This Is What Hope Feels Like

And then it was over.

We just went back to life. For my part, I mean…

The fuck else was I supposed to do?

I’m standing here in jeans and a cardigan in a room full of dead people and vampires.

I want you to ask yourself what you would do before you judge me.

Me?

I was like, “I need to take a piss.”

“Hold it,” Bud said.

And I noticed we were the only clean ones. Everybody else was spattered in it.

Not excessively. These niggas were efficient.

They drank most of it, but they had it on them. Splashed down their fronts in drops and drags.

All over their mouths and chins, sure, but most of that shit they were licking off of each other.

Pair to pair.

You could tell who was married. It was almost ceremonial.

Like the way you’d imagine life if we used to be hunting cats.

Preening each other.

Napkins. Wipes. Suckling bloody finger tips. Talking to each other about the moment.

Like it didn’t happen often.

“Alright, well… I’ll be honest with you. I was just gonna go hide in the bathroom and try to figure out what the fuck just happened, so… care to explain?”

“I’ll do that,” A baritone voice came from behind me, and I nearly jumped into Cutter.

“Save me, nigga!” I whined, grabbing at Cutter’s coat as I turned.

Cutter pulled me around to stand up straight.

Nah, this dude really jerked my little ass around.

“Ngg! Aight, aight.” I said, pulling away to stand my ground.

The man in front of me was wearing a suit.

Let me be clear. It was a badass suit.

Cream white, he had the peanut butter cream loafers.

My man was doing his thing, alright?

No hate, I can give another man props. I even shrugged with my mouth after I looked him over, nodding my approval.

Tall, brunette and lookin’ like he was the guy everyone wanted to be. He gave Cutter his hand to shake.

“Oh, Mr. Blossom,” Cutter said, taking his hand.

The two men assessed one another like you’d expect combative wolves to do from opposing but peaceful packs.

I could see the moment they over-flexed the handshake.

Gave each other the solid arm clap with the other hand.

The subtle but not so subtle chuckle.

Fake masculine happiness in the face of someone you didn’t like.

“Cutter. Pleasure. I see you got my property here safely.”

Property?

Hold up.

“I’m sorry, what?” I asked.

Mr. Blossom looked at me and nodded his head.

“You. Yeah. You’re my property. This isn’t a race thing.”

“I’m not making it a race thing,” I twisted my lip. “How the fuck would I make it a race thing, man? We’re vampires.”

“Well, exactly… but I mean that very specifically. You’re not quite a vampire… That’s why I need to explain,” he said, gesturing away from the carnage to a side hall.

“I’m not goin’ anywhere with you, nigga.” I said, curling my lip. “I saw what happened the last time you sent out invitations.”

He tilted his head and stared at me.

We both knew.

The inevitability here.

I blew a sigh and started walking.

“If I get ate, it’s your fault,” I said, looking at Bud.

Bud frowned back.

“Mind your manners,” Cutter said.

“Yeah, yeah…” I lifted a hand of consent as we marched on.

I felt him behind me.

Presence.

That was something you got with age maybe?

It felt lie a chill down my back, but not a bad one.

Just a very present one.

Like I could feel the outside edge of his aura burning behind me.

“Right there,” he said, gesturing at the door to my right.

I stepped over a pool of blood that a vampire was squatted down vacuuming up in some contraption.

Looked like a portable wet-dry vac.

“That’s fucked up,” I said, walking backwards to watch Mr. Blossom glide around.

He had a bit of blood around his collar, but it looked like he had a civil meal.

One that didn’t squirm much, I guess.

I turned around again to grab the doorknob and twist it.

Then we were inside. A small library with only six aisles, three on each side.

I saw him step in after me as I turned around.

He turned his back on me like I wasn’t a threat.

But my stomach shifted when I heard him lock the door.

Then he turned around and gestured.

I looked… books. Rows of them. I could smell them.

They smelled like metal and cloves. Nutmeg and almond cookies.

Mom’s hot pot and… wait, that’s all my favorite shit.

