raised by wolves

“Jesus Christ, that was unreal,” I grumble at the bottom. I step on my cigarette and look around. The chamber we’ve arrived in doesn’t look much different than the one we left somewhere above, except the lighting is worse and there’s a damp antique basement smell. Santiago puts his cigarette out and we resume snooping.

Eventually, down the dusty corridors of this basement portion of the complex, we hear footsteps. We press ourselves to the nearest wall and listen. There’s a voice.

“No sign of the intruders, sir, aside from the cigarette butts at the base of the elevator. They must have gone back up,” the voice says, sounding muffled and distant. It must be one of the masked guards like the ones upstairs.

“You fool,” says another voice which sounds like sandpaper and broken glass. “How could they have given you the slip so easily? I told you they would come. You’re supposed to be one of the best, aren’t you? I should slit your throat and hang you up to drain for a while.”

An awkward silence.

“Sir, I’ll send another patrol out,” says the first voice.

“Yes,” replies the second. “Yes you will.”

The footsteps are coming right for us. Santiago and I scurry up the walls and hold ourselves to the ceiling. We hold our breath and blend with the shadows and cobwebs as a huge guard built like a refrigerator, carrying a gigantic axe with a spearhead on the back end rushes by under us, like we’re not even there. We hear the hum of the elevator a little while later.

“Do you think he was talking about us?” Santiago asks me once the silence has gone unbroken by the sound of more guards coming to oversee our execution.

“No, Santi, he must’ve been talking about the other intruders.”

Santiago scowls at me in the dark on the ceiling and I can’t help but smirk. He makes it too easy sometimes.

We get down and cautiously head in the direction from whence the guard came.

Now here’s where it gets a little strange.

As we move down the corridor, my stomach begins to ache. I feel it flip-flopping back and forth, like doing somersaults or spinning around in circles. I feel a cold sweat appearing on my forehead.

“Sergei,” Santiago says. “Something is wrong here.”

I nod but something tells me to press on. I feel dizzy, but the feeling in the back of my neck says there’s a reason for this.

The reason is this:

Around the next bend is a vast room with high vaulted ceilings and lit by torches. Arranged in a circle are people wrapped up in what appears to be cocoons. From the heads of each an arc of unnatural red lightning dances towards a huge red crystal hanging like a chandelier in the middle of it all. It’s huge and the color of blood. In the far corner, at a small office desk is a horrible creature, a twisted parody of the shape of a man. It is rifling through papers, charts, graphs, comparing and contrasting data of a sort I couldn’t begin to guess at. It does not appear to be wearing any clothing. It’s skin is white like ivory or cocaine, sick, deathly. It’s bones protrude in strange places. It looks broken.

Santiago breathes in a little too deeply and the creature whirls around.

For an instant, I see huge black eyes like bottomless pits, a flash of teeth like daggers, dry blood caked at the corners of pallid lips, a sunken chest and protruding pelvic bones. Then it changes.

Where the creature stood before is now a man who looks at first glance remarkably like Santiago. It’s really just the long black hair. His nose is bigger than Santiago’s, and his chin much more prominent. He is wearing a regal black robe with a high purple collar. The huge black pit eyes have turned red.

“You,” he hisses. “I knew you would come.”

I open my mouth to attempt a quick witted explanation, but it is no use. The man, the creature, whatever it is, has already set upon us.

With a simple gesture, Santiago is sent flying off down the corridor we just snuck up. The man picks me up by the neck and pitches me headlong into the opposite wall. In a moment of clarity as I pass through the middle of the bizarre congregation, I realize that the cocooned people must be the source of the magic I felt upon our arrival, and what made my stomach spin as we approached. Magic never had much of a positive effect on me.

And neither has having my head smashed against a wall.

I cough and sputter and try to turn around to face my attacker.

“Wait,” I say, but it’s no use. The man is on me again, lifting me into the air by my throat. Being a vampire, I don’t expressly need to breathe, but being unable to at my choosing is no less unpleasant than it was when I was alive.

