Sitting on the Ceiling

Chapter 2: Heren

Chapter 2: Heren


I sat up against a pole on the corner of the bed and faced him, who chose the edge of the bed. He spoke softly but there was no real expression about him. Not yet at least. “I'm really sorry this had to happen to you. I know I can't tell you I know how it feels and I'm sorry for that too but I won't lie to you. I love you more than that. Chris was a good guy even though I didn't know them as well as you. Nice to be around and watch...”
“Don't apologize, your making it worse. I'll get over it eventually. This just sucks is all. That's all.”
“Tess, don't hide it.”
I thought he was talking about my secret and I immediately reacted.
“Hide what? You've been watching me haven't you! You watched my mind! You—”
“No! No! Tess, no, what are you talking about? I mean their deaths. Calm down, sit. What do you mean?”
He put his hand on my arm.
“Oh, nothing. What do you expect me to do? Tell myself their dead? I can't do that. I'd kill myself.”
“But think about it. You’re not telling yourself. You’re telling me. It's called venting. Saves lives.”
He got more situated and pulled me closer to him. I had no choice but to sit next to him.
“What do you want me to say?” I asked, depressed.
“What you feel. Everything.”
His eyes swirled like they did when I first saw him.
“Well can I at least have some rum?”
“Uh, sure. But don't chug it so fast, you'll drown.”
I ignored this and got up to get us two bottles. I handed him one and uncorked mine. Forgetful of his request I put it to my lips and tilted my head back.
“Ah, ah, ah,” he said, lowering the bottle from my lips.
“Okay. What I think...they are dead. I think they're dead as G.D is. Dead as doornails. Dead, dead, dead.”
“Hold on. That's not how it’s done, sweets. Its how you feel about it. Not what it is,” he corrected me, turning me towards him.
I felt limp and defenseless. He knew this and was going to leave in resignation but I pulled him down faster than I could stop myself. We both kind of stared at me. I didn't know what I was about to pull. It probably was best if he stayed even though dangerous situations could arise. I caught myself in idleness and spoke faster than words could come together.
“Alucheyou,” I said.
“I'm sorry?”
“I don't remember, never mind. Do what you will.”
“No. I can't leave now. You can't even talk straight. Besides, I've got nowhere to be.”
“Sad. I'm sad. Not mourning but sad. Terrified. Angry. Shocked.”
“Terrified? Tess, are you really?”
I looked into his eyes. Not at them but into them. It was possible to learn many things from doing this. He was amazed but still kept his features organized. He felt unreadable. I couldn't read him. At all. I couldn't understand.
“Terrified indeed. The witches aren't going to fall over and die. With so many dead it's impossible to just go out and fight like I'm used to. Terrified. Is this wrong?”
“No, it's beautiful. Not that you’re scared, but that it's possible. That everyone around you isn't just a stone. Go on.”
“Different...”
Did I dare?
“Different,” I repeated.
He knew there was something I needed to say.
“Terrified, different...”
I couldn't say it. I couldn't. I wanted to and get it over with but it wouldn't come.
“Love,” I pondered absently.
He stayed absolutely still.
“Apparently this is why others have been stones for so long. I see. Well we'll talk about this later I guess. You seem to have died.”
I jammed the cork back into my rum and started to stand. This time he expectedly pulled me back down.
“Love? What do you mean?”
His voice was eager, almost hopeful.
“I mean love. Love is what this has shown me. I loved those people. You don't know how it feels to have my people burn up like matches all in one minute and give a shit. Love.”
“Oh...”
“What?”
“Nothing!”
I knew it! I wasn't alone. I wasn't deserted in my own mind. He loved me!
“Oh. Well there was two parts to love. But you won't like it.”
“No, whatever it is counts just as much.”
I studied the floor intently trying to ignore his gaze.
“It's stupid. Let's go get some lunch, I'm starving,” I hopped up before he could catch me. Instead he chased me. Setting my bottle on the couch I almost ran for the door, my hand on the knob when he dived over the couch a tackled me to the ground laughing. I laughed too, despite my mood.
“It's not stupid,” he said, pulling me up.
“I'll tell you later. Promise.”
I had one hand on the door when he turned me again to him. He was very close. His chest touched mine. There was a steamy pause. Before he could speak I ordered, “Lunch.”

We had lunch in the city, tossing snow balls at one another playfully and chucking spit-covered ice balls at the pedestrians. I had shown him this as a trick that Evan, Chris, and I used to do. People started getting angry. The night came, veiling the cold city in a layer of darkness. We ran about the woods playing a game where we couldn’t use any power we could control, but we were hunting the Cub Scouts out camping there. I showed him the treehouse I used to sleep in when my parents were too disgusted to look at me.
We split up occasionally but usually ended up back with one another, hunting together. We waited until one had to go to the bathroom to attack. Vladmer had used me to seduce one of the little boys into me. He was only 12, but boy was he perverted. Vladmer pulled his shirt over his head and used it to strangle the boy. Vladmer had such a great body. We could barely see each other with the light, but his pale skin was very noticeable through the darkness.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing. You’ve just got a nice body,” I said.
“WHAT?”
I smiled and looked around as if it was obvious, what I had said.
“I said you had a nice body, but if you’re going to ruin our position then your too chunky and you need to lay off the Twinkies,” I said.
He looked down at his abdominals and back to me. I felt those eyes watching me again. Not his, not a Cub Scout, but those stalker eyes. They had a certain feeling. I looked around to find nothing. I was going to ask Vladmer but he was already speaking.
“Thanks, I’ll remember that. But Twinkies weren’t around in 76 B.C. That’s when I was created,” he said.
“Wow, so your…2038 years old. Jeez, that’s old. I wouldn’t want to know how many times you’ve gotten on a woman.”
“At least three times my age. I think that’s the metaphor. I don’t count, personally.”
I laughed quietly and jumped when a man came rounding the corner.
“BAT!” he screeched.
“I’m a bat! Hahahaha, yes, and I’m a vampire bat so run for your life!” I screeched back at him.
He took off. I came running with his dead, bloody carcass out to the fire pit and put his body on.
“Run you stupid faggots. Only fudgepackers join Cub Scouts,” I said.
They screamed and ran in all different directions. All accept one. It was a woman. She was in awe, staring at the body. She looked like she was in her thirty’s. Vladmer came out from the bushes and looked at her. I watched, trying not to, as he showed me what vampirism over the centuries could do to you.
