by Al K. Line
"So the answer is?"
"Be nice, cross your fingers, give up your seat for the elderly on the bus, recycle, try not to kill too many people, don't litter, a bit of praying never hurts, never, and I mean never, kick a dog, and hope for the best."
"Great," I said, feeling more depressed than ever.
"You asked."
We were both lost in our own thoughts. I can't imagine doing what Dancer does. Life is hard enough without having to go visit people in their own private purgatory or paradise after they think it's finally all over with—what a way to earn a living. Still, he seems to enjoy it. I guess everyone has a role to play in the game we call living and dying, and it's nice to know you have skills.
Half an hour later all hell broke loose.
Police cars, ambulances, hospital bigwigs—judging by the cars they drove and the suits they wore—and five minutes after that there were more TV crew vans than I'd seen that morning at the scene of the Grandmaster's murder. Now ex-murder.
Someone had spilled the beans. Hardly surprising, as it's a small city, so somebody would always be calling up their mum and gossiping, and she'd tell the next door neighbor and before you knew it people on the other side of the world knew that you'd broken up with your girlfriend. It's like social media, only without the annoying ads.
You can't beat the Welsh gossip grapevine for spreading news far and wide faster than a photon bouncing along a fiber optic cable.
I watched as one reporter, a man I recognized—he was from the BBC so this really had made it to the majors—stood on the steps and then spoke to the camera. Oliver even moved out of the way. I guess he thought it a bad idea to be filmed, especially considering the circumstances.
I couldn't hear a word though, so flipped open my phone and connected to their website.
"...an unexpected turn of events the Grandmaster reported murdered this morning has seemingly been discovered screaming and frantic in the morgue. Early reports indicate he seems nothing but distraught, with no signs of the fatalities reported earlier. This questions the whole validity of the mysterious events, suspected by some, haha, as being the first reported case of the true use of magic."
The reporter paused and put a hand to his ear. "I am getting reports... yes, there appears to be a number of new incidents popping up with various people witnessing more use of this black magic, people shooting what seems to be dark energy from their hands and causing physical harm to others. This seems to be happening worldwide and as of yet there are no known reasons why it should be suspected of being linked to what has happened here in Cardiff..."
I shut it down.
"Yes!"
"Seems to have worked then," said Dancer. He looked at me, eyebrows raised, still looking drained from his raising of the dead gig.
"Yeah. Um, thanks."
"You're welcome. Just remember—"
"Yeah, I owe you."
"Twice."
"I know."
Dancer smiled that creepy smile of his. "So, think this has done the trick then?"
"It'll help, and that other bit you heard on the news, the other reports, that's the final stage. In less than an hour it should all be done with."
"Why? What's going on?"
"Don't worry about it," I said as I started up the engine. "You'll find out soon enough. Right, I've got things to do. I've got to go to Kate's and then I guess I need to go see Grandma."
"Sounds good." Dancer beamed at me, or at least tried to. It came across more like he was constipated and really was trying his best to evacuate the problem.
"No chance."
"What? I like Grandma, although I'm not so sure she likes me that much. And I haven't seen Kate in a while. It'll be fun."
"Fun! I don't have time for fun. In case you haven't noticed, my life is on the line here. I have things to do. And I have to deal with the Armenian. You want to come along for that too?"
Dancer actually pulled away from me in the car, as if mentioning the woman could hurt him. So much for the terrifying necromancer image.
"She's behind what you did? Christ, you are screwed. Why bother with this then, trying to fix it, bringing the old guy back, if you are done for anyway?"
"Hey!" I protested. "Have some faith. Rikka sent me to deal with her yesterday apparently, so that means I must have thought I could handle Ankine Luisi, so—" We both shuddered at the name.
"But you didn't, did you? You got stitched up good and proper and you're gonna go back for more."
