Chapter 3: That Which Is Familiar

We tend to cling to that which is familiar to us. It's the basic human instinct inside of us all. It's half the reason why I haven't given up coffee ages ago; there must be something else out there that has the same effect. It doesn't matter anymore though. I don't even taste the vile drink as it slides down my throat and wakes me up with its caffeine. No, it's not like that anymore. It's almost an escape for me; something I know will have the same effect day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year. Nobody likes change. It puts you into an unfamiliar car that you might not know how to drive.

I was shocked that morning, a week or so after my "dream," when I opened the door and Chase was standing there. It was 6:30 in the morning, and I was about to go get my coffee fix. I can't wake up late; my body is on autopilot and it just can't seem to change. Most people don't get up at 6:30 on a Saturday morning. It was a Saturday morning. And I was unsure how he had found my apartment. I had only told him my number, not my address. And who had let him up here?

I was so shocked that I couldn't even speak. Fortunately for me, Chase had the presence of mind to know that I was basically out-of-commission, so he just waltzed in, closed the door behind him, and pulled me over to the couch.

"Nice place you have here," Chase remarked once we were sitting down. I just gaped. "Am I really that gorgeous?" he asked, smirking at me. That brought me out of my daze a little bit, but not enough for me to be coherent. As I said before, I hadn't had my coffee fix for the day. That, and the fact that a random guy who I had only met three times just showed up at my door at 6:30 in the morning, kind of ruined any chance on intelligent, or even semi-intelligent, conversation.

"Chase? Chase? Are you Chase? Because I don't think I told you, Chase, where I lived. Did I? Was I drunk? What's going on? Why are you in my house? Chase?" I babbled, standing up and beginning to pace. Chase just sat there laughing at me. After a few minutes more of this pacing, babbling, and Chase laughing, he finally got up and intervened.

"Let's go get you some coffee, okay?" he asked, grabbing my arm and dragging me out the door. I was still babbling like an idiot. Thankfully, it was Manhattan, and everybody is used to babbling idiots being tugged along the street. Nobody gave us a second glance.

We reached the coffee shop, ordered me some coffee, and sat in my-babble-full silence until the coffee came. I took a few sips, and immediately stopped babbling. "Are you coherent?" Chase asked from his seat across the table from me. I looked around, and realized that it was the same table I always sat in. I decided that it must have been a coincidence, and promptly dismissed it.

"Why did you show up at my door at 6:30 in the morning when you don't even know where my door is?" I asked, setting my coffee down and leaning forward onto the table. I looked Chase straight in the eye and waited for an answer.

"You met with Reykjavik, did you not?" he asked, placing a hand on my shoulder and pushing me gently back into my seat. It didn't really do much of anything, since I probably would have fallen back to my seat in shock without his help. Reykjavik? That was the guy from my dream. How did Chase…? Unless… no, it had to have been a dream. Vampires don't exist; I knew that.

"Reykjavik?" I asked. It was the only thing I could say.

"Yes, Reykjavik. I take it you didn't believe a word he said, did you? No, of course you didn't, or else he wouldn't have sent me in yet," Chase replied, not sounding at all shocked by my response.

"Why would I? He told me that he was a vampire and that I, the most unremarkable person you'll ever meet, am supposed to choose whether to support the Necromancers or the Vampires and then win the war for whichever side I picked! Looking at me now, how realistic is that Chase?" I asked, regaining my power of speech. Chase simply smiled and answered me truthfully.

"Truthfully, when I found out that you were the "savior," I was a bit skeptical. You don't really seem like the ass-kicking type. But Reykjavik didn't exactly finish his speech before you demanded to be taken home," Chase replied.

"I didn't demand, I simply asked when he was going to let me go home."

"If you're a human in the Underworld and you ask to go home, even indirectly such as you did there, you have to be taken home. It's Underworld law," Chase said.

"Underworld law? This is a world supposedly populated by vampires and necromancers. You have laws… wait a minute, how do you know Reykjavik?" I asked. It had suddenly dawned on me that there was no way Chase could have known this stuff. He was a normal guy… right?

"So you do believe in the whole vampire thing, don't you?" Chase asked, smiling as though he had won something. I frowned and shook my head.

"No, but how did you know about my dream?" I asked. Chase rolled his eyes and flopped back in his seat. He wasn't angry. I wasn't quite sure what he was, to tell you the truth. He seemed to be amused, but also a tad exasperated.

"Stella, how could I convince you that there really are Vampires, the Underworld exists, and what happened last week wasn't a dream?" Chase asked, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the table.