Over the distinct smell of blood.

My eyes dropped to Mr. Blossom.

“Raymond,” He said, as if answering my question for me.

Then he marched into the room like he already owned it, both hands lifting wide.

"The Petrovic Manuscript and De Masticatione Mortuorum by Michael Ranft... brief though they may be, were onto something. The rest of the knowledge therein? Lost to history.” He gestured with his hands, casually.

Moving ever closer to me.

“Because it's all right here. Tucked away in my home where it belongs. Arnold Paole was attacked by the first Vampire... the one who eventually turned Dracula, they say, though. I mean... right?" He gave a sarcastic smile.

I found myself taking a step back as he took one closer.

"Yeah... sounds kinda crazy," I swallowed.

"Yeah... Sounds kinda crazy, doesn’t it? Truth is, Vampirism had long been in the world before Dracula... before Arnold Paole. Secret cabals back then. Once in a while, some desperate lunatic would get turned and go on a biting spree. Usually wouldn't matter."

"... Why not?" I asked, taking another step back as he took one closer.

"Because before you've had your first Bitter Venom. Den första bittra giftet, as was once called... You can't turn anyone. You're just a hungry little biter," he said.

And then closed the distance between us so quickly I thought life hit pause, then restarted.

The movie of my life skipped a frame, and he was in my face. His hands were gripping my cardigan. His green eyes had gone a demonic red, lifting my weight onto the tips of my toes.

Fear played at the base of my brain. It danced in my spine.

It was the immediate presence of death. Of knowing when you’d come face to face with the predator that specifically evolved to end your life swiftly.

"Shhhit... n- uh..." I staggered the word out through a whisper.

My Chucks wriggled on the floor.

He didn't move.

I could smell the blood on his breath as he studied my face. His brow tightened with concentration.

"You're a delicious meal waiting to get bled," I watched his canines elongate slowly. "Running around the world causing chaos... and so."

He let me go and I stumbled back onto my ass, crab-walking back.

"Come on, man..." I said through trembling lips.

"And so Omertà. We all must swear to Omertà. Do you understand?"

"Sorta... I mean yeah, but... it's just a lot man."

"I know. That's why we're talking. Get up, Baby," he said, turning and starting to pace the shelves.

I scrambled up to my feet to follow.

"Omertà is a way of life. Without it we'd all fall apart. There must be law. There must be order. And we are keepers of it. The Blossom Syndicate, the Clow Syndicate, and the Hikari Zaibatsu. They were the natural progression after modern warfare, and technology changed the way we do business. Does that make sense?"

"As far as it's supposed to. I still don't know why you're telling me this shit."

"Because the Hikari Zaibatsu are why you're here. And why you're not a vampire," Raymond said, turning around an end cap of books to start down another aisle.

I followed him around it, nodding.

"If I'm not a vampire, then what am I?"

"I'm not sure... Hikari and I call you zombies for now. It fits. You're vampires that eat flesh... that's what you did, isn't it?" He asked.

"Yeah," we stopped suddenly.

He selected a book from the shelf after a little bit of searching.

"Right here," he said, opening it, flipping some of its old pages.

I could smell the age of the paper. It smelled like all the shit niggas like me never wanted to read.

Kinda made me feel bad to think about that, honestly.

He turned the book around and held it out to me.

I looked down at it as I took it, "The flesh of my enemy is my power. I am beyond undead. With every meal, I grow stronger," I read aloud. "The fuck is this?"

"Michael Ranft... the parts that didn't make it into Mortuorum... Because by the time he realized he was staking food, it was too late. Corpses learned to devour corpses. First mention of the mutation that you are... that Hikari and I have been aware of for nine years."

"Zombies?" I asked.

"More than that. Vampires grow stronger with age and blood consumption over time. Zombies grow stronger by consuming vampires. As you can imagine, that's not a secret I tell lightly. If the vampiric world knew..."

"That they aren't the apex predator anymore?”

"Precisely. Thankfully, most of you have been hunted and killed young. Weeded out via natural trial... the story we tell is that you’re rogue vampires who go crazy after being turned."

