Mystikite continued on foot toward the Renaissance Regency, after trying and failing to hail down several taxi cabs. He had traveled most of the way there, now. And, he found that surprisingly, he wasn’t out of breath or fatigued in the least. His newly-minted Vampire body seemed to have an amazing Constitution score. He’d had to stop only once, at a twenty-four-hour gas station, so that he could go to the bathroom, a fact which had, at first, alarmed him, because he didn’t think Vampires had to do that. He was right — they didn’t. The reason for his having to go was quite different from any human’s. Holy shit did he ever wish Jetta had warned him about crapping all the now-nonessential organs out of his system. That had been a huge mess, and painful. He did not envy the attendant who had to clean up that bathroom. Afterward, though, he had felt light as a feather, and found he could actually move a little faster because of it.
Thinking of moving faster, it dawned on him now that he hadn’t yet tried moving using any kind of “Vampiric super-speed,” or some-such thing. He wondered how exactly that worked. How did one trigger that particular power? Did you just start running and then engage it mentally by way of visualizing it somehow? Or did you start out with just the intention of doing it, and your body translated that into action? In other words, was it a high-level programming language, or was it basic machine code?
No time like the present to find out, he thought. He stopped walking, steadied himself, and took a deep breath. He emptied his mind, and pictured himself moving so fast that he became a smear of motion blur across the cameras that were other peoples’ eyes . . . a fast-moving rocket, with the world zapping by him at a lightning-quick frame-rate, but without him missing any of its detail. Picturing all this, he set himself, the way a marathon runner might, and then opened his eyes and started to run, but then realized after a few paces that he didn’t need to . . .
The world had stopped, all of it frozen in place. The cars passing the sidewalk on the road beside him had frozen, as had the large splash in a puddle that one of them had made as its tire ran through some standing water on the road. The people inside the cars appeared frozen in place, as well, their mouths, eyes, faces, and hands parked in the air, all stuck in a single freeze-frame slice of spacetime. The traffic lights that the cars would’ve passed under seemed similarly stuck on yellow. The stray dog wandering out of the mouth of a nearby alleyway — it too had frozen, its legs caught in mid-motion, its tail stuck in the air, its tongue sticking out. And the sounds . . . the ambient sounds of the city, the sounds of the cars’ engines and their tires on the road, the sound of the puddle splashing as one drove through it . . . the sound of the dog’s soft panting . . . all of it . . . were not frozen, per se, nor were they silent. No; instead, they sounded stretched out through time, as if the gods had hired themselves a DJ, and as if she had run the vinyl record containing the city’s soundtrack very, very slowly beneath a turntable’s needle. It all sounded an ungodly, smashed-together, slowly-unfolding cacophony of noise that sounded like a train-wreck happening in slow motion.
Then Mystikite realized that that was almost exactly what was actually happening: Everything else had not slowed down, no . . . it was his relativistic frame of reference that had in fact accelerated. Neat. As he stood here, time moved slower for him because his bodily processes all moved faster. So, he picked up his pace a little, and walked a bit faster . . . and then, he broke into a run. His body felt no tiredness nor any soreness as he did so, though his legs worked faster than any human’s could — the slow-motion world around him groaned and gradually unfolded noisily through time as he moved — and finally, within a few minutes, the world flashing past him in a blur of slow-motion movement, he had reached his destination: The Renaissance Regency Suites of Boston.
Okay, now how do I shut this off? He thought. He stood there, breathing deeply for a moment or so — he did feel a slight bit winded, but that only felt like a normal amount of exertion, given the effort involved — and thinking hard, refusing to panic over the growing worry of “Uh-oh. What if I can’t?” He closed his eyes, and tried to imagine the world around him speeding back up, picturing himself trapped in a bubble, separated from the rest of the world, with a clock inside the bubble with him, its hands moving really fast, but slowing down, falling in sync with a clock that sat outside . . . until finally, the two clocks ticked as one in harmony. He felt his body . . . settle, as though in an elevator that had suddenly dropped a single floor in one go, causing him to briefly exist in free-fall before gravity reasserted itself. He opened his eyes, and sure enough, the world had gone back to its normal, non-time-dilated self. Wow, what a rush! Briefly, he wondered if he could maybe somehow use this trick as some weird form of time travel . . . But he didn’t have time for that. The pangs in his stomach became more pronounced, now, almost cramps. So, he filed that thought away for safe-keeping, and reminded himself to check it out later, as it seemed an intriguing concept. For now, though — the Renaissance Regency. A room-party. Drinking. Lowered inhibitions. Someone to feed on. And then living with that if the alcohol and the resulting hangover didn’t drown-out the horror of the memories.
