“I don’t want to do this,” Star stated for the umpteenth time.

“You don’t have a choice,” David said flatly, getting bored with the repetition.

“Do you like him?” Dwayne chimed in before Star rebutted David with the same statement yet again.

“What?”

The question caught her off guard. It could be seen in her eyes that she was desperately searching for the right answer, not necessarily a truthful one. That boy at the boardwalk; he wanted her, that she knew and, just by looking at him, it sparked this notion of hope in her, that she wasn’t dead on the inside like David made her feel. Even in her state, she was capable of positive feelings for someone, of a want to be with someone. Star doubted David would let her get close enough, especially in private, but maybe, if it turned out he liked her enough, he could help her.

“Do you like him?” Dwayne repeated.

She flustered a little before she spoke. “I don’t even know his name. How could I have any feelings for him?”

“Because you do,” David answered. “You want to see him again, don’t you?”

“So what if I do?” Star said defiantly. “Doesn’t mean anything.”

“It means you’re interested,” David said. “And it helps us. The easier this transition is, the better it is for all of us. You’re perfect to bring him here.”

Star scoffed. “What am I, a bucket of chum? What makes you think you can use me like you do?”

“Because I own you, Star. That’s why. You stay alive because of me. If you want I can easily take all of this away, stop that precious little heart of yours but I think you’d rather stick around despite your vampire tendencies.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and stood before David, daring him. “And what should I do? Say, ‘oh, before we go anywhere I’d like you to meet my keeper’? I’m sure that’ll go over well.”

“Your bark’s been getting worse lately. I think you’ve been hanging around Detta too long. Just don’t try anything funny and we’ll take care of the rest.”

“Funny? Like what? Scream at the top of my lungs about the vampire plot against him? I’d like to make him think I’m sane, David. It’s going to be hard enough working around the whole sleeping during the day bit that we all do.”

David smirked. “Planning on seeing him more than once, do you?”

Star’s shoulders slackened and her brief moment of outward defiance visibly slipped away from her. Her will against David was much weaker than Detta’s by comparison. She could only stand up to David for so long before defeat kicked in and she succumbed to her despair once again.

“I can’t win, can I?”

David shook his head. “Might as well stop trying. It’s pointless to even argue about it.”

Detta watched the scene play out before her as she stood in the entryway to her and Marko’s private wing of the cave. She could hear him rummaging around, knocking things over in his haste to find whatever it was he was looking for. Star tried. Detta couldn’t discount her for that, but her bottom line was that she didn’t have the fight in her. It had been stomped out in her home life when she was mortal. Had she not acted, had she not run away when the inclination came during that brief window of strength, she would still be home succumbing to abuse. Perhaps she regretted the arms she ran into for Star’s situation now was no more beneficial. The only difference was that now she was halfway to undead with no way out.

Star looked to Detta for help, a pleading look in her eyes, but she merely shrugged her shoulders, not knowing what to say or do that would make the girl feel any better. There was a trick there, clicking around in Star’s head. Detta didn’t know if Star intended for her to see it or not but David saw it too and merely smirked at the image, fixing his jacket as he walked about the cave. They all were still waiting for Marko.

“Hurry up, man!” Paul yelled back to him. “We’re gonna miss the party!”

“Dude, we are the party,” Dwayne replied, leaning up against a wall, crinkling some kind of poster behind him.

“Christ!” came Marko’s voice bounding down the tunnel, detached from his body. “Chill the fuck out! I’ll be out in a minute!”

“What the hell’s he doing back there, D?” Paul asked Detta, flicking a butt at her in order to attract her attention from her daze.

It hit her nose and she blinked, brushing ash off of her skin. “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “The five finger slide for all I know.”

“You gonna join in the fun tonight?” David asked from across the cave, his head down but a sly smile still visibly creeping up the side of his face.

Detta bit back the awe that David would care to ask her such a question and blinked back her indignation. “Wish I could but I have to work. Try not to go too hard on the plebe, huh?”

“Girl, when are you going to start stealing from your prey like we do? You’re a vampire. Job not needed,” Paul said, almost exasperated. “You can rock out with your cock out for eternity but you’re choosing to huff print with Max.”

“You want me to bring you some?” she asked, her eyebrow raised.

“If you can. The older the better.”

Detta just shook her head and laughed. “Paul, I like my house and I like how I live. I don’t think I can afford to keep that up picking the pockets of runaway corpses.”

David’s scoff echoed to Detta’s ears and she turned to look at him, feeling the words about to come out of his mouth. “You have a lot to learn, Detta dear. You’d be surprised what we can forage. You’re just too prissy to think of any of it.”

“Your insults always do the trick, David. Thanks.”

“I live to serve.”