Once again, I’m being hurled through the air. I don’t think I’ve been this disoriented in decades. I try to focus, and my concentration holds just long enough to prevent me from taking the full force of my flight on my head. I turn and hit the wall with my shoulder and back more than my face. I land hard and slump over on the floor.

“You,” the man hisses. “How foolish! I was expecting something more substantial.” He snarls and then shouts to no one, or no one that I can see at least, “Is this the best you’ve got?”

I cough. “Who are you talking to?”

The man looks alarmed that I’m still talking.

“Really?” he says to the ceiling. “You would use my own kind against me? Is there no depth to which you will not sink?”

His own kind? I think to myself. So, he’s a vampire. Is he a vampire? My head is still swimming, but I’m beginning to get my bearings.

“You’ve only made my job easier, old witch!” he shouts. “I was worried that not as many would show up. But the stragglers will be minimal. Especially if you saw fit to send more after me. I cannot be stopped! It is already too late!”

This last bit is what I like to think of as “famous last words.” He’s in such a state, mad with the thought of whatever his plans are coming to fruition. Like a fucking TV villain. Fucking monologuing assholes.

I pick up a piece of the wall that dislodged itself when I made impact. I rush at the yammering idiot and plant the stone squarely on the crown of his head. It sounds about how you’d expect the collision of head and stone to sound, kind of like billiards. He doesn’t move though. He laughs instead and turns to face me, red eyes glowing like the inside of a volcano.

“What type of thug are you? Is this a joke? You hope to stop me by simply battering me?” His voice rises to a shrill, manic pitch. As this happens a wave of energy ripples off of him and sends me flying once again. I’m getting sick of this. It’s time to get out of here.

I land hard, but get to my feet as quickly as I can. I’m out of there fast. I find Santiago still slumped over down the corridor. I hustle him to his feet, slapping him about the ears to bring him to his senses.

“We have to go,” I tell him. He nods and we shuffle off as fast as we can, battered, bruised, confused. The sound of the man’s horrible laughter echoes down the corridor behind us.

On the elevator back up to the surface, Santiago asks me in no uncertain terms what the fuck is going on.

“That’s him,” I say. “The magician. The one from the legends. The first. No one else could be that strong,” and Santiago looks at me, dumbfounded.

“The story the Spider Lady told me. The first vampire, summoned the meteor. I thought I told you this already?” He shrugs. I groan. “We have to find Sophie and get out of here. That’s the short version. Something very bad is getting ready to happen here. Did you see the cocoons?” He nods. “I don’t know who they were. Powerful magicians, held in thrall is my guess. No one being could be powerful enough to warp a place of this size. But a vampire can charm as many as they want. He’s using them like batteries for this place, and for the ritual tonight that will keep the meteor in place.”

Santiago’s eyes are glazed over. I don’t know if he’s heard a single word I’ve said. It’s a long ride up.

I want to find the Spider Lady and wring her neck. I should’ve known this would happen. She wouldn’t have brought up some legend, some obscure story from before time without purpose. Sure, to explain the meteor, but I walked right into this. I feel like such a retard. I light another cigarette. When it’s done I pinch off the end and stuff it in my pocket instead of leaving it on the floor.

Santiago holds his head in his hands and slouches.

“I’ve never been hit that hard, ever,” he says with defeat in his voice. “What are we going to do, Sergei? We can’t stop something like this.”

I shake my head. “We have to do something. She wouldn’t have sent me if there was nothing I could do.”

“How can you trust the old witch so much?” Santiago demands. “Isn’t it obvious? What loyalty does she have to you? Who’s to say that she didn’t just send you here to die? What loyalty does she have to the humans either for that matter? What does she care if they go extinct and we go mad?”

And up we go.

And up we go.

And up we go.

And so, down the serpentine corridors we crept. The stone walls looked ancient, scarred by time’s insensitive passing. I can’t tell what sort of place this was before the vampire cabal set up shop here. It reminds me of something from long ago, but I can’t put my finger on what.