"The only way I would believe you is if I actually saw one of the "vampires" drinking someone's blood," I replied immediately. I wasn't sure that even that would convince me. People tend to hold onto what they know. Chase shook his head.

"You don't want to see that. It's…" he trailed off there, as if he couldn't find a single word in the English language to describe what it was like.

"Could it really be that bad? I've seen vampires in movies you know. You know what, I think you're just bluffing. There's no such thing as vampires, but you don't want to look like a fool, so you won't show me!" I deduced. I smiled triumphantly at him; I knew then that I had won. What I didn't know was that I was wrong.

"Stella, you are the stupidest person I've ever met, but I do know what my job is. I'll take you to the Underworld and show you the sucking of the blood. Then we'll see who's the fool," Chase said, sounding almost angry. He stood up, placed a few dollars on the table to pay for his coffee, and began to walk off. Then, he stopped, turned back around, and said, "Be ready by 10:00 tonight. Wear long sleeves; it gets cold in the Underworld." And he was gone.

So I finished my coffee and went home. I had the biggest urge to call Daria and spill the whole situation. I had picked up the phone and dialed the first three digits of her number before I realized how stupid this was. She wouldn't believe me; she would just think I was crazy. Unless, of course, she was involved in this "Underworld" thing too. At that point, nothing would have surprised me.

So I hung around the house all day, watching TV, reading a book, staring at the ceiling, the kind of stuff you do when bored. Eventually it was 9:00, and I decided to start getting ready. I'm not one of the girls who take forever to get ready. I don't care about my appearance enough. Well, that's not true. I do care about my appearance a lot, but I have come to discover that my makeup/hair skills are nonexistent. That, and the fact that even a magician couldn't make me look better, turned me off of makeup and elaborate hairstyles forever. I find it pointless to try to make myself look pretty when there's no hope of that ever happening.

I was ready by 9:15, so I sat and watched TV for the next 45 minutes. For some reason, my heart was racing in my chest the whole time I waited. I was scared, or nervous, or excited, or curious. I'm not really sure which one it was. I had never felt so riled up over a guy before. At least, not over a guy who was coming to pick me up for a date. That's probably because I hadn't gone on many dates in my lifetime up to that point. As I've mentioned before, I'm a little on the ugly and un-sociable side.

He was on time. I can't say I was surprised; contrary to his scruffy appearance, Chase didn't seem like the couch-potato, football-watching, beer-drinking, hamburger-eating, class-less, brain-less, always-late type of guy. No, those things don't always go together. I'm aware. I just like to string words together with hyphens to make them look important.

"Chase," I said, smiling at him as I opened the door. He looked like it had taken him two minutes to get ready. Not bad for two minutes, I thought as Chase studied my clothing.

"How long did this take you, two hours?" he asked, smiling back at me. I frowned; wasn't it obvious that I wasn't the stereotypical girl? He noticed my frown, grabbed my hand, pulled me out the door, and started laughing all at the same time. I had just enough time to close the door before he began dragging me along. "That was a joke sweetheart. I didn't actually mean it. How long did it actually take you, twenty minutes?"

"Fifteen actually, and my name isn't sweetheart. I believe I already told you it was Stella, but some of my friends call me Stell every once and a while. If you know my name, do please use it," I informed him. I didn't like the "baby" or "sweetheart" or "darling" pet-names that movie couples always seemed to give each other. I found them utterly disgusting.

Chase was a very laid-back person in the emotion department. He was probably the calmest person I'd ever met. So all he did was laugh, instead of getting offended or annoyed. "So sorry darling. I must have forgotten your name for a minute there sweetheart."

We had reached the car by then and were in our seats. I leaned over and slapped his arm. "Jeez!" he muttered, rubbing his arm lightly. He took the hand away and started the car.

"So where are we going?" I asked after a few minutes of uncomfortable silence.

"The Underworld," Chase replied thoughtlessly. I groaned and shook my head.

"No dumbass, I meant the actual place we're going. I know we're going to this Underworld place," I replied a bit too nastily. I'm not quite sure why; something about the night was causing me to be high-strung. Maybe it was the fact that all of my preconceived notions of the world, and Chase, were about to be irrevocably changed.

"It's a club. I've been there so many times; I can't even remember the name. It's the same place you were last time. You heard music through the walls, right?" he asked. Now that I thought about it, I did hear music through the walls of the room. I had just been too preoccupied to notice.

"Yeah."

"Well, that's because you were actually in a set-aside room in the club. It's mainly for Reykjavik and his gang to have their secret meetings in. Well… not secret so much as quieter. It's kind of hard to have a conversation in a booming club, isn't it?" he asked.

