The first difference between working with Saint and working with Persephone, was that Persephone actually seemed motivated to get things done. With CargoLink and the Soldados, it felt like half the time they were just sitting around and only decided to get up and work when they felt like it. On the contrary, Persephone acted like every second counted. Arthur liked the change of pace.
They’d left the skyscraper and were now out for a walk in the middle of the night. It was a relief to Arthur, going from being chained in a hospital basement to strolling around the city, mostly unhindered. He didn’t know how far he’d get if he tried to run from Persephone, especially having seen her move so fast so long ago. But, at this point he didn’t really want to. Mostly, he felt scared. And hungry. It made sense now why vampires did their best to stay hidden. Being outnumbered one hundred to one on a regular basis was a frightening concept. It seemed so strange casually strolling among the human populace. Persephone had given him a coat to cover up his chest wound, but he still felt exposed. And every so often he would glance to this or that person, convinced they had been staring at him. Even though he knew full well there was no good way to actually discern he was anything other than another, normal human.
“Concerned about what they think?”
Arthur shrugged, motioning to his dirty, bloody, torn clothes. “A bit.”
“That’s fair. But, remember that from this point forward you’re not one of them. Some humans have influence, some money, some power. Some have all three. But the weakest vampire is still stronger than the strongest human. Even if someone surrounds themselves with locks and guns and bodyguards, even a fledgling like you can still get to them.”
“It sounds like you look down on…them.” Arthur’s voice had a hint of resentment. He wasn’t a human anymore, but he was just a few nights ago.
“Not necessarily,” she replied. “It’s just that we’re different. I wouldn’t go as far as saying we’re in completely different weight classes. But look at yourself and tell me you can’t do something extraordinary right now.”
Arthur grumbled, “Right now all I’m feeling is extraordinarily hungry.”
She smiled, “Perfect. Time for the first lesson then.” Persephone took his arm and turned him down an alleyway onto a new street. It was a little less crowded, a little less interesting, and a lot darker on this street than the last. But there were still people out and about.
“Something you’ll have to get used to very quickly is how to feed. Everyone is different, so you’ll have to find your limits. But if you drink to full, you can typically function at full form for about a week. Assuming you don’t exert yourself or use Potential. If you sleep, you can survive even longer. Some vampires have slept for hundreds of years at a time.”
“You know,” Arthur said, “You’re a lot nicer than you were to me before.”
Arthur grinned when she actually laughed. It was the first time he’d seen her laugh. “Well when we’re on business, it’s business. Right now this is just me helping you out. Plus, and don’t take this to mean anything more than it is; your blood is my blood now. It’s pretty rare I turn anyone. They have to have the right stuff.”
“I still don’t understand that,” Arthur said having to shuffle out of the way of a passerby. “Saint told me that when someone gets turned, they basically become the slave of whoever turned them. According to him, lots of new vampires are basically just manual labor.”
Persephone shook her head. “It’s all social. A lot of Ancients still think like that. I’m guessing Santiago got that from Bartolome. But, he comes from older times, older societies with different values. Nowadays lots of us believe differently. You were dying, and I took the opportunity to give you another chance. I wasn’t thinking about how you might serve me. I’m not going to force you to do anything, but like you’ve heard already, if you try to screw with me or the Baron it’ll end badly for you. And I know you’re probably sick of having to pick sides now, but just trust me when I say that we’re the right side to be on. The Baron does his best to keep our little corner of the world a livable place for our kind.”
“Hey, by the way, how exactly did it happen? Like did you bite my corpse or something?”
“No. I fed you my blood.”
Arthur made a face. “You made me drink your blood?”
“Hard thing to do when the person receiving the blood is dead.”
“Wait, you were being literal about my blood being your blood then. So biting someone doesn’t actually turn them?”
“Nope.” Persephone said.
“What does it do?”
“I’m about to show you,” she said, yanking Arthur’s arm again. She led him down another alley, this time to a back lit door behind some kind of red brick building. Arthur could hear the thrum of electronic music inside. Another nightclub. He wasn’t surprised at this point. Persephone rapped her knuckles against the door four times. A small hatch slid open and a pair of eyes peered through. Persephone just smiled, then a moment later the hatch closed and the door opened. The music was painfully loud to Arthur as it poured through the door, wincing as he heard it. It was like a sharp, piercing sound that his ears took a second to adjust. He realized suddenly his hearing was much clearer, and it almost made him dizzy. But worse than that, the smells were overwhelming. He could smell everything. The stench of sweat and body odor, whiffs of perfume, deodorant, saliva, and some other smells he didn’t want to identify. As Arthur cringed at the painful overwhelming of his senses, Persephone looked down to him.
“Oh. Forgot it takes a bit to get used to everything. All your senses are heightened. You can probably already tell you can hear, see, and smell better. You’ll learn how to focus and drown things out.”
The doorman inside was looking at the both of them, “Damn, didn’t know you were into making kids, Claire,” he said motioning to Arthur. It took Arthur a moment to realize the bouncer didn’t mean literally, which meant he was probably a vampire too. Arthur was starting to realize what Saint meant a long time ago about how there were plenty of ways to tell if someone was human or not without standing up and shouting the word.