A tall, well-lit modern building that would’ve looked right at home in the opening shots of Blade Runner — Ridley Scott’s dark, futuristic tale of detective noir and synthetic life — the Renaissance Regency had kept up with the architectural times. Unlike the Executive East Inn, it did not look nor seem like a homey, warm, and welcoming place for weary travelers to lie down their burdens and take a rest from the road. Rather, it seemed a cold, impersonal, and foreboding fortress of glass, steel, and concrete, its general disposition that of a frigid lover who merely tolerated the presence of human beings within it, a lover whose patience with said humans and their tomfoolery would soon evaporate into no good ends for anyone. Nonetheless, they had come in droves, at first arriving in a trickle in the night, and then in a tidal wave of geekdom . . . and finally, in a veritable monsoon of nerdiness the next day or so: The fannish hordes, with their cosplay — some of it intense, some of it casual, some of it just plain strange — and their merchant booths, their Magic cards and their games of D&D, Pathfinder, and Mage, their Live-Action Role Playing games of Vampire and Werewolf — whereupon the entire hotel and all its secret places briefly became the stage of their Globe Theatre — along with their peace-bonded weapons of war, their Pan-Galactic Gargleblasters and their red, Aftershock-based “Rocket Fuel” drinks. Ambassadors from Centauri Prime, their peacock-styled hairpieces two feet tall and fanning out from their heads in semicircles — each of them dressed as though starring in an avant-garde historical romance produced by Lady Gaga, in which they each played a gay clone of Napoleon Bonaparte — wasted no time in breaking out the Brevari and household gods . . . just as the Romulans and Middle-Earthen dwarves in attendance wasted not a moment in popping open their respective casks of lager and ale. The jam session had resumed in the wee hours and had kept on jamming, and the game room had kept on gaming . . . it was as though the con’s transplantation from the Executive East Inn had not only not slowed down the event, but had actually granted it a fresh shot of ecstasy into its bloodstream . . . as if someone had injected a big blast of nitrous oxide into its metaphysical dream-engine, and its tires had squealed in delightful acceleration as it had popped a wheelie and pulled ahead for another several laps around the pod-racing circuit.
Mystikite straightened his sport-coat and shirt, and ran a hand through his hair to tame it slightly. Then, he marched up to the front door of the Renaissance Regency, pulled it open, and entered.
He breezed past the registration desk, flashing his name-tag and guest badge, and then simply wandered for a bit, checking everything out, on the prowl for potential meals on legs. It was the same con, just a different venue; only about a third of the attractions had migrated over so far, but there was still plenty to do and see. The rest of the dealer’s and gaming rooms would probably move over in the morning, he supposed. He wished he hadn’t taken off so quickly; he knew he’d want his computer and the Positronic Metacognitive Processor soon enough, to resume his work for Mjolnir. His work was all he would have, now. The only thing left in his existence that mattered. Oh well. He would go back and get it later. For now, he wanted away from the others, away from their faces looking at him with forlorn affection and sadness. Besides, his work wasn’t why he was here; every minute now delivered another piercing pain in his gut, telling him to feed, and to do it quickly. Onward, he supposed, to find that room-party. He both agonized and ached for the hunger to end, to feed, swallowing dryly, thirstily, every time he imagined himself biting into soft flesh and drinking the blood that came welled-up and out of the wound . . . but at the same time avoiding the moment like the plague, wanting very badly to find a way to set himself on fire — or stake himself, or whatever — before he hurt someone, and in doing so, crossed a line that he could never uncross.
It was then that he noticed someone following him.
He kept on as though he had noticed nothing . . . as though everything were perfectly normal, and as though there wasn’t another Vampires keeping a short distance away from him, but, yes, definitely following him, trailing his every move, his every duck and swerve as he tried to shake her loose. Who was she? What did she want? From what Jetta had told him, the Vampire world was a political labyrinth of Covens, factions, and constantly-shifting loyalties and allegiances. An unstable place, full of unstable people. Great, just what he needed. Indeed, who the hell knew who she was, or what she wanted. She certainly didn’t look friendly. He caught sight of her in the mirrored reflection in a passing knight’s polished, armored chest-piece and a large mirror that sat between the two elevators at the end of the hall (and thus clearing up the issue of whether or not Vampires had reflections): She was a tallish woman with large green eyes and too much blue eye-shadow, with curly red hair the color of smoldering embers and wearing a suit of brown leather armor held together by lines of rivets and bolts, her steel-toed boots laced to the knees. Very attractive. But something in her eyes said “Danger! High Voltage! Bad wiring!” She seemed to glare at everything and everyone — but kept her eyes mostly on Mystikite. Great, he thought My first night as a Vampire and I’m about to get rubbed out by Gabrielle the Warrior Princess. Well, shit. It was fun while it lasted, I guess.
