Part Four: Immortality

Sinclair Boucher retrieved the two boxed packages from the cold storage locker located in one of the back room of the club's basement.

She placed each four foot long, two foot wide box made of cedar wood side by side on a table. When she examined them, she wondered which box contained Roberto's remains and which contained Terry's.

Neither box was marked, but she was there when Drago killed and butchered the couple. She knew where to look when the chef requested her to find the packages.

The one who called himself Drago wanted the organ meat for tomorrow's feast to celebrate Sinclair's promotion.

What does it matter now which was which? Though Roberto was so nice, level-headed, and cool.

As she searched for any distinguishing knots on the cedar wood that might jolt her memory, Sinclair felt the chill of a nearby presence curl along the crest of her shoulder blades.

She had heard no one approach up the barely lit corridor to the back rooms. The ephemeral feeling was giving her the creeps.

"Gladrum, help Ms. Boucher with the packages," Drago said in tightly affectatious English from the other end of that hall.

As Drago approached his laughter stuttered, boisterously.

"Look at you now, Sinclair," Drago said with a nod. "So relaxed in your disposition, and your beauty fully restored just as I said it would be. You doubted me, didn't you?"

Sinclair flipped her hair playfully to the side as she chuckled.

"That I did. Sounded like a load of horse shit."

"They say in my absence that you were a rebel. You even helped the two -," Drago's head nodded at the packages, "- in an attempt to escape."

She shrugged. "You appeared dead. There was no point in any of this without your leadership."

"I was dead. Yet, I still heard your laughter."

Sinclair smiled and acknowledged her reaction to Tasìa del Alma-Gris emptying an entire magazine of .32 rounds into Drago's head with a slow nod.

"Those bullets made chunks of your cranium dance. It was the funniest thing my eyes had ever witnessed."

Drago dismissed her words with a smirk. He raised an eyebrow, archly.

"You thought I said all of those things about how the purest beauty comes only through trust, as does immortality, just so I could get you in bed?"

The mute ghoul Gladrum grabbed the two packages. He glanced at her curiously. As they all did. Before Drago's return, Sinclair's transition looked dire.

Her restored beauty back to human form was for Drago's crew proof that the vampire lord's power was real.

Except, Sinclair knew of its true source, and it wasn't supernatural.

She smiled once more as she met Drago's eyes.

"That I did so believe. Though a liar I believed you to be, I still screwed you, anyway."

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He raised his head and laughed once more with his fangs exposed.

"That all too honest tongue of yours. I came down here to watch you squirm, but you have done anything but."

He waved his hand dismissively, as if not concerned, in the least, with Sinclair's sarcastic manner.

Then Drago continued.

"We must get these to Chef Lazarus quickly. Intestines are especially delicate and prone to deformation when they thaw. Did I ever tell you, dear, of that first time I sampled chicharrones made from human organs while exiled in Barcelona?"

She quipped.

"Was that with Princes Isabella of Parma in attendance?"

Drago being Drago that was exactly whom he had in mind. The brilliant but life tragically cut short royal from Eighteenth Century Spain.

"Ah, so I have told you! It was such a lovely gesture on her part to be there in attendance, administering to our heathen souls; though wretched we be, she believed we could be saved."

Sinclair's brows crinkled as she reacted.

"Extraordinary."

Dragstood there shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other. She gathered that he sensed that there was something he was missing in their conversation but was out of his depth in his ability to figure it out.

Sinclair felt a certain pity for him. He wasn't a liar in his outrageous claims. Those notions were projected into him with reinforcement coding to failsafe him from ever figuring it out.

It also fried his lobes and made him dumb. The programming gave him mesmerizing charisma, but so very dumb.

He just stood there with that rigor mortis grin. Gladrum gave Sinclair a look of futility as he held the packages steady. As if to scream into her mind, do something!

She coughed and cleared her throat.

"I need to get up there and assume my hostess duties before the Maestra notices my absence. If you could deliver the packages to Chef Lazarus, it would help me tremendously."

Drago turned towards the ghoul.

"Gladrum, please assist Chef Lazarus so our new Invector can get on with her duties, will you?"

Gladrum gave her a pleased smile and treaded back up the hallway. She watched him lumber off, but something brushed up against her temple and caressed her hair.

Drago's eyes were closed, and he breathed in deeply as he leaned in and smelled her hair. He curled several strands along his index finger and put them in his mouth.

Sinclair knew not to say anything with Drago having his moment while in one of his odd moods. She stood still, and the vampire lord pretender drooped over her, whimpering like a puppy as he chewed gently on her hair.

"Promise to trust me," he whispered.

She knew from past experience not to respond. Drago was regressing to a moment in his life that had nothing to do with her.

"Promise to trust me," he said more firmly.

Passivity didn't come easy for Sinclair, who typically threw down no matter the odds against her. She had her ass kicked plenty of times, but she always felt better afterward and prideful about standing her ground.

"Promise?"

It felt so odd just standing there with the weirdo munching on her hair strands. But it served a greater purpose that would untangle if she didn't relent and give in to it.

Finally, Drago jerked back with a cough. His eyes darted about as he twisted his head around. With barely a nod thrown her way, he rushed back up the hallway.

He had not a clue that he had just gone catatonic.

Sinclair winced as she watched Drago lumber into the volumes of shadow at the basement steps.

Spook fuckers did a number on that fool.

"Total Space cadet. Houston, we have lift off . . ."

She sang in a whisper.

"4. . . 3 . . 2 . . 1.

Earth below us . . ."

One last check in the restroom mirror; Sinclair's clothes were fine. She was afraid the manual labor would rough up the black silk of the dress pants or disturb the ruffles in her blouse.

Fortunately, Gladrum did all the real work.

Before going up the elevator, Sinclair darted towards the balcony door. She would have one last smoke before work. One last smoke to gather her wits before Sinclair faced the Maestra.

The one who would give Sinclair her first orders as the new Invector.

Could she carry those orders out?

There is a greater purpose for which I serve that I can't let be undermined with hesitancy. They think you are a cold hearted bitch. You can't let them down.

Could she resort back to cannibalism?

There is a greater purpose for which I serve to which that is a trifle concern in comparison.

Yet, she had to question these things. She wasn't a programmed meat puppet automaton with a destroyed mind like Drago.

She still felt deeply, and though there had always been that Greater Purpose that guided her, most days just gazing into her own eyes in that mirror proved a daunting task due to the strong remnants of a conscience that couldn't be knocked out of commission with pills.

She drew in the smoke from the Blonde Cerise, and looked up at the pink neon that read the name of the newest and hottest club in Vida Escondida to which Sinclair played hostess:

Egliona's.