“So we’re not just talking about zombies. We’re a different breed of vampire completely.”

"You got it," he nodded. “Our world’s not ready for that. So ask me why you're not incinerated. That's the next question, right?" Raymond asked.

Yeah... It was.

"... Mm-hm... I'm sure you're gonna tell me anyway,” I confirmed with a nod.

"Because if I can't end the problem, I can make sure I control the last one standing when we get to the source of them."

"Makes sense. I’ve heard that before. Enemy of my enemy.”

"Here's what I know. The problem is slow-growing. It's spread by bite, but since Bitter Venom takes one hundred years to develop at the earliest... There can't be many of you."

"The one that bit me," I said.

"Dead. Caught. Incinerated. But... they were a tough kill."

"I thought the young were weak and shit."

"Young hemavore are. But young zombies they still feed like gluttons. And they still eat people alive."

"So you want me to find them and eat them first."

"With a caveat."

"That being?" I lifted an eyebrow.

He turned to clap the book shut and pushed it back onto the shelf.

"That you understand at the end of this thing... there's definitely a vampire controlling the puppet strings. I need to know who that vampire is," he said, suddenly cold as he turned to face me.

"I'm not a fuckin' private eye man," I shook my head. "You're sending me into another coven to get killed."

"Absolutely. And if you live, you walk away with your life. In any echo you choose."

"Echo?"

"Pockets like the one you're in now... they are many, and all throughout the world. Some known. Some yet to be discovered. I can grant you the right to claim and chart one."

"And then what? I just go find a hole and sit in it?"

"To be fair... you've got quite an expensive resource running through your veins. For now, it belongs to me. But you do this thing for me, I allow you to earn your way free of me. I can't and won't be more fair than that.”

“Why are you being fair at all? You basically just said my life ain’t shit to you,” I shrugged, “How do I trust that?”

“Do you have a choice?”

“N.. no… I get that, man. I’m just sayin’ like…”

“How do you know I’d keep my end of the deal?”

“Yeah.”

He nudged his head over at those bookshelves.

I tossed my eyes at them.

“Go on.” He said, gesturing at the shelves. “Walk.”

I didn’t know what he wanted, so I just turned and started pacing the shelves.

Slowly at first, keeping my eyes on him.

“I’m not going to drink you. Yet,” he said. “You have my word. You’ll know when it’s coming.”

My eyebrows flinched at that thought.

Every notion I’d ever heard in my life about a vampire didn’t have honor in it. Tradition? Sure.

Code? Never.

They were devious. Evil. Bewitchers.

But as I walked those aisles of books, looked at those old tomes.

As I slid one down, flipped through it a little, closed it, put it back, found another.

As I moved around in this old-smelling, old-looking room…

I kinda found a weird respect for it.

There was history here. A lot of it.

There were books detailing the world beneath the world. Talking about the many epochs of the vampire kind. Of a world full of other creatures. Of battles in echoes all over the world. Even several passages about how vampires evolved into two branches.

The blood drinkers and the hide hunters.

I saw deep storytelling and oral tradition written to pages. Poetry in rhythm and rhyme. They even referenced some old folklore I recognized.

Guess everybody had myths and legends.

Honestly, it took me completely off guard.

“This shit is crazy, man…” I said softly when I felt his aura approach from behind.

“It is. Omertà isn’t just words. It’s deeply held tradition that we would lose if we let fiends and monsters tear the world apart. We live in a delicate balance fueled by human ignorance. A balance I keep.”

“But all I hear is bad shit about vampires throughout history, man.”

“Every time Omertà didn’t do its job. That can happen. And that’s why you’re here. Have you ever seen Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory?”

I already knew what he was gonna say.

“The old joint, right?”

He chuckled, “Yes. The old joint.”

“Yeah… a good deed in a weary world.”

“Precisely. That’s why I need you to stay Golden Ponyboy. Leave all the evil to me.”

“… I feel that. I don’t think I wanna do anything worse than I already did,” I nodded.

