Saying Goodbye to the Sun

by David McAfee

  “That won’t be necessary,” I said. “I’m fine. Really. Thanks for your concern.”

  Drake’s smile widened, as did those of his four friends.

  “I’m afraid I really must insist, sir.” Then he leaned over, putting his face within inches of my own. His smile widened further, and I saw Drake’s teeth. Very much more to the point, I saw his two fangs. Just like Carl Sanders, Drake’s two upper canines dipped unnaturally low in his mouth and ended in two gleaming, lethal little points. I almost felt my bladder go again, but it was empty, thank goodness. “Club policy.”

  Fuck!

  I looked over the group of guys with him. Two of them had fancy dental work, too.

  Double fuck!

  “Please don’t make me ask you again, sir,” he said. “Make no mistake, you will come to the back room with us. Whether you walk there or we carry your broken, bleeding body is entirely up to you..”

  Triple fuck! Hadn’t I put up with enough of these assholes for one night? Why couldn’t these freaks just leave me alone? The taxi story was just for the other patrons who might be listening. If I went with them they were going to work me over until I sang whatever tune they wanted to hear. And since I didn’t know what they wanted, that could take a while. The thought of spending several hours in a dark room while a bunch of thugs with teeth worked me over didn’t warm my heart at all.

  I looked at them again. Five of them. Three of them vampires, and wondered what I could possibly do to get out of this. The club was way too crowded for me to run very far. They’d have me before I got to the dance floor. No chance of overpowering them, either. One, I might be able to handle, maybe two, but not five. Also, I was pretty sure more of them were hanging around the place, watching and waiting to see if they could join the fun. There might be as many as a dozen of Drake’s cronies in the room, all of them prepared to use force, if necessary.

  Drake watched me with a knowing smile as I ran through the options in my mind, almost daring me to try something and make it that much more interesting. He already knew what I was figuring out for myself: there was no place to go. I had no choice but to go along and hope for the best. I stood up and sighed.

  “I don’t suppose that you’d just take my word for it that I’m sober, would you?” I asked, knowing the answer before I asked the question.

  Still smiling, Drake shook his head. I longed to wipe that smirk off his face. I wanted nothing more than to pluck his beady little eyes out of his head with my fingers. Maybe I would feed them to the rats I’d seen in the alley where Grabby was killed. I had a vision of myself flipping the eyes out to the rats like a kid playing marbles. The thought made me smile, even though I knew I would never get to do such a thing.

  “All right, then,” I said. “Which way?”

  Drake pointed to a door in the far wall. Not much I could do except go along and hope an opportunity presented itself. I wasn’t holding my breath. I started walking, but I kept my ears open for anything that could help me. One of the guys behind me was talking to Drake. They were whispering, but I heard them very well. I guess they didn’t know about the upgrade to my senses, including my hearing.

  “You really think this guy knows where she is?” The guy asked.

  “Yeah, Nathan, I think he does,” Drake whispered back.

  So it was about Raine, after all. Why did everyone assume I knew where the woman went when she wasn’t at The Eye? Hell, if she’d wanted them to know, she’d have…

  That’s when it hit me; a revelation so big it should have slapped me in the face. Raine was missing. That’s the problem. Raine is missing and no one knows where she is. They all think I know, and they’re willing to do whatever they have to do to get it out of me. The realization caused me to stop in mid-stride, which earned me a sharp push in the small of my back, followed by a chuckle from Drake, who probably thought my sudden stop was due to fear of what lay ahead. I started walking again, paying close attention now.

  “Why?” Nathan replied. “Because she was with him the night Bandy was killed? That doesn’t mean much, Drake, I think you’re reaching.”

  So that’s why I hadn’t seen Bandy.

  “Maybe,” Drake said. “But she was supposed to take this guy that night, remember? She spared him for a reason. I think she has feelings for him. If that’s true, then who would know better where she is other than Ramah himself? I ain’t gonna question Ramah, so this guy’s all we got.”