The woman screamed as Vladmer raped her, slashing her back as he went along. A memory came back to me, a memory that had taken me over for most of my life. A disturbing one, one that had traumatized me since six. I stood there, entranced, as she looked up at me, Vladmer’s hand over her mouth. I knew the woman, I realized. She was one of my dad’s ex-girlfriends. She had always hit me whenever I tried to say ‘hi’ to her.
And now she expected me to help her. My sense of sympathy had been lost at age six, and at that point I had concluded that with my six years of life’s knowledge: nobody was completely innocent. At some point you did something the Holy Lord didn’t like. You couldn’t even say ‘fuck’ without being a sinner. That was when I lost my faith too. I was a murderer at seven. A thief…I don’t even know when. A criminal record that started long before I knew what it meant.
She bit his hand and screamed an ear-splitting shriek of terror. I lost my temper with her. I took a branch out of the fire and beat her skull in with it furiously, screaming “I hate you!” as loud as I could before she was dead. The branch broke so I found a rock and sunk it into her head. It was her brothers that had performed the disgusting operation on me, and I hated their entire family for it. I thought I had killed them all, but I was wrong. She knew I had killed them so she’d tease me by letting leads to my secret slip to my dad when my mom wasn’t around.
Vladmer looked at me confused. I left the blood on my hands and sat down, curling up in a ball and holding my knees. I watched the fire. Vladmer sat on the bench next to me and bent down. I wouldn’t look at him. He didn’t exist as far as I was concerned. The only thing that existed to me were those eyes that weren’t going away. I wondered if somebody from the woman’s family might have been watching.
“Is there something bothering you?” he asked.
My voice was far away, like it wasn’t me talking. It was a message recording. I had told the story to Evan many times, just to get him angry enough to hurt someone. Evan loved me violently and would get violent to protect me.
“That woman was one of my father’s side dishes,” I said simply.
“Oh,” he said.
He thought that was it. Boy did he not know any of it.
“I murdered her family when I was seven and left only her on the scene. I thought she was dead. She abused me the entire time she was with my dad. She used to make me drink tea with this hot pepper sauce called Tabasco. She said it would burn the cold out. It burned like Hell and tasted like shit. I tried to be friends with her, tried to say ‘Hi’ and start conversations, but she’d only hit me again or make some remark about my clothes. I murdered her family because her brothers…her brothers…um…” I said.
He was stunned. He knew I was a criminal, but he didn’t know it was so early.
“I don’t think you’ll want to know after you’ve heard it,” I said.
He was silent. I took this as ‘Yes, I do want to hear it in spite of what I might think’.
“Her brothers…they cut my uterus out and made me eat it in a soup with my own blood. They fucked me after they had it out and had me awake again. Beat me and threatened Evan and Chris that if they ever said a word to anyone they would be mutilated. That’s how we met. They heard and saw me get raped through a crack in the curtain of the window. They were the ones that helped me gut them and hang them from the tree in their yard. They were the first two to die. We sent them out as a warning. Everyone had planned on my being raped, so they knew what I was saying. But they couldn’t go to the cops, so they went after me. I killed them all in their home six nights after. I counted. I knew I would have to take them out some day. Ever since then Evan, Chris, and I hung out and stayed close because of this one little similarity. Now I’ve killed the last survivor I’ve ever left,” I said.
He stayed silent and tried not to look at me. I felt him reading my mind to see the story play out visually. He stopped about half way through and stood up.
“What? Gross?” I asked.
“I don’t want to see you in such a young body naked. I may rape my victims but not if they’re six. Why did they pick you?”
“Because I was innocent. I was Christian, I went to a Christian school, I acted in the influence of Mother Mary believing she would come down and bless me if I acted in the way of God. I was sweet, I trusted everyone and I believed everyone would love me if I showed them compassion and honesty. All five elements would bloom if you played your cards right,” I sighed.
“There are no words to describe it,” I started again, “so you don’t have to bother. It’s like this. Remembering that made me realize something. Now that she’s dead it doesn’t matter. I’ve been looking for her for a long time and she knew it. She wanted me to help her. She thought that I would help her. A hate so deep inside startled me when I saw her. It gave me a feeling…a feeling of awareness. Awareness that my point on this Earth is to kill people like her and her family. The ones who destroy character.”
Vladmer shifted uneasily.
“What?” I asked him.
“Nothing. But there’s a man you could meet that could give you more people for the palace. It’s in the Netherlands. He’s not really a King, but he’s the ruler. He just calls himself Heren, that’s all. Can you deffer yet?” he asked.
“Yeah, I can. Need me to? Cause if you do you’ll have to lead. I don’t know where I’m going,” I said.
The palace wasn't as amazing as ours. It was actually a castle. Vladmer knew who he was looking for and how he was going to find him so it was no problem. Thank god too. Though I felt a little better I was still in a terrible mood. Only Vladmer would have ever been able to keep me right. Evan I probably knew me a little better but he was always angry. The look in his eye would have sent me wild and only encourage me to do dirty deeds. But it was indeed Vladmer who was able to keep me clean.
Vladmer knocked on the entrance door, which was opened. I wore a face of great dislike and strength. Women were not plentiful here. I wasn't upset or intimidated by this like people wanted. I returned their glances of extreme curiosity with a cold stare as I passed. There were many out here. Vladmer had asked for a man named Heren and was greeted by a pale man covered in black. I understood people had different beliefs and I believed that these vampires could had a culture about them. They looked like fierce, dangerous fighters, but I was not all too different looking.
“We've come to ask something of you,” Vladmer responded to the man's question.
Before he continued Heren started.
“Ah yes, about the witches. Did you know that the first stories of vampires were of resuscitated male human bodies? And that soon after they thought that up, they spoke us to be a living witch who could die only be caught in the act. Treacherous how lore can effect the brain. Little did they realize witch and vampire are highly different which is why they have their own name.”
His voice was like stone, with no welcome or care in it. Vladmer knew this and stated his words with a bit less confidence. That is, before I hit him in the shoulder.
“We were wanting to know if you could spare us anyone. I'm assuming G.D has been here before,” he cleared his throat and spoke louder and more meaningful, “but we killed him. Yup, killed him.”
“Spare anyone? Hah, right. When that woman kills that man, that's when I'll spare anyone! Hell, I’ll spare everyone!” he laughed.
Vladmer tried to save the man, who was sniggering. He was pinned to the floor, knocked out swiftly, and drank from until dead. I stepped off him and walked back to the man.
“You taste good. Better than us by far. Better than G.D. So how many ya got?” I asked, nearing his face.
