Straight Outta Fangton

by C. T. Phipps

  “You have a point,” I said, cursing. “But I owe Thoth. Besides, if the Old Ones are all killed, then Renaud wins, and he's a bigger asshole than all of them put together. Triggering a mass supernatural genocide isn't going to make the world a better place either. There's always going to be monsters, humans or otherwise, even if vampires are kind of on the far end of things.”

  “All right,” Melissa said, opening the safe and revealing dozens of files as well as a couple of flash drives. She pulled them all out and put them on her coat, grabbing the edges and turning it into a makeshift sack.

  Kali arrived at the doorway with David just behind her.

  “Oh my goodness!” Kali said, which I'd heard her say before pulling out scimitars of light to slaughter people.

  “It's not what it looks like,” I said, trying to stand up.

  “It looks like you got staked, then Melissa staked Elisha. Oh, and you're robbing the place,” David said.

  “See,” I said, shaking my head. “Completely wrong. We were attacked by alien vampires and one of them was wearing a sexy string rubber-band thing. We're just cleaning out anything sensitive before she returns.”

  “Oh, I know her!” Kali said, trying to joke even as she was appalled. “You need to leave now, Pete. The people in the main hall aren't Network. They're a collection of some of the worst supernatural gangs in the Rust Belt. Elisha has brought them all in with the help of Eaton.”

  “Eaton?” I said, stunned. “She wouldn't work—”

  “She staked you, man,” David interrupted. “Screw her.”

  “You'll find him where no vampire will go in the city,” Kali said, walking over to Elisha. “Now you have to get out of here before I remove Elisha's stake.”

  “What?” I said, both stunned and confused.

  “Why would you do that?” Melissa asked.

  “Because I have to live here,” Kali said, her voice low. “I'm older than anyone outside the Council of Ancients. The important thing to stay alive as long as I have is to stay neutral in most conflicts.”

  “Those who sit on the fence tend to be kicked by both sides,” I said, not envying her position. “Thank you, though.”

  “Good luck,” Kali said. “You have a minute.”

  That was far less time than I was hoping she'd give me. I started immediately toward the door, struggling to ignore the smell of human blood from the servants in the other rooms. I wanted to rip out their throats and drink their life fluids. There were no animals nearby, and my companions were not enticing due to our bond, but everyone else was fair game.

  Even vampires.

  When Melissa and David passed me by, I shut the door and struggled to keep a level head. I hadn't been this hungry since my exile, since that night, and the very air seemed to have a taste to it. I clenched my fist before opening it over and over again, trying to distract myself from the Need. My fangs extended against my will, another sign I was losing control.

  “Are you okay?” David asked, putting his hand on my shoulder.

  “No,” I said, pulling away. “Let's get out of here.”

  “Is there a back door?” Melissa asked.

  “No. Just head out the front door.”

  I closed the door behind us, trying to act casual despite the fact that we were carrying a makeshift sack full of stolen files and a laptop. Oh, and my sweatshirt was torn open with blood on the edges, which was bound to attract attention from everyone of the fanged persuasion once we got out into the main hall of The Razor.

  At least I knew where Eaton was.

  “So, I just want to say it's been a very interesting night,” Melissa said, walking alongside me down the hall. “I appreciate you taking the time to teach me about vampire weaknesses, help me kill a bunch of former friends turned evil, and all that. However, it occurs to me I might never want to see you again after tonight.”

  “Funny, because I thought we were going to pick out china patterns together.”

  “Ha ha,” Melissa said.

  “Listen, seriously, I get it. Undeath is hard, though, so if you ever need a friend then please give me a call. It's the major thing I hate about the supernatural world; everyone seems to be at each other's throats.”

  Melissa grimaced. “Sorry about that.”

  “That actually wasn't a reference to you. Still, please don't ever do that again.” I wasn't about to tell her it had felt like pure heaven, pain, and a jolt of electricity to the brain all at once.

  That would be weird.

  “Well, I'm glad you two are getting along now,” David said, frowning. “Pete—”

  “Stone,” I corrected. “Kali and Thoth can call me Peter. Because they scare me.”

