Standing behind the door to the dark room with its glowing graffiti was a pale, emaciated man dressed in a style similar to Eresthanon, though his outfit was fairly more subdued. The elf winced inwardly. He’d gone more extravagant and over-the-top than the door man, who was the most vampiric vampire who’d ever vampired vampirefully.
The guard bowed deeply and said, “Welcome to Mara’s Crypt.”
At a gesture from the guard, a hidden door opened in the wall painted with the immense skull. The door was placed under and between the fangs, revealing a long, dark hallway lit with the same blacklight as the foyer. Rather than graffiti, the walls were decorated with paint designed to look like blood splatters. Probably paint, anyways. It was a vampire-owned and themed club, but even they wouldn't be that tacky in the 21st century. As soon as the door was open, the faint pulsing of dance music could be heard reverberating in the walls.
Another pair of doors stood at the far end of the hallway. These were neither nondescript nor hidden. The doors were tall and thin, topped by a high, pointed arch and decorated with intricate panels, filigree, and railing. The vibrant pale green color of the doors — which glowed almost neon in the blacklight — suggested the things were either made of bronze or with a material meant to imitate it.
Eresthanon thought they looked distinctly out of place, even surreal. He had a strong impression that they should be set into heavy granite masonry, not the plain, black walls of this nightclub hallway. Then Eresthanon realized why — they had been modeled in the same style as old mausoleum doors. Given the nature of the nightclub, it was quite possible they actually were doors to some family crypt.
Beyond the doors, the wide, open space of a warehouse had been converted into a nightclub. That wasn’t especially unusual in New York, but the layout of this one was. The roof was fifty feet overhead, criss-crossed by massive steel girders with powerful industrial theatre lights hung from them. The interior was like an inverted step pyramid, divided into three tiers with each more recessed than the last. The floors were clearly separated into ground, mezzanine, and balcony levels.
The lowest point was the central floor, occupying at least half the space of the warehouse, and it was full of people dancing. Several small raised platforms were spread around the area, some with decorative cages and others with poles set atop them; whether they were intended for employees or enthusiastic patrons was unclear, but many were occupied by one or two dancers.
The mezzanine, where Eresthanon and Aaliyah had entered, had several bars and the rest of the floor was dotted with small sofa lounges and cocktail tables. A guardrail ran around the edge of the floor, with regular breaks allowing access to broad, steep staircases descending to the dance floor.
The balcony, above, was bordered by walls at waist- and chest-height, making it impossible for Eresthanon to see what was up there from his vantage point. If someone were standing right against one of the walls, he would be able to see them, but nothing past that due to the steep angle.
“Follow me,” Aaliyah said, striding away from the crypt doors. Her voice was clear even over the heavy pulse of the music.
She went to one of the corners of the mezzanine, where a wrought iron spiral staircase ascended to the balcony level. A velvet rope was hung across the base of it between the metal banisters. A man stood beside it, likely security personnel. The guard stepped forward as they approached, pulling up a clipboard and partially blocking the staircase.
Before he could say anything, Aaliyah flashed her badge at him. The man glanced at it, then pulled one end of the velvet rope off the metal rail and stepped aside. Either the guard was in the know or he was terrible at his job — there was no reason to let a random law enforcement agent go wherever they wanted in a private business without a warrant. If he was a bystander and couldn’t see the Vigiles badge beneath the illusion, he probably wouldn’t have his job much longer.
On the balcony level, a hallway ran along the exterior wall of the building, granting access to private balconies and booths overlooking the floors below. They offered varying degrees of privacy, with some having full walls and doors to close them off from the passage while most were separated from the hallway only by low walls or simple curtains. This allowed Eresthanon to peek into many of them.
After walking almost the entire perimeter of the building, the hallway came to a deadend. All three walls were hung with heavy drapes and a fourth set was hung, open, across the path, revealing a semi-private seating area furnished with plush couches.
Half a dozen people were in repose on the couches, their bearing eminently relaxed. They wore dark clothes in fashionable modern styles — nothing like the frippery Eresthanon had been snookered into donning — and three of the six were disguised by illusions. Eresthanon was able to pierce the disguises fairly easily, revealing hideous corpses behind the façades.