As he approached the elevators, he suddenly veered off to the left and dodged sideways, headed toward the building’s eastern stairwell. He pulled open the door and slipped inside. The door clicked closed behind him and he hurried up the stairs, checking behind him to make sure that his tail had —
He froze on the stairs as the door creaked open beneath him and the woman entered, looked up, and their gazes locked.
“You there. Wait.”
“Uh, yeah?” said Mystikite.
“Tell me — who are you?” she said, cocking her head to one side. “I know every Vampire in this city, and at this Convention . . . but I’ve never seen your face, not even once. So tell me. Who are you.”
“That why you’re following me?” he replied. “Do you always follow everyone you don’t know? You must keep really busy doing that.”
The woman smiled, showing her fangs. “Not at all. Only the interesting ones. Aren’t you at least going to tell me what Coven you’re of?”
“Ah . . . yes. Coven.” He cleared his throat. “Ah, my, uh, my Coven, yeah. The truth is, I — uh — the one who made me, she, uh . . . she doesn’t really have a Coven. Or if she does, she didn’t tell me what it is.”
“So you’re Covenless,” she said. “A Makerless One.”
“No, I have a Maker,” he said. “She’s just — ”
“We don’t tolerate Makerless in these parts,” she said. “Our new Leader, Vynovich, doesn’t like your kind. Doesn’t want you in his New World Order. So, you need to go. All of you.”
“Uh, is there some way we can talk about this?” said Mystikite, backing up a few steps onto the next landing of the stairwell.
“Oh, I’m afraid not,” she said with mock pity, coming closer. “You don’t belong here. In this world. Lineless, with no lineage. No heritage. No history. Really, it’s for the best. For all concerned. Just . . . relax. The Eternal Death comes easily, if you let it, poor creature.”
Mystikite saw her clench a fist. Without another thought, he felt time freeze. The female grasped the metal stairwell railing and put her foot on the steps that led to the spot where he stood. His body slammed into hyperactive defense mode as she came up the stairs after him. It was a quick decision — to run, or stand and fight. He had no real idea what his new Vampire body could do in a fight, but he guessed he was about to find out.
He blocked her first punch by catching her fist in his hand, then head-butted her. She stumbled back down the stairs and caught herself on the metal banister next to her. She descended to the previous landing, then grabbed hold of the banister with both hands . . . and using her Vampiric super-strength, she wrenched it free of the wall, and held it like a fighting pike, turning it over in her hands, twirling it in front of her. She came at him with it, and took a whack at him. He ducked just in time, and the banister-pike went whisking through the air where his head had just been. The pike slammed into the concrete wall next to him. He jerked back up into position and grabbed at the pike. He tried to wrestle it from her, but she had the advantage of leverage. She jerked it free of his grasp and hit him in the head with it. Dazed and stunned, he stumbled to the side, grasping his head. It hurt like all seven hells. He almost lost his footing, but caught himself just in time, and forced himself to focus on her. He looked around him for something — anything — he could use as a weapon, and decided that what worked for the goose would work for the gander. He grabbed the banister on the flight of stairs he’d just ascended and tried the same trick as she had: He grabbed hold of it with both hands and yanked it free of its bolting. He strained for a moment, but finally managed it — his muscles cried out with screaming tension as he ripped it free of the wall and then whirled it around using both hands, just as she had. He sauntered down the stairs with it whirling — trying to affect a casual disregard for her display of alacrity with the weapon — toward the landing where she stood. Luckily, the landings on the stairwells in this place were both long and wide. Now equally matched, weapon-wise, they faced each other, circling one another, fighting-pikes at the ready.
She struck at him, a downward attack that came across from the left. He parried, bringing his banister-pike up just in time. He thrust it out in front of him to push her away. Their pikes hit each other midway and they pushed against each other, a contest of raw strength. The female won out — for now — and succeeded in pushing him back and into the wall. He relented, and she brought her pike around from the side, attempting to whack him in the ribs. He put his out to the side, aligned vertically, and hers slammed into it instead of into him. He then tilted his pike and rammed its upper end forward and downward, cracking the female in the head. He then quickly leveled his horizontally and moved to slam her in the side with it, and succeeded. He tried to go for it again, but she parried, blocking his attack, and then brought the bottom of her pike swinging up and to the side, crashing it into his shin, knocking his footing out from under him.
