by Alana Melos
I got dressed in fresh clothes--black leather pants, black combat boots, and my vest. Hey, I didn’t say I was a fucking fashion guru or anything, so cut me a break. The sword too. Had to have a sword. I moved over to the rack of blades Nos kept on his half of the lair, and looked them over. Which one? I asked him, not knowing what his mood would be.
Thisss one, he said and he possessed my arm for a second to reach for a straight blade, more or less clean. It had a serrated edge, and a long deep groove down the middle. I picked it up and found a sheath for it among the pile at the bottom of the rack, then buckled it on over my back. I kinda knew how to use ‘em, but that was mostly what I picked up from the vamp. For myself, I grabbed a pair of brass knuckles and stuffed ‘em in my pocket. My switchblade went into the other side.
Ready to go, I balled up my dirty shit and threw ‘em in a sack. I was hungry, and I never kept food around the lair. On my way out, I dropped my dirty shit off with Consuela down the hall to clean. She thanked me and pinched my cheek, calling me a good boy. I tolerated it while Nos chuckled in the back of my head. He gave me visions of her screaming, her face bloody… and I shook my head.
These are my people, Nos, I told him. Back the fuck off.
Ssssooo tasssty… he whispered as I headed outside of the tenement. The work crew was here, which was good; they were installing the new heating system for the building. Last job had paid for that. Furnaces for a whole fucking building weren’t cheap. I got about two steps away from my door when Alejandro, this kid from the next building over, came running up to me.
“Miguel! Miguel!” he said, out of breath. “¿Dónde has estado? Hay--”
I cut him off. “You know the rules,” I said. “We’re fucking Americans. Speak American.”
He paused for a second and I looked at the scrawny Latino kid impatiently. “Where have you been?” he asked slowly as he wasn’t too sure on his American stuff yet. “There is… a bad man…” He trailed off, frowning as he didn’t know the words. The kid pointed down the street. “A bad man.”
I scowled. People knew better than to mess with my ‘hood. “Show me,” I said. Alejandro ran off, and I trotted behind, keeping up with his speed no prob.
He stopped at the corner and put a finger to his lips, then pointed. Being all sneaky like, I looked around the corner and saw some white dude looking around, twitchy as hell. As I watched, someone came up to him and they started brokering a deal. My lip curled. Fucking drugs. Mother fuckers. There was only one thing I hated worse than drug dealers, and you didn’t want to know what I did to those pendejos. That wasn’t even the vamp, sadistic fucker that he was. That was fucking me.
I took off my vest and blade and handed ‘em to the kid. “Hold this,” I said, pulling out my switchblade. I liked that vest and I didn’t want to get blood on it yet, or another hole in it. The kid grabbed my stuff and hugged it to his thin chest as I strode around the corner. The guy buying saw me and took off, but the dealer didn’t recognize me. Why would he? I wasn’t vamped out, but I didn’t need to be for this piece of shit.
“Hey, man, what the fuck?” he asked as I got closer. “You chased off a cus--”
I grabbed the guy by his shirt and lifted him up. “You know who I am?” I snarled. When the cloth began to tear, I lowered him just a bit, enough so his feet grazed the ground.
“What the--” he started, but I showed him the knife.
“This block’s off limits,” I said.
The scum reached behind him and pulled out a gun. I laughed and let go as I grabbed his arm and shoved the barrel into my gut. Nosferatu moved uneasily in the back of my head warning me, but I didn’t care. If I died now, he died, and he didn’t want that. It didn’t matter. No one fucked with what was mine. “Fucking fire, mother fucker,” I said in a low, hard voice. Then, I smiled real wide, “I dare you.”
He looked into my dark eyes and dropped the gun. I know what he saw there as Nos had flicked to life for a second, making my eyes glow red even in the bright sun. “...I thought that was just a rumor…” he said, his already pale face going even paler as the blood drained from his head. “I thought… oh, Jesus…”
“Thought you could make an easy deal, quick few bucks off of a dry street,” I said. “And you were nice and polite and didn’t shoot me, so I’ll let you live. This time.” I brought the blade up and let his eyes focus on it, “But we still have to send a message, asshole. So I’ll let you pick. Your fingers or your eyes.”