After a long time creeping up to and peering uneasily around corners, we come to a dead end. The hallway we’ve been traveling down terminates rather abruptly at what looks like an altar of some sort. There are candles burning and various trinkets scattered on the floor, like you would find in an old Mexican monastery. Santiago crosses himself and it’s then that I realize it is an altar like in an old Mexican monastery, complete with the portrait of Mary holding her wretched baby.

“What is this?” Santiago says. “Catholic vampires? Why would they bother putting up a picture of the virgin all the way down here? They didn’t even draw a mustache on her,” he scoffs and pulls a black magic marker from his pocket. “I can fix this,” he says and steps towards the altar. I follow and take a closer look at the trinkets spread among the candles. Tiny sugar skulls, beads, wind-up birds, coins and small things that look like toothpicks. I realize as Santiago presses his marker to the virgin’s upper lip that they’re meant to be tiny wooden stakes. A chill runs up my spine and Santiago steps back, smiling contentedly with his artwork. “Much better,” he says and puts the marker back in his pocket. The virgin now sports a very stylish fu manchu.

“Something isn’t right about this, Santi,” I say.

“What do you mean? Since when does a little good-natured blasphemy bother you?”

“That’s not it. Do you see these?” I ask, motioning to the trinkets. “Stakes. Why are there stakes here?”

Santiago shrugs. “It could be anything. They look like toothpicks to me.”

There is a sound like an industrial size fan starting up. A distant whirring hum. The hair on my neck stands up like soldiers at attention. There is a slight breeze.

“Do you hear that? Do you feel that?” I ask. Santiago looks at me and shrugs.

“Just a draft, Sergei,” he says. “But we should go, before someone finds us messing with their stuff,”

I put a finger to my lips and feel the current in the air. I drop to my knees in front of the altar and put my hands out in front of me.

“You’re doing it wrong,” Santiago says. I tell him in no uncertain terms to shut his mouth before I pull his tongue out. The current, the draft is coming from under the altar.

I fling the trinkets and candles aside, and pull up the blanket at the base of the altar to reveal a stone tile with two foot prints on it. It doesn’t match the rest of the floor. In fact, it looks brand new.

“What is this?” Santiago says incredulously. “How did you know that was there?”

I shrug and tell him it was a lucky guess.

I stand up and contemplate the foot prints and the altar. It’s not a difficult puzzle. I step forward and put my hands on the altar and line my feet up with the footprints. There is a buzz and the ground under me jerks unnaturally. And then I’m sinking.

It’s an elevator.

“I told you we should snoop around! Where do you think this goes?” I ask Santiago. He shrugs, now a good foot above me, up on the regular ground.

“Hop on, man! You can’t chicken out now.”

He rolls his eyes and jumps, causing the platform to sway and jerk. I don’t think the secret elevator is made for more than one person at a time.

And down we go.

And down we go.

And down we go.

I light a cigarette. I offer one to Santiago. He takes it and I hand him my lighter.

And down we go.

Sophie smiles at me over Solomon’s shoulder encouragingly. I take his hand confidently and spout some smooth-sounding bullshit about being eager to see what he can do.

“Ah-ha! But you already have,” he said, gap-toothed grin big as a slice of watermelon. “If you have not noticed, the sun no longer holds sway on us. This is but the first of a series that will finally bring our kind to the top of the food chain once and for all. No longer will we be confined to the shadows. No longer shall we allow these sheep, these humans to over-run the planet. They will take their place as simple livestock. It will be glorious!” he declared at last, smiling with an empty stare at nothing in particular.

I did my best to retain my composure. I wanted to demand an answer from him right then, what was the deal? What about the comet? What are you really up to, man? But none of the questions made it out. Instead I nodded dumbly and said, “Yes, glorious. Well I’m certain you have much preparation still before the night’s ceremony. We won’t keep you.”

With only a mild struggle, I convinced Santiago to follow me out of the chamber and back down the corridor that brought us here.

“This Solomon is an idiot,” I said simply. “He is not the source of this magic. There’s something else at work here, and someone isn’t letting on as much as they know. But Solomon believes what he says. You can see it in his eyes. There’s nothing there. Lights on, no one home and all that.”

