12/17/09

Vampires = Death (told you i didn't have word)

My life was a grotesque version ‘Dirty Jobs’. But I highly doubted the Mike Rowe(?) could handle what I did. Sure my job was more or less likely the most ‘dirty’ job you could find, but it has its purpose. Yet it wasn’t gross in a way that made you barf like those filthy warehouse on the show, it was grotesque in a way that could explode your mind and tear apart your soul.

I found myself anxious for the kill, but I’d still cringe at the time of the actual killing. The Boss said that that was what made me perfect for the job. I had never lost my self in the primitive feeling of the hunt, but I never killed myself with my own guilt. My soul had gotten used to my continuous contradictions, tearing itself up inside so much that there was only one thing that ever kept me together.

Besides that one thing I had nothing, knew nothing. The only hope I had was what the Boss deigned to give me. He would give me tidbits of vague information that slowly lead me to my ultimate mission. I was completely aware that the Boss was using me for his own mission, but he had given me the only job that could help regain my sanity and I was grateful for it.

I had lost everything, but then the Boss gave me a small shimmer of hope called ‘revenge’.

***

The picture I carried in my hand was  more like a wanted poster. The picture was dated in the Renaissance, and was drawn in a sketch like manner that made the woman drawn look even more elegant than she could have possibly been. The girls hair fell in long curls past her shoulders that looked like a veil and was shaded in, suggesting that it was dark compared to her skin. She looked like a young woman entering adult-hood, yet she gave off an aura of maturity. Underneath the drawing, in elegant script, was the name ‘Charlotte’.

The name seemed to fit her time frame and her picture was as elegant as a princess from that time. Yet my experience with vampires had taught me not to count on the pictures the Boss gave me. Vamps often changed their appearance over time, changing to fit new trends, tanning so that they can go unnoticed. The picture was probably only half correct, at most. But unfortunately that was only my guess, I could be completely wrong.`

I had been given this vamp to ‘assassin’ by the Boss a few weeks ago and had been tracking her from random blurbs of information on the net. All my sources led me to a small pub called ‘Werewolf Pub’. The name struck  me as slightly ironic, but as far as I was concerned werewolves didn’t exist.

The pub was barely lit and gave off a feeling of anxiety and tension. The club’s name was painted above the door with the same elegant script as that was on the poster. The windows were completely covered in dust and the lit ‘open’ sign could barely be seen through the window.

After a few deep breaths, I opened the door and stepped in, a small bell going off over my head signaling my presence. The bartender looked up at me curiously, as if not used to customers. The rest of the pub was dark and dusty, light music playing softly in the background. Two people were playing pool in the corner, not bothering to look up and notice me. One was sitting down holding their stick and watching the other make their move. The two players seemed to be in their late twenties, one boy, one girl. Once the girl had made her shot, so perfectly played that I was more impressed than I had thought, the guy got up roughly saying something about a bad bet under his breath.

I turned my attention back to the bartender, who had busied herself with wiping the layers of dust off the counter. The bartender was a slender young women who looked to still be in college, was very attractive in a prospective manner, but I couldn’t settle my eyes on her for no woman ever really caught my attention anymore.

“Excuse me,” I said, causing everyone in the small bar to look up. The bartender looked up at me with a raised eye-brow.

“How may I help ya?” the bartender asked in a pure southern accent. The girls hair dropped  to her ears in small red waves, accentuating her forest green eyes.

“Well, I’m looking for Charlotte. I got wind that I might find her here,” I said, rushing over the vamps name. Names added character, and that only made it harder to kill.

“Char’s like the wind, she comes and goes whenever she pleases. We’re never sure when she’ll show up,” the guy at the pool table said from behind me. I turned towards his Jersey accent with interest. I had hoped that finding her would have been easy, but that hope fell with the people standing around me.

“Chad’s right. We work for her and barely ever see her. But what’s it to you?” the girl who had been playing pool said, coming over to sit down at the bar, her pool stick held lightly in her hand.

“I knew her once upon a time, I was just looking up an old friend,” I said, trying to be as vague as possible without raising suspicions.

“Well she’s not the kind of person to stay in one place for long. Her family’s owned this place forever, they got enough money to keep it going for a hundred more years. Her family’s rich as hell, even if no one stops by anymore,” Chad said, making his shoot, the balls clicking against each other as they moved around unsuccessfully.

“Well thanks for the help. I’d buy a drink, but I gotta go check-in to my hotel,” I said slowly backing out of the pub. The others didn’t bother to say anything else and continued on with what I assumed was their normal day.

As I left the shop I was filled with a sense of doubled irony. As far as I knew vampires liked cliché book plots and followed them in an almost religious like manner. So considering all of this, I knew I’d meet my vamp soon. As I turned down the dark alley that lead to my hotel, or even in my hotel room. It would all be planned out and we’d exchange petty words then fight. It was almost a tradition, something that all vamps and vampire hunters understood and followed.

So I turned the corner totally suspecting to see a girl similar-ish to the picture to appear from the darkness. But that was only half the case. The girl who I saw was only similar to my vamp in shape of face. The girl had straight light brown hair that layered over her shoulders in a fashionable trend. Her skin was pale to a point, but it was obviously tanned by some product or fake sun. A stripe of light blue lined the right side of her face and her eyes shined amber with the help of contacts. The girl was leaning against the stoned wall as if she had been waiting for me to turn the corner. She wore torn blue jeans and a worn shirt that stated some band name that had been worn away from continuous washing.

The sky was darkening and the moon rising, shadows cast all around us. It was perfect weather for vampires to walk around, not to dark to be odd, but not bright enough to burn skin. The tall walls added an odd peace and abandon-ness, that gave us some sort of privacy. It was the perfect environment for a vampire death, and I was prepared for it.

“So your Nathaniel, huh?” the girl said, looking up to me in a complex way. She seemed to have that look that knew everything about you in one glance. Those all knowing people who were too smart for their own good and suffered their whole life for it. Then knowledge of my name barely shocked me, I had my sources and the vamp did too.

“I’d prefer to be called Nate. I assume your Charlotte,” I said, even though I didn’t want to drag along any type of conversation. I wanted to finish this.

“That’s true. But I guess we really don’t need to go through all the formalities. But I think you might want to think about me for a second before you try to fight,” she said, her voice distinctly touched by almost every accent I could think of. It all seemed familiar, and though it wasn’t like me to take advice from vampires, I stopped and thought about what she said. The more I thought of her, the more I felt the vague familiarity of her presence.

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