  “Stone,” David said, annoyed. “Can we talk about you mind-zapping me back at the Apophis? Because that was not cool.”

  The three of us arrived in the main hall of The Razor. Almost all of the other supernaturals were silent now and looking in our general direction. That was not a good sign.

  “Later,” I said to David. “Much later.”

  “I think you're right,” David muttered.

  Jumping Jack Flash lifted his mug. “From hell's heart did Melissa stab at me. For hate's sake, we spit my last at she.”

  A good half of the thugs present pulled out pistols, crossbows, swords, and bats with silver spikes, and one guy grew what looked to be Wolverine's claws.

  “Damn,” David said, surveying the main hall. “We've been ‘Wrath of Khan-ed’!”

  “That's from Moby Dick originally,” Melissa corrected, staring forward in horror.

  “Who gives a shit!” I shouted.

  Dozens of guns fired in our direction all at once, enough to tear us to pieces. I focused on my desire NOT TO DIE and threw out my hands, hoping to God or the Devil or Dracula that I wasn't about to end my unlife in this crappy bar. Much to my surprise, it worked. I didn't know if the prayer did it or the sheer horror of the situation, but all of the bullets in the air started to move very slowly. They weren't stopped but they were moving at a glacial pace.

  “Move it!” I shouted, grabbing David by the arm and dragging him along as I decided to go to the right to avoid the gunshots coming at me. It weirdly put me in mind of that final scene of Prometheus when the two survivors (both the hot women on the ship, go figure) ran forward as a gigantic doughnut tried to squash them. You know, never deciding to go left or right.

  OK, I'd been watching way too much sci-fi on Fridays with David. This week was Anaconda, Ride Along, XXX: State of the Union, and any other cheesy Ice Cube movie I could Netflix.

  David and I were about halfway down the main hall, Melissa zipping past us right to the doors (I hated super-speed as a power), when time resumed its normal flow. Gunfire smashed into the back of the bar, causing dozens of bottles to explode and pour onto the ground as we continued legging it like Usain Bolt to the front doors. Thankfully, the confusion meant we were right by Melissa by the time I heard some assholes pointing back to us. “They're at the end of the hall! Get ’em!”

  Lacuna Coil’s “Swamped” was playing on the jukebox while I lamented how I kept getting into these sorts of situations. Both Melissa and David were already out the bar's wooden doors when I started exiting, only to be shot twice in the back before a two-hundred-pound giant wolf landed on me. I stumbled out the door, obviously, while it shifted back into a naked human, its claws burying themselves into my shoulders while it bit my throat. That was when I lost control and let the werewolf know why it was a bad idea to try to outfang a vampire.

  I sank my fangs into its jugular and ripped out a chunk of flesh, spitting it out before clamping my mouth down on the open wound. The blood from the werewolf's heart poured down my throat like a waterfall. It was the sweetest wine, the best sex, and the most amazing drug I'd ever taken all rolled into one.

  Tears of blood welled in my eyes while I gulped down mouthful after mouthful of delicious blood. I'd kept myself abstinent on a diet of strict animal blood with o
nly the occasional blood bags or corpse juice, but this? This was the true life of a vampire. I thought I could survive without ever doing this again, that the unnamed girl I'd killed would be the last, but it had been a fever dream.

  This was glorious.

  God help me.

  As the creature died on top of me, I stood up and threw its body like a ragdoll through the opening doors. It slammed into the gathering lynch mob beyond and knocked over fifteen of them like bowling pins. The resulting domino effect bought me enough time to run to the car even as I heard a window bust from a gunshot while David tried to start the car. I shook my head, weaving in a pattern I hoped would keep the snipers from getting a good shot before jumping through the busted driver's side window like the Dukes of Hazzard (not that I ever watched that show). I landed in the passenger's side before tossing the keys at David. The car peeled out seconds later.

  “They're going to follow us!” David shouted. “They have motorcycles and I think one of those shots hit our back tire.”

  “They're not going to follow us!” Melissa shouted back.

  “How do you know?” I said, calling back.

  That was when a grenade thrown by Melissa exploded among the bikes, creating a fireball that stood out even in this neighborhood. The gang of thugs left behind soon disappeared, flat tire or no, with the sounds of a dozen cop cars coming toward The Razor. As distractions went, I suspected that one was in the Top Five I'd seen.

