Raining

Y'know when it rains in India, during the monsoon season?

That's what its like just outside my window right now.  The water is about a foot deep in the road and Fay's car stalled because of the water in the engine. 

Vampire

'Ben?'

I said nothing.

'Ben.  Wake up.'

I opened my eyes, and was instantly blinded by the naked light dangling from the centre of the room.

'Hey, Ben,' a face peered into view. It was Rogers, his thick Bronx accent married with his heavy, rugged face.  'How you doin'?'

I looked around, my eyes adjusting to the light slowly.  I could see them all, my colleagues, I had thought my friends, Guber, Peters, Micky and Tank.  They looked concerned, but I was sure it wasn't because of me.  I tried moving my arms, to get upright, but I found my hands bound, and my shoulder was aching liked I'd been punched by a train. 

'Don't move,' Rogers began.  'It won't do you any good.'

I tried anyway.

'The fuck I say, asshole,' the punch connected with my bloody face, pulping more flesh and cracking more bone.  'You don't do shit 'til I say, fuckstick.'

'Why me?  Why now?' I tried to ask, but what came out was a wet and bubbling mess.

'You're not much of a detective, are you?'

'When we getting out of here, Rogers?'  Guber piped up.  He was constantly on edge, shifting his weight, looking around at all the exits.  I could count two.  He grabbed his gun from his shoulder holster and pointed it at me.  I tried to look away but my shoulder ached so much I had to look forward.  'We should just get the fuck out of here, pretend like this never happened, say some gangbangers did it.'

'We just need to get our story straight, then...,' Rogers' voice trailed off as he looked at me.  'Then I'll do it.'

The story, as far as the truth goes, was that my partners were all on the take.  I knew this, but we got things done, we cleaned up the streets and I though that if I never took any money it couldn't come back to bite me in the ass.  Try not to laugh too hard back there.

'The obvious story is this: The Truth,' Rogers said.

'Yeah,' said Peters. 'And I'll go to Sing-sing, you can fly to Alcatraz and Micky here can burrow his way into the dungeon of Little Bo Peep.'

'Little Bo Peep,' said Micky. 'Never had a dungeon, you fuck.'

'I know, it's a metaphor.'

'How obvious.  And I'm sure that metaphorically, you don't know what the fuck a metaphor is.'

'Well you can kiss my metaphorical ass, Micky, it's still a dumb plan.'

'Hey, you two, cool it.  I mean that we tell the truth, up to a point,' Rogers looked at the ceiling.  'We were following the money; we had a trail all the way down the Iron Pipeline.  And then…'

'We bust into some crack den and Benny got shot while heroically saving our asses?'

'Shut up, Guber.'  Rogers snapped.  'No, Benny doesn't get to be a hero in this story.  He gets to be a filthy, corrupt cop who just so happened to be about to make the biggest deal of his life, until we caught on to him.'

'Don't you think that's a little too close to the truth,' asked Tank.  'If anyone follows up on this, they'll know.'

'Oh, they'll know,' Rogers began sarcastically, raising his hands to the air, acting scared.  'Watch out for them, they'll come and find us.  You're pathetic.'

'So what do we do?'  Micky shrugged.

'We have our scapegoat.  We have a pile of cash, ready to plant.  We have files and evidence gathered from our many, illustrious years in the field covering our asses.  We just need someone impartial to find this evidence and hang Benny here out to dry.'

I knew.  I just knew they were going to say her name.

'Jane?'

Those bastards.  I gritted my teeth, and tried to stand up.  I could feel my blood pumping through my body, and I began to lose control of my breath.  Rogers saw me immediately and forced his gun into my temple.

'Oh you don't like that idea, do you?  Well that's what makes it perfect.  I want you to know that you almost fucked it up for us.  You almost saved the day, but in the end the only thing you managed to do was make us worse.'

Rogers pushed the gun underneath my jaw and brought my eyes into line with his, I stared, as he was ready to kill me.

'You fuckin' made us worse.'

And then the lights went out.  And then I died.

---

'I watched you, for two days.  You were shot again.'

The woman sitting beside my bed looked familiar, but I couldn't remember seeing her before.  Her face was thin and dark, and she had the most beautiful auburn hair.  Her eyes glinted pale grey in the half light of the evening. 