"We did pretty well."

"That's different."

"How?"

"You're annoying."

"That's okay; I'm so sexy that it doesn't matter what my personality is like," I replied sarcastically.

"Yeah, you are," he responded. It didn't sound like a joke, but I knew it must have been. I'd never met anyone who had found me sexy before. Interesting, maybe. Cool, perhaps. Smart, of course. But sexy? Never.

"Anyway," Chase continued, disregarding what we had just been talking about. He must have seen my discomfort and decided to change the subject. "We're going back to where you were before. Then I'll prove to you that vampires exist, and we can get going on what I'm actually supposed to be doing with you."

"And what's that?" I asked as we pulled into a parking spot in front of a seedy-looking nightclub.

"You don't believe in any of this hocus-pocus, right? I'll tell you when you do believe," was all he would say. He shut off the car, opened the door, and got out of his seat. Before I had a chance to unbuckle my seatbelt, he had already opened the door and made the butler-type hand motions directing me to get out. I scowled, unbuckled my seatbelt, and stepped out of the car. I smacked him on the head as he was closing the door. "God, you're violent, aren't you?" he mumbled, rubbing his head absentmindedly. I just nodded.

I had assumed that we would walk into the club. We didn't. Chase just started walking into the alleyway between the club and the building next door. "Where're we going?" I asked.

He didn't even turn around when he answered. "Didn't I tell you that already?"

"Yes, but…" We had gotten twenty or thirty feet into the alley by now. Before I could finish my sentence, there was the cliché flash of light, so I closed my eyes. When I opened them, I was greeted with a site like no other.

I knew immediately that we were not in a regular nightclub. It was darker in here than in most nightclubs, but not in a seedy kind of way. The place was so loud and crowded that I couldn't discern where one person's body ended and another's began. I didn't recognize the band that was playing, but it seemed to be a mix of the typical punk style and a new-wavish, alternative metal. It was strange, and yet, for some reason, I liked it. I immediately started swaying with the music, and was actually making my way onto the dance floor. For the record, I don't dance. At all. Ever. Before I could go out there and make a fool of myself, Chase grabbed my arm and pulled me over to a small booth in the corner. There was a couple making out at the booth next to us. The woman had an ethereal white glow and filmy whitish wings. The man had a dark glow and black wings.

"What the…?"

"A black and a white faerie," Chase replied.

"Faeries? I thought there were just vampires and necromancers!" There were more strange creatures in this stupid Underworld place? Couldn't there be just two, to make it easier for me? Did I really need the stress of learning all of the different kinds of creatures I would be dealing with? Not to mention the fact that I still didn't believe in any of this Underworld bullshit these people had been feeding me.

"Oh, so you believe in them now?" Chase asked, smiling coyly. I shook my head and frowned.

"No."

"I guess it was just too much to hope." I didn't think that really needed a reply, so I eased back into my seat and observed the people in the dancing crowd. There were a few more glowing people, more black ones than white. There were also a few glowing "faeries" that were colorful instead of black or white. There were only two or three of those. I assumed that they were scarce. There were also many normal-looking people. They're probably not humans; if any normal human knew about this place they would tell…wait a minute! I don't believe in any of this hocus-pocus! Of course they're humans! They're all humans! I thought, mentally shaking myself for the slip of the… tongue.

And so I sat, musing over the very non-human-looking humans in the club. Chase practically disappeared; he said nothing and did nothing. Eventually I snapped out of it long enough to have a cigarette. "Got a lighter?" I asked Chase, putting the cigarette to my lips. Yes, I do smoke. It's a bad habit, but I only smoke every once in a while. I don't chain smoke or anything stupid like that. There were so many other people smoking in here that I saw no reason not to. Sometimes, beyond the smoke coiling in my lungs and the knowledge that I'm basically committing suicide, a cigarette can create that wonderfully relaxed feeling that I love to have.

"You smoke?" Chase asked, sticking a hand in his pocket and pulling out a lighter. He flipped it open and set it on the tip of my cigarette. It lit up, and I took a puff.

"Yeah. It's a bad habit I guess," I replied. For some reason, even above all the noise, I could hear him perfectly.

"Like the coffee?"

"Like the coffee." And that was the last conversation we had for a long while, until my cigarette was all but a bit of dust on the floor. I had the feeling that Chase was looking for something, so I didn't interrupt with talk. I just puffed and stared. So when the cigarette was out, and crowd began to thin, Chase had found what he was looking for.

