by Leod D. Fitz
“And none of them are betting on you?”
She glowered at me. “A ghoul fed newborn whose sire is dead? No. Nobody is betting on me.”
I winced.
While neckbiters gain strength every time they drink blood, their first two meals are the most important. The first meal, after they’ve been almost completely drained, consists of a fairly sizeable amount of their sire’s blood.
The older and more powerful the sire is, the more powerful the newly made vampire will be when they begin their new life.
After consuming a Master's blood, the newly made vampire enters a state resembling death, which generally lasts a couple of days. When they wake up, they're famished, delirious with hunger, and will consume the blood of the first thing that lets them. Barring that, they'll drain the first thing that can't fight them off.
This is the waking meal, and it affects them for the rest of their lives. A neckbiter whose waking meal is the blood of a master vampire becomes a master vampire, capable of making new neckbiters.
A waking meal from a lesser vampire, or a human, results in a null. Nulls are the eunuchs of bloodsucking world. They can accomplish great things, gain respect, even lead others, but a null will never be a part of vampire nobility. Only in the most extreme of circumstances are they allowed to act as the head of a nest or coven.
The majority of neckbiters, however, are domestics: the servant class. Their second feeding is typically the blood of an animal. Though they are as immortal as any of their peers, and at least as stuck up when it comes to dealing with anything that isn't a vampire, there is a distinct limit to how high they can rise in the hierarchy.
To the best of my knowledge, there was no specific place built in for someone whose waking meal came from a ghoul, but given how those leeches treated me, I had a pretty good idea of where they wanted to put her.
“Sorry about that.”
Sherry shook her head and stomped into the bedroom.
Suddenly it occurred to me that I'd just acknowledged guilt, even though the only thing I'd actually done wrong had been to save her life, and that had been several months ago. Worse than that, she still hadn't apologized for the things she'd clearly done wrong in the last several minutes.
I prepared myself for a fight and moved to follow her. When I entered the room, however, I found her slurping down the pig's blood as she pulled off the last of her clothes.
She tossed the carton aside, wiping at her lips, spilled blood sliding slowly down her breast, and gave me a come-hither look. “So, are we going to fuck, or what?”
Sometimes you have to let go of the little things.
Chapter 2
Sherry left a few hours before sunrise. She waited until I was in the shower, probably so she wouldn't have to come up with an excuse for why she couldn't help me clean up.
Not that I minded, my preemptive measures had contained most of the mess. There was some blood on the ceiling, but I licked that off without much trouble. A foot-and-a-half long tongue comes in handy for things like that.
The rest of the carnage was captured by the plastic, which I rolled up and dumped in the back of my truck. I'd dispose of that later.
The mattress went on top of the plastic, upside down to hide the slashes and stains. A pair of straps secured my load in place. I'd take all of it back to the dump, sometime after hours and toss it over the fence. I checked the room once more for stains, then started putting the furniture back in its place, or as close as I could remember.
My mind wandered as I worked. Mostly it wandered in the same direction: Sherry. The longer I knew her the less certain I was how I felt about her.
Objectively, she was one of the least pleasant people I knew. Worse, in many ways, than Percy. She was egotistical and insulting, accepting anything I did for her as her due. She was also a neckbiter, which didn't win her any points as far as I was concerned, though it did kind of explain why she was such a sociopath. Or maybe being a sociopath was why a vampire decided to turn her. I was never really clear on that.
And it wasn’t as if we had anything in common. We didn't ever actually talk about anything, unless it was to trade insults or argue. If we weren't having sex, we were fighting. Sometimes we fought during sex.
Or she'd complain about her damned stomach ache. I was actually starting to get worried about that. As far as I knew, vampires couldn't get sick. When she wasn’t blaming the pigs’ blood for her discomfort, she claimed that the problem was my blood. Not that it stopped her from drinking it, she just liked to complain about it afterward.
Everything about the woman grated on me, but I couldn't deny that I had feelings towards her. Strong ones.
She was the first woman who'd slept with me without charging, and maybe that was all there was to it. The few teenagers I'd known growing up had believed that they were desperately in love with their first sexual partner. Perhaps I was experiencing the same thing, just a decade and change later.
The big question was whether or not she felt anything for me. It wasn't a question I could actually ask; at best, she'd mock me for it, at worst, she'd give me an honest answer.
Once the room was back to its usual shoddy condition, I grabbed the spare set of work clothes out of my truck, changed, and dropped the room key off at the office.
Thirty minutes later I pulled into the front parking lot, spotting three vehicles I didn't recognize parked next to Percy's blue Oldsmobile. Apparently, his friends had decided to come visit him early. Usually the kind of people Percy dealt with liked to get up around noon.
I pulled around to the back of the building.
As many times as I'd caught my assistant pulling a quick one on my property, I had never managed to instill in him any lasting fear or respect. If I wanted to make an impression, I'd have to go a little farther this time. After some consideration, I hopped out of the cab and grabbed a crowbar out of the truck bed. Instead of heading in through the back door, I rounded the building, running the edge of the crowbar along the side of Percy's car.