'My name is Sarah.  I took you from those men who were going to kill you.'

I was in another room, not the same dingy, rusty back alley chop shop that my colleagues had taken me to.  It was a bedroom, sparse admittedly, but besides the mattress I was lying on, it had a small table, a few personal affects.

'Why me?'

'Because you are a man worth saving, Benjamin Cara.  Because you care about the world, and we need someone like you.'

'You must be joking?'  I started to rise again, but the pain was worse than before.  Now my stomach was pulsating with agony. 

'You were shot again,' Sarah repeated.  'Please lie down,'

I shifted again, wincing, Sarah moved to help me, and eventually got into a comfortable position with my head against the wall.

'I wanted to wait until you were awake.  You are still very weak.  You may die, but I can help you.  Do you want my help?'

'What do you mean, do I want your help, of course.  If I'm in that much danger, of course I do.'

'You do not know what I will do to you yet.'

'But, you saved me…' My voice faltered.

'I'm afraid I offer something which not everyone will understand as a gift.  I can take you to a hospital now, if you wish, but you may not survive the night.  I can also make you well again, something better than well.  I offer immortality, but it comes with a duty, one which you are currently already undertaking, and a price.'

'What's the price?'

'Let me show you.'

Sarah leaned in towards me, I could barely move, then her teeth met my neck.  For the briefest instance, I forgot my shoulder and my stomach, my neck was now the centre of my agony but almost immediately I felt euphoric.  My blood raced from my veins in anticipation of being consumed, each drop felt like screaming desire.

Then she stopped.  Sarah kissed my neck and my body felt normal again, but I was weaker.  She pulled away, and I could see the blood on her lips.  Part of me was revolted, but I knew that I would have done anything if she would kiss me again.

'Is… are you?'

'Yes.  That is the price.'

I nodded.

'I accept.'

---

'Run!'

The masked thugs had cornered Sarah, wielding a wicked variety of spiked baseball bats and bike chains dripping with a mixture of sweat, oil and blood.  The leader, a rat-faced ogre, moved towards her and was rewarded with a knife in the abdomen, but he barely registered the attack.  The rat smiled at her, his teeth caked in a thick, yellow plaque, but it soon faded as the stomach wound began to ooze a thick, black liquid.  He fell, but the rest of his group piled forward, ignoring the corpse.

The group danced around Sarah for a moment, kept at bay by a stab from the knife, but quickly they fell upon her.

'Run!'  Sarah gasped again, and I ran.  I ran for what seemed like an age.  They didn’t follow me.  I wasn’t a threat.

When I got back to her, there was nothing but ash.

---

I'd found Gilroy, or at least I had a grid reference.  He'd been careless, left his mobile phone on, and I'd been able to get some of my old friends in the ESU to calculate his position.  I didn't know the area that well, Carmel was out of The City, so I'd come not knowing what to expect.  I'd brought a shotgun and a bad attitude, just in case.

It was a motel, of course, built on two levels, with a flashing neon sign proclaiming that they had vacancies.  Dives like these always had places to hide in.  I parked about two hundred yards away, I'd been coasting with my lights off for about half a mile, and stepped out of my car, a mustang.  Reaching into the back seat I took out my piece and a few extra shells. 

I came to the building from the east, the wind in my face and observed for a moment.  Most of the curtains were wide open.  At this time of night it meant that either the person occupying the room was an exhibitionist, or the room was empty.  Only three of the rooms had their curtains drawn, but I couldn't exactly knock on all of them.  As I was pondering what to do, I was lucky.  A couple stepped out of one of the rooms, she looked like a hooker, he looked like an asshole so was probably her pimp.  Much as I felt the urge to knock the guy to the ground and stomp on his face, I had bigger fish to fry.  The pair moved towards a car, a black beast, probably a Lexus, and he sped off, I noted the plates without considering what I would do with them later.  She made her way to the front of the motel and resumed her nightly watch.