He looked very violated at my closeness with him but I ignored it. He knew I was doing what he had done to Vladmer and felt very uncomfortable.
“I was joking,” he said quietly.
“I wasn't.”
My voice was firm and demanding.
“It's not your choice!”
He was getting just a bit nervous behind his indignant tone, for I was hovering above his lips temptingly. Thoughts flew through him and all he could say was “It's not your choice”, and nothing more. He didn't want to be dominated in front of his own men by a woman.
“How many will you give me if I take you out?” I whispered to him, though it went around the silence very clear.
“How many do you have?”
“Forty.”
“Forty? I thought you guys still had at least a thousand. How did they all die?”
“The witches. They've come together for some reason. These ones are not stupid. They know us. Therefore, I need more people. I also need a new mind. In fact, I offer all of your forces including yourself to come and take our palace as a home. And don't be mistaken, this does not compare to our palace.”
“You expect me to leave my castle for your palace? You've lost your mind.”
“Maybe so, but what do you expect from three wrist-breaking years of starving on a wall?”
He was silent when, from absolutely nowhere, he blurted out, “Your very attractive…in a
powerful way. Shit!”
Good, so my prey was easy. If I was attractive, that made him tempted, as I had hoped. Trailing my lips down his neck I stopped above his chest and moved to the left side of his neck. Though other's preferred the artery on the right side, I didn't. The blood came too quickly. He stopped me from getting him though by swerving me and saying, “No, I don't think that's a good idea.”
“But why not?” I asked as Vladmer inched his way behind me and ran his hands over my shoulders and down my arms.
I didn't know why. Maybe he was disguising his restraint as a soothing gesture.
“You know that I have you there. You've no reason to stay here whatsoever. The witches will kill the rest of us you know. Hell, I bet they’re dead already without me standing at the head of them. Or maybe Evan finished them off. You could be stubborn…afraid. My palace is about ten times bigger than this though. You'd be missing out,” I insisted.
“One thousand. You can take one thousand and be on your way.”
“One thousand...” I thought, “How many do you have?”
“Two thousand.”
“Okay. Line them up then. If they want to make it there by dawn they'd better be quick about it too.”
“Oh, no, we can deffer. Don't have to fly all the time.”
I was a bit shocked at this. Why had they received a different level of power as us?
“Really? What else can you do?”
“What do you mean? We can deffer and have a more advanced way of immortality along with the normal if that's what your looking for. It's not really doing, its more asking. We ask one of the Gatekeepers if we can do it. His name is Red. He isn't too tough on us.”
“How did it happen?”
“We fought in the War Below. All of us. We won too. Long story.”
He summoned five captains from the crowd and conferred with them. Two of them looked very pleased and walked back in the crowd. The only other one that left was throwing a big fit about something. The other two reported to me and said, “We have been ordered into your rule along with our numbers. Half of Yuri’s too. We do not know where we're going to end up. Please, guide us. You've done this before…or so I've heard.”
I guided them through the countries that separated us and to my palace grounds. Evan had the people outside scrubbing the large cross with their tongues. The Netherlanders all made the ‘ewww’ sound and looked away.
“Evan, please, not in front of the newborns!” I cried.
“Fuck them! These stupid assholes deserve to taste the walls we were chained to for three years!” he shouted back angrily from somewhere.
I laughed and looked around.
“Where are you?” I asked.
His voice was muffled.
“I’m in here!”
“In where?”
He came out of a door behind me. My back was to the cross. He came out with black all over him. On his face, his clothes, his body. Everywhere. He smiled and bowed to the Netherlanders. I wiped off his face so he was at least recognizable. Vladmer told the Germans to stop licking the cross.
“Now please, excuse my settling of scores with my people. It won’t happen to you as long as you don’t let any witches into this palace or chain us to a wall,” Evan said and joined the crowd.
Vladmer and I were left.
“Well, um, I don’t know. German’s, it’s your duty to show them around. Get to know them. They taste far better than you,” I said.
A man rose up in the air and spat out, “I will do nothing for these misfits!”
“Then you will do nothing at all and in fact, these misfits could never have any worse blood. Go on misfits! Eat him. He tastes like water, just like the rest of us compared to you.”
Tens of them drug the man to the ground and drank from him at every angle. Any inch of his body was pillaged and robbed. I admired their skills. One of the men had pink hair and black stripes. He was looking at me, observing my body carefully and taking notes as to how I reacted to his curiosity. I looked him over in return and made my own note to see if he was interested in having me in a dark room where nobody else was around…alone.
“You’re right, its damn right piteous,” the man called up to me.
He was speaking for them all.
“Mmmm, I’ve heard I don’t taste near as bad. But that’s only because of my privileges. Well anyways everybody, I have to go now! Well, I don’t have to, but it is in my intentions to get terribly drunk and celebrate my freedom with my two friends,” I said to them.
They watched me take off with Vladmer and Evan into Vladmer’s bedchamber window. Little did I know I had fallen asleep half way there. So when I woke up on the couch I was confused. I had a bottle of citrus vodka in my hands. My body moved before my mind did and I ended up walking around the palace completely lost for awhile on the second floor.
I heard music, which is the only reason I found the staircase. It was rock. I followed the noise, finding myself descending the stairs in front of Vladmers bedchamber slowly, curiously. As I got to the bottom and started making my way down to the main hall where a mass crowd stood I heard a woman's voice ring out in the crowd, “Queen Tesela cannot do everything my friends, as I will demonstrate...”
The crowd parted to my mysterious figure touching their shoulders lovingly and finally breaking the cover. The woman froze, expecting me to kill her. Instead I hopped up on the table and asked her loudly so all could hear, as they so badly wanted to, “Show me what I can't do,” and turned away from her to face the crowd.
I raised my hands in front of me to be at a diagonal angle with my forehead and began with her, swaying my hips as she did. The first guitar came in as she stepped out of it. I knew what she was going to do even before she did it. All through her mind. She hadn't the sense to cover it. We danced as she had planned. She was getting nervous. We turned towards each other, resting our hands on each others swaying hips. I pulled her closer to me challengingly, our bodies touching slightly. I heard Vladmer and Evan whistling at me. When we had to part she stumbled a bit, catching herself luckily. It was obvious that she was losing concentration. It was a blast for me. Stomping around and playing with myself wasn't that hard at all.