Their flesh was a blue or purple so dark it was practically black. They had milky white eyes, wicked claws tipped the ends of their fingers, and the skin around their faces was desiccated and taut, the lips pulled back to create a rictus grin that revealed extremely pronounced canines.
Eresthanon leaned in to whisper to Aaliyah. “Draugar?”
She nodded and continued forward.
The draugar were a particularly powerful and vicious breed of vampire, originating from Scandinavia. They were interesting not just for their potency or rarity, but because they didn’t steal life energy from others but siphoning their luck instead. They could steal the fair fortunes of others directly and immediately or they could level curses that would wreak havoc later. A draugr didn’t gain the benefit themselves, but turned the stolen luck into whatever it was they needed to fuel themselves.
These draugar were old, by the look of them. Quite old. It was easy for Eresthanon to conceal trepidation thanks to his elven physiology, but three old draugar? That could be a challenging battle.
It was likely the other three people in the lounge were vampires, as well, because a draugr rarely tolerated the company of anything else for long without turning to violence. Even other Creaturae were not exempt from their temperament. Many vampires could pass for human, though, so that seemed the most likely scenario. Whatever the case, this Mara person had very potent patrons at their nightclub.
A draugr stood and positioned himself between the couches, back against the hanging drape on the rear wall.
“Well, if it isn’t Little Miss Goes-Her-Own-Way,” the vampire said.
One of the others, a Hispanic woman with round sunglasses, pointed at Eresthanon. “Check out this guy. Are they having open auditions for What We Do in the Shadows or something?”
Eresthanon smiled politely through the ensuing hilarity, the vampires (and Aaliyah) rocking with mirth.
Wiping pretend tears from her eyes when the chuckles subsided, Aaliyah said, “We’re here to see her; it shouldn’t take long.”
The three vampires and three probably-vampires sobered immediately, exchanging glances with one another. Aaliyah sighed and pulled out her badge wallet and tapped it against her chin.
“It’s not official, but it can be if you make a fuss.”
The gathered vampires grumbled and growled, the two seated draugar slowly rising to their feet in the face of the implied threat. There was an almost-synchronized chorus of stretching and flexing from the collected undead.
Eresthanon carefully avoided adjusting his stance or body language. He didn’t want to appear provocative to the vampires, but he was no fool so he readied himself to call his falcatas to hand. His shield charm would be of little use as vampires were rarely skilled with direct magical attacks — other than mental manipulations, which almost no other race of Creaturae could reliably perform.
Aaliyah took a different approach, smirking in the face of their hostility.
“My partner’s new — so new you wouldn’t believe it — so you don’t know him or what he’s capable of.” She paused for a moment, looking at each of the six vampires in turn. “But you know who — and what — I am. If you feel you absolutely have to front, I’ll be taking souvenirs. I’ll start with arms and then, if you keep making a fuss, I’ll move on to yanking ivory.”
She leered around at the vampires, completely at ease as far as Eresthanon could tell. It made him wonder what, exactly, she was. He didn’t get the impression she was referring to her position as a Quaesitor when she brought it up, but to her nature as a Creaturae. Probably not a magi, then.
That curiosity intensified when two of the draugar eased back down into their seats, slowly, as if to avoid any sudden movements. The draugr standing against the wall, however, stepped towards them. He crossed the small lounge until he was right in front of Aaliyah, looming over her. She looked up into his desiccated face with something akin to boredom.
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“Are you going to be a problem, buddy?” she asked the draugr.
“This is not your place, sentinel, nor am I your ‘buddy,’” the vampire hissed. “I will take no command from some kvenngandr who bats her eyes at me like a common hóra.”
“Man, I don’t know what the fuck you just said, little kid, but you special, man,” Aaliyah said. “I’m gonna call you Special Ed.”
Then she reached up with one index finger and booped the draugr on the tip of his nose.
The vampire snarled and lunged for her. Eresthanon took a step back, turning slightly, and pulled the falcata into his hands. He kept the blades behind him, where they would be hidden from the undead until he needed to bring them to bear, but he was ready. He needn’t have bothered.