“Wh-what?” the guy stammered. “No…!” At that, he started to struggle, realizing I was serious as shit. He slammed his fist into my gut a few times and pulled on his arm, trying to free himself. I headbutted him right on the bridge of his nose and he screamed. From having my nose broke before, I knew how much that fucking hurt. After that, I socked him in the face with the butt of my knife and he quieted down real fast.
I won’t bore you with details… but in the end he chose his fingers. Nosferatu wanted them, so I had the kid grab me a bag from somewhere to dump ‘em in. Poor kid looked sick when I put them in the paper bag he’d found, but when he looked up at me, he flashed a big smile, real fucking big, man. Made me feel like I was ten feet tall.
“Good work,” I said as I put on the vest and blade again. “Work on your American, hermano,” I said, peeling off a fifty from my stash to give to him. The kid snatched the bill, ignoring the blood from my fingers which had stained it. Money was money. He ran off, yelling to his mamacita that he’d talked to the vampiro.
Now, normally I wasn’t quite that bloodthirsty, but like I said, no one fucks with my shit. Most of the time, when I had to teach a lesson, I let the vamp take care of it. Nos was eager to and he made for a creative teacher. I didn’t think he minded being an enforcer for me from time to time and being as he had a whole city to pick victims from, he let me have my one block. You had to take care of your people, your familia. I wasn’t never nothing but a no good punk before. Bonding with the vamp was the best thing that ever happened to me. He took care of me… and I took care of my people.
The rest of the day passed pretty fast. I ate, I talked with some people, I made a few calls to start lining up another job. It was pretty typical. When it started to get to dark, Nos roused himself again. Hungry…. he rasped in that whispery voice in my head. Food….
A pang of lust hit me, and I knew what he was talking about. Well, there was a great place to fix that particular scratch. Both of us liked this club. I liked it because there were so many fucking hot chicks there all begging to be fucked by a meta. Nos liked it for much the same reason… it was a never ending buffet for him.
‘Cause Nos was who he was, I was able to fly--to fly, how badass was that?--to the closest entrance to the Underground. It was this big underground nightclub which this guy Malech ran. I heard bad things about him, so we played nice...at least while we were here. This place was off the fucking hook. It had everything… big ass DJ booth above a giant glass dance floor, a thousand different bars which had a thousand different types of booze, private rooms where you could get down and freaky. It was a club goer’s wet dream.
It also worked as a contact point for a lot of bad dudes, myself included. Since this guy who ran it was supposedly a demon, he kept a lot of the up and ups on the outs. Meta humans hung out here, all power levels, but mostly all criminals. The cops weren’t touching this place with a ten foot pole. Lucky for us, the normies like to hang here too, especially the little fangirls, and boys I guess, who wanted to rub shoulders with greatness. They all wanted to flirt with the bad boy, titter and giggle and shit, and then go home with stories about how they were fucked hard by a supervillain. It was the best.
I landed, waited, and paid the cover charge. When I got in there, the heavy bass of some dance music or another hit me like a ton of bricks, the vibrations making my body hum. Nos came fully awake and surged forward, intent on taking control. I bared my teeth at nothing and forced him back down. I wanted to have fun first. The vamp circled
in my head like a wolf pacing in his cage, pissed because he couldn’t take control when he wanted.
That will change… he promised me and I laughed at him.
Not in a million years, I told him. Now let’s get us some food.
That he could get on board with, and he used my eyes to scan the crowd. Of course, he picked out a blonde, but looking at the little bit of sweetness he chose, I had to agree. She was pretty tall for a chick, maybe around five eight or so, but her body was stacked. Nice wide hips which she shook like her life depended on it, and big ass tits, enough to get my hands around. Her face… well, it was alright, I guess. She wasn’t no super model or nothing, but as I watched her dance on the floor, she laughed and her eyes sparkled. I wondered what color they were.