We had to come together again, dancing on each other’s backs. I went down to touch the table smoothly. She had forgotten so ended up following me. When we came back up we parted for the last time. Hopping backwards onto my hands I arranged my legs how they were supposed to take. My shirt fell slightly, revealing a slim, muscular stomach. My abdominals were contracted, causing them to show beneath my skin. The men went crazy and even better for me, the other woman had only something foul to reveal under her shirt. She had been holding her breath the whole time. This sudden movement had caused her to release it and show an obvious disadvantage to her, which also caused her to fall from the table headfirst. Everyone ‘booed’ at her.
I finished the dance impressively, dismounting the handstand skillfully with some back handsprings as the song ended. She watched me enviously as I walked across the table to her. “Apparently I can do it and I can do it better than you. Imagine that.”
“You think you’re so good. You’re just a freak, that’s all. A stupid freak. I hope you die!” she sobbed.
Two men came up on either side of her and drank from her neck. She screamed and thrashed around but with no success. She fell limp and burned up. I watched in fascination. There was the pink-and-black-haired man who had stunning magenta eyes and a blonde with pink tips, who also had magenta eyes. I looked at them curiously and smiled.
They looked up at me and smiled back.
“My lady,” the pink and black haired man farewelled.
He turned and walked away. The other looked me up and down admiringly and followed the man.
“Tess, that was wonderful!” Vladmer said, jumping up on the table with me.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Nice underside by the way,” he added.
I turned around and started dancing with him testily. He was surprised.
“Watcha doin’?” he asked.
“I think the damper on this palace needs to be lifted. I think we need a party,” I said.
“A party?” he asked, starting to respond to me by putting his hands on my hips.
“Yeah, a party. You like the idea?”
“Well yeah,” he said.
I stopped dancing with him and patted his cheek lightly, announcing the party to the crowd.
“Party, my beauties. There is plenty of alcohol for everyone in the cellars and the drugs will find themselves amongst the dealers. Let’s hear it!” I said, turning to them.
They cheered and headed down to the cellars to go get drinks. I waited for everyone to leave. Vladmer and Evan were the only ones that stayed.
“So do you guys want to escort me to the city?” I asked.
“What?” Vladmer asked.
“Why?” Evan said as Vladmer spoke.
“Because I just brought 1000 men into the palace. There are no women. Unless you are all gay we have a job as the hosts of this party to supply the women. Now come with me and we’ll experience life together. We’ll bring others to our level and get lost in the intense ecstasy of Hell.”
They looked at me funnily. I only winked at them and deffered to the city.

++++++++++++++++++++

We had gotten the men of the palace to go find their own women and bring them back so there was no need for us to. I was dancing with Evan, laughing and drinking my vodka. I wasn’t going to go any farther than a dance with him. I was looking for the pair of eyes that wasn’t leaving me. They had come onto me when I had killed G.D, then left, then came back. I wondered what kind of a person could possibly have nothing else to do but sit around and watch me.
I danced heavy with Evan, sometimes turning to face him and dancing closer to his lips. When a woman came nosing around waiting for me to take him to a bedchamber and be done with him I walked off to let him dance with someone who actually planned on going farther with him. We liked to play games.
“Bet I could score,” I grinned to Vladmer, who had turned up nearby, before running off with the man I was presently dancing with.
He watched me stumble through the crowd, the man supporting because I was kissing him heatedly.
“Toldja,” I said, returning ten minutes later my hair askew and my eyes wide.
He just grinned at me and shook his head. He wasn't dancing, rather talking with a girl instead. I loved it when he got mad at me for taking him from his victim. I looked her up and down and made notes out loud, so they could both here.
“Damn, is that a shirt or a plastic wrap? Oh my god! Suck it in if that's what ya got! Hmmm, I see no difference between head and thigh. I don't even know what those are. Jeez Vladmer, she doesn't even look appetizing. Literally. She will cling to you, ya know. Expect you to come back with her and not leave. We'll get married and eat kids! Hahahaha! Shit man. Not like that guy. He’s a treat. He could go forever and care less. Ah well. When she figures out yer intentions I'll be messin' around with that dude. No, that one. The one with the chick. Hahaha, yeah. See me now beotch!” I encouraged myself, walking towards him and immediately taking his attention.
The woman buzzed off angrily, cursing me under her breath.
The music was gothic rock. Nice to dance to as I was. The bass shook the room very pleasingly. The artist was an entertaining perve against all society. I liked him. I didn't pick it, but it was cool. Someone else mysteriously switched the man I was dancing with. I didn't know who it was but the person knew I knew he was different.
I backed up on him and danced on his strong, familiar chest. My head relaxed on his shoulder and breathed out as I felt his hands run down my flat stomach. He matched my hips with his, pulling them back into each other. I still did not identify this person so I flipped and circled my arms around the mischievous neck of Vladmer.
“Well hello my love,” he said.
“Did she leave already?” I played.
“Yeah, maybe two seconds after you.”
“Ah. And you've chosen to remove my partner…why?”
“You owe me a dance. It's just as good as screwing that one.”
“Then let's make it better.”
I dived at his lips, but he pulled his head back.
“What?”
“Better. I'm better than her. You know I am but I want to prove it. I'm not gonna take you Vladmer, I just want to show you something.”
“What?”
“Your problem. Why you can't get anyone down there. I can fix it.”
“Really?” he stopped dancing.
“Really. I won't do anything to you. Don't freak out so much.”
“Your drunk.”
He was having problems letting me go and walking away. There was no reason for him to. I wasn't going to do anything to him. He was freaking out.
“Make up yer mind Vladmer. Stay or go, your wasting my time.”
He looked at me, amazed. I'd never have said this to him had I thought about it. I don't know if he liked me so assertive.
“Stay I guess. Dear god, you sound like Hitler.”
“Oh good.”
His hands were sitting nervously. He was unsure about it. I dropped them from my hips and walked on. He was too awkward about it. I didn't put any affection into it like I usually would to entice people further so I didn't know what his problem was, just that I didn't want any of it. Dancing with the next man that approached me, I soon forgot about it.
He left with me a couple minutes later. When we were done with each other we took different sides of the crowd naturally. Evan was talking to a decent looking girl, but he had inhuman looks so it only made sense. He had my drink. I took it, drinking in deep swigs. I stopped when I noticed I had a lost cause and smashed the bottle on his head yelling, “You can't give me this shit dammit!”
He glared and rubbed his head at first, but when the chick was all over him I winked and did a small wave that meant he would be getting laid any moment now. When I turned around, I bounced off a man’s chest. He had intentionally put himself in between me and everything else. “No, I don't want to do it right now man,” I said pushing him away.