Just when I thought all I’d ever be was a monster. Or a vending machine.

I guess God doesn’t completely hate me.

This is what hope feels like.

“Good. But there’s one more order of business, Loxadante,” Raymond said.

I watched him move across the library to the short shelves against the wall. There was a phone there. An old rotary dial one.

He picked it up, rolled a handful of numbers off, and then spoke.

“Bring me a muzzle and a brand new collar, would you? I’m in the Apocrypha.”

I didn’t really know what to do in that moment.

I could already feel it coming when he hung up the phone and looked at me.

Neither of us said a word.

I was food.

The way he was looking at me reminded me of that.

So I sat with it.

The dread.

The fear. Knowing it was coming. The pain I felt in the dentist chair.

Left to sit here and wonder how old Raymond Blossom was. If what he said was true his venom was at least as old as the syndicate.

Then a knock came at the door and I startled.

“Man… come on,” I felt my stomach getting sick with anxiety.

The anticipation for a future I didn’t want.

He opened the door, never taking those demonic eyes off of me.

A woman’s hand handed him a small box and he took it, closing the door after, smoothly gliding over to me.

He passed me and I let out a shaky breath, turning to watch him as he set the box on the only study table in the room.

Right under the stained glass windows that I only then recognized.

The image of a vampire feeding on someone under the stained glass window of a library.

Infinitely playing itself into tinier and tinier pieces of glass.

“Winning has a price, Baby Boy.”

I felt his eyes on my throat.

“This what you call winning?” I asked, forcing myself to take those first few steps.

The first of many that brought me closer to the pain.

He was already opening that box, already fetching the muzzle from it.

It had a rubber bite gag.

“It’s the best win you’re going to get, isn’t it?”

“Is that a gag?” I asked, my lip curling as he brought it close to my face.

“You really wanna do this without it?”

I looked him in the eyes and realized he wasn’t kidding.

He was actually about to bleed me right here.

I opened my mouth like a baby bird and let him stuff it.

“Nnghk…”

“Good boy,” he whispered into my ear before strapping the muzzle round the back of my head.

I felt him slip around behind me.

Dread poisoning my stomach as he took a handful of my hair and snatched my head to one side.

“Nn!” I grunted at the pain in my roots.

Fuck, this nigga nearly snatched me ball-headed.

I wanted to protest but couldn’t.

I wanted to beg him not to, but didn’t have the ability.

He didn’t wait. He didn’t go slow.

I heard it when I felt it.

His fangs burst through my skin and tore a muffled scream out of me.

A scream that got louder when the scalding, white hot miasma in his fangs started to seep into me.

It was scorching the base of my brain.

I screamed a sound from the base of my neck, spasming as his arms wrapped around me.

My eyes slammed shut, my body trembled furiously. His teeth drove in deeper.

He bit down hard enough to make my body slam stiff, my eyes opening to stare into the circling blackness around my vision.

The grip of a death that would never take me.

I felt the blood tears start to leak from my eyes, staining the white cloth of my muzzle against my dark skin.

Ancient venom felt like it was cracking through my spine and fracturing pieces of me.

Raymond Blossom held me with the arms of the devil while he drank my useless life.

And then ego death.

I disappeared inward, suddenly into the halls of a temple with white walls.

In front of me was the throne of the god of pain. Sitting, staring at me from his intimidating vastness.

Serpents came from his back, crawling out and up in every direction, covering every inch of the walls and ceiling in wriggling, slowly advancing, scaled tubes with sinister heads at the front of them.

They extended beyond me. They left me trapped in a hissing room of searing pain, staring at the only god that would ever come for a doomed creature like me.

The destroyer.

He made me bask in it for god knows how long.

And it’s what I should have expected.

This is what hope actually feels like.

It feels like hurting so bad your consciousness clicks off like a switch.

Somewhere in your cerebral cortex. Or the prefrontal lobe.

Or your prefrontal cortex.

Or your amygdala.

Or your…

I went limp to the hungry sounds of him gulping.