He crashed to the floor, and she towered over him, raising her pike like a baseball bat, for the delivery of a crushing, finishing body-blow, but he reached up from where he lay with one leg, cocked back his foot, and kicked her, hard, in the stomach. The female flailed backwards, hitting the wall behind her, and Mystikite leapt back up and onto his feet again in one smooth, forceful wave of bodily motion. Apparently, being a Vampire gives you a +6 to all acrobatics and martial arts checks, he thought. He came at her, thrusting his pike forward like a battering ram aimed straight at her chest. He heard bones crack as his pike smashed into her, forcing her back against the wall even further. She brought her pike up and around, held horizontally in front of her, and knocked his down, and then thrust hers forward and clanged him in the face with it. He staggered back, nose bleeding, and she whacked him in the left side of the head — the pike came away bloodied, the wound already trying to heal itself — then whirled around and tried to bash him in the right shin with its other end. He parried, blocking her shot, and brought the opposite end of his own pike crashing into her head. She stumbled, a bit dazed, recovered, then spun her pike in her hands and swept his legs clean out from under him with one quick, broad gesture. He crashed down flat on his ass again, the pain exploding in his coccyx as he landed right on it, dropping his pike, which went rolling toward the female. She went to her knees and grabbed for it just as he did, and they waged a visceral tug of war — as he cried out in pain and she grinned, a hellish expression writ upon her features, her eyes almost aflame with the passion of the struggle. Of the two, it appeared she was the stronger . . . She pulled the pike closer just as Mystikite began to lose his grip, but he rallied at the last second, and threw his whole body into it . . . and managed to pry it from her grasp at the last sliver of the last possible moment. The pike flew from her hands and banged him in the face. The female cackled laughter.
Mystikite scrambled to his feet, as did she, and they faced each other again, each slowly whirling their banister-pike, each circling the other. The female sneered at him and grinned. “You cannot win this, Youngling. Turn back. Turn tail and run. Save yourself the bitter taste of your own blood.”
“Y’know,” said Mystikite, panting for breath but summoning all the sarcasm he still felt capable of, “if these were lightsabers, you’d be dead by now. I would’ve already cut you in half with purple fire, bitch. Why purple? ‘Cause my lightsaber, like Mace Windu’s, would have the words ‘bad-ass motherfucker’ engraved on the hilt. Or better still, into the Kyber crystals inside it, thereby lending crystal clarity to the issue of who is gonna kick who’s ass here in jus a minute.”
“Talk is cheap, Young One. I have been alive for over a hundred human years, and I’ve heard brave words from upstarts like you before. They always die in the end, though, begging for the Eternal Death before I’m done with them. You’re no different.”
“Well, actually,” said Mystikite, “I’m a little different . . . I mean, for instance, I have a really nice computing rig and I’m the undefeated paintball champion in my D&D group that meets every — ”
“Silence! Let us be done with this!” She cried. She drew back her fighting pike, coiled herself back, readying for a full frontal assault, and came charging at him, striking in large, swooping slashes with her pike and exclaiming in chi sounds as she backed him up. He parried each blow as best he could, but quickly ran out of room to work in. He was almost up against the wall behind him. The female hauled back her banister-pike, to deliver one final killing blow, but instead of raising his pike to block, Mystikite — thinking quickly — took his weapon, turned it horizontally in front of him, and then swiftly and forcefully thrust it up under and into the female’s chin. She cried out in surprise and pain, staggered backward several paces, dropped her pike entirely — which Mystikite quickly kicked down the stairs, well out of her reach — and then she ran smack into the wall behind her, hitting her head hard on the concrete. She stood there, dazed and concussed, and then spat out a large dollop of blood and saliva, along with a few teeth. She blinked a few times as she unsteadily wavered — seemingly in both surprise and disorientation — her pupils dilating. In a tiny voice she managed to squeak out the word, “Fuck!” She crumpled against the wall and slid down and fell into a sitting position, her breathing ragged and heavy. Mystikite kicked her in the head, and she went tumbling down the next flight of stairs, where she lay on the landing, arms and legs akimbo, a pool of blood growing beneath her head as she lay there, immobile. Mystikite hurried down the stairs and kicked her fighting pike further away, so that she had no hope of reaching it.
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“Yeah! Who’s the freakin’ man!” cried Mystikite as he stuck his steel-banister-turned-fighting-pike between his legs, and brandished it about like a sex toy, while pantomiming spanking an invisible person’s buttocks at thigh-level. He grinned down at the female. “Fuck yeah, hells to the yeah! You know where I learned that shit, Ms. Gabrielle? Daffy goddamn Duck, motherfucker! Ho, ha ha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!”
“This . . . is not over,” said the female, looking up at him with hatred burning in her eyes. “Do not for even a moment think you have beaten me, boy. We will meet again, Youngling, and when we do . . . we will settle this vendetta.”
“Yeah, well, good luck with that,” he said. “I happen to know a move that kills Vampires, no matter what. Beheading. Or something like it.”
