Thursday.
By the time I woke up Thursday afternoon, I had convinced myself wholly that there was no way Iggy could be Dorian. Secure in that I turned my attention to Friday evening, and what I should –or could- take with me to protect Kielo.
Luckily all that remained of the damage my head had taken was a dull ache, and a slight bump. The ache could be ignored quite easily, but I decided to take a painkiller anyway, just to keep my mind clear.
I fed Buttercup, who then followed me back into the bedroom. Underneath my bed were two large drawers, both the size of half the bed. And in those drawers were my toys.
Not that kind of toys. I know what your first thought was…
My favourite weapons, those ones I have carried longest, the ones with the most memories attached to them, those have their deserved places on my living-room walls, where I can always reach out and enjoy their company again, relive the times we’ve spent together.
As for the rest –and there are plenty!- they have their home in the drawers beneath my bed, away from the eyes of any possible visitors, but close by in case I need them. And every once in a while they get to come out to be cleaned, sharpened and oiled. Well kept and well loved, my toys. Always ready to be used.
I let my eyes roam lovingly over the collections after I’d pulled both drawers out, side by side. My new love for Kielo was making even my toes all tingly, but the sight of these pretties was the only thing that could ever rival how I felt for my… client.
All right, so the furball purring by my feet was at least as dear to me as Kielo and/or the weapons. I came to the conclusion I couldn’t really decide between the three on which one was the dearest. Buttercup was my constant companion, the one who cheered me up, had made me feel loved for years now. The weapons had saved my life time and time again, and now it was my turn to care for them. It was a bit unfair to make them compete with someone whom I had known for barely a week, but Kielo was something completely different.
I could have spent hours debating with myself, but there was work to be done!
Raison D’être was a nightclub well known for its security staff, and for how hard it was to get in to. That immediately ruled out taking anything big, like a sword or a shotgun. Those were kind of old-fashioned anyway, and not what one might prefer if one didn’t want to attract too much attention. Knives were my next choice, but any kind of a metal detector would shoot that plan down. As for shooting, the same went for handguns.
Stake? Classic, made of wood so no problems with metal detectors, but quite hard to hide on one’s person. I swear, one more vampire makes the ‘Is that a stake in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?’ –joke before attacking, and I will scream. It is not funny, and it is not original.
I put a few stakes on my bed as a possible weapon of choice and continued.
A thick wooden staff and metal chain were both rejected at sight; both required quite some room to swing properly. An axe? Nice, but no. A warhammer? Where on earth had that come from? Rejected for obvious reasons.
Rejected were also my old crossbow, sling, rapier sword, brass knuckles, flame thrower –quite a handy weapon, actually, just not indoors- and some special knives from around the world. Damn but the modern world was making my job hard.
My eyes kept drifting over to handguns again and again, so in desperation I picked one up and added it to the very small collection on the bed. A can of mace was added as well, and a tazer. Those were more or less considered as protection for oneself, but they wouldn’t stop a vampire. Slow it down, yes, but a terminal solution they were not. But at least they gave me something to work with.
Luckily I could get my most important weapon in without trouble, thanks to Kielo. Myself, I mean. Weapons can break, they can be lost or taken from you. Your body should stay with you, and with proper training can be the best weapon you’ve got. My fists of steel may have gathered some rust during the last few decades, but not enough to stop me from fighting.
Hell, maybe everything would go peacefully, and I wouldn’t need any of my weapons at all. You never knew. But I wouldn’t go counting on it. Even if Dorian had peaceful intentions, I doubted his friends shared his sentiment. Not by judging the way they had been behaving every time we had come across each other. If they got pissy and Dorian was unable to control them, there would be trouble.
So, making up my mind, I shoved a few stakes into my bag, along with the tazer and mace. I had some extra somewhere, I would give Kielo a can as well, if she wasn’t already carrying. I left the handgun on the bed, still debating whether to risk the metal detectors or not. The drawers went back under the bed –after I picked Buttercup out of one of them- and I moved onto my next task.
I was sure that Iggy was not Dorian, but there was no harm in checking, right?
Again I picked up my address book and sought out a phone number in
But my luck was as rotten as it had been yesterday: no answer. Just the monotonous beeping over the slightly scratchy line. No answer, no answering machine. Could be that he was out, so I wasn’t too concerned. Just annoyed. I was sure that I had the correct number: Frank offered a very specified and discreet service, and had always made sure that his clients could contact him. I thought about e-mailing him, but felt a bit silly doing so. I mean, I was so sure. No room for doubt in my mind. No, I would just try to reach Frank by phone a few more times, just to catch up with what was going on in his life. Never hurt to keep tabs on one’s friends.