“I’m here to show him the ropes.”
“Ah, shit, gonna be a wild night for you bro. Go on in,” the doorman said. Persephone took Arthur’s arm again and pulled him once more into the breach, this time into the loud, throbbing rhythm of the club. Arthur had to plug his ears with his fingers as they entered, and had to squint to make out anything. It was like he was being beaten over the head with a club by the variety of sounds, colors and smells. Fortunately Persephone did most of the guiding, and pulled them into a hallway of the club that led into a bathroom. As the door closed behind them the throb of music dulled, and the visual catastrophe ceased, but the smells in here were amplified to a sickening degree. Arthur felt like vomiting. From reflex, he gagged, but he felt nothing in his throat or stomach move at all, realizing his stomach was no longer functioning how it should. He wondered if he could even puke anymore.
Persephone stalked past the stalls. Her tall, suave figure in her usual professional business attire made her look completely out of place in the graffiti painted bathroom of this club. She stopped at the third stall, where Arthur could hear noises inside. Persephone suddenly pushed open the door, and inside were two men who were apparently getting ready to do a line of coke off the seat of the toilet. Persephone’s face displayed all the disgust Arthur felt seeing that.
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“Hey! What the fuck!” One of the guys yelped, before turning and having to look up at Persephone. “Woah.”
“Hello boys. I see you’ve got some refined tastes. Can I join?”
“Uh, heh. Wait, what?. You want in? For real?” the slimy grin across their faces made Arthur roll his eyes. Normally he might try to stick up for a woman who was more than likely about to be taken advantage of, but in this case he felt bad for either guy if they tried anything with Persephone.
She looked at Arthur, “Just do what feels natural, ok?”
Arthur’s eyebrows raised at whatever that might imply, but before he could ask any questions she leapt into action. With one arm she threw one of the men against the back wall, and with the other armor she grabbed the first mans hair and yanked hard, his neck stretching out for Persephone. In one swift motion, she opened her mouth, exposed her fangs, and drove them deep into the mans neck. Immediately he slumped and groaned. The other man was starting to recover and see what was going on.
Arthur never really considered himself a visual learner, but this was the equivalent of watching someone use a straw for the first time. It seemed so normal, so easy, and he really wanted to try it. A base compulsion drove him forward as he shoved the second man again against the wall, this time with a loud crack. Little too hard, he thought, but as the man slumped again Arthur pulled his head back and drove his own fangs into another human being for the first time. Everything happened without him having to think about it. His fangs practically siphoned the blood from the man, and he didn’t even have to swallow. As far as he could tell his fangs really were like straws, absorbing the poor mans blood into his own body easily.
It wasn’t tasty, or delicious, or refreshing. It was more than that. His body reacted in the same way that his previously alive body might’ve reacted from drinking water after wandering in a desert for a month. It was life saving, necessary, and addicting all at once. Arthur drank, and drank, and drank as the man continuously slumped underneath him, moaning. He had never tasted anything like this before. At the same time, Arthur felt himself reinvigorate like when he’d drank the bottled blood before. But the bottled blood now seemed stale, and weak. This man’s fresh blood was like an elixir of life. His muscles felt relaxed, the aches went away, the hunger in his gut was sating. He felt strong. Sharp. The overwhelming smells of the bathroom and the thrumming bass pounding through the walls of the building were manageable now. All that mattered-
“Arthur!” Persephone barked, yanking Arthur off the man. Arthur fell backwards on the floor as a spray of blood hissed from the mans neck. Persephone jumped down quickly, getting close to his neck, and a few seconds later the wound was closed. The man looked deathly pale. Thin, even.
“Holy shit, I wasn’t trying to kill him!”
“You didn’t. Get up,” she said, “Time to go. Normally these would just be two drunk assholes passed out on the toilet but now it’s two drunk assholes and a shit ton of blood. Gonna have to apologize to the owner later.”
Arthur stood, a mixed feeling of terrible regret, but also being completely refreshed and reinvigorated. Persephone led him back out the way they came. As the music of the club grew louder again and the smells of dancing flesh pressing against each other assaulted Arthur again, this time he didn’t feel overwhelmed. His senses seemed to be stabilizing, being able to drown out the unnecessary and hyper focus on whatever he wanted to centralize. He felt good. He wanted to join in the dancing. Participate. Become one with the throng. Doing it all knowing that he was seeing differently, hearing different, smelling differently than all these people. It gave him a drunken sense of power. He wanted to walk among the sheep like a wolf in their clothing, and take whomever, however he wanted.
“Wait,” he said to Persephone, stopping her. “Let’s stay. Have some fun.”