  Nathan mumbled a response that might have been agreement, but I didn’t hear it. For me Drake’s speech had stopped a few sentences back. Can you guess where? If you said it had stopped at the line ‘She was supposed to take this guy that night, remember?’ then you’d win the cigar, the shopping spree, and the new car.

  So…our meeting under the streetlight wasn’t an accident. Raine didn’t just bump into me after leaving the club; she’d been looking for me. She’d been hunting me. She didn’t feel the connection like I thought she did, I’d just been another late night snack to her. It took a moment for the hurt and betrayal to sink in, but when it did…

  Damn her! It was all I could think for the next minute or so. Damn her! And Damn her again! I couldn’t believe it. The bond I thought we had was nothing but a sham. I was supposed to be dinner for some blood-sucking vampire, or Bachyir, or whatever they fuck they called themselves. The fact that I didn’t entirely believe in them did nothing to ease my anger, and the more I held it in check, the stronger it got.

  My captors must have sensed my change in mood, because they tightened ranks around me as they hustled me through the poolroom. I didn’t see any of it, though. I couldn’t see much of anything past the wall of red that crept up to obscure my vision. At one point I stopped walking and had to be pushed back into motion yet again, a fact I barely registered.

  In just one night I had been put through the wringer, wolfed down raw hamburger, and nearly been turned into hamburger myself by a block of granite with eyes named Joel Kagan. Now I was being dragged into some dirty back room for some weasel-faced little toady’s idea of fun. And for what? Raine didn’t love me, I was supposed to be dinner.

  I let the rage seep in, and I fed on it. It felt good to be angry, even if it would only last long enough for Drake and his goons to beat it out of me. They were going to have a rough time of it, though, since I couldn’t clue them in to Raine’s hiding place. I didn’t know it. I wished I did, though. I’d have given her up for sure. I might even have asked to go with them to take care of her. I didn’t know if she killed Bandy or not, but I didn’t care.

  Not that it mattered. They’d never believe me. And the more I told them I didn’t know, the less they’d believe it, and the worse they’d make things for me. It was going to be a long night. I’d managed to escape Sanders and Kagan only to wind up facing Drake and his cronies. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

  It always seemed to me that in books and movies, the real hero is usually blind luck. Some chunk of metal will fall from a damaged building to crush the villain, or the ground will give way beneath him and the hero will try to save him. It always happens just in the nick of time, too. Seconds before the villain – who, of course, has the hero at gunpoint and feels the need to waste time explaining his plan – pulls the trigger or pushes the button that would signal the end of the civilized world as we know it. Hollywood is funny that way.

  Reality is usually quite different. People who are being mugged wait for someone to help them. Kidnap victims hold out hope that the cavalry is coming. They won’t die, someone will save them. It’s always the same. The end is near, but they all think a hero is somewhere nearby waiting to claim his glory, and they will be fine. After all, they think, this can’t happen to me. Other people, maybe, but surely not me.

  Of course the heroes in real life hardly ever show up, and many victims never see the white hats coming over the horizon. Hollywood, it seems, has let them down.

  But there are no absolutes in the real world, and sometimes the imp
robable does occur. Sometimes our nail-biting silver screen rescues really do happen, and our saviors arrive at the very last instant to save our skins. Some of them can come from the most unlikely places. And sometimes, you can be saved by someone who doesn’t even know they are doing it.

  Just before we got to the door that would have led to the back room and a night of horrors I don’t even want to think about, Teresa happened by and noticed my little escort to the back.

  “What’s going on, Drake?” She asked as she put a hand on his shoulder.

  Drake, however, was in no mood to be questioned by a waitress, and without even answering he backhanded her. The loud smack of his hand on her face got the attention of everyone in the room. I don’t think he meant to hit her as hard as he did, but nevertheless Theresa went flying into a wall and hit it with enough force to knock her unconscious. Her tray of drinks fell to the floor with a loud crash that sent slivers of broken glass and droplets of booze in every direction.