I wasn't drunk luckily, just wired.
He didn't move though. I tried to escape him. He pushed me back at the wall. I sighed and leaned against the wall, “What are you going to do, make me dance?”
“No, take your soul and dance with your dead body.”
I gave Vladmer a little look asking for help. He held his hands up as if he couldn't. The man wasn't talking, just waiting for me to say something.
“What?” I asked, annoyed.
“Aren't you going to say something?”
I looked at Vladmer again. He was kind of stuck, oddly enough. Evan was already gone.
“Die?”
“Die. Hmm, it w—” but I punched him in the face and searched his pockets.
I found a big bottle filled with the red potion.
“Die. D...I…E. You witches seem to do alot of it. Where are your buddies?” I grabbed his hands and twisted them together by the bone, putting him in great pain easily.
Nobody noticed thankfully. Nobody but Vladmer. I cut the man's voice box, making it immobile.
“I will never dance with a witch, much less screw him. That's right, die! Die! Die! Die! We are all dead, but not you. YET! But we are! Oh god how terrible it was and how much it was worth! So what's the price for my head? A new broom?”
I was getting a little annoyed with everything.
Vladmer knew something was going to happen. I was going to scare everyone off. He couldn't just leave again though. It would hurt the ‘girl’ he was dancing with. I stabbed him to death with his own cross and let him sit, gripping the cross tightly. What if there were more? It was very unlikely especially since the new vampires would have probably started their work. I wiped the cross off but kept it in my hand, leaving the man where he was. I had risen the cross level to another man's shoulders when I was knocked to the ground.
“Vladmer that's the second time you've tackled me today! Lay off!” I screamed angrily.
“No. Calm down. You’re waking Kabri.”
“She doesn't exist! I killed her!”
“You, it's you. Calm down, please.”
“No! T—” I stopped.
People were looking down at us like something was happening.
“Vladmer, get off me please. I won't mess up,” I said.
“Okay then.”
He got up and looked for the girl. She was gone again.
“Sorry. I guess I'm really messing up yer night,” I apologized quietly and headed for the black door.
I was going up to my bedchamber.
“It's not your fault,” he started optimistically.
I wasn't an optimistic person.
“You shouldn't leave,” he continued.
“Better than being tackled for this inner monster.”
“No. You’re blaming yourself for fate. It's not as if you woke up one day and said that all this would happen. Fate did it, that's why we're standing here this very fraction of time.”
“Yeah, whatever. Is it why yer not laid too?”
He stopped. I walked on towards the door.
“No! It's because of me you slow idiot!” I yelled as I pushed it open.
“Dance with me! You can fix it!” he yelled back.
The door swung back at me and sent me flying through the air.
“Dance with me Tess. I won't freeze up either. I was just a little too sober when I was dancing.”
“What the Hell does that mean?” I asked indignantly.
“It wasn't supposed to sound that way...dance with me.”
I didn't really have a choice. I couldn't storm out because I had no reason, I couldn't blow it off and head for my bedchamber like I wanted to because then I'd be a complete loser, and I wanted to dance, just not with him. My body had started before my mind did. It was weird how that happens sometimes. You do something you aren't aware that you’re doing.
Like what he said. It was what he thought, just wasn't what he was going to say. It took awhile for me to forget about anything that had just happened. Somebody had gotten rid of the witch body, so there was nothing my brain could cling to for remembrance. When I did loosen up I was very open. He found the girl again and let me loose promising his return soon. I stalled with another guy who liked to touch and I was glad Vladmer had tossed him aside as roughly as he had. It was nice to know somebody cared.
“Turned ya down eh?” I asked.
“No.”
“No? That was awful quick! I would have been pissed if somebody did me like that!”
“No, no. I turned her down. She freakin’ acts like a pro wrestler. I guess she thought it turned me on. Scary.”
“Goin’ for the independent man thing or just don't dig fat chicks anymore?”
“She wasn't fat, she was normal sized. Not as strong as you of course, but you can hide your muscles really well. She's helpless.”
“Oh, I see. Well what about her? No, never mind.”
“What?”
“Evan just finished her!” I laughed.
He stomped indignantly over to her and said something. She slapped him and ran away. I was on the ground in laughter and it looked like I was having a seizure. Vladmer was so shocked as to why she did this. He was baffled when he returned and gazed down.
“You can't, hahahahahahahaha, you can't pound the ground and yell at her, hahahahahaha! You gotta be, hahahahaha, sincere!” I roared hilariously.
“Sincere? I acted like a stalker with you and you went right into it!”
“I'm different. Remember that one day when I disguised my voice and almost got that leg up your ass and you fell down the stairs? That's kinda what you did to her. Except she didn't fly down the stairs like a rag doll, nor did you disguise your voice.”
I giggled as he thought about this.
“You ready to see what I mean with you?” I asked him.
He resigned as I stepped toward him.
“Okay, yer like, two centimeters from my face,” he muttered.
“Exactly. What do ya do if you were looking to get down my pants?”
“Uh, shoot myself? Ow, hey, fine. What if I kissed you?”
“Wrong.”
“How is that wrong?”
“Because it is.”
I gave him time to believe I was serious.
“Hahahaha! No, just messing around. Yeah, if a chick is this close to your face you'd probably want to do just that. But how do you do it?” I laughed quietly.
“What? I kiss her, that's it.”
“That’s it? No. You wait. If she wants you, she'll touch you. If she doesn't she waits until you stop and thinks up some random thing to leave. Say I circle your neck and get into it. What then?”
“Find the nearest empty room?”
“No. That's your problem! You move too fast! Don't let me fool you, these girls did giggle and whisper at some point in their life. Some of them still do. You stick around and make them feel good. Play with their clothes and hair and when they finally get off you tell them you like something about them. Then you slowly inch your way into the room. Have you even got to the mouth yet?”
“I've gotten to the door, Tess. These girls aren't like you. I was at the door with some chick when she says ‘Oh, never mind’ and walks off. And she started it!”
“See, now that was a little desperate. Probably why she left. Looking for the last person to do her. You have to make her wait like they do you. It's a simple trick really. Evan got it down soon as I said it. Come on, go see if yer hot enough for us.”
“Dear god I hope so.”
I entertained myself with the next man I saw that had no dance partner. He walked through the crowd and was lost as the man I had pointed to cautiously stepped from the crowd and listened to me. This man meant nothing to me but had the luck of being with me when I saw Vladmer actually step into a room with a decent looking woman. Dancing was all I could do now. I was so into it, so concentrated, so delighted to be dancing and celebrating my return that I could not stop myself from dancing.
