that I am going to pay a visit to Dimitri. If anyone knows anything about this being what we suspect it to be, it should be him. I will go in a bit.” Rob said, folding his paper in half and placing it on the table in front of him. Sir Paws elegantly jumped from his lap, annoyed by Rob’s sudden movement and lack of petting, and with a couple of quick large steps and a single magnificent feline jump, he climbed up to his favorite spot on top of the corner cupboard, behind the bar. He sat down and started monitoring the empty place, a self-proclaimed king, inspecting his kingdom and his worthless people.
“I have a test in the afternoon though. I won’t be able to join you.” Mark said in disappointment. He was studying to be an accountant and it was finals season. He was not very excited about any of those two things separately, let alone put together. The Order was always low on funds and found it imperative for their members to be able to support themselves from an economic standpoint, and any other point in fact, since they generally lived long lives, barring any occupation related accidents, which were somewhat common in their line of work. And The Order had an abysmal pension plan. Not that they lacked money, it just all went to research and development, equipment and training as well as maintaining the numerous facilities, running private servers and networks and keeping things under the rug.
“Oh don’t worry about me boy. Dimitri and I are old friends. I will just go have a nice talk with him.”
Perry put his hand on his forehead, rubbing at his temples. “Oh, Rob, we have to deal with that thing with the gnomes. We don’t have much time.”
“Can’t it wait a bit more?”
“Well it could, but sooner is better than later in this regard.”
“We will go today then, if for some reason I am not back then go with Mark.” The huge man said, standing up, stretching his long arms and arching his back. He headed to his usual spot behind the counter just as the first customers of the day entered through the glass door. As far as Mark could say, there had been no one here before he woke, or maybe there was and they left, the shop was in the state that it was when he left it yesterday afternoon. It was a pair of classy middle aged women that passed through the door. Out on shopping therapy, if one could make the assumption based on the number of shopping bags they were carrying.
Mark grabbed his cup and retired back to the little kitchen to fini
sh his coffee and cook himself something to eat, while simultaneously trying not to be in Perry’s legs, who was preparing a tray of delicious chocolate filled croissants with caramel glazing, one of Marks favorite pastries and as far as he was concerned the sexiest of them all. The previous two little rascals were the ones who made the first move but he just could not leave this encounter to chance.
He prepared a regular breakfast of eggs, sausages and toasted bread with peanut butter along with a protein shake with milk, even though he had not trained today. He cooked and ate, one eye always on the tray of the unsuspecting delicacies. After he was done, he grabbed and devoured the best looking crescent blood-sugar dynamite of the bunch, which he snatched at the first chance he got when Perry wasn’t looking.
Being super strong and fast, and healing cut skin and torn muscles, and mending broken bones in the span of one night or a bit more is high maintenance work. Eating the amount of calories and amino-acids required by their bodies was a real challenge for the Knights of the Order in the past, even though their bodies tend to make use of almost everything that enters through their mouths. One would expect that much more would be coming out the other end and researchers of the Order were still studying to find out how their bodies could use all these stuff up, as if that was the most peculiar thing of all. Today though, in the modern age, with all the delicious calorie packed foods parading everywhere, eating like a pig and carefree of getting fat was one of Mark’s favorite things to do.
But it was almost noon, and he had a test to write in a couple of hours. He washed the dishes and the pan he used to make breakfast with, along with some baking pans and weird baking thingies that he did not know the names of that Perry kept piling up next to him. He finished up with the sink, dried his hands on a towel and he quickly rolled a cigarette and put it in his mouth.
