by Drew Avera
I stood up and howled in pain as my knees felt the age and weariness of my body. I pointed the gun back at the piece of shit reflecting back at me. "You condemned your baby to hell!" I shouted as I stared with wide eyes. "She doesn't love you anymore. Do you hear me? You lost her, you damned coward. The bullets you've planted in them belong inside your own chest. You deserved death!"
I was breathing harder now as the stomping sound of the elderly black woman above my apartment interrupted me from my thoughts. The truth was not torture, at least not as much as the lie that I allowed myself to believe was.
"Quiet down there, you hear me?" she shrilled through a raspy, smoker's voice.
I did not need to respond. I just needed to leave, to walk headlong into the twilight and face my demons. I holstered my weapon and shrugged on my jacket. The entire facade of my life now was a lie. I dressed like one of them, the bastards whom I hated so. I was just like them, preying on the blood of others. I might not drink it, but I was sustained by it, allowed to live because of it.
I stepped outside of my apartment and slammed the door behind me. The stairs welcomed the groans of my steps as I fled from no one in particular, but I fled instead from the entire world, my entire existence.
I wished, as I stepped into the bitter winter that I would die tonight, that the Realms would release me back into the fold of mortal humanity. I did not care how painful a death would come, so long as it ended with the finality that I deserved.
A sigh escaped my lips because I knew that tonight was not that night. God himself was probably ashamed of the lengths to which I had fallen in order to selfishly preserve my life. Judas was not as hated as I felt for myself. Christ could forgive where I could not. I looked at the silver rosary, the burden of reminder of what I had lost; my faith, my love, my Angel.
Chapter 8
The sleeplessness of anxiety nestled itself into the confinement of my hallucinations. It was an awkward way to exist, in the shadow of lucidity, walking the very line between sanity and insanity. I wore the facade well, though I knew deep down that the burn of craziness raged beneath my skin. I swallowed hard as the bleary eyed drive came more into focus as I put miles between myself and my apartment.
There was no excuse for putting the gun against my head. I knew that I could not die from such a self-inflicted wound, but what can you do against the bombardment of your mind. Was it post-traumatic stress disorder? I had no way of knowing, there certainly was no way of seeking help if that was indeed the case.
I would suffer in silence, but I deserved it.
The high beams of light from a tow truck blinded me as it passed by on the icy highway, its lights reflected from the driver's side mirror on the beige door of my Buick. I squinted and tears welled in my eyes in order to fight the sting of the blaring light. My cold fingers found the radio dial and scanned automatically for something worth listening to. Static was the soundtrack as I made my way towards the entrance into the Realms for the third time in less than twenty four hours.
Tabitha had intrigued me, though I had no idea if I could trust what she said. My life would be forfeit, something that I was fine with to be perfectly honest, but the threat of not knowing if the ploy would be successful was enough to drown my enthusiasm.
Gravel kicked against the undercarriage of the car and the sprawl of the road led me to the barrier. Slowly the beast crept as mufflers choked the clean air with a plume of dark exhaust from burning too much oil. I parked a few feet from the barrier and cut off the engine. The creaking of the door as it opened stirred movement to my left. I assumed it some critter that was caught outside for the winter, suffering in the cold.
I knew the feeling well.
"Mr. Grimm."
I heard Remy's voice as a cold breeze snapped across my face with bitter contempt for the warmth from which I crawled from the Buick. I had no intention of crawling back into it so I pushed the collar of my coat up and scrunched my shoulders to fight back the frosty wake.
"I have been waiting for you. You're late," he said as he stepped from the shadows and shrugged off the slush of ice and snow that had collected on his shoulders.
"I wasn't aware of an appointment," I said, lifting my chin slightly to speak over the cloth that otherwise would have muffled my voice. "What's up?" I asked in the bantering kind of way that adults and teenagers much younger than I used often.
Remy was game.
"It's not the Raven, its Agent Ninety-nine," he responded using a code name from a classic television show from both mine and Remy's youth.