  As Theresa slumped to the floor, three-quarters of the men in the room converged on our little group, demanding to know what the hell Drake thought he was doing.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” one asked.

  “Who do you think you are?” asked another.

  Drake’s buddies closed ranks around us, placing a barrier between him and what was fast becoming a buzzing, angry mob. Drake, arrogant as hell, informed the crowd that this was none of their business, and ordered them to step aside. When the people refused to disperse, one the guys guarding me shoved a member of the crowd into a wall. This lit a fire under the rest of them, and the mob of people rushed in to get to us.

  The resultant surge of bodies pressed me against the door. Drake’s ‘bodyguards’ did their best to hold back the twenty or so angry men who wanted to get their hands on him, but there were too many. Nathan yelled that he was going to call the police.

  “Are you out of your mind?” Drake replied. He probably didn’t want police in there, either. Not when he and his buddies were about to give me a makeover, mobster-style. Not to mention what else he might want to keep hidden. That was my cue. If I was going to have any chance at all of getting out of there with my skin intact, the time had come.

  I started yelling obscenities at the crowd, calling them every name I could think of and making lewd suggestions about their skill in the bedroom. On more than one occasion, I told some hulking, angry behemoth how great his girlfriend was at sucking cock and how it was a shame he’d never had her like I had. I told more than a few that if their own performance hadn’t been so pitiful, their girlfriends might not have been looking to score with a real man. I told them how good their sisters were, their mothers, and even told one or two that their fathers were experts at falatio. Anything I could think of to incite further chaos, I said without hesitation. In short, I did everything I could to make the situation deteriorate as much as possible, as fast as possible. And it worked like a charm.

  In less than a minute the crowd had grown from an angry group of men into a full-blown mob. Drake’s buddies couldn’t hold them back any longer, the press of bodies overwhelmed them. Several were swept under the tide of drunken, wild-eyed patrons trying to get at Drake and me. In no time at all a good old-fashioned bar brawl raged through the pool room. Guys were breaking pool cues over people’s heads or chairs over their backs. I saw one man, a huge, hairy guy with broad shoulders and no neck, hit one of Drake’s guys with a bottle from the bar. The guy went down. Hard. Not all of Drake’s men were Bachyir.

  Drake, however, was. And he had the strength to prove it. He tossed attackers left and right and showed no signs of wear from the effort. That only lasted as long as it took for five guys to jump on him at once, and then Drake, too, went down under a mass of flying fists and kicking boots.

  And me? I was safely gone before the row really got started. As soon as the mob began its press, I shoved against the door for all I was worth, pushing Drake out into the throng. While he battled with angry drunks, I opened the door and went inside, locking it behind me. I found myself in a hallway that ran to the left, and followed it. It took me to a room behind the bar, where I was able to watch Drake and his buddies go down through the one-way mirror on the wall behind it.

  A door stood on the far wall of the room, and a sign above it said EXIT. I went through the door and saw another hallway. This one ended in another door, and above that door was a sign that said EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY. ALARM WILL SOUND. It sure seemed like an emergency to me. I shoved the door open and ran down the street, the alarm blaring behind me like an air raid siren.

  Soon other sirens joined it, shrieking through the night like a chorus of trouble. The police, obviously, coming to investigate the ruckus. I also heard the thinner, warbling siren of an ambulance and wondered who’d gotten hurt. A smile spread across my lips. I hoped it was Drake.

  As much as I enjoyed the thought of the police coming to shake up The Eye, I realized that it would probably be prudent to get off the street myself before they got there. I didn’t want to have to answer any questions if I could help it. So I looked for a place to dig in for a little while. JoAnn’s was the other direction, and I would have to pass by The Eye again to get there, so that was out. I tried to think of another place nearby where I could go, but I came up blank. There simply weren’t that many places in the neighborhood open past two am. I was going to have to improvise.