Aaliyah waited for the vampire’s clawed hands to grasp her, then her own hands shot forward. She placed one hand flat against one of the undead’s shoulders and grabbed his wrist with the other. Then she yanked.
It was almost casual the way she pulled her clenched hand down and away from the vampire, like she was doing some light tricep exercises on one of those weight machines with the cables and pulleys. The result was not light and casual.
The draugr’s arm came off, ripped free of his torso at the shoulder. There was no great spurt of blood; instead, black ichor oozed from the ragged wound. As Eresthanon and the other five vampires watched, Aaliyah knocked her disarmed foe’s legs out from under him with an almost contemptuous sweep of one leg. After he crashed to the ground, she put a foot down on his neck and lightly smacked him in the face with his own disembodied hand.
“You done?” she asked. “You fucked around, you found out, and now you can brag to all your little Thor-wannabe buddies you weren’t no pussy, but I need to know if you’re done.”
She pulled something off her belt with her free hand and, with a flick of her wrist, brought out the pliers head of a multi-tool. She leaned over and held it in front of the draugr, clicking the jaws against each other.
“Because if not…”
“We’ll send word,” the vampire growled through gritted teeth. “She should be along shortly.”
“Excellent,” Aaliyah said, stepping back from the draugr and dropping his severed arm on top of him.
One of the other vampires — not one of the two remaining draugar — rose from the couches and went to the rear wall. She pulled aside the drapes that were hung there, revealing a dark passage hidden behind it. Aaliyah crossed the lounge and into the passage,
As Eresthanon followed her into the passage, he heard a number of calls from the vampires behind him, including things like, “See ya later, Barnabas Collins!” and “Give my love to Nadja!” accompanied by a new round of laughter. Vampires recovered from seeing a friend maimed pretty quickly, it seemed.
The passage was less of a passage and more of a small landing at the foot of a short flight of stairs. At the top of the stairs was a plain door. Aaliyah opened it and led Eresthanon into a large room that was a mix of office, study, and den. The furnishings in the room gave it a very Old World feel, lots of leather and intricately carved mahogany. Wide, squat bookcases lined the room; taller shelving would have obstructed the view through the tall windows that surrounded the room, providing a view down on all three floors of the nightclub below.
From this vantage point, Eresthanon could tell the room hung at the center of the building and was perhaps a third of the size of the dance floor. He most likely hadn’t been able to see it from below because all the lighting was hung right below.
After a few minutes, a young woman entered the office; she appeared to be in her early twenties and was not at all what Eresthanon had been expecting. She was shorter than Aaliyah by a couple inches — probably not much more than five feet tall — with wavy blonde hair and pale blue eyes. What caught him most off guard was her clothes — she had on black leggings, but that was the closest she came to abiding by the fashion conventions of the nightclub.
Except for a pair of those puffy tan boots Eresthanon couldn’t remember the name of, everything else was pink. A fluffy sweater hanging off one shoulder, a frilly hair tie around her wrist, even her lips and eyelids were a light shade of pink. And, unless his elf eyes failed him, they sparked with some kind of cosmetic glitter.
Eresthanon wasn’t perfectly versed in modern and pop culture, but he knew the term for this kind of woman at first glance — a basic bitch.
When she spoke, her voice was high-pitched and full of what could only be described as pep.
“O-M-G! It’s Aaliyah Dean!” the woman exclaimed.
The woman practically bounced across the office to give Aaliyah a hug. The Quaesitor grudgingly relented to the exuberant greeting with a rueful smile.
“Gabbie, this is Eresthanon… my new partner. Eresthanon, this is Gabbie, leader of the vampires.”
“I’m guessing he didn’t rip the arm off one of my dudes,” Gabbie said in a sing-song voice.
“Good guess,” Aaliyah replied. “None of them said stupid shit to him in Viking-talk or whatever. Three guesses as to why.”
The petite vampire sighed. “They say boys will be boys, but when they’re dead kicking them in the rizzler isn’t as useful a teaching tool.”
She turned to Eresthanon and offered him one of her dainty hands.
Eresthanon took the small, perky woman’s hand in his, thankful she hadn’t gone for another hug. “Which vampires are you the leader of, if I may ask?”
