1. Scotty #2
The heavy plodding of footsteps tells me they’re heading out, and the door swings open, then shut again.
I give it a few more minutes before I hop off the toilet and unlock my stall.
Part of me expects to find a soldier standing outside, a crossbow aimed at my chest, but it seems Lady Luck isn’t quite done with my sorry ass yet.
All I find in front of the sinks is ash. Tons of it.
Oh, you poor fuckers.
A pang of guilt echoes in my chest. Maybe I could’ve saved one or two vamps if I had opened the door.
Nah, probably not. I’m way too much of a fuck up to play hero.
I step carefully over the piles of ashes, head for the door, and look left, then right, to make sure I’m not about to walk straight into a trap.
I head out the back entrance of the nest as fast as my feet can carry me and end up in the club’s alleyway, right beside the dumpster.
This is one of those moments when I wish I couldn’t smell anything anymore.
Once you’re turned, all your senses are heightened.
Vamps can smell blood from miles away, like sharks.
Being in a big city full of garbage takes some of the luster from that, though.
A few rats scurry past like they’re late to an appointment, and I recoil in disgust as one runs over my Converses. Ugh. It doesn’t matter how long I’ve lived in the city. I will never get used to the rats.
I let out a serrated moan of disgust and bite down on my fist, too drunk and yet not drunk enough for any of this.
“Hey, did you hear something?” I hear a man’s voice ask from down the alley.
My entire body stiffens. The Helsings are out here. And I probably gave away my position because of that stupid rat.
“Go check it out,” a woman says.
I crouch behind the dumpster and, just like that, I’m hiding from the Helsings again. Only this time … this time, they’re definitely going to find me here. There’s no other place for me to hide. I’m exposed. The footsteps grow louder as they draw nearer. I swallow thickly.
I don’t even notice the scratching sound behind me until it’s too late. A hushed feminine voice calls out to me. “Rapediment!”
I blink, run a sweaty palm down my gaunt face, and look around. Did someone just hiss French at me?
“Rapediment!” the voice whisper-yells again. When I look to my left, I finally notice the sewer grate under the street curb. A pair of blood-red eyes blinks at me.
“Est-ce que tu comprends?” the voice asks.
I shake my head. “No. No, I don’t comprends. The fuck is—”
But I’m running out of time. If I had a pulse, it’d be slamming against my ribcage right now. Instead of waiting for the Helsings to put a stake through my unbeating heart, I decide to chance it with Pennywise over here.
I scurry from my hiding spot and slide with all the finesse of a drunk punk, which is to say none at all, right into the gap. I expect to collide with my mystery savior but find myself falling several feet until I land in the cold water below.
Literal shit water. And now I’m covered in it. Lovely.
The footsteps above us plod right past the sewer grate, and I can hear the officer's muffled voices as I pull myself out of the water and onto the narrow concrete walkway. Made it just in time so they didn’t see me fall down here. Score.
I run my fingers through my piss-soaked hair and shudder. “Oh, that’s disgusting,” I mutter. “Thanks for that, though. Big help, love.”
I turn to shake the hand of the one who saved me, but recoil in horror when I come face to face with the most hideous monster I’ve ever seen. The skeletal creature before me is sallow-skinned and bald, with pointed ears and sharp teeth that mirror my own. She’s a vampire, yeah, but … also not.
This chick is also wearing some strange dress that looks lifted from a Ren fair, with tattered skirts that drag limply on the ground.
Her dress’s neckline, which I don’t dare allow myself to look directly at, is perilously low, and her dark gray chest is so concave, it looks like it’s been smashed in with a mace.
Her ribs are clearly visible even underneath the fabric. Fuck me, it’s a disturbing sight.
“’Ecky thump!” I cry. “The hell are you, lass?”
The woman blinks her red eyes. She must notice my obvious revulsion, because her face falls before she mutters something in what I think is French.
I rub the back of my neck and say, “Uh. Righ’ then.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “évidemment.”
Shrugging, I say, “Yeah. Sure.” I look anywhere but at her. Too ugly, even for a vamp.
The woman, if you can even call her that, clears her throat and wipes her hands on her scraps of dress. “I only speak English and French,” she explains.
I stand a bit straighter and force myself to smile at her. “Oh! ’Ow do, then? Didn’t know you spoke English. That makes things easier.”