When I came even with his front door, I tucked the curved end of the crowbar under his front tire and pulled back until I heard hissing.
With a satisfied smile on my face, I twirled the crowbar around to smash one of his headlights and headed in the front door.
I was not surprised to find Percy in my lobby with five ugly bastards surrounding him. I was surprised to find Percy bleeding all over the floor of my lobby while the five ugly bastards kicked the shit out of him.
At the sound of my entrance, three of the men turned, pulling guns. The other two, it seemed, were too absorbed with working over Percy to notice me.
The first thing that occurred to me was that I could probably kill the lot of them and get away with it. After all, Percy wouldn't rat me out, and I had plenty of time to get rid of the evidence before the next viewing was scheduled.
The second thing that occurred to me was that they had probably been sent here by someone who would wonder what happened if they all just up and disappeared.
And I'd have to get rid of the cars somehow. That seemed like a lot of work.
Years of pretending to be intimidated by the baby vampires that liked to throw their newfound weight around had prepared me perfectly for this moment. I dropped the crowbar, held my hands up, making sure that they shook, opened my eyes wide, and let out a terrified squeak.
I considered shitting my pants as well, but decided that would be overkill. Besides, I wasn’t sure I had any good replacement plants on the property, and I didn’t want to have to run back home to change.
“Who the hell are you?”
“I-I-I, this is my place.” I swallowed and continued to shake my arms in faux-terror.
“This guy works for you, Piss-pot?” The leader of the group asked my employee, who was gasping desperately, now that the last two men had finally stopped kicking him.
“H-he w-works for me,” I sputtered.
The man raised an eyebrow at me. “You're
in charge?”
I swallowed again and nodded. “I w-work on the bodies and h-he deals with the customers.”
The man stared at me blankly for a moment before his face broke into a grin. “You work the bodies and he deals with the customers. That's priceless. That's fucking priceless.” He turned toward his crew. “No wonder this place made such a good front, half the people working here think it's legit!”
A good front? Percy had been using my place in one of his damned schemes! Rage flooded me, but I quickly pushed it down. I'd deal with Percy later, after these jackasses had left. And after he'd had some time to recover. If I started in on him in his current condition and in my current mood, he probably wouldn't survive.
But when he did get back on his feet, we would definitely have words.
In the meantime, I needed to maintain appearances. “What are you talking about? What front? What's going on here? Percy? Who are these people?”
The leader of the group grinned. “Me? I'm your business partner. Nicky Cullens.”
“Business partner? I don't have a business partner.”
“Oh, I beg to differ.” Nicky waved his gun in Percy's general direction. “I've invested a lot of time and money into your boy, here.”
“But what does that have to do with me?”
Nicky stepped closer to me, poking me in the chest with his gun. “Piss-pot Percy is running drugs out of your establishment. My drugs. Maybe you knew that, maybe you didn't. Truth is, I don't give a shit. The important thing is that he's been taking product from me, and selling it through you. Meaning you've been selling it for me. That makes you and me business partners.”
“But... but I didn't even know. I didn't....”
“You really think that matters?” Nicky reached out and began adjusting my clothes. It was a power play on is part. I’d read a book on that sort of thing once. “Now, Percy was just trying to explain how he lost my product, and we were explaining to him how disappointed we were in him for being so irresponsible. Now, I was originally thinking we’d go through the place and see if there was anything here that was worth what he owed us, but looking at you, I’ve got another idea. I’m thinking I’m going to let you take over Piss-pot’s debt. You seem like the kind of guy who understands things like financial planning and general fiscal responsibility.”
“I-I… I can call the police, they—“
He moved forward again, trying to loom over me, a difficult proposition given that we were basically the same height. “You could call the police, explain your situation to them. Maybe they'd understand, maybe they wouldn't. But it would take a lot of time and pain to convince them, and they'd dig through every inch of your life, not to mention dragging your name through the mud. How many people do you think would bring their loved ones to you if they think that you might, might be involved with somebody like me? And even if you are squeaky clean, and the cops close the investigation, and people decide to start doing business with you again, guess what? You’re still going to have to spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder, because if you fuck with me, one day, I will come for you.”
He was close enough that I could have ripped his throat out with my teeth without taking a step, and from the smell of him, he'd been seasoning himself with years of drug abuse. That kind of thing really added some zing to a meal.
I licked my lips, trying not to think about how tasty he would be. “Y-you can’t just… I won’t do it. I don’t care, I won’t do it.”
Nicky shrugged. “Then I guess we go back to the original plan. The boys will strip this place of anything worth selling, and we’ll torch it. With you and Percy inside. Shouldn’t be too hard to make it look like an accident, especially if you’ve got one of them… cremating machines.”
“Retort,” I replied automatically. “It’s called a retort.”
“Yeah, one of them. I’ll have to pay off the fire marshal, but you know what they say, you’ve got to spend money to make money.”