“Most of them,” she said, with a flick of her hair. “Around these parts, anyways. I’m basically the Queen of the Night or whatever. Gosh, I love your outfit. Most people go for trad-, emo-, or cyber-goth these nights, but your look is just so… classic!”
“Quaesitor Dean advised it would be helpful to blend in at your establishment. I, however, feel like I’ve drawn every eye in the place.”
“No doubt, fam. It’s high-key boujee, but we stan,” the most powerful — and out of place — vampire in an unknown radius said, beaming.
Most, if not all, of those words had been in English, yet Eresthanon understood little of it. He thought, from context, that ‘high-key boujee’ was bad and, thus, ‘stan’ was good, but it could easily have been the opposite.
Eresthanon blinked; three times. “I’m sorry, I don’t follow.”
Gabbie flapped a hand in his direction. “Well, it’s so extra it’s practically arch, but I think your drip is snatched. Real main character energy.”
Eresthanon blinked… more. He turned to Aaliyah in hopes she might offer something in the way of clarification, but the young woman had braced herself against the back of a couch, once more in the grip of silent fits of laughter.
Gabbie winked, patted him on the shoulder, and flounced across the room to take a seat in a big leather chair set behind a broad desk.
“So why are you here, Aaliyah? I know you’re not just bragging that you snagged a tasty elf,” she asked.
Aaliyah moved to stand in front of the desk and Eresthanon stepped up beside her. “To business, then.” The Quaesitor was still suppressing small chuckles as she spoke. “There’s been a major lull in serious violations of the Pillars; I have a hunch it’s a sign something big is happening or about to happen.”
Gabbie looked at the pair of them for a few seconds, tapping her desk softly with one glimmering fingernail. “You might be onto something, Aaliyah. For real, for real.”
Aaliyah’s brow furrowed at that, but she said nothing.
Gabbie continued, her tone a little less bouncy (but only a little). “I’ve been hearing a lot of scuttlebutt about people looking to hire muscle. Not just for some light rough stuff, either, but real mercenary work.”
“Who’s the buyer?” Aaliyah asked.
“Magi,” Gabbie said.
There were several seconds of silence, then Aaliyah glanced at Eresthanon.
“You know what magi are, right?”
Gabbie leaned forward, the smallest hint of a predatory glint in her eyes. “Oh my, you’re that fresh into a new Cycle?”
Eresthanon knew better than to show weakness or hesitation and trying to lie to a powerful vampire over something so minor was a good way to earn a grudge or even start a feud, depending on their background. He merely nodded to both women.
“Very fresh, yes. Magi is a generic phrase referring to sorcerers, wizards, warlocks, and various other categories of magic users who are otherwise mundane humans,” he said. “Sometimes it’s used to refer to the various orders, cults, schools, and the like, but usually it just means a person who can perform magic.”
Aaliyah turned back to Gabbie. “Any specific magi?”
“Like, totally for sure,” Gabbie said, leaning back in her chair again. “That’s what makes me think you’re onto something. It’s, like, dozens of factions are suddenly all looking to hire goons.”
Eresthanon was beginning to see the shape of the storm he’d sensed upon his awakening to this new Cycle. It had hung at the back of his mind since that first moment of consciousness, a heaviness he couldn’t see the shape of that pressed down on him nonetheless. Now, It was a dark smudge blanketing the horizon. He couldn’t see details, but he knew that would change.
“The magi are the largest population of Creaturae, so any widespread activity among their numbers would be a significant occurrence, and likely have ripple effects,” he mused.
“Yeah, no shit,” Aaliyah said. “Those wiggly-fingered bastards are never on the same page about anything, so what’s got all of them expecting they’ll have to have a knockdown, drag-out in the near future? You got any idea who they’re looking to tussle with, Gabbie?”
Gabbie was no longer smiling. “As it happens, I do.”
Aaliyah put her hands on her hips. “Well? You gonna make us buy tickets to the afternoon show or you gonna tell us?”
Gabbie brought her hands together in front of her, fingers interlocked. “I heard they’re anticipating conflict with the dragons.”
There was a long silence in the room.
“Shit,” Aaliyah said.
“Shit,” Eresthanon agreed.