"It's not like I have a choice, is it? Rikka said sort this then deal with Ankine Luisi, and when Rikka says do something—"
"You do it. Well, good luck." Dancer opened the car door and was gone.
So much for loyalty amongst the dark magic wielders.
At least I didn't have to deal with his stink of death. Dancer reeks of morgues, cemeteries, and hospitals. He's been around them so long it's like the smells of decay, strong bleach, and formaldehyde seep from his skin and come out of his lungs when he exhales.
I settled back and closed my eyes for a moment, enjoying the new car smell.
What a morning. I wished it was over, but my day was only just beginning.
The Unviral Viral Vampire Caper
"Hey," I said as Kate unlocked then opened the door to my timid knocking.
"Hey," she said, smiling, just a hint of canine. She was less aware she was doing it than she used to be, the vampire nature slowly taking over, but damn, it was still a beautiful smile.
Like a ray of sunshine as you ran toward the precipice of your future, not caring if you fell into oblivion as long as you could take the smile with you to comfort you through your lonely eternity.
Well, so far so good. I was feeling rather nervous after the way we'd said goodbye earlier. I didn't know what to expect and my heart was fluttering like a schoolboy's with a crush—okay, it always does that around Kate, but this was different as I wasn't sure what the deal was.
I followed Kate back into her kitchen and a quick look at her face told me everything was fine. It would work its way out one way or the other, the main thing was we would remain friends. That was all that counted—yeah, I'm a liar, even to myself. I wanted to rip her clothes off, lick her perfectly curved bottom and... She put the kettle on; I needed a cold shower.
"All done. Wanna see?"
"Sure, please. I can't thank you enough for this, Kate. I don't know what I'd do without you. Hey, I have to go to Grandma's next, you wanna come say hi? You know how much she likes seeing you."
"That would be great." Kate opened up the laptop while the kettle boiled and clacked away like the pro she is.
I stared at her profile as the sun made a quick breakthrough before being beaten back down by the angry clouds. Something wasn't quite right. She looked old, normally smooth skin mottled and wrinkled a little, eyes heavy and that abundance of life not there.
Kate isn't exactly beautiful, not in a classical way. She is just... Gosh, how do you describe someone that is more beautiful than a butterfly or a faery, or a sunset, even though to others they may see nothing but a somewhat attractive lady? Kate is intoxicating, and it isn't the vampire that makes her that way—although I guess it does add something. It's her. It's Kate. The whole package. She's a nice person in a sea of slime.
Her nose is a little too large, her blue eyes are too big, which is ace, her lips are awesome, full and pouting, and her blond hair slides about when she moves her head. And she laughs a lot, which is like a smack across the head with a bag of faery dust, so, yeah, I guess she is beautiful. To me.
But she wasn't herself, and I'd been self-centered asking her to do work for me when I should have seen the signs earlier.
"Ready?" she asked, about to show me her handy work.
"In a minute. How long since you fed?"
Kate looked me in the eye and said, "A few months, maybe longer." She wouldn't try to hide it from me; we were past such things. We both knew the score, both knew what she was and wh
at her new life entailed, and she said it without remorse, without apology. She answered with thanks. Thanks for asking, thanks for noticing, and thanks for helping with what she knew I would help with.
I nodded, and the agreement was made. Nothing more was needed.
We got back to the business at hand, and I ignored her shaking hands—you think going cold turkey with the booze is tough? You know nothing.
In both her previous life, and her new one, Kate worked freelance as one of those miracle-makers with video. She's not exactly a special effects person, neither is she a game designer, but rather, she works with fringe outfits making short snippets for promotions. Be it bands, bloggers, or the latest guru of this or that craze, and when she gets low on jobs—which is seldom—or wants to get creative, she can put together a short sequence that is almost guaranteed to gain a little notoriety and earn her revenue as it gets shared around the Web and picks up money from clicks on ads served alongside her creation.
She had excelled herself for me.