I hesitated for a moment, searching for a way out. “So either I die, or I work for you.”
“Don’t think of it like that. You’ve already been working for me; you just didn’t know it til now.”
“And how much would it cost me to dissolve our relationship?”
Nicky grinned. “Dissolve it? Why would I want to dissolve something that I worked so hard to set up?”
One quick bite. I could almost see him lying on the ground, blood spurting as he thrashed.
Nicky placed a hand on my shoulder. “No, what we have here is what they call, 'the beginning of a beautiful friendship.' Does that sound good to you?”
Not as good as a plate of Nicky tartare. I pushed the thought down. I didn’t know enough about them to kill them. Not yet. I let my shoulders slump in defeat. “Sure.”
“Good. Now, Percy here will explain the details to you later, I'm sure, but the important thing you need to understand right now is that issue with a missing payment. I fronted Percy here certain goods, and now he tells me that, not only does he not have my money, but the goods are gone. As you might imagine, this is a problem for me, and one that I intend to see corrected. So, tell me, partner, what are we going to do about the money your boy owes me?”
I sighed, leaning over to pull Percy's keys out of his pocket. I detached his car keys, tossing those over to Nicky before I dropped the rest on top of Percy's head. “How's that?”
Nicky looked at the keys for a few seconds, then shrugged and tossed them to one of his boys. “You know where to take it, Bobby.” He turned back to me. “We'll call that a down payment. I'll put the rest of it on the books as a loan. To you. Percy’s credit is officially shot, so I’m going to be holding you personally responsible, from here on out, you get me… uh….”
“Walter. Walter Keppler.”
“You get me, Walt?”
Walt? Once more I had to push down my bloodlust. I nodded.
“Johnny here will drop off the goods in the next few days. I'll give you a couple weeks to move the merchandise. And don't look so glum. It may take you a few months to pay me off and get things running smoothly, but before you know it, you'll be in a position to make some real money here.”
“Oh.” I sighed sadly.
Nicky clapped me hard on the back. “See you around, buddy. And you, piss-pot.”
Percy had enough sense left to refrain from speaking until they were all out of the building. “It isn't what you think, Walter.” He coughed up some blood and stared at me, terror in the eye that wasn't swollen shut. “I swear, I can explain.”
I stared back at my assistant, weighing his value alive, versus how he'd taste if I left his corpse in the basement for a few days. “We'll have a nice, long chat about that soon enough,” I finally replied. “First, though, you've got a tire to change.”
“What?”
The front door swung open, and the underling who’d been tossed the keys stormed back in.
“All right.” I perched on one of my work tables and gave Percy my coldest stare. “Explain how this isn't what it looks like. And more to the point, explain why I shouldn't do very bad things to you.”
Percy winced, holding his left arm against his torso as he pushed a body out of the way so he could sit on the table that faced me. “I never brought any drugs in here.”
“My new partner seems to think otherwise.”
“I could hardly tell him that I sell to werewolves,” Percy explained. “He wanted to know how I was going to turn around that much merchandise. I told him that we get a lot of people coming through that could use something to get them by.”
“And he bought that?”
Percy grimaced, lowering his voice in fear. “He was hesitant. So, I told him that we're near the high school.”
My teeth ground together, and I made fists so tight that my fingernails bit into my palms. “You told him you sell to kids? Out of my morgue?”
“It was just before the full moon,” Percy's voice went up an octave
. “I needed as much product as I could get!”
“What kind of product?”
“The usual. You know, meth, coke, heroin, morphine.”
“And you told him that you're selling that shit to kids?!”
“But I never sold it to any kids! I was never going to sell it to any kids!”
“No, but you told a gangster you were, and that you were doing it out of my place! How many times do I have to tell you, that shit comes back to ME! Gangsters get caught. They make deals. Hell, for all you know, one of those assholes is an undercover narc! How long do you think I'll be able to stay in business if the cops start looking into me? What do you think will happen to you when I can't provide my services to the neckbiters?”
Percy's face went white at that. I couldn't blame him. Percy had come under my employ for one very specific reason, and it had nothing to do with money. Years before, he'd been involved in a deal that went bad, a deal involving a powerful local vampire. He'd gotten a job working for me because the protection the Province Master had granted to my establishment kept Percy from being brutally murdered.
But neckbiters didn’t forgive, and they never forgot.
“Sorry, Walter.”
“Sorry doesn't do anything!” I growled back. “And now you've gone and gotten me involved. As far as they're concerned, they own you, now. And they've got their foot in my door. You've compromised my entire life!”
Percy opened his mouth to answer, then, noting my expression, closed it again.
“This may be the dumbest fucking thing you've ever done, and that's capping off a very impressive list of dumbassery.” I stopped talking and closed my eyes for a moment, I needed to focus on the problem immediately in front of me. The rest could wait. “And why couldn't you pay them back?”
“I got ripped off,” Percy mumbled.
“Ripped off? You were dealing to werewolves and you got ripped off? What are the odds of that happening?” My voice dripped with sarcasm.