"I already spoke to her this morning," I said as I turned to walk towards the canopy of green under the weeping willow.
"This is about that. She wants an answer," he said behind me.
"That's why I'm here," I said. "I have my answer."
Remy shuffled from side to side, but not because he was cold. There was something on his mind. "She isn't here."
I exhaled a sigh and let my shoulders slump. "Where is she?"
"Underground."
That explained a lot. There were several underground holes where the old breweries stored ingredients and product a long time ago. Of course now they were used by different factions of the dark society, both vampires and criminals alike. "Where?"
"I can't say."
"Then why bring it up?"
"She told me to ask you to wait for her."
I breathed in with frustration. It was just like her to make me wait on whatever she had going on. She knew me well enough to know that I would seek her out with my decision. She also knew me well enough to know how to piss me off, case in point.
"All right, Remy. When will she return?" I asked, trying very hard not to snap at him. He was simple, innocent, very much not like his brethren. His personality threatened to soften even my cold heart.
"Midnight."
Damn. "I'll be back then," I said as I made my way back from the tree to the Buick which was quickly losing its warmth from the barrage of cold wind beating against it, stirring the tufts of snow that fell upon it.
"She wanted me to give you this," he said as he extended a matchbook with his right hand, uncovered and blue, even the cold skin of a vampire could burn with the bite of frost.
I took it from him and looked at it, "Jerry's, seriously?"
"She said they have good coffee," he said with a coy smile, knowing that no one went to Jerry's for the muddy water concoction they served as coffee. It was nothing short of a roach factory, serving hard toast and shitty eggs. It made a good meeting spot for those who worked outside of the law, though.
"I'll be there," I grumbled and climbed into the driver's seat and cranked the car. The defroster blew cool air up over the brown dashboard and flitted against my bare face. Remy stepped up to the door before I shut it and looked in with his cold brown eyes, the hunger was paining him as he listened to my heartbeat. He controlled it well.
"I hope you made the right decision, Mr. Grimm."
I hesitated and placed a bare hand on the door handle. "You know me, Remy. When do I ever make the right decision?" I said as I closed the door. Remy's body blurred as he moved quickly out of the way and re-appeared standing in front of the gleaming lights of my car, his eyes reflecting the light, as did his pale skin. I could see just how emaciated he was in the light, blue veins scored his flesh and his eyes were deeper set than I had noticed before. The baggy Punisher hoodie did little to hide how frail his body looked, though I knew that he could take any man one on one. It was best not to let appearances fool you when it comes to vampires.
I also knew that he liked me enough to never want to lay a finger on me. I, the vampire killer, treated him with more kindness than his own kind did. I knew that bought me certain privileges in his eyes. He smiled at me and revealed his boyish charm. With him it was never an act.
I raised my hand to wave goodbye and put the car in reverse, pulling away from the entrance to the Realms and leaving it behind, leaving Remy behind.
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nbsp; I pulled out onto the dark highway and headed for Jerry's, the local thug hot spot. I knew it was all a joke on Tabitha's part, but some jokes just aren't that funny. I drove on and let the howl of the wind keep me company, that and the decision that haunted my thoughts, even now as I stared into the blanket of darkness. It was a black hell from which I knew that I could never escape.
Chapter 9
Candlelit tables set near large windows didn't make Jerry's an upscale restaurant. In fact you could have toilet seats lined with hundred dollar bills and the place still wouldn't be worth a damned thing. Still I sat and nursed the mud in a mug that no amount of sugar and cream could make better and waited. Punctuality was not Tabitha's strongest virtue. In fact, I didn't recall what her strongest virtue was. She was conniving, she liked to kill, and generally she enjoyed the slew of men who fell in her wake a bit too much. I suppose that the fact that she didn't want to kill me could be a virtue.
Oh wait, that had changed at our last meeting. Well it looked like virtue was out the window now.
