Blood Martinis: The Gypsy Vampire's Curse

Ch. 11 ... Give A Dog A Bone

As the sun set, Vincent pushed up the driver's side visor. They had driven onto a boat in Dublin, and been ferried across the Irish Sea to Holyhead, about four hours ago. Now they were driving toward London.

“Why does the sun hurt our eyes?”Kate asked.

“Same reason you can see so well at night,”he said.“We'll get you some sunglasses.”While keeping his eyes on the road, one hand dug around in the centre compartment.“Here, put these in.”

“Contacts? Why?”she asked.

“We'll be stopping again soon,”he said.“Have you ever seen a cat's eyes reflect at night? Yours will now do the same. So, put those in. They're matte, so they'll be itchy, but you'll get used to it. They'll stop the reflection and keep people, or more importantly werewolves, from noticing you.”

Kate followed command. About an hour later, Vincent pulled the car in next to a nightclub near Hyde Park- in London's illustrious west side.‘ELECTRIC’, the sign said… and that it was. When they walked inside, past the man guarding the door, there was neon lighting shooting across the lines of the walls. Girls in cocktail dresses, were handing out glow-the-dark shooters. The circular bar sat in the middle of the dance floor and was lit up blue in it's entirety. The seats off to the side also glowed in the dark. There was a bubble machine in one corner, where people were clearly getting lost. Dance poles stood atop short tables surrounded by circular couches in another. The girls dancing on them didn't seem to be professionals, but rather patrons of the club, and Kate wondered if she would have that amount of confidence to give it a go. Probably not, she thought. On the dance floor there were cages a person could get into… some currently housed more than one and one guy was hanging on the outside entirely. There were people of all shapes, sizes and colours, getting down and dirty. It wasn't quite Kate's scene, but she thought maybe she could get into it.

Upon closer inspection, and as her eyes adjusted to what she was seeing, Kate noticed that these were not all‘people’in the traditional sense. There was something a little off about them. In some it was the eyes- piercing blue and reflective. These people she thought must be like her. In others it was the pointed ears and pale ivory skin. One woman had her long hair pulled behind her ears, showing off the tufts of fur that topped them in the orange and white of a fox. A man, dancing on one of the poles, emitted a green light all over his body and his eyes were red as a flame. Sunglasses sat atop his bouncing head, as if normally used to hide his eyes. Kate wondered, what could ever hide his body?

“Sit here,”Vincent ordered as they approached the bar.

“Yes, sir,”Kate joked. His eyebrow went up.

To the bartender he said,“two O-Neg and a bottle of whiskey.”The bartender put two fingers up to get the attention of someone on the dance floor, then grabbed a bottle of Jameson.

“I'll have a martini,”Kate said, but the bartender looked to Vincent for a nod before accepting the order. Seeing that, she whispered to Vincent,“I don't want to be here.”

“You will,”he said.“Don't worry, it's not a slight on you, he just has to make sure since you're new that you're alright.”

“It's a nightclub, no one who comes to these things are alright,”she said.

“To put it more specifically, he needs to know if you're one of us or someone he should be spiking,”he replied.

“Why would he spike me?”she asked, concerned.

“For the same reason I spiked you at the bar in Dublin,”he said.

“That was you?”she asked.

“Calm down,”he said.“It was nothing personal. When your blood bag is high, it's the easiest way to get high yourself because it takes a while for our bodies to break down the mixture in the blood. We heal too quickly to really get high any other way. Same with drinking. You'll notice it takes quite a lot now to get you tipsy.”

“Then why are we ordering drinks?”she asked.

“To give to the blood bags,”he said just as two gorgeous young men approached, looking a bit worse for wear.

“Hay-low,”the dark haired one purred into Vincent's face, as he leaned in for a kiss.

“I'm Christian,”the blonde one said to Kate. His chest was bare, and he exposed his neck to her, pulling her mouth into it.

“No you're not,”joked Vincent. Kate was unsure if this were a reference to the man's character not being religious or his profession usually using pseudonyms for anonymity.

“No thanks,”Kate said, pulling away. Her teeth weren't agreeing, protruding from her gums. She was listening to the pitter patter of his heart beat, and started to salivate.

“He's offering to feed you, and you need to feed,”Vincent scolded her.

“I'm not interested,”she lied.“Can't I just drink animal blood or something?”

“No,”he said.“You'll die.”

“I'll take my chances,”she said.

