Lastor’s face erupted in the glow of the flame held to the end of the cigarette. He inhaled, and the light vanished as the match was extinguished by the bloodstained dirt of the alley. Only the ember of the cigarette cast a light, smoldering in the darkness like a dying star.
He’d lost count of the hours he had sat, his back in the corner of an alleyway stained with blood and reeking of death. Even the air was still, as still as death, as silent as death, death death death. It was as if the place itself had died. The inky blackness was not penetrated by any of the ambient glow that lit the community. That suited Lastor just fine.
He could feel Audrey nearby, and it was maddening. He kept reminding himself the messenger knew what he was talking about. It was a good plan. He had been right so far, hadn’t he?
But that was the other thing that was bothering him – it had been too easy. Wait until the messenger returned, take Audrey out, sneak back above, and he would have Audrey back, happily ever after?
“Nobody is happy ever after,” Lastor muttered to himself as he extinguished the only light in the alley beneath his foot.
Everybody lies. Who stood to gain the most by lying to him? The messenger stood to gain a wife, the reward for Lastor, as well as having Lastor out of the way, and the elimination of his brother in a rise to power.
And Audrey…
Lastor was still locked in fierce combat over his feelings for his wife. She had betrayed him and cast aside their years together for manipulative con artists without a second thought. Lastor could still see the hate in her eyes from the night she left. But saving her was… well it was a given. Lastor could not bear to leave her to this fate. But once they were out of danger, assuming the messenger was as he seemed, what then? Would she leave him again the next time she heard answers he could not give?
Someone was coming.
Lastor pushed himself into a crouching position. It sounded like several people, but as the source rounded the nearest corner, Lastor made out only two shapes in the gloom. One was fighting and thrashing, giving off muffled screams through a gag. The other was significantly taller, with great hulking shoulders and a bald head.
Lastor remembered what the messenger had said about vampires who used this alley to practice for the entertainment. Sure enough, the vampire stopped in the alley and bashed the captive’s head against the wall, knocking them to the ground. The hulking vampire grunted in apparent satisfaction and unslung a satchel from around his shoulders. Pulling it open, a match sparked and lit a black candle, throwing relief on the whole scene.
The vampire was large and muscular, with a goatee and heavily lidded eyes. He was clad in vinyl pants and a tight-fitting top. His face had a malevolent leer as he reached back into his bag and pulled a long thin ice pick from its depths. He ran his tongue down the length of it, savoring the taste of the dried blood there.
Lastor could not see the victim; a crate was blocking his view. Taking care to stay out of the yellow glow of the candle, he edged around the crate until he saw a girl, no more than twenty. Her pantyhose were wadded up in her mouth, secured by a length of cord, her eyes rolled back in her head. Blood trickled from the corners of her mouth, her nostrils, and down her neck from a wound on her head. She moaned and looked around dazedly.
The vampire turned to face her. Her eyes focused with difficulty on the ice pick in his hands and they widened in terror. Her legs began working, desperately attempting to push her into a less submissive position. The vampire let her get halfway up before knocking her feet out from under her with a wild laugh and stabbed the ice pick into her head. The hooker screamed in her throat beneath the gag as the ice pick forced its way through six of the seven millimeters of the frontal plate of her skull. The vampire halted the ice pick’s journey through her head just short of puncturing her brain, sparing it by barely a millimeter. Lastor felt a twinge in his forehead and shuddered.
The vampire shoved her down roughly onto her side and straddled her, pinning her arms to her. Shoving her head into the dirt, he took the ice pick and began slowly and delicately inserting it into the hooker’s ear. She sobbed, breathing raggedly through the gag, and redoubled her efforts to escape, but the vampire’s grip was like iron and held her steady as the pick continued its inexorable penetration of her ear canal. Lastor could hear crying now, sobbing through the gag as the blood began to flow in earnest from her ear. Here the vampire finally encountered some resistance. He left the pick there, balanced on her eardrum under its own weight, pushing gently on it with one finger and releasing the pressure, bouncing it on the eardrum. The hooker screamed, a desperate guttural sound of horrified anticipation.
“Nhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
The vampire seemed dissatisfied and cast about for a suitable rock. He came up with a hefty chunk, at least a pound. Grinning, he held it over the ice pick and dropped it.
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