Instead of approaching her right away, I pulled a Nos and stalked her, seeing if she was here with friends or not… and she was. That’d make it harder to pull her from the pack for a quick fuck. I watched her talk with her friends, poseurs the lot of them with dyed hair and heavy make up, but she was different. They seemed almost bored, but she looked around with her eyes bright, a ready and wicked smile, and a fast laugh. I had to say, Nos could pick ‘em.
When she moved out to the dance floor again, I slid out there myself. I had some moves, though I mostly liked metal and rock, ripping tunes to get the blood flowing. When she turned around, there I was, grinning down at her. The gal yelped and took a step back, so I took a step forward and shouted over the tunes, “Hey, babe!” You know, friendly, like I was just there to dance with her and shit.
She eyed me up and down, stopping more than a few times on my six pack. “Hey!” she shouted back.
I didn’t say nothing more, but kept grinning at her as we danced. She had some moves too and before long we were in sync, bodies jumping and moving to the music. While she didn’t look at my face too much, I knew by the way she watched my bod she wanted me. Nos sniffed the air, and confirmed it, but then the entire dance floor smelled like sex. When the song changed, I shouted, “Drink?”
The gal gave me a thumb’s up in response, so I nodded towards the closest bar… which happened to be a different one than her friends were at since I’d maneuvered our dancing away from the other one. As we left, she grabbed my arm and pulled me down to yell in my ear, “What’s your name?”
“Michael,” I shouted back to her as the noise began to fall away the closer we got to the bar. “Fuck, loud in there,” I said. “What do you want?”
“Bloody Mary,” she shouted.
“Two,” I said to the bartender. You always got what the chick got, unless it was something froo-froo and I happened to like bloody Marys anyway. When we got our drinks, I sipped it and set it aside. “What’s your name?”
“Deirdre,” she said, taking a big drink of hers. “Dee if I like you, and if you call me Dee Dee, I will punch you in your junk.” She eyed me up and down, and that wicked grin came back, “And I’m short enough that it’s in my perfect shot range, so I’d watch it, Mike.”
“Fair,” I grinned. “You want to fuck?”
Deirdre coughed as she took a drink of her drink and set it down quickly, sputtering. “Wow,” she said, looking flushed. “You get right to the point, don’t you?”
I shrugged, “Why not? You’re hot. I’m hot. We could be hot together.”
Instead of slapping me, she laughed. “Does that line actually work for you?”
“You’d be surprised,” I said. “‘Course, most chicks here just wanna get with a meta, so it don’t take much.”
At that, her brows shot up. “You’re a metahuman? But you look so normal.” She smirked, “Where’s your tights and cape?”
I snorted and opened my vest up, turning around in a slow circle. “And cover up this perfection? Fuck that shit,” I grinned.
Deirdre wolf-whistled at me as I turned and ended up clapping her hands. “You are so right,” she said. “You belong in a museum, hung up somewhere.”
“I’m hung alright,” I said, my grin growing even bigger. Normally, that smile freaked people out. But then, I was usually grinning ‘cause I was getting ready to stab them.
“I bet you are,” she laughed.
“You wanna find out?” I asked, leaning on the bar and giving her a good look at my bod.
“No,” Deirdre laughed. “I wanna know what your powers are!”
“Giving girls orgasms,” I said, without hesitating.
She laughed and blushed, covering her mouth in this weird way which was cute and kinda modest. It was like she wasn’t used to being hit on, which was some crazy shit since she had an ass made for fucking.
“Well,” she said, “if that’s your power, then why haven’t you got girls lined up around the block?”
“I don’t want them,” I said, looking her straight in the eye. “I want you.”
At that, she blushed even harder and Nosferatu in the back of my head curled his fingers around each other, listening to each word intently. He thought the same thing I did: she was new to clubbing and hooking up, and the weird kinda innocence made her more sexy. The word he used was ‘tassssty’, but it meant the same thing.
“You don’t want me,” she said, breaking our stare and turning away, but she was smiling. I could hear it in her voice. “I’m damaged goods.”