“Then who?” Santiago asked.

“I’m not sure. We’re going to have to do some snooping around.”

“Snooping around?” Santiago inquired with alarm. “What are you talking about, Sergei? Did you not see the guards? This is not the kind of operation you want to snoop around. This is some medieval shit, Sergei.”

“What are they going to do if they catch us? Kill us? The sun doesn’t work anymore. They aren’t expecting to have to stake anyone. Everyone here is here because they believe in what this Solomon guy says he’s doing. They’re being made stronger, what reason do they have to stick their noses into things beyond the surface?”

“When you say it like that it sounds so simple! Why are we snooping around then? Why don’t we just sign on for the ceremony too? Humans as livestock doesn’t sound too bad, does it?”

“Santi, we’ve been over this. Madness. Extinction. The Spider Lady. Besides, we’re already well below the surface. I feel like we’re in the VIP section now. Somehow Sophie’s got connections. Or else this Solomon isn’t quite as important as they’re making him out to be. We need to snoop. There’s something else going on here, or else the old witch wouldn’t have sent us,”

“Sent you,” Santiago cut in. “She sent you. You just dragged me along.” He crossed his arms over his chest and frowned like a stubborn little boy.

“Please, Santi,” I implored. “Is it so much for me to ask that you trust me? We’re here already. Everything has gone like clockwork, even though we don’t know which end is up in this mess. This is what we’re here to do and it’s going wonderfully. But we can’t expect everything to happen on it’s own. If you really feel that strongly about it, you can wait in the car.”

Santiago rolled his eyes and uncrossed his arms. “Fine,” he spat. “But when those guards catch us and start cutting off our parts and making us watch them grow back, I don’t want to hear you complaining about it.”

After the usual hello-how-are-you-where-have-you-been-the-last-odd-decade-or-two’s are done, Sophie tells us in fuller detail about what she meant by “this of all nights.”

“Tell me you haven’t heard? Tell me you haven’t noticed, Sergei!” Sophie exclaimed. She sat atop the bar, sipping serenely from a martini glass. The scene hadn’t changed much. There we sat, drinking casually amid the corpses of men and strippers and waitresses and security. They hadn’t yet begun to stink.

“The sun!” She exclaimed, gesturing vaguely upwards. “It may as well have fallen from the sky entirely for all the good it does against us now!”

I sipped a drink of my own and shook my head. “But what about when the comet passes?”

“The what?” Sophie asked, tilting her head inquiringly. “That’s an odd sort of expression, don’t you think?”

“The…comet?” I said hesitantly, not sure what to make of this. Did she not know?

“If that’s what you call him, that’s fine. The name I have known him by is Solomon.”

Santiago looked at me from the corner of his eye. We were sitting at opposite angles of Sophie, our outline a perfect equilateral triangle. It was dawning on him, too.

“Solomon?” he chimed in helpfully. My head was spinning. I put down my drink. How could she not know?

“Yes,” Sophie went on. “Solomon. Not too unassuming, eh? But they say he is the one who controls the sun. He performed a ritual and a lot of people saw it happen, or thought they saw it happen. And now!” she said, slapping her hand on the bar. “The sun does not harm us. I do not know what to believe, but it is said that tonight he will perform another ritual, one to make us stronger, faster, better than we’ve ever been. All that is required is that you show up. Is this not what you showed up for?”

“We heard rumors. We didn’t know the details, but I had a feeling you would know something and so, here we are,” I said with a shrug.

Sophie smiled at me. She reminded me of a snake, exotically painted in red and black and white scales. “You always had wonderful timing, Sergei,” she said and winked at me as she sipped her drink. She uncrossed her legs and slid off the bar.

“We ought to get going,” she called over her shoulder. “I’m going to clean myself up.”

When she was gone, Santiago looked at me and said quietly, but with alarm: “Who the fuck is Solomon?”

I shrugged and shook my head. “I don’t know. I’ve never heard of anyone called Solomon. How could he be the one keeping us from cooking? The Spider Lady said—”

“Don’t mention her! Christo,” he cut me off. “Do not mention that horrible thing. She’s liable to show up if we do.”