She scowls at me. “That is what you call English? I thought you were speaking in tongues,” she says, then sniffs the air. Oof. Snooty little lass, I see. Livin’ right up to the French reputation for being little dandelions of kindness. “Your accent is loud and incomprehensible.”
Rubbing the back of my neck, I mutter, “Yeah, Yorkshire. Sorry, love. Not all of us sound like feckin’ Hugh Grant.”
She bares her fangs at me, and I wince. “Non. Je suis Juliette, not ‘love.’ Remember it. And I do not know what a ‘Hugh Grant’ is.”
Blinking, I take a step backward. Juliette?
That’s a surprisingly beautiful name for such an ugly woman, but okay.
Maybe she was hotter in life? Who knows?
It could go either way with us. But I’ve never encountered a vampire who looked anything like this.
Or one who willingly hung out in the sewers.
“Okay,” I say, shoving my hands into my jeans pockets. “Juliette, then. That’s a pretty name. Are you, uh … French?”
I cringe again at how stupid the question sounds the moment it leaves my lips. Is she French? Dude. She’s speaking French, you idiot.
Juliette, to her credit, is either too gracious to call me out on my dumbassery, or she didn’t understand me thanks to my accent.
Or maybe she’s ignoring me entirely, because she simply waves me along and begins to walk down the long strip of concrete lining the sewer.
I flatten my back against the wall as I follow her inch by agonizing inch, too afraid I’ll fall into the shit soup again.
“I’m Scotty, by the way. Scott Lovelace. But everyone calls me Scotty. Do you have a last name? Do you mind telling me what it is?”
Juliette lets out a long, somber sigh. Great. I’ve annoyed her again already.
“Lefebvre, if you must know,” she murmurs. “Do you always talk so much, Scotty?”
The way she says my name sounds kind of nice. She has a pretty voice, even if it doesn’t match the rest of her. “Yeah, kinda. Especially when I’m reyt nervous. So, Juliette. Where are we going?” I ask as I creep along the corridor like a crab.
Juliette looks over her shoulder and raises an eyebrow at me, like she’s only just noticed what I’m doing. “Home,” she says.
I stare at her for a few moments, expecting her to say more, but she doesn’t.
Maybe her English isn’t up to snuff. Or maybe she just wants me to shut up.
But I don’t want to be stuck in some vampire lass’s sewer hovel.
I want to be back on the surface where I belong, but without the crossbow wielding lunatics hunting me.
I can’t believe I’m about to reject a girl trying to take me home with her, but…
“No offense, Juliette. But, uh, I don’t think I want to go home with you. I want to go topside and get the hell out of town, you know?” I say as we turn another corner in this sewer maze. There’s no way I’ll remember how to get out of here on my own, so I need her on my good side.
Juliette looks over her shoulder again and rolls her eyes. “Non,” she says. “You come with me.”
I shake my head. “No, I want to go home. Up there.” I point to the ceiling, hoping she’ll get my point. But Juliette just stares hard at me, then stalks forward, ignoring me again. This is getting on my nerves.
“How long have you been living down here, anyway?” I ask as I continue to follow her.
By now, I’ve given up on doing the crab walk and try my best to not stray too close to the edges.
At least the alcohol is mostly out of my system, but I’m a little lightheaded and definitely in need of some nosh.
“Your clothing looks ancient, so probably a while, yeah? But you speak French? You know this is an English-speaking island, right? Why be here and not, like, back in France?”
Mystella is a moderately-size island the size of Sardinia but with a wildly different climate.
For one thing, magic rules here, and that includes the weather.
While you might get an island as cold and rainy as tits like the UK, where I’m originally from, you might find one more temperate in nature.
Why couldn’t I have been born in the Bahamas?
Seriously, what rotten feckin’ luck, right?
But Mystella doesn’t operate like that. It’s…
an anomaly. Like it’s existing outside the natural laws or something.
In the span of twenty-five kilometers, you can find mountains, tropical beaches, swamps, deserts…
everything here. And up until recently, the humans who have always lived here had no idea that their home was so weird.
Most didn’t even realize there were monsters living among them, either.
That’s been changing. Slowly. And I’m not even sure we’re moving in the right direction, but things are definitely changing.
Juliette stops so abruptly I collide with her back and let out a small “oomph.” Then she whirls around and glares at me.
Her ruby red eyes are so dark, so vicious, I actually lose the ability to speak for a few moments.
They sharpen on me like a pair of twin daggers, and she points a bony finger—which is more like a claw, honestly—an inch from my chest.