“It's not chances,”he replied, annoyed.“It's a choice. You drink human blood, you live. You don't, you die. And you only have about a day left to decide. Can you give up on life at this point? Before you've really lived? Loved? Figured out your past and your heritage? Maybe helped me overthrow the Royals, and avenged your mother? Who knows, maybe you could even learn how to do the ritual and get her back.”

Kate was silent. It all made a sort of sense to her, but what she really wasn't ready for was giving up on her humanity. That might be worth going to the grave for, she thought. It takes more effort to live with a murder than commit one, and drinking blood has got to be a slippery slope. Then again, Vincent does it, and he seems fine.

“Quit wrestling with your conscience, and drink it,”he said.“Christian is willing. Aren't you Christian?”

“Of course,”Christian replied hazily. This must not have been the first time he's offered himself today.

“It's already been paid for,”Vincent continued, slapping a fifty pound note onto the bar, which the bartender nonchalantly scooped up. Vincent winked at him.“And then you'll have the rest of your life, literally an eternity, to decide whether it was the right decision.”

“I'll give it a miss, thanks,”she said, looking away when she started to see the contempt on Vincent's face grow.“Maybe tomorrow.”

Not entirely willing to give up this argument, Vincent told Christian to take a seat and ordered whole bottles of gin and vermouth from the bartender. Then he got stuck into his own blood bag, which he hadn't inquired the name of, nor intended to.

“This isn't working,”Kate yelled as the music had gone up and a few hours had passed. She pointed to the eight times emptied martini glass.

“I told you it wouldn't,”Vincent scoffed.“Try him,”he pointed again to Christian.

“I'm going to go for a walk,”she shouted back.

“Where?”he asked.

“Don't know,”she said.“I'll be back.”

“Be back before dawn,”he said.“I'll get a room upstairs. Christian, why don't you go with her?”

At this point the bartender piped up,“he can't leave the venue.”

“He doesn't need to,”Kate said, grabbing the two fresh bottles of gin and vermouth he had recently put in front of her.“I'll just take these with me.”

Vincent didn't respond, instead opting to slam another fifty on the bar. The bartender gave him a quizzical look.“Really?”Vincent questioned, before adding a hundred to it. Then the bartender looked at Christian and gave him a nod to go with her. Kate gave up and let him follow.

Outside the door, Kate found herself surrounded by ancient architecture and lots of closed shops.“Let's go to the park,”she said.“I need to think.”

“What are you thinking about?”he said. His voice said he was interested, but the money back on the bar indicated to her it was probably more a question fuelled by good customer service.

Kate wasn't ready to have this conversation. Not with herself, and truly not with a strange. Although his being human might help, she thought. Instead she said,“Why do you do… what you do?”

“For work, or in general?”he asked.

“For work,”she said.“Do you choose to work there or are you a prisoner?”

“Honey, there isn't anyone on this planet who isn't a prisoner of some sort,”he replied.“But no, I choose it.”

“Why?”she asked.

“Because it pays more than I could ever make otherwise, and allows me to live the party lifestyle while doing it,”he said.“Besides, people like you need it.”

“We're not people,”she said.

“Hmm, yeah,”he said.“But you look like us, you have s*x like us, you party like us. So, do you want to have s*x?”

“What?”she asked.

“Well, it's paid for. I'm just thinking if you do, my place isn't far from here, and it'd be more comfortable than the park,”he said.

“No, um… thanks though,”she responded awkwardly.

From there they walked in silence until they reached the park. Although it was late at night at this stage, there were still some people walking through or lying - not so covertly to vampire eyes - in the bushes. There were stray animals as well that passed from time to time. When they reached a relatively secluded area, Kate asked Christian to stay there for a minute with the bottles while she ran off. Still a little unsteady with lightning speed, she ended up tripping over herself before she got the hang of it.

While on the ground, she spotted a fairly large canine which she thought might be a Staffordshire Bull Terrier. Getting up, and dusting herself off, she approached it. It didn't seem keen to trust her, backing away and keeping its eyes on her as she approached. She sat down in the grass, and stuck her hand out to it while coo-ing. She could hear the blood pulse through its veins, but it didn't smell appealing like Christian's.“Come here, boy”she said in her sweet voice.“Come here, buddy.”Eventually he came over to her and cautiously smelled her hand. She slowly moved it up to pet his head, and when he was good and comfortable with that, she moved it down to his back. Back and forth, she pet him, until he was satisfied she wasn't a threat. Then she stood up, and coo-ed him to follow her back to Christian.

“Who's your friend?”Christian asked.

“Let's name him Chester,”she said.

“Why Chester?”he asked.

She said,“because I intend on eating the chest meat.”