Kielo had promised to come over straight from work, but when she finally reached my door she was over an hour late. At least she had called that she would take a while, so I hadn’t worried myself to death. Instead I had tried to reach Frank a few more times, with as much success as thus far. That being a big, fat, round zero.
All thoughts of annoyance disappeared when Kielo burst through the front door like a tornado, with several brightly coloured bags in tow. She actually squee’d as she lifted them up for my inspection.
“I’ve been shopping!”
When I reacted with just a smile and a nod, she pouted and lowered her hands. “I thought I might as well. What with tomorrow and everything, I figured I could go on one last spending spree. Not that I don’t trust you, lovergirl.” She leaned over to kiss me on the cheek and hurried past me to the living room, to drop the bags on the sofa. “I can’t stay too long today, my roommate has been complaining that she’s worried about me being away so much, so I promised to hang with her tonight. But come and see what I got!”
I followed her obediently, chuckling to myself as I watched her go through the bags one by one. Buttercup had retreated from sight, no doubt startled by all the commotion.
Kielo was pulling out several items of clothing from her bags: flimsy, frilly things in colours I had come to recognize as her favourites: light blue, green, violet and dusty pink. Shimmering, glittering things I couldn’t wait to take off her.
“You like?” she asked, smiling and holding one pink shirt in front of her, decorated with small butterflies made of sequins. My smirk grew even wider, and I stepped closer to put my arms around her waist. Kielo laughed and lifted her hands to my chest, pushing a little.
“Hold on, I want you to see these…” she turned back to the bags, to my great disappointment. If she wanted to concentrate on something else than the following night, I could come up with much more interesting ways. But no, my sweetheart dug into another bag, this one of a much darker and gloomier colour than the others. From that one she pulled out a black sleeveless top with slightly glittery drops of red blood running down the front. Again, she presented it to me by lifting it in front of her. “What do you think?”
“Very nice, but not really your style…” I said truthfully, much more interested in her.
“No! It’s for you!” Kielo laughed, turned the top around and pressed it on me. I blinked a few times and looked down on the shirt.
“You shouldn’t have. I mean, I like it, I really do, but…” I almost stuttered, blushing.
“Don’t worry, I’m taking it out of your paycheck.” Kielo said and winked. “These as well!”
She pulled a pair of black pants out of another gloomy bag. There was strips of red and black cloth hanging from the waist, tied around thighs and knees. I tilted my head when she raised them high for me to see, and caught one strip in hand.
“What are these for?”
“Silly. They’re just decorations! Try them on.” She pushed the pants on me as well, and turned to dig through the rest of the bags. “We might as well look good when we go and kick some vampire ass.”
“I concur.” I muttered and obediently changed into the new clothes.
The top was skintight, but fit perfectly. The pants were baggy enough to hide a weapon or two, and to my delight the strips didn’t hinder my movements at all, even when some of them seemed to tie my legs together. They didn’t stop me from making a high kick, so they could stay.
The few practice kicks I threw startled Kielo, who was also busy trying on everything she had bought. She stopped in mid-change when she saw me, and a bright smile lit up her face.
“They look perfect on you!”
I blushed and thanked her, both for buying the clothes and for the compliment. “You don’t look half bad yourself…”
Kielo blew a raspberry at me and pulled on the shirt she had in her hands. I would have much more preferred her in her bra, but the light blue shirt wasn’t hurting the eyes. Combined with a short denim shirt, made to look old, she looked her usual smoking hot. I told her as much, and I think she would have jumped into my arms had that not knocked both of us down. Instead she just wrapped her arms around me and kissed me, tasting of wild strawberries and spearmint bubblegum. There was really no ‘just’ about that. I could have stayed like that for the rest of our lives.
To have that warm, soft body pressed against mine, the only thing keeping our bare skins touching the thin layers of cloth that rubbed against each other, creating friction. To have that hot mouth, those maddening lips on mine, caressing, suckling, teasing and whispering. To have those eyes on me, smiling, glowing with sunlight and love and tenderness.
What more could one ask for? I for one couldn’t think of anything else.
But there was still the distraction of work to do. Preparations to make.
“Didn’t you say your roommate was worrying about you?” I asked after both of us had to come up for some air. After the words were out of my mouth I realised they could be taken as a sign that I wanted to get rid of her, so I wrapped my arm tighter around her waist. She giggled.
“Well, who cares. Let her worry. She can always call my cell if she misses me.” She wrapped her arms around my neck and lowered her head so that her lips met mine again. I smiled into the kiss and forgot for a few more minutes the weapons, the worries and Dorian. It could all wait for a little while.