"I'm surprised you're here," she said at half passed midnight as she sat in the booth across from me. Julian took a seat a few tables away and ordered his own cup of coffee, taking it black, poor guy.
"I'm surprised you're late," I said sarcastically. She smirked. It was definitely on purpose I gathered.
"So, do you have an answer for me?" she asked.
"Of course I do, but you're not going to like it," I said as I poured more coffee down my gullet. "You should know that already."
She sat with her hands in her lap and eyed the door warily, I could hear the wind pushing against the door, but she wasn't looking at that. She wanted to escape. She wanted her freedom. "Tell me, Alex. Do you believe in God?"
"No," I said flatly as her eyes watched the rosary as it dangled from my wrist. I imagined that she remembered it burning the flesh of her fingers the last time we spoke.
"Then why do you wear that?" she asked, nodding in its direction.
I placed the mug down on the piss colored table and wiped a few drops up with a napkin before looking in her eyes. "Because you and your kind hate it," I said.
She grinned, "That's absurd, I'm rather fond of God, and His son. The idea of forgiveness is much easier to swallow than condemnation." She leveled her eyes at me in all seriousness and leaned towards me and whispered, "You do know that the image of a cross doesn't do us any harm, right?"
"Yeah, it's just a dumb myth from old books," I said as I turned the mug clockwise for something to do with my idle hands. I was nervous, I hated being nervous.
"The snow is really..."
"What do you want?" I interrupted her mid-sentence. She eyed me, knowing that I could sense her anxiety.
"You know what I want," she said giving me a dismissing wave of her fingers.
"There's more, isn't there?"
She sighed, despite the efforts that she made to hide it, and I could read her like a book. "Dammit, Alex," she said as she laid a photograph face down on the table that she had pulled from a pocket in her jacket. Her manicured fingers hovered over it for a second, and then relented as she pulled her hand away. I reached for it and then her small, strong hand grabbed my own, not allowing me to turn it over yet. "If you look at this picture, you will change your mind."
"I doubt that," I said with a gruff. I hated to be told what I would and would not do, even before my sentence.
"I'm dead serious."
"So am I," I replied and pulled my hand free from hers. I turned over the photograph and looked at a young woman, her dark hair about shoulder length. Her skin was pale, but her eyes seemed to pop out of the picture with a green that looked almost emerald. She looked a lot like my wife, Natalie.
That was when I realized who it was.
"This is Angelica?" I asked, knowing the answer. I could barely contain the emotional tumult that was building up inside of my body. My eyes welled with tears that burned, but I welcomed it. My heart began to race, and I could feel Tabitha tense as she sat across from me and the lure of pumping blood beckoned her. I could barely breathe, much less care about Tabitha's blood lust.
"Alex," I heard her speak, but I was too enraptured by the image in my hand. I traced the picture with my index finger, wanting desperately to touch the warm skin of her face, to wipe away the tears that I knew must have touched those cheeks.
"Alexander," she said again, this time she placed her hand on mine, but not in an authoritative way. It was kind, consoling, very much unlike I would have expected. I looked up to meet her gaze, her eyes flashed in front of me and reflected the flame of the candle that was close to burning out on the table between us, threatening to engulf us in darkness. I knew that instead, I was looking darkness dead in the face, her gaze still taking my thoughts, wrapping them around her finger, luring me.
I choked on air as I remembered to breathe again. The photograph still caught between my two fingers, it was the first time that I had seen her in twenty years, and she had grown into a beautiful woman. I felt a knot build in my throat and I knew that tears would pour from them if I did not choke it down. "All right," I said.
"You'll do it?" she asked with a gentle squeeze of my hand.
"If you promise me that Angelica will live, then I'll do anything you want." It was the first time that I had said those words to another being since Natalie's death. It felt strange, that sentiment. I was used to the cold hearted son of a bitch that I had become. I looked at Angelica's face again and knew that any price would be worth it, for her to live, for her to be protected. And as hard of a pill as it was to swallow, I knew that I would have to trust a vampire if order for it to happen.