  Climbing to my feet in the passenger's side, I looked back at her. “You know, Mel, for a vampire-hating bigot, I'm starting to like you.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Against all odds, we managed to get away from The Razor's thugs with some surprisingly adept automobile hide-and-seek by David. In the end, he managed to bring my damaged car to my cousin Paul's all-night garage. Paul was a human but didn't mind taking vampire money or temporarily switching out cars as long as I gave him what was left of the two thousand dollars Thoth had given me.

  Easy come, easy go.

  An hour later, we were on the road again in a modified 1990 claret Dodge Dakota which was somehow even shittier and more beat-up than the one I'd driven into Paul's garage riddled with bullet holes. Still, it was inconspicuous and allowed me to work on getting the next phase of our so-called plan working. Melissa was sitting in the back of the car and we were just driving around at this point, taking in the sight of Old Detroit as I tried to figure out the meaning of Kali's clue.

  The last place in the city a vampire would go? What the hell did that mean? It didn't help that the majority of the buildings that were still open as we reached midnight were the ones that catered to the undead or were run by them. My least favorite were the numerous Cash for Blood buildings, predatory loan offices, and other places designed to take advantage of the city's desperate. I also saw a few Debt Redemption and Accrual Cancellation (or DRAC) offices which were a unique vampire twist on taking advantage of America's debt.

  Prostitution was still illegal in Michigan, albeit barely enforced even in cities not making their living off vice, but selling your blood to vampires was most certainly not illegal and only twelve states had managed to pass ordinances against it. DRAC contracts agreed to have a mortal sell their blood to a vampire “on call” whenever they wanted for however long it would take to work off their debt. You could imagine how that was being exploited.

  One of the few times I'd ever seen Thoth go against his fellow Old Ones was in opposing it. He'd been convinced it was a bad idea after a habitual gambler had attempted to sell him his wife, a local channel's weather girl, in exchange for saving their house. Thoth had ended up eating him and taking her on as a Blood Servant—which he seemed to think was heroic, but I found just as horrifying as if he'd just taken her outright. Either way, DRAC contracts were an accepted part of New Detroit society now. It made me think the HRL had a point.

  “Any luck with hacking Elisha's laptop?” I asked.

  “Is it hacking when you knew the password?” Melissa said, her feet up along the seat of the cramped back of the Dakota.

  “That's actually how real hacking works,” David clarified. “Before I dropped out of college, I used to get into people's bank accounts just by knowing their pets’ names and asking them which street they grew up on.”

  “Uh-huh, and how did that work out?” I asked.

  David frowned. “I got caught and was forced to drop out of college. Can we talk about you mind-zapping me again?”

  I didn't have anything better to discuss. “Listen, David, I'm sorry about that. I am. However, if you mouthed off in front of the voivode then you'd probably get your ass murdered. I couldn't live with myself if that happened to you.”

  I was surprised to find out I meant it.

  David couldn't meet my gaze. “I get that, I do, but it was still a shitty thing to do. You can't tell me you didn't enjoy it, either.”

  He was right, I had. “I promise I'll never do it again. It's a tempting power to use, but it's not right.”

  “You're damned right it's not,” David said, showing surprising seriousness.

  “Thank you for sticking by me despite it, though,” I said.

  That brought a smile to David's face. A serious expression then replaced it, but a different kind than the one he'd had previously. “I'm sorry you ended up breaking your fast, Pe—Stone.”

  I stared at the road, then shook my head. “Yeah, me too, but it was bound to happen eventually.”

  It was nice, actually, to have the taste of the werewolf blotting out the taste of the little girl I'd killed. I'd never even found out her name, never even wanted to know her name, but now the werewolf's blood was making her seem like a distant memory. I hated not being able to remember the taste anymore but also was grateful. Maybe this was something I could live with after all, as horrible as that was.

  “You two are close,” Melissa said, not looking up from her computers. “Like brothers.”

  “Yeah, like brothers,” David said, disappointedly.

  I pointedly chose to ignore that. “My question still stands.”