Uh… uh oh. This was getting too serious. I grabbed her hand, “Fuck that. Let’s dance.” I led her out on the dance floor and Deirdre followed easily enough. Before long, we were dancing, hell, almost grinding against each other. She might have said serious shit, but the vibes she put out were all sex… and during this second dance, she put her hands all over me. I didn’t mind, but I kept mine off of her. She wanted to be wanted, but she wanted to be wanted in a particular way. She wanted the bad boy with a heart of gold, some dude who was gonna sweep her off her feet with his bad boy ways, but take his time in the bedroom and be all gentlemanly and shit. I’d seen it before.
When we got done this time, I scanned the bar where her friends had been and seen ‘em gone. That was what I wanted and as I led her back to the bar where our drinks had been, she looked up at me, then grabbed my face and pulled me down to her level. She kissed me hard, but it was more like mashing lips together since we were both on the move.
“What was that for?” I shouted at her as the music changed again.
“Because I like you,” she said. “And because I wanted to.”
Good enough for me. I pressed closer to her, and looked down, smiling my best smile. “Doesn’t have to stop there,” I said, pulling her closer to the side of the bar, towards the private rooms. My hands slid down and cupped her lush ass, feeling how fine and soft it was. The grinding was bad enough, but now I was starting to get hard thinking about her legs wrapped around me.
“Wow, you weren’t kidding,” she said, backing up and looking down. When she tipped her eyes up to me again, her hand slid down over me, and my grin turned wider. “That’s… that’s something alright!” She took her hand away, her face red as a cherry.
“Come on,” I said, urging her to the side. “Let’s have some fun.”
“I should find my friends,” she said, that blush not leaving her at all. When she looked around and didn’t see them, I shrugged.
“Looks like they ditched you,” I said. “Not fucking cool.” I motioned to the bartender for two drinks and flipped out some cash to pay for it.
For a minute, she looked flummoxed and Nosferatu chuckled at the indignation on her face. I told him to shut it and just watched, taking a drink of my bloody Mary. Deirdre moved away from me, back towards where her crowd had been. Empty glasses ruled the table, but their personal shit was gone. More than likely, they’d moved to another bar--this place was fucking huge--but didn’t bother to tell her. She wandered back and I pushed the drink her direction.
“Would you hang out here for a minute with me? I’m sure they’ll be back,” she said, retreating to the edge of the bar where I leaned.
“Yeah, su
re,” I said. But they wouldn’t be. I knew the type. They moved on to the next party, the next fad, the next whatever. They might have still been in the Underground, but she wasn’t gonna find them unless she left me, the only other person she “knew” here. Dee wasn’t a clubber; she was way too naive. Or at least, she wasn’t an old hand at it. It was a hook up thing, a party culture. You moved with the crowd, or you got lost in it. She didn’t know it yet, but she’d gotten lost. I could smell the fear on her, see it in the pulse on her neck, her heart beating faster than it should have been.
Damn, that was hot. I wasn’t the sadist Nos was, but I liked being in control and I liked people being afraid. Dee looked around here and there, flitting around me but not leaving while I drank casually and watched her. The vamp kept circling in my head. He urged me to press her. I ignored him. She’d come to me when she realized she was alone.
After a couple songs, Deirdre came and sat down on a stool next to me. “No luck?” I asked.
“No,” she said. The fear had subsided somewhat and she looked more annoyed now. “They’re my ride home!”
“Nah,” I said, shaking my head. “You don’t need ‘em. I’ll buy you a port home.”
“A port?” she asked, glancing at me then down.
I set my empty glass aside. “Yeah, a teleport,” I said. “Lots of porters around here. Couple hundred bucks to send you right to your door. No muss, no fuss. Ain’t you never been here before?”
“It’s my first time here,” Deirdre said, her blush renewing. “I’ve… heard things.”
Now that didn’t surprise me at all. There were a shit ton of rumors about the Underground, all of ‘em bad, and most of ‘em true. “Well then,” I said, pushing off the bar, “you got a ride home, so let’s make this a night to remember.” Grinning, I didn’t give her a chance to protest and led her back out onto the dance floor. She resisted at first, but it didn’t take long to get back into it. When she decided to cut loose, she cut loose. It wasn’t just dancing anymore, but practically fucking on the dance floor. If we didn’t have clothes between us, it would have been.