“You’re crazy,” I noted. “She told me it was a comet. What reason could she have to lie?”

“Because she’s a crazy, deceitful monster, Sergei!” his whisper was becoming shriller and louder. I put a finger to my lips to quiet him. He went on, lowering his volume. “She is a conniving old witch, Sergei! She would say anything to watch us dance to her drum. It’s just as likely this is all her doing!”

“Would you shut up?” I implored him, struggling to keep my voice down. “The Spider Lady wouldn’t lie to me. She has no reason. She wants me to find some way to get rid of this comet. She didn’t say how, but maybe this is it? We’re talking about extinction, Santiago, and I’m not risking going extinct. Whoever it is I’m trying to find is crazy, and wants us all to be just as crazy as he is. You remember crazy, don’t you? Loco, comprende? I’m not signing up for that. So keep your mouth shut and let me think for a second.”

We decided to go along with it. We wanted to meet this Solomon if we could. We were certainly interested in the ceremony he planned to perform. If he had passed off the passing of the comet as his own doing, what did he plan for his next trick? Would he be able to make us stronger?

I had to put thoughts like that from my head. I reminded myself that I was plenty strong as it was. To be stronger would be excessive. For any vampire to be stronger is just unfair. And that was the problem. Too efficient a predator and the prey dies out. Extinction. Madness. It had to be stopped. Even if this Solomon was just a quack with a telescope, it was worth a look.

Sophie came back from ‘cleaning up’ dressed like something out of a classic French film. She even had one of those funny little hats.

“Are you not going to change?” she said, looking me and Santiago over quizzically. We were still drenched in blood.

We conceded and grabbed a change of clothes from the car. We changed in the men’s room.

“What do you think he’ll be like, this Solomon?” Santiago asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, dropping my blood-soaked socks into the toilet for some poor forensics expert to find. “I imagine he’ll be charming, old, older than Sophie even. He’ll probably wear a cape or a cloak. He thinks he’s the hot shit, like he’s God’s gift to vampires, especially since he carried off the whole sun thing swimmingly. If he really believes he caused the sun to stop working, he’s either a nut with good timing or he is the actual cause and the Spider Lady lied to me. We’ll kill him either way, for expediency’s sake.”

Santiago flushed the toilet and exited the bathroom without saying anything. I changed my socks and buckled my belt and went.

It’s dark now and we’re driving towards the beach. Vernon’s Point, the place is called. You have to drive all the way up to the end of a long, empty highway an hour from the coast, and then another hour all the way back down on a dirt road through woods and mud and fuckall else. I pull a sweatshirt on over my head and sink down further in the back seat. Santiago insists on driving with the top down with the hope that Sophie’s skirt might be blown up by the wind—never mind that he already saw just about everything there was to see this afternoon.

I look out into the trees as we go, over the back edge of the car. I imagine all the strange things flying past that no one ever cares enough to see. Tiny faces. Sharp teeth. Luminous eyes. Fingers that stretch and terminate in points, limbs long and spindly. I’m dreaming. Sleeping at night. Really sleeping.

It’s been a long day.

When we stop, affixed in my head is the sensation of walking through spider webs in a basement somewhere. I feel them on my face. I sit up straight and brush frantically at my cheeks and brow. Nothing. I look around.

We’re at the end of a dirt road so narrow it’s barely there. The growth is barely thin enough to walk through. I guess that’s the direction we came from. In front of us is the horizon, which I realize is actually a cliff, and then the ocean. There are many people here. Vampires and their thrall. There are body guards and men in thrones with strange facial tattoos and black suits. They drink from golden goblets and there are girls in feathers and not much else serving them and caressing them and I’m beginning to realize I’m out of my depth for the first time in what feels like centuries.

Santiago nudges me. “What the hell, man?” he whispers. “This isn’t what I thought it would be like at all.” I nod and motion for him to keep quiet.

