Elias

Chapter 3 Elias

I take the long way home from Dr. Mary’s office, letting my feet lead me down the narrow alleyways that crisscross the city like veins beneath its polished surface. Something about them always soothes me. Maybe it’s the stillness, or the way the air here never quite smells clean. It’s eerie, damp, and vaguely rotting—just like the underworld I once called home.

It reminds me I still belong somewhere. Even if that place is shadows and silence.

With every step, the fog parts ahead of me, curling around my boots like smoke off a dying flame. My thoughts are louder than the world around me, each one echoing in the alley’s emptiness.

Guilt. Hunger. Rage.

I don’t try to silence them anymore. I let them speak.

Eventually, I find myself walking toward the one place that feels like mine—the Busty Empire.

A strip club on the surface. But beneath it? A safe haven. A hidden coven.

My investment.

My gift—or maybe my curse—after crawling out of the grave I should’ve stayed buried in.

After my resurrection, I needed more than a roof. I needed a sanctuary for others like me. Creatures lost in the space between damned and redeemed. Vampires who no longer fit below and sure as hell don’t belong above.

Word spread fast. Within a month, they came. The soulless. The forgotten. The half-broken. Each one carrying their own story, their own war. Some looking for redemption, others just a quiet place to bleed.

I gave them that.

Now, standing before the thick black double doors, I let my gaze flick up.

Busty Empire, the name carved into the wooden archway above, ivy creeping in from the rooftop like nature itself wants to reclaim us.

I press my palm to the door and step inside.

The air is thick—dark, warm, pulsing with bass and tension. The kind of place that makes mortals feel alive and immortals feel almost human.

The lighting is low and intimate, shadows crawling across velvet walls. A dancer winds herself around a pole on stage, her skin catching the occasional shimmer from the spotlight, casting her body in silhouette.

It’s not about lust. It’s about power.

Control.

Illusion.

“Whiskey dry. No ice,” I say as I slide into my usual spot at the bar.

Jimmy, the bartender on shift tonight, nods and grabs the bottle without a word. Human. Odd little guy. Always wearing gloves, always counting silently under his breath.

But reliable.

I could’ve filled the club with vampires, but I figured if I had to live among mouth-breathers, I might as well learn to use them.

Humans are amusing. Creatures of contradiction.

They claim to value honesty but lie with ease.

Preach virtue but chase pleasure like it’s sacred.

Drugs, money, s*x—these are their gods.

They’re not so different from us, really. Just more fragile.

Jimmy slides the drink across the mahogany bar. I catch it without looking and head to my favorite corner—the darkest one, tucked in the shadows near the back.

From here, I can see everything.

Waiters weaving between tables, balancing trays of blood-red wine and glowing cocktails.

Women dancing for a room full of lustful eyes, their movements slow, hypnotic, elegant.

Men and women tossing bills like they’re offering tribute.

And amongst them—us.

Vampires sit side by side with humans, most unaware of the company they keep. Some flirt. Some feed discreetly, hidden in plain sight. A brush of skin. A stolen whisper.

The club is alive.

And every heartbeat in the room hums through me like a song I used to know.

This is my sanctuary.

Not because it’s safe.

But because it knows what I am—and welcomes me anyway.

No judgment. No lies. Just creatures doing what they must to survive.

A man stumbles toward the stage, laughing too loudly, blood humming beneath his skin. His eyes are glassy—drugs, maybe. Or just stupidity.

A vampire near the back—new, young—watches him with hungry eyes. I clock the look, the hesitation. She’s struggling.

I sip my drink and say nothing.

She’ll make her choice.

We all do.

This place is a crossroads. A limbo. You come here because the world outside doesn’t have a place for you anymore.

I built it for them.

For me.

I tip the whiskey back, let it burn down my throat. It doesn’t warm me, but it reminds me I still have a body. That I’m still tethered here, somehow.

Some nights I wonder what would’ve happened if Anika hadn’t sacrificed herself.

If she hadn’t forced my soul back into this corpse.

Would I still be a monster, free of guilt?

Or was this always meant to happen?

Was the prophecy just a cruel design to teach a killer how to feel?

I’m not sure yet.

But one thing I know—

The man who rose from the ashes isn’t the same creature who once ruled the underworld.

And in this twisted sanctuary I’ve built, surrounded by sin, desire, and shadows—

I’m finally learning what it means to live with the soul I never asked for.