He raised his banister-pike like a spear above her body, and then . . . he hesitated. He had never taken a life. In all his years on the planet, he had been in plenty of fights, sure, but he had never killed anybody, had never even come close. But this was different. This was truly life and death — and not just his own. He knew that if she ever got up from where she lay, she would kill him. She would find him, track him down, and end him, and anyone she found with him or connected to him. He immediately thought of Zoe, and Gadget. Jetta, too. Especially her, as she was the Covenless one who had Made him. No, he could not let that happen; not in a million years. And so, without letting himself think about it twice, he steeled himself against the horror of it, and slammed the round edge of his banister-pike down into the female Vampire’s head, sending it crashing through her skull and plunging it deep into her brain. Blood erupted from the spot he’d sent it careening through, and the bone there made a decisive crunching noise as the metal penetrated it. Her body jerked and spasmed only once as the blood began to pool beneath her downturned face on the landing, and the light and fierceness went out of her eyes for the very last time.
“Sorry,” he said in a quiet voice. “Had to be done.” He looked down at himself. He had blood all over his trench-coat. Luckily, the trench-coat itself was black, so it didn’t show that much. But his face no doubt looked a bloody wreck, too. He had to get to a bathroom, had to clean up. Maybe, this being Con and all, people would mistake it for a makeup job; he hoped so.
Then, it hit him again, harder this time: The hunger. The thirst. The fight had taken something out of him. He felt hungrier than ever, and he knew what he hungered for. No more putting it off, no more distractions or “side quests.” He had to feed, and soon. His newborn Vampire body demanded sustenance, and he had a feeling that small animals, such as rats, or cats, or dogs, simply wouldn’t do the job. No, it had to be Human, and it had to be soon. Cursing his new metabolism and the dead female Vampire at his feet, he ascended the stairs, running away from the hunger as much as from the sensation of what it had felt like to kill for the first time . . . which was something he had a sinking feeling he would soon have to get used to.
Mystikite already had a profile for potential victims drawn up in his head. Yes, that word felt right to him: Victims. Mainly because he refused to mince words with himself as to what sort of business he was about. This was killing; this was death, death by his hands. His ideal victim was most likely female, with a petite or athletic build — to give her a fighting chance, maybe? — between twenty and thirty years old, and sexually active. At the very least, she wasn’t risk-averse, and was open to casual encounters. The girl he searched for was most likely into the “bad boy” type, and easily fell for the “loner with a tortured soul” trope, as she herself liked to play that role when dating, in order to create a sense of drama in the relationship. Well, probably. If that personality type was here, at the con, she might be a cosplayer unafraid to show some skin, or similarly unafraid of attracting the attention of — or an invitation to a happenin’ room-party by — a man she had only just met when he “accidentally” bumped into her on the convention floor. Yes, that would work. Maybe. So first, he had to find said room-party, and had to make sure they served alcohol. Then, he had to find said beddable mate whose blood he would feast on until she died of exsanguination. It wasn’t pretty — it was cold, dark, and calculating, and he hated himself with each step he plotted — but he had to survive, didn’t he? Had to stay alive somehow. That was the whole fucking point of what Terry and Zoe had had Jetta do to him, wasn’t it? The bastards. Damn them. They should’ve just let him go. After all, he didn’t really deserve to live, did he? He couldn’t protect either of them from that alien thing that had reared its ugly head, and now, he couldn’t even protect them from himself. So really, of what use was he?
He commenced wandering around some more, until he finally found what he was after. An hour or so after he’d arrived, he came across a packed room-party on the fourth floor. He’d heard the music all the way down the hall; the stereo — a large pair of speakers hooked up to an iPod docking station — currently cranked out a number from Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman’s seminal 1990’s rock-operatic return to glory, Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell, this one a soft choral and piano ballad called “Lost Boys And Golden Girls,” the last song on the album. As he walked in the door Mystikite scanned the room. Six or seven couples slow-danced to the music, swaying in each other’s arms. Someone had, appropriately enough, dimmed the lights; others stood on the sidelines talking in low voices to one another while holding plastic cups that he presumed had alcoholic beverages in them. A bar had been set up on a plastic card-table at one end of the room, along with a set of DJ turntables, where there stood a guy wearing headphones and slowly nodding his head to the slow beat of the song.
Mystikite walked in and approached the makeshift bar.
“Welcome to Callahan’s Cross-Time Saloon,” said the guy behind the table, whose cerulean blue skin and two floppy antennae pegged him as an alien — specifically, one of the Andorian race, from the Star Trek universe. “Tell me, somethin’, Stranger, and help settle a bet, if you would.”
“Er, um, okay . . .” said Mystikite.
“As pertains to our musical selection right now: Do you prefer Loaf-less Steinman, or Steinman-less Loaf?”