"I promise," she said, and I believed her.
Chapter 10
There were no words to express the pangs of guilt that flooded my mind as I stepped away from Jerry's front door. The candlelight dimmed with each step as I moved towards my parked Buick. I could see Tabitha moving over to Julian and placing her hands on his broad shoulders. Julian seemed like the kind of bodyguard that I would get along with, he didn't feign his authority, and he just didn't take shit from anybody.
There was something that I liked about that.
I sat still in the driver's seat and pulled the photograph out of my pocket, placing it along the glass where the speedometer and temperature gauge sat. I had once housed a picture of my wife in a similar spot, though that beat down Datsun had been long gone from my possession.
Tabitha still loomed near her chaperon, bodyguard as I placed the key in the ignition. I squinted to try and read her lips as they fell into his ear, but the glare of the glass preventing me from doing so. Did I think she was lying? No, but I did have the gut feeling that my death would be a trickier game to play that she let on. The Raven just wasn't the kind of guy to allow things that he possessed to go missing, and make no mistake about it, I was his possession.
I put the car into drive and pulled out onto the snow covered street. The flashing yellow light allowed me to drive through the intersection and I watched entire city blocks pass with nary a person moving through the streets or alleys along my way.
I had not been summoned this evening, but that was not unusual. My sentence did not require a death every single day, but it was regular enough to darken my soul. Well at least the parts of my soul that were not already darkened. I drove on in silence and watched the streetlights dance along the picture of Angelica as I passed each one. I turned right at an intersection near a twenty four hour gas station; it was the last one on the way to my apartment and I could see a few customers through the large windows, there was also a Middle Eastern man at the register.
I felt like a racist for feeling like he met some kind of stereotype, but I suppose that was why it was a stereotype, the commonality of it all.
I moved along and finally settled into my parking spot. The snow drifts were freshly dusted since I had last been out, but the barren parking lot still easily identified each individual space.
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I was lost in my own world when I climbed out of the car and placed the picture back into my breast pocket. The concerns of the world had seemed like something much smaller since it had been handed to me.
Apparently the world had not received the memo.
"Mr. Grimm, you're out rather late this evening."
The voice was unmistakable; it also scared the hell out of me. The timing could not have been more inconvenient.
"Master," I said as I slowly turned around, half frozen from the chill of the air and the cold company by my side.
"What kept you? I was so worried," he said with a thick, French accent, his dark hair pulled back in a perfect ponytail. The white collar of his shirt folded over his dark gray suit jacket. His eyes were blue and bore into mine with a calm rage. It was normal for him, I told myself in order to keep from pissing my pants. I struggled to avoid the fear; I knew he would detect it.
"I was out for coffee. You know how it is, restless nature and all. I needed to get outside of the four walls of my apartment," I said trying to be as truthful as possible.
He sniffed the air around me, testing it with his nostrils. "Smells like the rank mud at Jerry's," he smiled a coy smile that revealed nothing about what he may have detected.
"Yeah, it tastes like shit, but it's cheap and the refills are free." I tried to step around him, and he let me.
"How many refills did you have?" he asked as he followed me to my apartment building's door, pretending to carry a normal conversation.
"None," I answered. "I didn't want to stay up all night." It was not a convenient thing to say at two in the morning, I thought to myself afterward.
"Ah, well I just wanted to check in on you, to see how my favorite representative was doing this evening." I shook my head, knowing what was coming. The Raven didn't make rounds, and he sure as hell didn't make house calls unless something was up his sleeve.
I turned the doorknob and tried to push my way into the warm air that waited to welcome me into it. At first I thought I would make it, but then he grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the threshold of the entrance and wrapped his cold arms around me. I wanted to fight, but I was enslaved to his desires, the flesh of my body appealed to fulfill them. The blood that coursed through my veins wanted to release his torment, my life be damned.