Sophie leads us on through the crowd unperturbed, like she’s used to this crowd. I swear I even see one of the men in the thrones nod to her.

Eventually we come upon a small thatched structure. Outside are two very large, very intimidating guards dressed like medieval riot police, with axes, shoulder-mounted flashlights and assault rifles strapped to their backs. They step aside when Sophie approaches and don’t even give Santiago or myself a second look. We are quite out of our depth.

We open the door, and inside is completely different from the outside.

When I pass through the door, my knees go wobbly and my stomach somersaults and twists all around. My head feels like it was shot out of a cannon and my vision swims and blurs most disconcertingly. This is a common effect of very powerful spacial-manipulation magic.

What I mean by this is, the inside of this thatched hut on the top of a cliff by the sea was much, much, much larger than the inside. Passing into this sort of dimensional fold is somewhat stressful on things like matter. It had been some time since I had experienced anything of this sort. Whoever was responsible has a lot of power and a lot of talent at their disposal. This makes me uneasy.

The inside is decked out like a bizarre cross between a medieval castle and some military-industrial hell complex. The corridors and floors are stone but the doors slide away into the walls as we pass with a satisfying hum and a hydraulic puff.

“Solomon?” Sophie calls finally as we round a bend. “Solomon, I’ve brought someone here to meet you,” she says, smiling at me over her shoulder. “I’m sure you’ll love them. They’ve come to see you work your magic.”

Through a final door, we come to a chamber made up like any sort of office you would see in your sad, boring day-to-day existence. Desk. Chair. Stack of papers. Paper weight. Stapler. Computer. Pens. Fax. Scanner. Copier. You name it. This is not how I expected the domain of this Solomon character to look. Much less did I expect that Sophie of all people would lead us right to him, past armed guards and through spacial manipulations. I was impressed.

Solomon did not look at all how I expected him. He was tall and dark, but he did not look old. He was in fact the very image of youth. He could not have been turned any older than twenty. He was tall with black hair tied back in a ponytail. He was broad as a ship’s bow, with hands like ham-hocks and a neck like a tree stump. When he smiled, dusky good looks gave way to an honest oafish smile with a quarter-inch wide gap between the front teeth.

“Ah, Sophie!” he declared. “And guests. Welcome!” he stood and embraced Sophie and kissed her below her ear, then moved and shook mine and Santiago’s hands.

“Friends of Sophie’s are friends of mine,” he said encouragingly, smiling as he shook my hand with both of his. “It is a sincere pleasure to meet you. My name is Solomon. And you are?”

The pause, the words, the look are imperceptible to everyone in the place but me, it seems, and the hollering only gets louder as the dance continues.

Finally stripped bare, Sophie stands and twirls herself around a metal pole jutting out of the stage. She moves like a feather, or like water, fluid, weightless. Sublime. And then, she’s grinning down the bar at me and she’s asking for a volunteer. The previously unseen emcee, a short man in an untucked button-up shirt and tie, hands her a mic and she says over the techno-garbage excuse for music: “I need a volunteer from the audience,” and her black-painted lips turn themselves up at the corners, pointed like a flick-knife.

“I need a volunteer from the audience who would like an experience that they will remember for the rest of their lives.”

She says it breathily, heavily, enticingly. She says it the way that makes you excited, and the way that lets you know she’s the one that will be calling the shots. The roar of the attendees reaches a feverish pitch. Sophie winks at me and walks once more to the end of the stage and on to the bar. Every man at the bar is clamoring for her attention, some of them even going so far as to stand up and wave their arms. She passes them all, one by one, looking them up and down, running her fingers through their hair as she passes, discarding them like spent napkins. A perverse game of duck-duck-goose. Then she comes to me, and it seems like I’m the goose. An image of a fried duck in a big black pot flashes through my mind. Her black-painted lips part to show a hint of pointed pearl, and a flash of pink tongue running over them like a slug sliding down a razor.

She picks the man sitting next to me.

She pulls him up, just a regular guy. Dark hair, collared shirt, khaki slacks. He’s had a few and his face is bright red. He can’t believe his luck. I know what’s happening now. I know this song and dance, and when I look over at Santiago, it’s clear he’s got a pretty good idea, too.