“Uh,” said Mystikite. “Say what?” It took him a minute to figure out what the guy was asking him. Then, he got it: The music. The “barkeep” has asked him if he preferred the work of songwriter Jim Steinman, with the vocals done by singers other than Meat Loaf, versus songs featuring the vocals of Meat Loaf, but that Jim Steinman had not written. He actually had to stop and think about this one for a minute. Many people would of course say that they didn’t like Meat Loaf at all, and follow that up with a simple, “And Jim who?” But Mystikite liked and knew of both, thanks to Gadget’s unending obsession with the songsmith Steinman. He sure as hell knew how Gadget would’ve answered this question. So, figuring it didn’t matter, he shrugged and said, “What the hell. If you just gotta know, I prefer Loaf-less Steinman to Steinman-less Loaf. Jim’s songs are pretty damned fantastic.”
The barkeep turned around, toward two of his friends who stood in the corner, a pair of goth kids with too many piercings, having a quiet conversation over cocktails. “Ha!” he said, pointing at Mystikite. “Told you guys! First person I asked, and what’d they say? Loaf-less Steinman. Suck. On. That. Dave. Now, then.” He turned back around to face Mystikite. “Now that that’s outta the way — what’ll it be, stranger?”
“Hmm,” said Mystikite. He wasn’t entirely sure that Vampires could drink alcohol, or if they could, what affect it would have on him. Oh well; no time like the present to find out. “What the hell. Again. Gimme a Blue Bull, if you’ve got the stuff to make one.”
“Indeed I do. I grok in full,” said the Andorian. “One Blue Bull, comin’ right up.” He reached down into the small refrigerator that came standard with the room, and got out a bottle of Aftershock — it practically glowed a pinkish red in the blacklights the hosts had set up in each corner of the room — a flask of vodka, then two Red Bull energy drunks, a lemon, a lime, a knife, and then reached down and retrieved a bucket of ice, in which a half-empty bottle of champaign sat chilling. He got out a tall plastic cup, filled it an eighth of the way full of Aftershock, then a fourth of the way full of vodka, then another fourth full of Red Bull. He cut the lime into pieces with the speed and precision of a chef, and then popped it in the cup, as well. The lemon he peeled, and stuck its rind in the cup, too. Then, just for effect, he used a pair of tongs to reach into a Tupperware container that looked like he had suffused it in a cloud of steam and vapor — ah, dry ice, though Mystikite — and plunked a couple of clear, quickly-sublimating cubes of it into the cup. The cup of pinkish liquid began to bubble and froth with a foggy mist that bubbled over the edges slightly. The bartender smiled and said, as he handed the cup to Mystikite, “Here ya go. One Blue Bull, courtesy of Callahan’s. Don’t worry — it’s on the house, on account of the awesome Vampire cosplay you’ve got going on. C’mon dude, level with me — who did your prosthetic teeth? I so wanna get a pair like those. They look so freakin’ real, man!”
Mystikite merely smiled. “Well, I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.” The bartender froze for a moment, seemingly unsure if Mystikite was joking. Then he laughed, and the bartender relaxed and laughed too — albeit a little uneasily. “Nah, just kidding. It was Morchatromik U’s Dental School. They fixed me up with a decent price for ‘em, about $1500.” He lied, of course, but only halfway; the prosthetics he had worn as a “vampire lifestyler” had in fact come from Morchatromik’s Dental School, and had in fact cost him a grand and a half. No need for the poor man to know that these, the fangs he wore now, were all-too-the-real-deal. Mystikite took two dollars out of his coat pocket and handed them to the barkeep. “Thanks for the drink.”
“Well, uh . . . thanks for the tip, man,” said the bartender nodding at him. Amazing. The barkeep had thought the fangs prosthetics, and had probably thought his paleness due to make-up. He glanced around the room at all the others — some dancing, others quietly conversing, one or two jackasses laughing too loud at their friends’ jokes. They had no idea, any of them, that right now, at this very moment, a brutal and efficient killer lurked within their midst, one driven almost mad by his need to feed, one so hungry for blood he could’ve devoured at least three of them, and not even batted an eye at the ensuing carnage. One surely damned, if only in practical terms if not spiritual. A part of him wanted to do it — very badly, in fact — wanted to leap at them and slash their throats open and drink deep from them one, then another, then another still, until his stomach felt ready to burst, a crimson blood-sac filled with the suffering and pain of their final few minutes on Earth. He fought it. Fought it tooth and claw, even grimaced and clenched his fists at his sides and almost literally dug in his heels as a sweat broke out on his forehead. He could not resist much longer. Sooner or later — probably sooner — instinct alone would compel him to take one of them — any one, it didn’t matter which — and drink them dry, extinguishing the brief candle-flame of life that flickered in their eyes.