Like a drug, I was addicted. It was my pill. The pill that had been swept under the rug since the wall. The pill was back. This man was a good dancer too. Knew what to do and how to do it, where to touch and how to kiss. What to say and how to show me what he wanted without saying a word about it. I felt bad about sliding into a room with the man, for it would seem like I was trying to show Vladmer up. I had seen Vladmer while he was exiting from the room two doors down from mine.
He called to me.
“Tess! Hey! Hold up! How did you know that?”
“Figured it out.”
“I know but how? It worked like nothing I would have thought of!”
“I know. Mmmm, my back is stinging like poison man.”
“Wonder why.”
“Oh thanks.”
“Why so plain?”
His mood had lightened a considerable much.
“I'm in a tough situation. Not that I'm not overjoyed that you finally got some, but that I've got a problem that I won't face.”
“Well—”
“Key words ‘won’t face’. It’ll go.”
He gave me a look of reproach before greeting another girl exiting the crowd and introducing himself quickly. I didn't have any problem at all, I just didn't want to say anything that would break his stride, therefore making that bit up and leaving.
Evan came stumbling across the floor to me laughing for no apparent reason. I gave him a smile of curiosity.
He said, “That was the best trick you've ever played! Hahahaha! She wouldn't stop! I had to actually hide from her to make her leave me alone!”
He laughed some more. I joined in until the woman found him and argued about him hanging out with me after I threw the bottle at him. She lost, but then again, there was never going to be chance of her winning so no triumph came.
“Finally got Vladmer to stop yelling at women,” I said.
“About time. I thought he was the big bad wolf come to blow the house down for a bit! Jeez!”
“He’s very uplifted about it.”
“Hey, want to dance?”
“Why not. Got nobody else to dance with.”



I remember very little after that. The effects of alcohol were about and somebody had offered me some mixed vodka after. Foolishly I had taken it and now I lay on my bed, perfectly clothed and waking any second now. Vladmer and Evan's voice's buzzed in the air. Stretching out and getting up I tried to walk to them, tripping over my feet stupidly. “You aren't in the best of shape,” Evan says.
“Yeah, well, I can't help that.”
I crawled over to a couch and took a proper seat amongst the laughing duet.
“I got 16!” he continued.
“I got, er, can't remember,” I tapped my head as if to knock it out.
“Got what?” Vladmer asked.
“It's yer score man! How many people ya did last night!” I said more enthusiastically, nudging his shoulder playfully.
I stopped and turned to him, waiting for his number.
“Oh, that. 22.”
“22? Wow! Sounds like you got the hangovers, eh?” Evan cried.
“Many of them were sober. I would have got more but Tess was gone and I could only imagine what she had done to herself.”
“What? Don't blame me, I made excuses just to stay out of your way!”
“You left for here with some dude who put god knows what in a bottle and called it Knights! It was all he could do after I told him!” Evan was standing up for Vladmer.
“No, it was called, uh, rum! Yes, rum!”
“No, that's what you called it. Knights. K, N, I, G, H, T, S. Knights. And it may have tasted like rum because you snort so much but that was clearly all means to get you up here in the first place. It was very scary really, hmmm. Ah well. Your alive at least.” Evan was checking my pupils fascinated.
“How did you find me?” I asked.
“Alone. Laying on your bed absolutely alone.”
Vladmer spoke now as Evan obsessed over my pupils.
“Oh, did you check the three stones over there?”
I pointed to three stones in the ground. He checked one of them and immediately threw it back at the ground.
“Yup. He's in there Tess. Why is he in there, first off?”
“I think, I'm not positive, but I think, that I might have known him.”
“So you killed him?”
It was obvious. Or, to me it was.
“I would never have somebody I know and let him live,” I said.
He only looked at me peculiarly.
“So what do you think I should do about the witches now that I can,” I said.
“Well they sound like a problem from what Philip said. A big one. But I don’t know what to do about them. That’s your job,” Evan grinned.
I thought for a moment.
“Tom, come here please,” I said.
A man, short and stalky, deffered into the room.
“Yes my lady?” he asked.
He was from Heren’s group.
“Could you bring me five of your men? Including yourself,” I asked.
“Why?”
“I want some work to be done. You’ll get your half. Whatever it is that you’ll be wanting I can give. Five men, five loyal, strong, brave men.”
He closed his eyes and concentrated. Soon, five men popped up behind him.
They looked up to the man standing in front of them, then to me.
“Thank you. Now, you six have to be willing to do a favor for me. It shall be rewarded, the reward being something of your desire. I want you to go into the witches’ domain and remain there undercover. As spies. Can you do that?” I said.
“Yeah, we can do that. But what can we have for it?” one of them asked.
“Well, that’s your choice. Anything I can give,” I said.
There was a pause.
“What if we want sex?” he asked.
I was idle. What if? I could do that. But was it really worth risking their life?
“That’s fine. I can do that if it’s what you really want.”
One of them looked me over.
“Okay then. As long as you’re willing then we’ll submit our services,” he said.
“Right. Then it’s a deal. You guys go find a new wardrobe and something other than black and come back in an hour.”
They nodded and deffered to the stores to find new clothes.
I sat down and had a drink with Vladmer and Evan, talking of my plan. Evan got up and said he was going out to go stretch his legs and that he’d be back soon. We said okay and sat in silence. One of the men that had left just previously came back and looked awkwardly at the ground.
“My lady, I don’t know if I can do it,” he said.
I thought, then stood up.
“Well then we need to motivate you,” I said in an intimate growl.
He reacted immediately to my absurd kissing and felt my body under his palms. He was getting rough and playing with my pant zipper already. I made hand signals to Vladmer, telling his to get up and get a blade out to kill him with. Vladmer got up and got the blade out of the dresser but did nothing with it. He spun it around in his hands and played with the creative etchings in the hilt. I lost my temper immediately.
I shoved the man off of me, drew my blade, chucked it at Vladmer’s forehead, and roared, “GOD DAMMIT VLADMER! DO WHAT I SAY OR DO NOTHING!” It sunk into his forehead. The blood ran down his face. Evan came flying through the door. The man that was harassing me stepped back.
“I think I can do this. Thanks,” he said cautiously.
I blinked.