Sophie speaks again into the microphone:

“Tell me your name,” she asks the man. He answers: “David.”

“David, how do you feel, being here, seeing me at Rodrick’s for the last time ever?”

He stammers: “I uh uh uh I feel honored uh I guess?” like he’s asking permission.

Sophie smiles and puts her hand on his chest and guides him like a tugboat towards the metallic pole. “Very good, David. I’m glad you feel honored,” she says breathily, moving him slowly and gently, like one moving an antique chandelier. Once his back is to the pole, she slinks around him, never breaking contact, never taking her hand off of him. She pulls his hands behind his back, and he doesn’t protest even a little, just turns a darker shade of red.

“Now David, I’m going to ask you a personal question. And I want you to be honest with me. We’re all friends here, right? This won’t ever leave this room. Will you be honest?”

She puts the microphone up to his face, reaching around from behind him, pressing ever so slightly against his back, soft pink nipples on soft cotton fabric. I’m sure he can feel her. Darker and darker red.

He stammers that yes, he’ll be honest.

“David, do you like it rough?” she asks like a mousetrap flying shut. He falls to his knees then and cries out.

There’s blood pouring out of his neck, but the crowd never saw Sophie take the bite out of him. They’re too busy laughing to see Sophie spit out a piece of neck flesh. They haven’t seen the blood dripping down her chin and onto her naked chest.

The sound of grown men screaming in abject terror is one that is wholly unique. It never sounds the same twice, but it is always unmistakable and it will always bring a smile to my face.

Like lightning, quick, I leap to my feet. The sight of blood, the hiss of severed arteries, it dries my throat intolerably. The thirst. Hunger so abject, so hollowing, so complete, it nearly overwhelms me. It’s all I can do to rip out the neck of the man standing closest to me. The cascade of red flows through a dying gargle, a gasp of terror drowning quickly. The spray hits my face and I lick my lips and sink my teeth into the soft wet esophageal hole and drink. And drink. And drink.

I move onto the next one in short order. A distant corner of my cognizance registers the image of Sophie tossing aside her victim, the man David. Her lily-white skin has turned entirely ruby red. Only her black-painted lips, still smiling sinisterly, give any impression that she was ever any other color. She is beautiful in only the way a woman partaking in wholesale slaughter can ever be. And then she’s gone into the crowd, sending men flying in all directions, their windpipes dangling down their chests from torn necks. I follow suit, wading in like a buzz saw through a butcher shop.

Time passes as in a dream. Days go by as the showers of red turn into a pool at our feet. No one makes it out, though not for lack of trying. One courageous patron attempts to defend himself with a chair, only to have it placed firmly into his middle, impaling him on three of the four legs. I lift him up and open my mouth as blood pours out of him. I drink until my stomach hurts and all the screaming has stopped.

Sound and time and my senses shift back to working normally as the sound of a familiar belly laugh breaks into the silence like a burglar. It’s Santiago, covered in blood, the girls he had on his arms before now strewn about the floor, mangled, drained. He’s laughing.

“My god, Sergei,” he exclaims, motioning to the carnage around us. “I didn’t know you had such wonderful friends.”

He smiles a wide wolf-smile at Sophie, who is still naked and covered in blood. She smiles back, then turns to me and leaps clean across the room and into my arms. She kisses me, and I taste the blood of many on her lips.

“Sergei! I cannot believe it!” she says. “Where have you been all these years? It has been too long! And now, you show up here on this night of all nights! It is truly an auspicious sign.”

I want to ask what she’s talking about, but I’m distracted by the naked skin in my arms and the blood on my lips. Instead I say, “Sophie, this is my friend Santiago. Santiago—Sophie.”

They smile and nod approvingly of one another and Sophie daintily extends her blood-stained hand. They shake and Santiago says, “How do you do?” and, like a real asshole, bends and kisses her hand.

“Yes,” she says, looking down her arm at him. “You’re one of Sergei’s friends all right.”