Two rooms.  I watched for another fifteen minutes, I couldn't detect any movement from either of them; no twitchy curtains or dimming of lights.  I started to work my way around the outside of the motel.  Both were on the ground floor, but one was on the inside of the complex, one outside.  I moved towards the easiest target first.  Stepping lightly over the brush, I made swift progress towards the room.  I was able to mask my presence, and moved under the windowsill silently.  I listened.

A woman shouted something in a foreign language I didn't understand.  I guessed at Spanish, but I couldn't be certain.  It didn't matter, it wasn't my guy.  I began moving when I heard another voice, smooth as poison, talking gently, in English this time.

'Don't worry,' He said.  'There is nothing to fear from me.'

That was Gilroy.  He had been using The Voice to seduce women, mostly the vulnerable kind, and would then feed from them.  After he had finished with them, the husks were burnt and left in various spots around the city.  I'd been following Gilroy for days after a tip off, and it looked like I was given solid intel. 

Gilroy was a loner; he didn't run with any of the Sabbat packs.  He'd come from one of the Camarilla cities, or so I'd heard, and had tried setting up a fiefdom in one of the smaller towns in the state.  Every time something would upset him, and he'd have to leave.  Now I knew what.

I had no time for niceties; he could have been doing anything in there.  I stepped onto my feet and powered my way through the glass of the motel room.  Inside I could see Gilroy, half naked, tied to the bed and his victim leaning over, offering herself to him.  He screamed for her to let him go, and she immediately began to untie the cords binding him to the bed.

I moved forward, brushed her aside, and forced the gun into the sick bastard's face.  'Try to say anything,' I said. 'And you'll be dead before you finish it.'  I looked toward the fallen woman, she looked unconscious.

I cracked Gilroy over the head with the butt end of the shotgun, but it wasn't enough to knock him out.  He was a tough bastard for all his cowardice.  It was enough to draw blood.

The scent of vampiric blood is divine, most of all to my kind.  It is made sweeter still by the knowledge that the taking of it is going to make the world a safer place for the kine.  It was enough for me.  Damn my soul, it was enough.

I straddled his body and bared my fangs.  He started screaming, tried to kick me away, but I was almost frenzied with desire.  I buried my head into his neck and began to tear at his flesh.  His screams became louder, more violent and then disappeared.  I drank his blood and when there was none left, I kept on feeding.  I felt his soul enter me.  My thoughts became his, he could see my murderous rage, his thoughts became mine, and I could see his fear and his guilt. 

He wasn't the one.  He wasn't a murderer; he was just some fucked up Ventrue with a sub fetish.  He wasn't the one.

I stepped off him.  Blood dripping from my mouth, covering my clothes and the remains of Gilroy, I staggered towards the back wall, clutching at my face.

No one could know.

'But they will, Ben,' said a voice.  'Oh, but they will.'

I looked around, panicking.  I could see nothing.  Gilroy's body had already turned to ash.  Only the girl remained, but she was unconscious.  I stepped towards her and checked her pulse.  I couldn't find it.

'Now was that me or you?'  The voice came again.  'You were pretty rough back there.'

'Show yourself!'  I shouted.  I picked up the shotgun and wheeled around the room.  'I mean it!'

'Oh, most terrible assassin,' the voice mocked.  'How on Earth shall I escape your iron grip?'

I stepped in the direction the voice came from.

'Goodbye, my errant knight.'

And then nothing.  I stepped into the space left by the departing voice and looked out through the smashed window into the night.  I have not heard the voice since. 

Quickly I worked the room; I avoided trying to clean up, I knew the police wouldn't give a shit about a bloody mess in a motel room, usually frequented by drug dealers and prostitutes, but I hesitated.  The woman.  Her body was crumpled on the floor contorted into a strange, doubled over shape.  Her hips had been twisted, and were drawn towards her chest; her arms were either side of her, lying limp.  She looked like a marionette shoved in a box. 

I moved the woman to a room a few doors down, to try and do something to make it better.  It didn't make a difference, she would never move again, never speak, never love.  I'd been careless, and regardless of whether I killed her or not I was responsible.  I should have been protecting her.  Instead I was killing an innocent man.  Leaving a slight gap in the door so that the police would look in the room, I left, heading for my car.  The police sirens began to whine in the distance, but I had disappeared before the first cop pulled in to the motel.