Vladmer brought his hand up to touch the blood, paralyzed. I stomped over to him and ripped the blade from his hand violently. “Don’t look at me like that Evan! He’s not dead! Vladmer, you idiot, did you really want to see me get raped by some guy? I’d rather fuck you than fuck him in front of you! In front of anyone! Jesus Christ you stupid idiot!”
When he did heal, he cowered to me. My harasser changed his mind almost instantly and went off to change his hair color, muttering, “Yeah, whatever,” spontaneously.
“You…you almost killed me,” Vladmer kept muttering.
Voices were invading my head assertively. I rubbed my temple as if to soothe the aggressive pace at which my mind spun.
“No Vladmer, you almost killed yourself. Next time I tell you to do something, you do it. I don’t care who you think you are, you are not my superior,” I said through forced civility.
“You put a blade in his head!” Evan shouted at me.
I brandished my blade. “And there will be no hesitance to do it again.”
“Why are you so trustless?”
“Because I've learned to! Because you terrorized me for half my life! You think I wanted to trust you? My childhoods gone because I loved you! Cause I can! Cause there's nothing you can do about it! Those are some good starters!”
“You almost killed him. After all he’s done for you, this is how you repay him.”
He shook his head shamefully.
“What has he done for me? Tackled me, played with me, forced me to hide myself! I should have killed him!”
“No, your wrong. What if we left you? What if we completely deserted you so you could be by yourself for the rest of your life?”
“I would have no life! I don't have one! I'm already dead! Only difference is that I am worth something! Leave then, if you want! No, I'll leave for you. It's obvious I'm the wrongdoer right now.”
“No, don’t go…I think I need you,” Vladmer said suddenly.
He pushed Evan away and fell back on the bed limply.
“What?” I asked in a low tone of surprise.
“Nothing. I just need you is all. Alone,” he said.
Evan scowled. I glared at him as he made his way to the door. He was not happy with me either. I didn’t want Vladmer to stand up but I didn’t want to sit down so I stood over him and asked, “What do you need, Vladmer?”
“I don’t need anything,” he said.
“Then why can’t I go?”
“You can't go without me. Just give me a moment to think straight, we'll go find where the witches are.”
I sighed and stuck out my hand.
“Sorry I threw the knife at you. I guess I just lost it. But wouldn't you if you were about to get raped and your friend was just tossing all the help you wanted up and down?”
“Yeah, er, sorry.”
“What held you up in the first place?”
“I don't know, guess I just, didn't want to.”
He was halfway up when I tore my hand back.
“Didn't want to?” I cried.
“Tess, don't get mad. Please. I didn't mean I wanted you to, you know, I just didn't really want to let the knife go. It didn't want me to.”
“That knife was in the other tower. Don't know who's it is. Only time will reveal but while we're waiting you better get a hold of yourself. Get up if your coming with me. There isn't any time to be wasted.”
We were still a bit uneasy around each other. It was awkward and quiet. It stayed like this for a while until we had spanned the entire town. “Oh my god, its not anywhere. You think we should check the skies?” I asked hopelessly.
He peered behind me and pointed with one finger. Turning, I jumped up and down and gave a hushed victory cry. I forgot about our determined fight for the more upset person and grabbed his arm lightly. He was a little tight about it so I didn't force him, rather left him to stand alone on the sidewalk. I snuck around the corner and looked through a crack in the wall. There were several people in the first room, one was pointing something out on a chart and the other was listening. Three people were talking and another person was wandering about looking around.
I whispered, “Witches are bitches!” in the crack and watched as they all hopped up and ran around the room confusedly. I whispered once more, “Go on. Find me. It will be the last thing you ever do...” before hiding behind a dumpster and waiting for someone to come out.
Making my first attack, I grabbed the man, slit his throat, and left him there as another one wandered out and found his friend. I stabbed him several times in the back and bit his neck as a vampire would to tell the next person that there was a vampire out here. Two more came. I finished them easily by running them through with my blade. There were only two more in the room and they were chattering about what I had said.
I liked playing with them like that. It made them nervous. Leaving the alleyway in which I hid, I passed through into the door, Vladmer starting some random admonition but being unable to finish. The two fell silent. One was dead, then the other. Pulling my knife out of the last body, I looked for things that might help us.
I found a list of names said to reside in my palace, their records, and when they were due back. I also found a list of people they had on them right now and who the witches were being governed by. Turns out they were from Norway. I also found a ring of keys, a wallet, a plan book, and a set of grenades. These would come very handy, all of them.
I hurried out and made a promise to myself that this place would be ripped apart by the vampires and that every person that I knew or had seen on that list would be hung by a chain from the outer walls. Witches couldn't fly so later I'd make everybody leave the ground. Anyone left standing below would be killed. Simple tasks were always welcome to me.
“Found them,” I told Vladmer.
“Go take care of the bodies,” he reminded.
“Oh yeah!”
I shoved all of them in the dumpster. We flew high in the air to avoid being seen.
“Come on Vladmer! Forget about it!”
“Wasn't that what we were trying not to do?”
“Are you worth keeping alive?”
He hesitated.
“So what did you find?” he changed the subject.
“Exactly what I came for. The plans! Oh yeah, and a list of witches hovering in our palace.”
“Your palace.”
“That's what I said.”
“No, you said ‘our’.”
“Fine. I found some keys I can play with too, and some money. Lots of it. And credit cards. My favorite. No pictures. My best friends are back. Grenades I mean, not actually my friends.”
“Oh. Fun.”
“You know what, I'm trying to forget about it. If I were you, it would be in my best interests to do the same.”
“You almost killed me!”
“Almost! As in almost! Get over it!”
“Still just as bad!”
“No it isn't! If you were actually dead then it would matter. It doesn't matter! Let it go!”
“No!”
“Yes!”
“What are you gonna do? Blow me up? Go ahead! Slut!”
“Pussy! Can’t even take a knife in your head much less ever amount to a good fight! You’re not even worth it! Go cry me a river!” I said after punching him and flying back to the palace.
He didn't. He couldn't have. He did though. He called me a slut. By the sound of it he was infuriated as well as wounded by my comeback. I made my way back to my bedchamber and locked the door. There were two other's in here now with different hair, a blonde and a brown. They jumped up as I said, “So sorry to put you in such an uproarious situation. Hold on, I have to get that.”
The door was being pounded upon by who I assumed was Vladmer, the insults ringing through the door. They were that of his voice and intelligence level. I grabbed the first gun I saw and opened the door, directing the end straight at his head, and saying, with a dangerously leveled voice, “You have two seconds to fly as far away from this gun as possible. One, two.”