As I watched, mesmerized by her skill, the power of modern technology, and the ability for online content to spread around the globe faster than the Welsh gossip grapevine, I knew I was saved.
Kate had manipulated a number of recorded deaths that had occurred that very day around the world, of which there were countless. It was a mean thing to do, messing with people's last breath like that, but it saved the world, and that was more important.
She had added everything from lightning bolts coming from the fingers or eyes of people stood watching as terrible accidents happened, to dark and menacing black clouds of death full of spectral ghosts appearing from out of people's mouths and attacking unfortunate souls who keeled over and died.
On and on it went, over twenty of them in total, spreading around the globe at the speed of light and making my indiscretion of the morning insignificant and lost amid a sea of nonsense. The number of views was staggering, let alone the comments of the crazies that believed or disbelieved what they were seeing. Most knew the score in the age where anything could be manipulated, but it didn't stop them being shared on every possible social media platform and the regular news.
The finale was one she had just created and sent less than ten minutes ago, showing world leaders from the US, the UK, Russia, and Korea all performing one kind of magical act or another in quick succession and looking entirely believable, followed by a mash-up of all the clips she had created playing fast but in reverse, recordings of her work environment showing exactly how it was done.
"You are a lifesaver." I went to kiss her, then thought better of it and instead half punched her arm—don't you dare laugh.
She looked at me like I was a complete idiot then smiled, shook her head in exasperation and giggled.
"I like you too."
"Of course, why wouldn't you? Dark Magic Enforcer, Faz Pound has a way with the ladies."
Kate thumped right back, only hard.
Vampires have some serious power behind them, and she knocked me right off my stool and halfway across the room. I slammed into the spotless wooden floor like I'd been hit by a wrecking ball.
"See, smooth." I groaned as Kate jumped down off her stool and was at my side faster than you can say, "Vampires are really fast," concern on her face.
"Oh my god, I'm so sorry, Faz." She burst out crying.
I held her there on the floor for a while. It wasn't the first time. Her life took a lot of getting used to, and when the tears dried up we got up and left, coffee forgotten, the work she'd done to cover up my accidental revelation of magic put out of our minds, only one thing now the focus.
Kate needed to feed, so we had to go find someone she could kill and still find a way to carry on living with ourselves afterward.
Such is the life of a vampire and the friend of a vampire. But I'm Faz Pound, Dark Magic Enforcer, Puncher on the Arm of Hot Vampires, Slayer of Erotic Moments, Destroyer of Intimacy, Ignorer of all the Signs, the Dolt who Rules all Dolts, and all round muppet, but what I am not is someone who abandons friends or turns from helping them kill someone to drink their blood.
Why?
Because Kate and I made a pact the first day she awoke in Grandma's house after I saved her and she understood who she was—she only kills people that deserve to die. It's a win-win situation.
Hunting Bad Guys
We have a list. Actually, I have a list I let Kate peek at as and when needed. No point putting temptation in her way, and besides, she's intelligent enough to know it's best not to have so many addresses to hand. It's much better to have the information when it's needed—it makes us both sleep better at night, or usually day in her case.
Nobody wants to know what their next meal is all the time—you need the element of surprise—so she's no different in that regard than the rest of us.
"I'm sorry about this, Faz."
"About what? Hey, I'm here for you, always. You just saved my bacon, and don't tell anyone, but I was getting seriously worried for a while there. Anyway, I'd do anything for you, you know that."
"But it's so gross! How can you stand it?" Kate isn't a fan of the gore and the screaming side of her new life, but what can you do?
"Trust me, I've seen worse. A lot worse. You should have seen it back in the early nineteen hundreds. People were really dramatic then, and we had no TV or Internet so everyone took things a lot more seriously. At least now people half believe in magic and vampires and the Empty anyway. It makes life easier."
"Also a lot riskier. Do you think the videos will get you off the hook? I hope so."