Persephone stopped, an eyebrow raised at Arthur. Then she laughed, “See? Now you get it. There’s no feeling like it.” She stepped close to Arthur. A little too close, her face just a few inches from his. He realized in this moment that he thought she was beautiful. Until, she took his jaw in her fingers, with a smug smile, reminding him of their relationship. “But don’t get carried away.” She dropped his face, laughing. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good feeling. I’m feeling it right now too. Helps that those two already did a line or two when we got there. Now it’s in our veins.” She stopped smiling. “But you just made a big fuckin mess, and as soon as a mortal finds that, there’s going to be a problem. We don’t want to be here when that happens, got it?”
Arthur nodded, and followed Persephone as she turned and they left the club. He glanced longingly one more time back inside, wishing he hadn’t screwed it up so that they could’ve stayed. As they left the same way they came in, Persephone whispered something to the door guard who made a face at Arthur, turning and heading for the bathroom. The door shut behind them and they found themselves back outside in the night air. Arthur took a deep breath, once again realizing that he didn’t need to breathe, but still could if he wanted. The scents of the city at night poured through his nostrils with the breath. There were some sweet, some disgusting, but it was like he had just woken up for the first time. He had never experienced anything like this before. He realized he had been breathing in and out for a some time now, because Persephone was standing nearby, a lit cigarette in her mouth, watching him. As the feeling of euphoria slowly faded, she spoke.
“That was your first lesson. You’ll get better at it pretty naturally. Second less is don’t bleed them dry. We don’t know anything about these people, and we’re just there to feed. Plus, bodies-”
“Bodies equal problems,” Arthur finished.
“That’s right. When you’re drinking, just retract your fangs slowly and the wound will shrink by itself. Your fangs are thinner than you think.. By next morning it’ll be gone. Whenever we feed, the person more or less just feels drunk. If they’re already drunk they’ll probably feel like puking. But by the time we’re done and gone, they can’t remember what happened.”
Arthur thought about it for a moment, “Seems like you could maybe use that to make someone forget if they saw something they shouldn’t have.”
Persephone looked impressed, “That’s exactly right.” She took a drag from the cigarette. “Speaking of which, always keep a low profile if you’re doing anything a normal person couldn’t do. Running faster, using Potential, feeding. Anything. The last thing you want is someone who has connections seeing your do something supernatural. You know what the Baron does when someone draws the attention of cops, for example?”
“Nothing pleasant I assume.”
“Nothing pleasant,” Persephone agreed. “What do you think would happen if the big wide world found out vampires existed? They sure wouldn’t let it slide. And I’ll let you in on a little secret. There’s human organizations who know we exist too, and they still keep it a secret because they don’t want mass panic. So keep your nose clean and you won’t have to worry about any of that.”
“Understood,” Arthur said. He motioned to Persephone's cigarette, and she handed him one, along with the lighter. Arthur hadn’t smoked in a long time, but right now it seemed like the right thing to do after feeding. Like a smoke after sex. As he took a drag, Arthur realized quickly he didn’t get nearly the same feeling, the nicotine barely registering in his ‘bloodstream’, and his lungs not absorbing the smoke properly. But he still liked the idea that he could smoke now without having to worry about…
“Can we get cancer?” he asked.
“Nope. Your body is now a medical marvel. Which brings us to my next point. There’s only two ways you can die now. Really die. One is by having your head removed, two is by going sunbathing. However, enough brute damage to your body will put you out of commission. You’re not invincible. If someone starts blasting you with a shotgun, get the hell out of the way.”
“Got it. Carcinogens good, shotguns bad.”
Persephone snorted. “Yeah.” She flicked her cigarette, looking first up at the sky and then at her watch. Arthur followed suit, his watch letting him know that sunrise was going to be in about three hours.
“Next lesson will have to wait. For now, we need to play it safe and get inside. The sun is not your friend and you don’t want to play with him.” Persephone opened her phone and dialed a number, before reciting their address to the other end. Shortly after she hung up, and directed Arthur back out the alleyway towards the main street.
“So, I’ll ask you what I did the first time you woke up. How’re you feeling now?”
Arthur chuckled, looking towards her. “Feels like I could take on the world.”
“Good, right? We live a strange life. We have to feed on humans. We can’t go out in the sun. Some might wonder why most of us even go on. But at the end of the day, you’re still alive. So live. And if all else fails, find someone to drink on and remember how good that feels. Find faith in God, whatever it takes. There’s going to be a lot of moments when you wonder why you are what you are. A lot of people have asked, and some have even come up with answers, but nobody knows for certain.”
Arthur nodded, “It does seem interesting that everything just…works. Even though we’re clearly not biologically sound. I guess you’ve thought about this a lot.”
“Gotta make it make sense somehow,” she said. “Anyways, we’re done for tonight. I’m taking you back to the office building. There’s some blackout rooms on our floor you can use to sleep through the day. You don’t have to sleep if you don’t want to, but sometimes it helps to ease the transition.”
An SUV pulled around the corner and stopped in front of them. As they were getting inside, Arthur gently took Persephone’s elbow.
“Hey, uh. I want to say thanks. Like you said before, I died, and you saved me.”
“And like I also said before, I think you’ve got it in you, Arthur. Hopefully going forward you can learn to trust us, and we’ll treat you well.”
Arthur grinned as they got in the car, “Well, tonight was a good start.”