He wasn't completely out of distance when I shot at him for as long as I could see and shut the door with an empty gun.
“We took care of him for a while now didn't we,” I said.
“Sure did my lady,” a man said.
“Say, what are your names?”
“I'm Orange, this is Derf.”
“Such nice names. And are you two ready to do what I've asked?”
“Yeah,” one answered.
“Definitely,” said the other.
“Could you do something for me? Fly up and touch the ceiling, just so I can see.”
They did so easily. I inwardly sighed in relief. We talked the basics about each other; interests, stories, fears. When everybody was back and they all looked perfect.
“Good. So good. You all look like humans. I'm not saying humans look better than vampires, don't get me wrong. Now all we need is to figure out how to slip you in. Any ideas?”
“We could just walk in behind a crowd. One by one would probably be best. But first we have to know where it is,” Derf said.
“I know where it is. That's an excellent plan.”

********************

They all got into the building unnoticed and kissed me goodbye. I was distracted from Vladmer for the time being. I flew back to the palace and called everyone outside. Vladmer had come with a woman in hopes that I would catch them making out. But I ignored this.
“My dishonest, filth ridden disgraces to our holy God, the one and only, ZEUS! I present myself before you so that I could ask a favor. For all of you that know, we have a witch dilemma. My magical mind has come up with a conclusion. Witches can’t fly! So lets get our heavy asses off the ground and eat those who either weren’t paying attention or can’t fly, shall we? Have at it lovely’s!” I cried, expressing myself happily in front of them like one on caffeine.
They looked at me curiously but did as I ordered. There was a little over two score down there. A wicked grin passed between those in the air. Those on the ground either took this moment to their advantage and rose in the air with the crowd, or pulled out their red potions and threw it as best they could at the crowd in the air. They were all dead before they got to see the result of their counterattack.
I smiled, licking my bloody lips and laughing at those who were not fast enough to grab one of the witches and eat. Witches had a taste to them; a sweet, sour infusion that tingled at your lips. And the catch to it was that you could only have two opinions of it. You can be one who likes the taste, or one that does not. The magic in the blood made it this way, and the magic supplied the strength for many arduous tasks to be successfully completed.
I thought to myself silently. I had excused the people to go so now I had to make myself busy. I wanted to get Vladmer where it hurt. If he wanted to call me a slut, I’d prove it to him that I was a slut. It would be the most exclusive lesson he’d ever learn. I started by walking around the palace in continued thought.
Vladmer’s voice echoed around the hallway with another, more feminine voice accompanying it. I smiled, but this was not to be mistaken as a sign of relief. Hurriedly I opened the nearest door and shut the door behind me, pressing my ear against the door to listen in as they passed. It was a rather boring conversation about the weather that would no doubt lead to the two sleeping together. Or so the folktale went.
“Would you like something?” a man's curious voice asked me.
I jumped.
“Oh, no. Sorry, I'll go.”
“You don't have to go, you just seem as if you’re looking for something.”
He was an average man completely devoted to venomous green and black. Green hair, fluorescent green eyes, black pants with toxic green stitches, black studded sweater. He seemed to be doing absolutely nothing. Just sitting here. Exactly what I was looking for. “Yes, looking for something to do. You seem idle, would you like to join me?”
He smiled and said, “You look for something else. Something is always nothing, I am doing something. Whom are you hiding from?”
“I'm not hiding!”
“Then why are you indignant so quickly? Why does your face turn into such anger? Why are you so quick to react, as compared to before when you were slow?”
Vladmer's voice echoed in the hall outside as he passed by.
“A silly man. That's all. So stupid and uptight he can't remember what pain feels like. People seem to have let him become an ASSHOLE THAT CAN’T STAND TO ENDURE LIFE!” I screamed at the door. As I finished, the hall went silent. I laughed happily and added, “He's very lucky that he can fly faster than a gun can fire…or at least I think he can. Maybe he can't. I didn't stay long enough to see. Too busy saving us.”
“Well isn't he a lazy, uptight, fast-flying manwhore! Sounds as if he needs to be brought back to Heren! Serve under him for a week or two and he'll find out the hard way how to keep proper!” the man said loudly. How did he know? He wasn't reading my mind. I didn't tell him either. Nice that he was helping. Better part was that when Vladmer tried to ignore us as we went on about him he kept pausing to listen to us and started talking about something else to his listener.
“Oh god, we should! Or maybe even stick him on the wall until Hades decides he's unworthy of such a gift! They are all so splendid!” I said.
“Or, even better. Give him an exorcism,” the man said.
“Oooooooo sounds painful. Especially since he's been dead forever. Yeah, watch him deteriorate and crumble into a million pieces.”
“Yes. That would be great. Say, you want to go see something? I think you might be interested in what I have to show you.”
He held out his hand from the position in the chair. I accepted it.
“I'd be delighted.”
I don't know where we were country wise but he deffered directly in front of a land of pyramids. He asked me which one looked best. He was so impressive. Though he wasn't extremely muscular or terribly attractive (he certainly wasn't ugly) he still had a nice personality. I didn't not like him, but I didn't love him. I guess he could pass as a friend if the world came down to it.
He certainly knew alot, which was very admirable, funny but not obsessed with laughing, not exactly carefree but not uptight, nice but vicious when upset. Everything about him was to like. He could read the writing on the walls of the tombs and coffins like it was his primary language. It was very fascinating what it all said. Recorded history that nobody ever knew about.
The place itself was a home to layers of dust, poisonous insects and snakes, dead ancients, and unbelievable beauty. To the naked eye, it was the worst place in the world. A pit. But to an immortal being who was interested in history and what they had to say, it was a whole new world. A place more sacred and hidden than the palace. So interesting that it wiped Vladmer free of worth to my conscience. Sure, it was a sad story that he was uptight and against me but now, it didn't matter. He could come back when he wanted to. Or, he can say something else and I can shoot him. Either way, it'll work.
We explored the tomb, finding new things that historians and scientists couldn't have begun to know. Like the secret jewelry and stones and statue's. The man uncovered his real name: Ferdel. He spoke as if everything could be a new mystery. Not all the time, only at the most precise moment when it made sense. The even bigger part about him was that he wasn't just a vampire.
“If you’re more than a vampire, then what the Hell are you?” I asked him.
“Ah, but that’s my secret. Many people are like me. We have our own group. You used to be one of them. That is, before G.D stepped in,” he grinned.
“G.D?” I asked, coming to a halting stop.
He whispered his identity to me. I was blown away.