"Definitely. You saved me. My messed up morning will be forgotten now, no doubt about it. You even reverse engineered the footage of it so it looks like you made that one up too, so I'm fine. Oh, and I had Dancer bring back our favorite chess player for a few days so I'm absolutely in the clear. Sort of a backup plan just to keep everyone happy. A distraction, and I owed the poor guy a few more days, to say sorry."
"By everyone you mean Taavi and Rikka, right?"
"Yeah, exactly. I'll have to pop in and see him later, tell our esteemed leader I've been a good boy. Amongst other things."
"Like what?"
"Don't you worry about it. We'll do this, go see Grandma, then you can sleep and recover. You okay?" I took a quick glance and she seemed all right. A little more tired but nothing too drastic. Much better than she had near the beginning when she fought the urge and paid the consequences. If she was up for letting me help then I knew she needed it, as letting the hunger build for too long is probably worse than anything I've had to deal with in the course of enforcing and letting the Empty consume me.
"Fine. Just a little sleepy, and hungry."
"We'll be there soon. Get some rest."
Kate slept while I drove out of the city and headed toward our destination. I couldn't help wondering where Oliver was, and if he'd given up on shadowing me. Maybe he had, but something told me he'd be back soon enough. Probably off feeding on one of the unfortunates he'd picked at the hospital. I put him out of my mind. I never dwell on things out of my control, what's the point?
My spirits were high as I knew I would be in the clear. Disaster averted, at least for now, although I knew I had the worst to come: Ankine Luisi. But before I tackled that terrifying problem I'd go see Rikka again and get more information on what exactly may have happened the night before and why I'd been sent in the first place.
The night was still a blur. I remembered nothing of my encounter with her, just what the outcome was, and the last thing I wanted was a repeat of that—one dead chess player, or dead, now re-animated, soon to be dead again anyway.
What a life. It beats wearing a tie and sitting in a cubicle though.
Sometimes.
*
"We're here. Kate, time to wake up." She stirred slowly, like she could hardly hear or function, buried deep in sleep and a weariness only the vampire can know. I knew it would be a minute or so before she came around properly. The
changes in just three years were subtle, but they were there. Once she would have snapped to attention, now it was like waking a baby after a bottle of milk.
I wound the window down and new car smell was replaced with the beautiful aroma of clean air. Grass and cows and rain. Not city rain, proper, fresh, uncontaminated rain that washes away your sins and allows you to believe, just for a while, that the world is a simple place and it all makes sense.
Droplets splashed onto my face through the open window as I let my mind clear and soak up the purity of a world devoid of intentions good or bad. A world where everything just was, how it has always been for the planet. It's only people and other sentient species that have existential angst and try to do the other person over to get ahead in life.
Something caught my eye and the purity left, replaced by anger and even a little hate, although I don't have a lot of hate left in me. I've seen too many truly bad things—as much from Regulars as from Hidden—to have more than a tiny hard lump buried somewhere I can't find left of that emotion. It's a battle, this life, and some people are just plain wrong. Aberrations that make the world a little worse to live in.
We were about to make it a tiny bit safer, for a while.
Kate woke and smiled at me, making everything better.
"He's over there, in the field. Looks like he's shifting stuff with his tractor. You want me to come with you?"
"No, but thanks. I'll be fine. Tell me what he did again, Faz, just so I know I'm not a terrible person."
I leaned over and cupped her face in my hands. "Hey, you are a good person. You make the world shine. You don't kill just to survive. You made a choice, to only do it to the bad, and that makes you good."
"But there are laws. Who are we to judge? Who am I?"
"Come on, we've had this conversation before. I'm not going to try to convince you, Kate, this is your decision. You know who you are, what he is. It's up to you." It is. This is her life. I'm not about to goad her into murder. To take a life is a terrible thing, but sometimes the laws of man fail, so sometimes the only justice that remains is carried out outside of the law of the land. It is no less righteous, it just doesn't come with paperwork.