“Dude,” said the bartender, “are you okay, man?”
“Uh, yeah,” he said to him. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just . . . had a small . . . uh, moment there.”
“Well you take it easy, man,” the bartender replied. “Might want to sip that drink.”
“Eh, I’ll be fine. Thanks, though. I appreciate it.” Mystikite turned, and then he spotted her, standing alone in the corner of the room, nursing a drink as the others danced. Like Dizzy, she was tall for a girl — at least five foot, seven inches — and had a headful of perfectly-coiffed, glossy-black flax cascading down across her shoulders. She had an average build — nice curves in all the right places, just like Zoe; neither too much nor too little of her — and she had long legs, her figure made even shapelier by the pair of black, knee-high, lace-up leather boots that she wore. She had on a jet-black, knee-length satin dress with a slit up the right thigh, and a black satin top with long sleeves that terminated in black, lacy ruffles. Atop her head, she wore a tall, pointed, soot-black witch’s hat with a wide, round rim around it, and she carried a tall, crooked broomstick with a haphazard-looking mass of straw at the butt-end of it. Filling out the outfit. she wore a large, billowing black cape that extended down from her shoulders and the large black cowl she had mounted there. Her makeup was damn-near perfect, as well: Her skin gleamed a matte green color, a uniform emerald shade applied evenly, everywhere, to her face, neck, hands, and whatever other parts of her skin showed through. She didn’t look so much like Margaret Hamilton from the original Mystikite of Oz, but was the spitting image of Gregory Maguire’s Elphaba, from the fantasy novel and broadway musical Wicked: The Life And Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.
Mystikite smiled at her when she made eye contact. She smiled back, and with a curious, intrigued expression, she approached him, just as he started, out of an equal curiousness — and no small amount of physical attraction — to approach her. They met somewhere in the middle of the slow-dancing couples, just as the song ended and another disc began playing. Still Meat Loaf, but this time, the song had changed. “For Crying Out Loud,” another slow — and way-overwrought — power ballad, written by Jim and belted-out by Meat, this one from the original Bat Out of Hell album.
“Uh, Hi,” he said.
“Uh, hey. Hi,” she said in reply. “Who’re you?”
“Nuh-uh. You first. What’s your name?”
“My name? Er, do you mean my actual name name? Or my ‘nym, or — ?”
“Um, no. Er — yes. Just your regular name name, I guess.”
“Oh. It’s . . . Lynn Celeste. Don’t worry about trying to pronounce it. My ‘nym is Elphion Imajica Dangerzone. Easier . . . and way cooler. At least, I think so.”
“Mine’s Mystikite Schmidinger. My name, that is, not my ‘nym. That’s Mystikite, spelled with a ‘three’ in place of the ‘e’. Like in hacker-speak. Don’t ask, it’s a long story. Originally I hated it, but it’s grown on me since then. Y’see, when we first came up with it — ”
“‘We’ came up with it? You have another personality in there?”
“Oh, no, I meant my friend Gadget. We sort of thought up our ‘nyms together.”
“Gadget. Is that a ’nym, or a name?”
“Uh, the former.”
“I see. So the parents weren’t so cruel. Well. Aren’t you going to ask me to dance? This song is eight minutes long, and we’ve just wasted, like, two of them.”
“Oh, um, sure. Would you, er, like to dance?”
“I’d love to. Thanks for asking.”
They drew closer together. She put an arm around his neck; he cupped one hand around her back, and with the other, held his Blue Bull, her free hand clasped around his fingers and the ice-cold glass, as she laid her head upon his shoulder, the hugely-rimmed witch-hat rubbing against the top of his head, and they danced. And for a welcome change from the past several hours, Mystikite finally enjoyed a relaxing moment of peace. His stomach no longer cramped; his heart no longer tried to hammer its way out of his chest; his throat did not feel like rough sandpaper as it cried out for the warm wetness of human blood to sluice down through it, the thirst penetrating his very soul with its insatiable lust for the lives of others. No, all of that — for the moment, at least — was gone as he and Elphion Dangerzone — a cute ‘nym if ever he’d heard one — swayed to the music, as the orchestra behind Meat Loaf’s voice swelled to a roaring, bombastic crescendo filled with sturm, drang, and a gothic sort of romantic Weltschmerz. Toward the end of the piece, Elphion Dangerzone lifted her head from beside his, and her nose brushed against his cheek. They glanced in each other’s eyes only briefly, long enough to allow one another’s gaze to linger for that single fraction of a second, that extra tiny moment that guaranteed them to — hesitantly — try and kiss . . .