  “Yeah, I've had some luck,” Melissa said, surprising me. “Apparently, Renaud was in contact with Elisha for some time—”

  “Yeah, contact,” I said, accenting the word. I was surprised I was jealous.

  “Yeah, I saw that too,” Melissa muttered, disgusted. “Some of the e-mails here are pretty spicy.”

  I snorted. “Anything useful?”

  “Renaud's plan is two-fold,” Melissa explained. “He was going to blow up the Apophis to make it look like a vampire civil war had gotten thousands of humans killed. He paid Eaton off to get all of his people past security by claiming he just wanted to murder Thoth. Renaud mentioned that Eaton very much wanted to take over the casino himself and figured he could persuade the voivode to let him have it.”

  “Oh that bastard,” I muttered. “That should be my inheritance!”

  “Way to show your sympathy, Stone,” David said.

  “Vampires don't usually leave wills,” I said, “but I'm still in Thoth's.”

  Melissa continued. “After that, Eaton gave Renaud the location of a meeting place of Old Ones who were coming here to the city to discuss financial matters. Apparently, a whole lot of Old Ones, including several Ancients, will be present. Renaud intends to send the Network to attack them with him in the lead. They've got almost a hundred hardened killers with magic and superpowers on their side.”

  “It still sounds like suicide,” I said, unimpressed with their plan. “Thoth is the weakest of the Old Ones and could kick that entire bar's ass.”

  “Elisha brings that up, but Renaud says he has a plan,” Melissa said, shrugging. “There's a lot of information in these files about chemical compositions, blood types, and some scientific reports, but it's all Greek to me.”

  “We'll fax it to Thoth and Fatimah's people at the Apophis,” I said, trying to remember if there was an all-night photocopier place in the area.

>   “Why not just phone them?”

  I frowned. “I tried back at Paul's. Thoth is off trying to get in touch with the City Court to discuss what's been going on. If there's a big meeting with the Vampire Nation's leaders, then he'll probably be there. They don't allow cell phones during those.”

  “Cell phones bother Old Ones?” David asked.

  “Yeah, they're always worried about insider trading or information being recorded,” I said, being quite serious. “You don't get to be a billionaire unless you're paranoid as fuck. It's why vampires are such good businessmen.”

  David, thankfully, didn't point out the obvious about me being a shitty one. “So after we do that, what do we do?”

  “We find Eaton and get him to fess up,” I said. “It won't do jack to improve our situation with Renaud, but it'll result in his getting brought up and probably executed. I don't want him escaping the city and ending up in Paris for a decade until the heat dies down.”

  “Like you did?” David asked.

  “The outskirts of town aren't Paris,” I said, regretting the fact I needed to stay so near my home soul. Maybe if I brought a few jars of dirt with me.

  The thought of being able to drag Eaton before the City Court and the voivode being unable to do anything about it was pretty sweet. I imagined the next bellidux wouldn't be much better, as they'd probably just promote one of Eaton's creations or buddies, but it would still be a small bit of justice for a town that had suffered under that son of a bitch for a long time. It would be a small bit of justice for that girl I'd … we'd murdered.

  “Sounds like a plan,” Melissa said.

  I had to ask something. “So, what really motivated you to turn on Renaud?”

  “Excuse me?” Melissa looked up. “Finding out he was a terrorist isn't enough for you?”

  “Maybe,” I said, still trying to get my measure of her. “The thing is, Renaud could have fed you his blood and mind-zapped you. Hell, he's probably strong enough to mind-zap you as is.”

  Melissa twitched and I realized I should probably drop the subject. After all, once you started thinking about vampires being able to control your mind, you started getting paranoid about what was actually your choice and what wasn't. I'd occasionally wondered if the reason I loved Thoth the way I did was because the old bastard made me do it. The thing was, if he was doing that, would I ever question it? So was it legitimate? Or was he so intelligent that he allowed me just enough leash so that I never thought about it? Those were the kind of thoughts I had about a vampire I liked. Now those thoughts were there for an avowed vampire hater who had gone and gotten romantically involved with one? Because, unlike in the movies, the majority of times someone did an about-face like that, it was because they had been hypnotized into becoming a vampire’s loyal blood whore.