Justin could only think of Batman as he raised his hands above his head and begged this guy, probably up to his eyeballs in coke, not to kill him. Not for a fistful of dollars.

Not when he had already handed over what little was in his wallet, because he wasn't having a very good time either.

Not to the point of considering going around mugging people with a cheap hockey mask, probably from some Halloween costume, and a gun. But pretty bad.

More specifically, Justin was thinking about Batman's parents and not because he was this close to ending up exactly like them. He was thinking of the typical jokes about how stupid rich people were, walking into literally Crime Alley with their pockets full of cash and flashing their jewelry at every crook that roamed around.

Justin was no moron. Yes, it was renamed Crime Alley after the Wayne's got murdered, but it was still funny. What the hell were rich people doing in dark alleys? What was wrong with the well-lit street?

Well, well. Suddenly it wasn't funny anymore.

Suddenly Justin discovered that he was exactly as stupid as the Waynes. He had decided to cross this dark alley just because it was a shortcut and he was about to pay for it.

No, he had already paid for it, losing all the money he had on him, which would surely force him to skip more than one meal this month just to barely make it to the end of it, to the lifeline of the next paycheck.

He just hoped he wouldn't have to pay with his life as well.

Justin hoped so, but not too optimistically. Between the hard life on the street and the drugs, that man was seriously unstable. Wild. His eyes were so wide that the pupils had been reduced to black dots as small as the eye of a needle.

He didn't believe her.

No matter how much he insisted that he wasn't going to report him, that he could go quietly, that Justin just wanted to live, he didn't believe him and in the end he was going to kill him. He didn't want to die here.

He didn't want to die in a dark, dirty alley. He didn't want to die in any way, but if he had to die today, why did it have to be like this? At least he would have liked to die in a heroic way.

Something worth recounting. Not something that would bring, at best, pity and some embarrassment.

Oh, God. Oh, God. He supposed it was time to make peace with God. Justin closed his eyes, convinced he'd hear that guy pull the trigger and then nothing. He could have lunged at the homeless guy, trying to snatch the gun from him by force, it wasn't like he had anything to lose, but there was too much distance between them.

"What the fuck...?"

A distance short enough that there was no way even a junkie would miss the shot and yet too long for him to get to him before he ripped him apart with bullets.

What luck he had. What luck.

But he didn't hear a trigger being pulled, there was no flash, no pain and then darkness and silence. No, there was just a noise as if someone were.... Choking?

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Justin snapped his eyes open, in time to see the mugger falling to the ground as he choked on his own blood.

There was a man behind him. The man who had done that, who had saved him. His hands were empty, but he guessed he had pocketed the knife. He was dressed smart, you could tell he had a lot of money just by looking at him, the kind of clothes that cost almost as much as a brand new car.

Maybe he should have felt scared to see a man murdered in front of his eyes, even if this one had wanted to murder him just seconds ago, but he felt no fear at all, just a relief so deep that he almost pissed himself.

This was no Batman, but a more lethal project, with a dangerous gaze. But it was enough for him.

He was looking at him with those dangerous eyes, as if searching for something in him. True, even if he had done it in his defense he had killed someone.

After he was given a medal for his service to the community he would surely face a court. Maybe he would even end up in jail for a while, however heroic he had been. He wasn't a cop, or at least he didn't think so.

Life wasn't comic books and movies, citizens weren't supposed to take the law into their own hands.

So the man was looking at Justin, wondering if he would talk. That must be it. Relief, again. Powerful, overwhelming. He could still get out of this one. He knew exactly what to say.

"That was... Brutal. But I'll say it was self-defense, sir. Or I'll say I did it, whatever you want. Mom didn't raise an ungrateful brat, no, sir, no..."

He stammered. How was he going to sound? Too much had happened in such a short time for him to sound calm, loud and clear. But he could be understood. He would understand him, and he and his savior would just part ways. He would go home, hide under the covers and try to sleep. He wouldn't move for the rest of the day. This fateful event would become the subject of occasional nightmares at night and, over time, even those would fade. Like a scar healing. Time healed everything, didn't it?

Didn't it?

The man threw himself on top of him and he had no time for anything else.

Only a high-pitched scream that surely didn't get very far before that man covered his mouth with one hand while pushing him against the wall.

With the other hand he pulled down the collar of his shirt and for a second, stupidly, he feared that he was going to undress him, that what he intended was to rape him.

Then he bit his neck deeply, hard.

Justin screamed against his hand harder, he thrashed with all his might. But his attempts to escape were futile. It was as if the body of the stranger who had saved him only to hurt him himself was made of pure steel. He was immovable, and with every second he was losing strength at an incredible speed. Soon he wouldn't be able to swat a fly, much less free himself from that steel grip.

It wasn't just biting him. It was sucking his blood.

After a while, to his surprise, it let go. Justin, dizzy, dropped to one knee on the ground in front of him. He looked like a knight kneeling before his king, by complete accident. But he wasn't safe. Not only because of the presence of that madman, he had simply lost too much blood. He felt he was on the verge of death. He felt that if he let his guard down for a second he would die instantly.

"What have you done to me?"

"What you feel is not death, it's life. A new form of life," the man said, responding not to what he had just spoken but to his thoughts. That increased the feeling that this couldn't be real, no way. "You are my first scion in hundreds of years. Be honored."

Scion, he said. And the blood. The whole blood thing.

“A vampire? You're a..."

"I'm the vampire. I'm Count Dracula."

Yeah, it couldn't be real. He was having a strange nightmare in his bed, probably, or at a friend's house. Maybe in his dream he'd been mugged by a guy who was up to his eyeballs in coke because he was, he'd accepted some of Mark's coke and then some more, then he'd overdone it and this was what he was getting for playing with things he shouldn't, the strangest and most frighteningly realistic nightmare he'd ever had in his entire life. Yes, surely this was what was happening, but no dream lasted forever, eventually everyone had to wake up and there was his old friend relief again. He burst out laughing at how relieved he was.

Justin laughed and laughed, still on his knees, until he lost consciousness.

The Prince of Darkness Walking Down Fifth Avenue (3): END