Drinks and Urban Myths
So anyway, after drinking, we sat on a fire escape and I got Paul to tell me those urban vampire hunter stories.
Apparently, the Tri-Staker (gawd, what a name, it's like something out of a bad comic strip) is some guy who uses a stake shaped like a pitchfork, so there are three stakes at once piercing you. This vamipre bartender once told Paul that he had a friend who barely escaped from the Tri-Staker, and until today still has three perfectly aligned scars on his leg where the pitchfork-stakey-thing got him.
"Did you see the scars?" I asked.
Paul snorted. "Hell, no! I told you, it's always a story that happened to the friend of a friend. You never really see them. It's like seeing ghosts."
And then there's this other guy whom it is rumored that he's made a pact with some demon (whoa, do demons exist too? Paul says he doesn't know either and he's never met any) so that he would have the strength of a vampire. Apparently, this guy lost his whole family to some vampires and so he wants revenge on all of us.
Howard the Hunter is rumored to have been around for like hundreds of years, and you'd think that he should be dead, being human and not vampire, but he keeps popping up every fifty years or so and going on a blood rampage. You know you're going to a victim of Howard's if you wake up one morning and find the letter H carved somewhere on yourself. It's apparently Howard's way of telling you you're doomed, so you can freak yourself out before he kills you.
"Maybe there are a whole bunch of Howards," I suggest. "Like copycat criminals or a whole line of successors."
"Or maybe he's got some mysterious demonic way of keeping himself alive like drinking off the blood of vampires themselves in some horrible ritual," Paul says breezily. "That's one of the rumors about our hunter friend."
"Oh, c'mon," I said dismissively. "Surely you don't believe that."
"There's also the hunter known as the Traitor," Paul went on, "some vampire who got religion or something, and decides that we're all terrible evil monsters so he's on a mission to kill all of us. That's the one story I believe more than any of the others. It's more plausible. And I think Gwenda was murdered by him."
"Gwenda?" I repeat.
"Yeah...that's the name of the girl who made me."
"That rich vampire chick who picked you up in Seattle?"
He rolls his eyes at me. "Don't put it that way, you make me sound like a gigolo. Yeah, Gwenda. Some vampire I know who was over in Germany for a bit told me that he thought that was what happened. He knew Gwenda too, and he hung out with her every now and then, and she told him that she had hooked up with some mysterious hot vampire. The last he heard was that she had planned to head down to Paris with the vampire but the night before she was supposed to leave, he went over to her house and found her dead - that is, he found her dress on the ground and nothing but a pile of ashes in it. And he never did find that mysterious vampire she was hanging out with. Also, there had been rumors going around that the Traitor was in the area. So my friend put two and two together and decided Germany was too hot for him and that he should beat it back to Boston, where he found me and told me the story."
"Were you upset when you heard about her death?" I asked.
Pau shrugged. "I was, kind of, a little. After all, we had spent quite a few years together, and she was the one who made me after all. But by then, we had grown apart. I wasn't in love with her anymore. She was more like... an older sister or something by then, and one that I wasn't close to anymore. To Gwenda, I was always more of a plaything, just something new to entertain her for a while, and I had realized that by then."
I sighed and leaned back to look up at the stars. This whole vampire thing was much bigger than I'd ever imagined, and I'd so suddenly become a part of it. Honestly, I wonder how life is going to be like for me if I ever made it to Paul's age, or even beyond that. It's exhilarating and exciting in one way, but weird and foreign in another way. What is it that I've truly given up and what is it that I've truly gained when I ceased becoming human and became a vampire?
Apparently, the Tri-Staker (gawd, what a name, it's like something out of a bad comic strip) is some guy who uses a stake shaped like a pitchfork, so there are three stakes at once piercing you. This vamipre bartender once told Paul that he had a friend who barely escaped from the Tri-Staker, and until today still has three perfectly aligned scars on his leg where the pitchfork-stakey-thing got him.
"Did you see the scars?" I asked.
Paul snorted. "Hell, no! I told you, it's always a story that happened to the friend of a friend. You never really see them. It's like seeing ghosts."
And then there's this other guy whom it is rumored that he's made a pact with some demon (whoa, do demons exist too? Paul says he doesn't know either and he's never met any) so that he would have the strength of a vampire. Apparently, this guy lost his whole family to some vampires and so he wants revenge on all of us.
Howard the Hunter is rumored to have been around for like hundreds of years, and you'd think that he should be dead, being human and not vampire, but he keeps popping up every fifty years or so and going on a blood rampage. You know you're going to a victim of Howard's if you wake up one morning and find the letter H carved somewhere on yourself. It's apparently Howard's way of telling you you're doomed, so you can freak yourself out before he kills you.
"Maybe there are a whole bunch of Howards," I suggest. "Like copycat criminals or a whole line of successors."
"Or maybe he's got some mysterious demonic way of keeping himself alive like drinking off the blood of vampires themselves in some horrible ritual," Paul says breezily. "That's one of the rumors about our hunter friend."
"Oh, c'mon," I said dismissively. "Surely you don't believe that."
"There's also the hunter known as the Traitor," Paul went on, "some vampire who got religion or something, and decides that we're all terrible evil monsters so he's on a mission to kill all of us. That's the one story I believe more than any of the others. It's more plausible. And I think Gwenda was murdered by him."
"Gwenda?" I repeat.
"Yeah...that's the name of the girl who made me."
"That rich vampire chick who picked you up in Seattle?"
He rolls his eyes at me. "Don't put it that way, you make me sound like a gigolo. Yeah, Gwenda. Some vampire I know who was over in Germany for a bit told me that he thought that was what happened. He knew Gwenda too, and he hung out with her every now and then, and she told him that she had hooked up with some mysterious hot vampire. The last he heard was that she had planned to head down to Paris with the vampire but the night before she was supposed to leave, he went over to her house and found her dead - that is, he found her dress on the ground and nothing but a pile of ashes in it. And he never did find that mysterious vampire she was hanging out with. Also, there had been rumors going around that the Traitor was in the area. So my friend put two and two together and decided Germany was too hot for him and that he should beat it back to Boston, where he found me and told me the story."
"Were you upset when you heard about her death?" I asked.
Pau shrugged. "I was, kind of, a little. After all, we had spent quite a few years together, and she was the one who made me after all. But by then, we had grown apart. I wasn't in love with her anymore. She was more like... an older sister or something by then, and one that I wasn't close to anymore. To Gwenda, I was always more of a plaything, just something new to entertain her for a while, and I had realized that by then."
I sighed and leaned back to look up at the stars. This whole vampire thing was much bigger than I'd ever imagined, and I'd so suddenly become a part of it. Honestly, I wonder how life is going to be like for me if I ever made it to Paul's age, or even beyond that. It's exhilarating and exciting in one way, but weird and foreign in another way. What is it that I've truly given up and what is it that I've truly gained when I ceased becoming human and became a vampire?
posted by Darkschunt at 12:30 AM
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