"Come on," he whispered in my ear, taking my hand and pulling me out of my seat. For the first few hours after I finished a cig, I always felt high. High like on acid, that kind of high. But not in the goofy, silly, colorful, flamboyant way most people are high. No, I'm just meek and a little bit out of it. I've never really done acid, but Daria has. She tells me it's like a hyped-up version of me on cigs. So I believe her.

"Where are we going?" I leaned forward and whispered in his ear.

"Stell, be quiet," Chase whispered back, and kept on pulling me through the still-crowded bar. The crowd may have thinned, but that didn't mean it wasn't crowded. Usually I would have been a little offended by how much like a child Chase was treating me. But I was high on cigs, and I didn't much care.

So we pushed, dodged, and sometimes just walked through the club. I couldn't make out who we were following, but it didn't matter. Chase knew what he was doing and, for some strange reason, I trusted him. It was a long time before we were outside the club, but once we were I got a better glimpse of who we were following. It wasn't a single who, but a double. I should have realized earlier, but I was in my smoked-up daze. There had to be two. After all, I was about to watch a vampire sucking some blood. A real great show… it dawned on me that I could make huge money from revealing this to the public. The thought left my mind almost immediately; nobody, not even Daria, would believe me.

They walked in the shadows. A man and a woman; the man in front, dragging the woman behind. They could almost be a reflection of Chase and I, only the man's grip on the girl's arm was much harder and more menacing than the grip Chase had on me. The man, from the distance and in the dark, looked very tall and very handsome. He looked handsome in the same way Chase looked handsome; in the scruffy, effortless way. The woman was gorgeous. She could have been a model if she was just a little bit thinner. Not that she was fat; no, she was actually rather skinny. She didn't have the emaciated, famine-ridden look that most models have to have.

In the dark she had black hair. She walked under a streetlight; she had blonde hair. She was thinner than I had thought she was; perfect model material. She looked frightened, but happy. He must have coerced her into believing something about a midnight "conversation." It would probably be her first one. She looked 19; such a pretty young thing. He was older though; he looked almost 30. Not that he was aged, because he wasn't. He looked young for his age, but if you looked hard enough in the light you could see the little wrinkles forming around his eyes. He had jet-black hair, a 5:00 shadow after midnight, and bushy hair. They looked so wrong, and yet so right. Like peanut butter and chocolate. But I had a feeling this wasn't going to end as well as peanut butter and chocolate did.

I'm not normally that observant. Once again, it was the night and the cigs.

We followed them around a few corners, down a few alleys, and across a street or two. We always kept our distance, but I had a feeling that the man knew we were following him. He didn't care. Did he know Chase? I've never seen him again.

Eventually we came to a dark alleyway. The man stopped. "Where's your apartment?" the girl asked the man, a whimper in the back of her voice. This was her first nighttime "conversation;" she was nervous and wanted it to go off perfectly.

"It is," the man replied, and without warning descended upon her neck.

There wasn't much blood, but I could see some rivers making their way down her exposed back and onto the waistband of her pants. From there I did not follow them; I returned my eyes to the scene of the crime. He looked just like every vampire in every horror movie, only this was real. The long, pointy teeth stuck deep into her neck. The blood dripping down her back, and I'm sure down her front as well. He looked like he was smiling through the fangs. Her blood must have tasted good. Young, virgin blood.

It was only a few seconds, but felt like hours. He lifted his teeth from her neck and removed his hands from around her waist. He had been holding her up. She fell limp to the ground moments later. The vampire turned his eyes towards our hiding place, and I could have sworn that he winked at me. And then he disappeared.

Chase kept me from going to her. Instead, he turned around and pulled me out of the alleyway. "What about the girl?" I asked frantically, trying to pull backwards. Chase was strong; I wasn't going anywhere he didn't want me going.

"She'll be fine. It's ancient vampire magic to transport a victim back to their homes after a feeding. There was minimal loss of blood; she won't remember the alley," Chase told me, letting go of my wrist and spinning around to stare at my face.

"But… will she remember the guy? Will she think she…? It would have been her first. I could see it in her eyes. I don't want that to be ruined for her!

"She won't remember the night at all. She'll remember going to the bar, meeting the guy, and then leaving alone. That's all. Don't worry," Chase reassured me.

Somehow, through the confusion of my worries and the experience that I had just had, Chase got me home. I fell asleep immediately that night; drugged by the cigs and the seedy Underworld bar and the feeding.

I dreamed of the blood running down her back. I dreamed of a waistband clotted with blood. I dreamed of a scar; the scar I knew she would always have.

Go on to the next part:

Chapter 4: Half Empty  (13+) In which part Stella goes to work and gets another surprise #959511 by Fantasy