Marko stomped and stumbled from the back tunnel, the look on his face aggravated and his knuckles white, gripping his patchwork jacket into a clump much smaller than it actually was. While Marko was the least threatening-looking of the group, his jacket at least afforded him some bulk. Without it, and thanks to the skin-clinging shirts he normally wore under it, he looked petite. Not fragile but his body was certainly deceiving of the strength harboring just underneath the skin. Dwayne was the only one that had any real meat to him; the rest allowed their muscle to lie in their clothes. David was rightly half the size he looked under all those layers.

He threw his jacket on, his arms catching awkwardly in the sleeves before finally pulling it on. He was winded, his face still nonplussed but Marko was shaking it off faster than the rest were noticing it.

“We ready to go?” he asked, straightening himself out.

“We’ve been ready to go, man,” Dwayne said, lifting himself up from his supportive wall. “Let’s get this over with.”

“What time do you get out of work?” Star asked Detta when she caught up to her.

“Close. Around one but I’m grabbing some drinks with Maria afterwards. I’m sure the new kid has a curfew that I’m going to bypass.”

“Oh”

Star was hopeful but her optimism was muted prior to the question. Now it was just gone altogether. She was hoping for a companion, some kind of support system that only another female could provide. Considering Detta was as supportive as a toothpick under a cement slab since Star’s initiation, she didn’t know why Star kept pushing her as a lean-to. Perhaps it was a girl thing. Or perhaps she saw something remotely resembling human in Detta, saw it when she was with Marko, a sort of compassion that the others were either without or disallowed her a window of access.

Detta shrugged her shoulders and gave Star a half-pitying look. “Sorry. I doubt I’d do much good anyway.”

Star shrugged back. “I know. But I had to ask.”

vVv

Seeing as how Marko was having mandatory fun with his vampire brothers and the new kid, Detta had to find an alternate means of transportation to get back to the cave after her gallivanting with Maria. Not only did they have drinks but they tore up the dance floor at a local Latin club on the opposite side of town. Where Maria was halfway decent at those fast-paced routines, Detta couldn’t wrap her head around the footwork and no vampire ability or advanced cognitive function helped her in the slightest. She had never tripped over her own feet more than that night.

Things got a little tricky when Detta had every intention of taking her dancing partner-slash-meal ticket to go when it came to explaining it to Maria but she came up with a good enough excuse. The notion of being a swinger intrigued Maria which only elicited more conversation. That then led back into talk about Dwayne and about their impending date for later that week. Detta doubted Max knew about it since she knew he afforded Maria her privacy and didn’t rummage around in her thoughts (he also learned his lesson the first time he did it) and Dwayne wasn’t one to talk about his girlfriends with his vampire dad, not to mention that was something he’d be sure to keep locked away tightly while Max was around. Regardless, they were good for each other, aside from Dwayne’s inhuman blood lust. They complimented each other as much as they contradicted each other and it was a balance they both needed.

Finally, after numerous extended conversations and a long-winded good-bye, Detta was able to leave with her meal in tow. She humored him for a little while but not long considering her patience was thin that night. Like all of her gulp-n-goes, she made sure to be careful and not spill anything on herself. She had actually come up with a decent stance that allowed spray to miss her. It was an awkward pose that involved holding the body away from hers but she managed.

When she drank fully from this prey, though, she did something that, until now, she’d never considered doing. She flipped the tanned dancer over with her foot and there, resting atop his right butt cheek was a square wallet nestled snugly in the pocket. She grabbed for it, feeling the slowly fading heat of his skin through the khaki slacks, and slid the worn leather out. It was cracked and faded at the corners, the crackling bleeding onto either face of the black wallet. Detta unfolded it and there inside sat more money than a smart person should ever carry on them. A couple hundreds and a slew of twenties caught her eye as she flipped through the bills before taking them out and stashing them in her purse. There were a few credit cards tucked into the slots next to his license but she left those, not knowing a good way to pull off credit fraud and knowing that trying to mull it over now would not be a good time to do it. She folded the wallet back up and tucked it back into the same pocket atop the chilling skin.

She’d bagged a yuppie. It should have been obvious from the bare feet and loafers with the pushed-up sleeves on the blazer. His shirt was even a pastel blue although now the front was the color of rusted blood, saturated and sticking to his skin. She flipped him back onto his back and pieces of tar stuck to his ruined cashmere and previously perfect face. The yuppie, meticulous in life, now wore a death mask of gray, lifeless skin and horror-struck eyes, his mouth agape, a remembrance of his final attempt to scream. His hair, however, remained perfect, gelled to perfection and refracting the light from the street lamp. Detta had a sudden urge to tousle the hair just to fuck with him but fought it back. She didn’t want to get her hands caked in sticky hair product.

It was funny how she only really saw the humans after they were dead. She saw them in life, of course, but the details weren’t there, just the aspects that made them appear human, and the vampire stamp of approval for future feeding. Perhaps it was because they were more like her after their heart stopped beating. Only then could she relate to her mortal counterpart but in that case, their mortality was gone and while they weren’t immortal like her, they both shared a common bond. They’d both surpassed death.