“Mm, ah, no, no, I’m — I’m sorry,” said Mystikite, separating himself from her kiss, and backing up a step or two. He took a drink and looked deep into her eyes, and saw the disappointment and confusion there, a look of puzzlement at his rejection. He took her by the shoulders, tenderly, and said, “Uh, listen. Elphion. It’s . . . not you. It’s . . . me. I’ve . . . ugh. Listen. You’re really cool, and all. And you’re really good looking — even in green--and all that, really, you are. But that’s the, uh, the problem, y’see. I’ve got this . . . thing I have to do. And I can’t . . . I don’t . . . I mean, I don’t want you to be the one that I . . . Ah hell.” Frustrated, he ran a hand through his hair. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I like you, and all — you look amazing, and you smell nice — but I . . . just can’t . . .”
“But I want to be the one,” she said, putting her arms around his neck and drawing closer to him. “I kinda want to be the one you drink from.”
“Hey — whoa,” he said, trying to back away from her a step farther, “hold on, back up for just a second. How the hell did you know — ?”
“That you’re a Vampire?” She smiled. “Well, for one thing, the fangs kinda give it away. Then there’s your general paleness. And then there’s the fact that you look blanched, and . . . well, you look thirsty. Hungry, even. That, and when I get this close to someone, I can usually pick up some surface thoughts . . . and you just thought about it. When we almost kissed, I mean. It was right there, in your head, right there. You — ”
“Wait,” he said. “Again, hold on, back up. You can read minds?”
“Well, I’m not really that good at it. I can usually only pick up general . . . sort of . . . emotional impressions of the people who’re around me at the time. Like I said, I had to get this close to you to even pick up the surface thoughts in your head. It’s not like I can just pluck ideas from peoples’ brains, or read their minds and find out any secrets, or anything. But you were easy. I had you pegged as a Vampire the second you walked in. It’s coming off of you in waves, how hungry, how thirsty you are. You’re a newborn, aren’t you . . . I mean, newly Made, right?”
“Okay, leaving off the subject of you being a real-life psychic, exactly how . . . how do you . . . ?” He shook his head in disbelief. The woman befuddled him. He believed the part about her powers; hell, if Gadget’s Helm could do what it did, then it was natural to assume that Mother Nature could do it too, without all the fancy circuitry and wires. And clearly, the woman knew a little something about Vampires. But not enough to be afraid of one, apparently. Either that, or she really did know her stuff . . . but, she was either stupendously courageous, or outrageously stupid, one of the two. She seemed pretty relaxed at having met one of his kind, that was for sure. And what had she meant by wanting to be the one he drank from? Who in their right mind would ever want the existence Jetta had cursed him with earlier tonight? Hell, he’d only been a Vampire for a couple of hours now, and he was already sick and tired of it. He wasn’t entirely sure how he would handle this whole “immortality” thing. Maybe setting himself on fire was the right thing to do. Or not. He also wasn’t sure of how he would handle an eternity full of people like this Lynn Celeste, this “Elphion” person who apparently wanted to be food for the immortals.
“Oh, I guess I should explain,” she replied. “I study Vampires. It’s, like, a hobby of mine. Well, more like a passion, I guess. I’m a writer, and I’m working on a series of Vampire novels, but I’m not going to release them until the whole series is done and ready. I’m thinking of doing the whole self-publishing thIng.”
Oh, just great, he thought. A person who wants Vampires to feed on them for kinky kicks, and wants to write books about it so even more people will want Vampires to feed on them for kinky kicks. Well, shit. I mean, at least it keeps the Vampires in business, I suppose.
“Uh, so you’re a writer?” he said. “Doing research for a novel? Research that involves psychically tracking a real-life Vampire and then getting him or her to feed on you? Lady, I gotta tell ya, your research methods are pretty fucking hardcore, you know that? I mean — shit, all that, just to be the next Stephanie Meyer?”
“No, oh God no!” said Elphion, grimacing, and she laughed. “No! Not like Stephenie Meyer! Egads, good God no, no fucking way like Stephanie Meyer! More like Anne Rice at her peak. Y’know, as in actually good?” She laughed again. “Ugh. Please. Stephanie Meyer — eesh. Gag me with a fork.”
“Well at least you’ve got good taste in literature,” he said. “But seriously. Why do you want me to feed on you? Can’t you just . . . use your imagination and . . . describe it like that?”
She took off the studded choker-collar she wore around her neck, putting it into a pocket on her dress, and smiled. “I find that real-life can be just as magical as make-believe, if not more so.” At the sight of her neck, soft and pink, Mystikite’s eyes grew wide, and his mouth went dry. The hunger returned, at first only a slight pang and then almost doubling him over with its insistent cry. “Now come on,” said Elphion, taking his hand and leading him away. He followed without question. “Follow me,” she said. “Let’s get away from all these prying eyes and get to know each other a little better, somewhere a little more . . . private, shall we?”