  With a resigned sigh, I ducked into an alley. It seemed familiar, somehow, but I couldn’t place it. Maybe I’d just been in so many damn alleys over the last few days that they were all starting to look alike. I vowed to myself that if I managed to get home without getting arrested or killed, I’d never set foot in a dark New York City alley again. Damn things were nothing but trouble.

  This one was no different.

  Chapter Nine:

  Blind Luck Strikes Again

  I walked into the alley and went to the far side of the dumpster, trying to be as quiet as possible. I made it behind the dumpster just as the blue and red lights streaked past. Four police cruisers had been dispatched to deal with the erupting chaos at The Eye. I had my doubts that four would be enough. When I made my getaway the whole place was in on the row, with people on the top floor throwing things down onto the heads of those fighting below. It might take a SWAT team to restore order to that place. I smiled at the thought of Bandy being called to his club to inspect the damage that was caused by his own poor choice of second mate.

  Then I remembered. Bandy was dead.

  To be honest, I didn’t really care. I’d never been that fond of the guy, and I’d just found out I was nothing more to Raine than a snack. Let them both kill each other, if they wanted. For that matter, let all these weirdos kill each other off. The city would be a better place without them.

  I sat behind the dumpster for a while thinking my dark thoughts until I judged enough time had passed for me to leave and head home. And when I got there, I wouldn’t leave again for a week. Hell, I might even move. I’d had my fill of this city and its inhabitants. The residents just got stranger and more dangerous with every passing day. That very evening, hadn’t my life been in jeopardy not once, or even twice, but three times? Three! Everywhere I went in this city someone wanted to either hurt or kill me, and only one of them had wanted something from me I could provide. That was Grabby, of course. He’d wanted my wallet and my blood. The others, Kagan, Carl, and Drake had all wanted answers I couldn’t give.

  Where is Raine? Where is she hiding?

  Personally, the most important question I had for Raine had nothing to do with ‘where.’ My biggest question for her was ‘why.’ Why did she try to take me? Why didn’t she go through with it? Why did she leave? Why couldn’t I remember any of it until a few minutes ago? Why? Why? Why?

  Hidden among the many whys circling in my mind like a tornado, I found another question. This question took longer to surface, but once it did, it occurred to me it was probably the most important question
of all. The million-dollar baby, the Big One. This wasn’t a ‘why’ question, but a ‘what?’

  As in, ‘what the hell did she do to me?’

  My rage had quelled somewhat as the excitement of the evening faded and the boredom of standing in an empty alley set in. I began to wonder more and more why Raine chose not to kill me that first night. From what I overheard in The Eye, such a thing was very unusual. Drake made it sound like a weakness, like something no Bachyir in their right mind would do; yet Raine had let me go when she had me right where she wanted me. Maybe I hadn’t been imagining it. Maybe there really was a connection between the two of us. And that would make Drake’s sentiment all the more realistic. After all, what greater weakness is there than Compassion? Mercy can get you killed. That is one thing you learn the hard way as a vampire. If you are lucky, the lesson serves you well. If you are unlucky, then at least you don’t need to remember it.

  Well, I thought, no sense sitting here waiting for someone to find me. It wouldn’t be good if the cops started canvassing the area to find me sitting behind a dumpster a few blocks away. I might as well paint the word ‘trouble’ on my forehead and go right up to them. Add to that the very real possibility that Sanders and Kagan could be somewhere nearby waiting for me to emerge with the rest of the drunks from the police raid, and it meant I needed to get the fuck home. While it would suck to get arrested, I’d rather spend the night in lock up than run into those two again. Once had been quite enough.

  I began walking out of the alley, thinking to myself that when I got home, I might just take a third hot shower. And why not? I still had blood on me, and I’d spent large portions of the night either laying or sitting in dirty alleys and oily water. A nice hot shower seemed like the ultimate luxury. I’d turn the water so hot it would almost scald me. Then I’d stay there for an hour, or at least until the hot water ran out. After that I’d go back to bed, where I’d stay for three or four days.