Detta remained in her gaze for a moment longer before rubbing her eyes and setting to work on the disposal of her leavings. A quick trip out to sea usually sufficed and then she was headed back to the cave. David warned her not to fly back. They couldn’t reveal themselves to the kid yet and while the chances were small, David didn’t want him to get a glimpse of Detta flying in while he was on his way out. She had to find another way back and her only option, especially at that time of night, was a cab.

A quick call to a local taxi company and a five minute wait later, a graying Cadillac with a lit up taxi sign on its roof rolled up to meet her. She guided him to the street nearest the dirt road up to the bluff. Considering the guy’s near-constant pissing and moaning about working third shift, she was pretty sure he wasn’t going to be up for an off-road adventure. She paid her dues before she got out of the car and the cabby started to drive away before she even had a chance to shut the door. The inertia of the car moving forward was what shut it.

“Asshole,” Detta mumbled under her breath.

She walked a short way up the nominally lit street before turning off onto the unpaved road that would eventually lead up to the bluff. The ride on a bike seemed like it took mere minutes (although that was thanks, in part, to the fact that the bike was more versatile in travel routes than a car) and flying would have superseded that but the walk was a half hour in the pitch dark. If she hadn’t been immortal she would have said ‘fuck it’ and went home. Even as a vampire she hated the blackness. Perhaps it was her overactive imagination or a past life she didn’t know about but the nothing that would surround her in the dark scared her. Marko eased her fear when he was around but he could never quiet it completely.

As she neared the bikes, the beam from the lighthouse illuminated a silhouette making its way over the crest of the stairs. It was an unfamiliar form that didn’t match any of the boys and his scent that wafted to her nose on the salty ocean air told her of a desert smell, non-native. This was probably Lucy’s son stumbling his way home. Not noticing it on first approach, the fifth bike finally caught her eye; a pedaling six-speed next to the likes of the boys’ bikes. Maybe it was something impressive back in Arizona but here it was a matchbox car.

He didn’t notice her at first but even a none-vampire would have known why. The smell of cannabis rolled off of his brand new leather jacket, mingling with the scent of cigarette smoke. No doubt Paul was to thank for the pot. Aside from that, he was weary, lumbering, turning to half. He drank from the bottle. Well, David certainly was laying it on thick and while the progress forward seemed rather rapid, this, without a doubt, was how Max wanted it to happen. The sooner he could get the kid roped in, the sooner he could get Lucy. It probably made it that much easier that this boy succumbed to peer pressure rather easily, not to mention he was in dire want of fitting in, if nothing more than to get Star. His brand new, still obviously stiff, leather jacket was a testament to that. She should tell him that Star wanted something a little closer to a sweater set than biker wear at this point. It was obvious, to Detta at least, that Star wanted no more of the punk life.

The boy gripped tightly to the railing as his worn sneakers padded onto the stairs, stepping harder than he wished to step. His eyes were squinting, as if the darkness was too bright for him but she knew his head was probably spinning from the combination of pot and blood. He couldn’t adjust while his mind was swimming so he had no choice but to dive in with it.

His misstepped on the last couple of stairs and stumbled into Dwayne’s bike, thankfully with not enough force to topple it. He didn’t look like he had the strength to right it if it did. He still seemed oblivious to her even though Detta was now only feet away Not like that surprised her. She looked over her shoulder, back towards the trees, and noticed the inklings of pink starting to broach the sky. The sun was starting to rise and Mr. Arizona was going to be in a worse state than her if he didn’t get home before the orb cleared the horizon.

“You OK, kid?” she asked tentatively, making sure to keep her distance if for nothing else than not wanting him to pass out and fall on top of her.

“Home,” he mumbled, hardly coherent and hardly English.

“You need someone to give you a ride?”

“Fine.”

She took that last rumbled word to mean ‘I’m fine’ as he ambled closer to his own bike. He didn’t even realize he was able to hear her speaking normally over the crash of the waves below. Obviously too doped to realize his arms were still attached let alone realize his hearing was working above normal despite his Haldoled appearance. It was probably why he was squinting. The noise was too much for him and while squinting would do nothing to ease the pain, it was a natural reaction to loud noise nonetheless. Regardless, the pot was bound to confuse the receptors anyway.

Detta watched as he fumbled with the ignition of his bike and then missed the kick start completely on the first go. He got it on the second and the thimble engine sputtered to life, the headlight fluttering on after it, seemingly incapable of drawing enough energy from the feeble engine to turn itself on. His foot groped for the kickstand as he pushed the bike forward. Detta thought that perhaps multitasking like that in such a state wasn’t the wisest thing for him to do. Once he brought the stand up, he placed his feet on the rests, wobbled a little while he got his bearings, and puttered off in the direction of town. Detta just looked on after him, an easy enough piece of chum that she doubted would survive once his mother was dragged into it. And that was outside of Star convincing him to mutiny with her. On first glance, he looked hopeless at best.

<–5. Vampire 101 + 7. Heavier and Heavier–>