“Oh, we should mind the new clothes…” Kielo suddenly said, pulling away so fast that I was pretty much left standing with my eyes closed, arms circled and lips pursed. She was already stripping when I got my eyes open, but not in a way that promised warm things. No, just stripping out of one set of clothes to slip into another one.
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat and quickly changed back. “We should also think a bit on tomorrow. Prepare ourselves for the worst.”
Kielo’s hands slowed as they folded her new clothes, and she nodded with a sigh. “You’re right. So what’s the worst case scenario?”
“Dorian wants more than what he said, and has a bunch of his friends with him.”
“And what can we do about it?”
I shrugged. “Fight them.” My words made Kielo laugh quietly and shake her head.
“Security would be on us within three seconds.”
“That would be great.” I flashed her a toothy grin, and Kielo laughed again when she realized security interfering wasn’t a problem. “Anyway, you know the place. Anything I should know?”
“The entrance is at ground floor, as well as a small, quiet bar. The first floor has the main club, with a bar, dance floor and a few private booths. Small rooms is more like it. There’s also a second floor for the younger crowd. What are you frowning?”
”Private booths? Do you think our man has gotten himself one of those?” I asked, not liking the idea. Kielo pursed her lips in thought before nodding slowly.
“He might have, if he has reserved it weeks ago. You can’t just get one from the door.”
“That might be trouble. Confined space, no other people. But then again, no one will come to stop us either if we have to kick some ass.”
Kielo’s smile wasn’t as certain as I would have liked. She was probably beginning to realize just how serious the situation could get. I was the same. The last week had been like a dream, and now we would have to wake from it. She reached for my hand for comfort as we sat on the sofa, going over some of the more likely scenarios. The most sensible ideas were for her to alert the security while I kept the vampires at bay. If it came to fighting, I kept repeating. A fight was more than likely, but I didn’t want Kielo so scared now already that tomorrow she would just freeze.
Too soon she had to leave me, but not before I had given her the tazer and a can of mace. We agreed that she would get her things after work tomorrow and come to my place before the sun set, and we would take a taxi from here to the club. The ‘date’ was at eleven, we had decided to be there about half an hour before, to check the place and maybe have a few drinks to calm our nerves. The vampires could tell I was there, but I would also be able to get a feel of them.
Even though the spring sun was still up and warm, I worried for her until Kielo called me from home. I could hear her roommate talking in the background, which eased my nerves a little. At least she wasn’t alone. The thought had crossed my mind that Kielo had lied about her, and had wanted to spend the evening alone. Paranoia already. Go me.
Some things came as a routine, no matter that I hadn’t faced a vampire in ages. Like making sure that Buttercup would be taken care of if I didn’t return. Same for my possessions. I had never before owned this much; as a traveling dhampir I had always had as little on me as possible. Now, apartments here and there, not to mention everything I had in this one. But I had inherited my possessions enough times now that I was familiar enough with all the paperwork and such. I even had a lawyer to take care of everything! He was a nice enough man, and I now made a call to inform him of the situation. If I didn’t get in touch with him before Monday morning, he would first make sure Buttercup was all right, and then have me declared dead. Most of my possessions would be sold, some given to charity. No heirs for me.
One good thing about having a real bloodsucker as your lawyer: no need to explain things that would make any sensible human call the police three times before you can finish. Everything was settled in ten minutes, and I could go and face Dorian with a little more peace of mind. Of course I didn’t fancy the idea of kicking the bucket, but in my old age I have become so sensible that I always prepare myself for everything I can.
And one good way to prepare for anything as life-threatening as this is to relax with a good, long, hot bubble bath. Oh yes.
A proper bath is far more than water and some bubbles, though. And I was a firm believer in the fact that a bath that took less than an hour was not worth taking. One must prepare, and one must prepare properly.
Buttercup observed with only little interest as I started the water before going in search of other materials. Candles, a good book, a paper fan to cool myself with, a bottle of cold beer, all to be used or consumed during the bath, and several skin creams to spoil myself with afterwards. One for the feet, one for the hands, one for the face, and so on.
I can hear you roll your eyes. But relaxing like this is important before a big battle. Some go binge-drinking, some whoring, some praying. This is my church.
The water was almost too hot as I lowered myself into the bath in the dimly lit bathroom. I had set some mellow music to play, and let the tunes fill my mind as all my muscles relaxed and my eyes slipped closed. Even the bump on my head seemed to disappear, along with the worry of what tomorrow could bring.
I must have soaked in the bath for near two hours, until the water was cool enough that I started to shiver. All wrinkly and languid and relaxed, I climbed out and into a bathrobe. The apartment seemed cold compared to the water, but I ignored it and walked out to my small balcony, to enjoy the scenery and some fresh air.
As much as one can enjoy scenery when one’s second-storey balcony opens to an asphalted yard between several high houses, or fresh air when one lives in the city central and there is a trash collection site downstairs. But the sky beyond the roofs of the surrounding houses was a beautiful dark purple, melting into a darker blue, dotted with tiny stars. I could almost ignore the honking of the car horns from the road on the other side of the cluster of buildings.
Looking at that small patch of sky high above, I thought back to all those times I had fought vampires before. I had survived then with far less to survive for. Despite all the trouble of the previous week, tomorrow didn’t seem such a big deal anymore. Kielo and I, we would get through it. One way or another. And then, as planned, we could concentrate on each other.
The ringing of my phone somewhere in the apartment pulled me out of my thoughts, and I hurried back in, thinking it was Kielo. Who else would call me at this hour?
But the name on the small screen was not that of my sweetheart. With a smirk playing on my lips, I answered.
“Alby. To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“Hey there, girly. Thought I’d give you a quick call. Got some information for you.”
“Oh? What is it?” I pulled the balcony door closed and covered it with the long curtains, closing my apartment once again from the outside world. Buttercup jumped up beside me as I plopped down on the sofa.
“It’s your big night tomorrow, isn’t it? Everything alright?” Alby didn’t answer my question, but I didn’t mind the opportunity to chat with him.
“As well as can be expected. We’re prepared, we’re ready, we’re worried.”
He laughed, and I could hear a female voice somewhere in the background.
“You have your girls with you? They live with you or something?”
“Hey. Who wouldn’t?” He tried to be suggestive and charming, but the effect was lost on me.
“So what did you want to tell me?”
“Oh yeah.” I could hear him move around, maybe change into a better position as he got into business-mode. I could imagine it, having seen the change in him so many times. From sloth to shark. “I dug out some more info on that Dorian-guy. Thought you might like to know before you go head-to-head with him.”
“All is appreciated.” I said, sitting up straighter as well as my eyes searched for a pen and some paper to write whatever he had to say on. “Go on.”
“Yeah, all right. Apparently he’s not quite what we thought. I mean, the info going ‘round was, and is, that’s he’s a fairly fresh vampire. But I met some older vamps I know yesterday, and one of them had been in contact with Dorian a couple of times. D had been following him around or something, trying to be all buddy-buddy.”
“Is there a point?” I grumbled impatiently, tapping the pen I had found to the edge of a newspaper page. Alby laughed.
“Oh come on, let me build some tension here before I make my announcement! Anyway, this friend of mine, he’s old enough to tell that Dorian’s lying about some things. Like his age.
“I mean, he pretends to be this newbie vamp and hangs around the big guys to ‘learn’ from them. But my friend, he thinks it’s all just to become more powerful, not just to ‘learn the trade’ like D claims.”
I was nodding my head to his words, scribbling down a few words here and there. So far I hadn’t really heard anything that would change my outlook for tomorrow, but the mention of Dorian’s age might become a problem. If he was one of the old vampires, he would have much more power than I was anticipating.
Alby, as usual, was babbling on, so I had to cut in or I’d be listening to him tomorrow morning. “What did you say about Dorian lying about his age?”
There was a small pause as Alby no doubt aligned his brain to the new direction the conversation was taking. Maybe we’d finally get in to proper business.
“All right then. Man, I’d thought getting laid would mellow even you out a bit.” He let out a lungful of air before continuing. “Yeah. As I said, my friend could tell that Dorian was lying. He’s no spring chicken, baby.”
“So what are we talking here? Decades? Centuries? Do I need to fly Kielo somewhere where the sun doesn’t set?”
“Not that bad!” Alby laughed. “No, we’re talking decades here. A kiddy compared to you, baby.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Anyway, after realizing that everything’s not what it seems, my friend did some investigatin’ of his own, and found some vamps who knew more. You know, it’s always good to know as much as possible about other vamps, especially ones like this guy. Don’t know what he’s tryin’ to pull, but it’s something.
“Your girl was right, anyway. He’s from
“…you still there?”
The pen had fallen from my hand somewhere between Alby mentioning the Baltic and the war. My mouth was open, eyes wide and staring ahead.
“Fuck. You’re absolutely sure? Your friend is trustworthy? His source is sound?”
“Uh, yeah.” Alby sounded a little hesitant, but it was most likely because of my reaction. “You all right?”
“Oh yeah. Peachy keen. Thanks, Alby.”
“You’re welcome.”
I don’t know whether he had anything else to say. That’s where I hung up.
This wasn’t just trouble.
This was me fucked in the head.
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