fangednconfused (fangednconfused) wrote in birthrightrpg, @ 2020-07-23 14:11:00 |
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Entry tags: | derek mitchell |
Pay Up
Who: Derek Mitchell, NPC
What: Settling a Debt
Where: Vegas
When: Present Day, Night
Ratings/Warnings: Blood, language, death
Derek Mitchell was friendly. It was a holdover from his living, breathing days. He had an easy way with people. It came naturally. Sometimes, it got him in trouble. ‘Fell into a wrong crowd’, his mother would say. Became fiercely loyal to the wrong person. As a vampire, he was slightly more discerning. He also didn’t take the usual pleasure in killing. Rather, it was sometimes a necessary tool. He had to eat, and animal blood was a mediocre substitute.
Vampires were predators, there was no way around it. He wasn’t the smartest guy. No one would come knocking on his door with a Nobel Prize. But Derek was keenly aware of the connection between his gift of gab and ability in procuring meals. Tonight’s hunt was different, though. Dual-purpose.
Nico Alvaro moonlit as a pit boss for a casino with a seedy reputation for those in the know. Outside official work hours, he was an enforcer for a notorious bookie that specialized in high stakes, off-the-board betting. Derek had casually befriended a local man who got in over his head and finally admitted that Nico had threatened his family personally.
If he was going to spend eternity drinking the lifeblood of human beings to survive, Derek had decided it should serve a purpose. He had never had one when he was alive. Maybe it was time. He skulked in the shadows – did one do anything in the shadows besides skulk? – and watched Nico and his compatriots smoke cigars in the loading dock. An electronic beeping reverberated across the concrete, and the pit boss glanced at his watch, then gestured for his friends to go back inside.
Derek surfaced, whistling cheerfully and carrying a brown bowling bag. Nico crossed his arms, watching the vampire with a stony expression. “And who the fuck are you?”
“I’m here on behalf of Lonnie,” Derek answered, “and he told me you required some payment.” He patted the bowling bag conspiratorially. “I hope large bills are acceptable.” He handed it over with a smile. Nico grabbed it roughly, zipping it open. At first, the lack of light made it difficult to see what was in the bag. Meaty, gold-ringed fingers pulled out a fistful of colorful Monopoly money.
“Do you want to fucking die?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“Oh,” Derek answered, confused. “Did you prefer small bills? Because I –”
Wham. Nico had slammed his fist into Derek’s solar plexus. The vampire doubled over, his arms squeezing his stomach. He staggered back a little as Nico closed in on him again. “Damn. No one ever taught you how to negotiate. It’s not supposed to hurt until after you realize you’ve been screwed.”
The glorified loan shark was pulling back for a haymaker, but Derek was too fast. He pivoted, grabbed the larger man’s muscular arm, and rent it out of its socket with an audible pop. The vampire calmly twisted the limb with a jerk, could feel bones shattering and muscle separating from tissue. Nico tried to scream, but Derek silenced him with a wad of toy money stuffed into mouth. He released the wounded man, let him fall to the ground.
Nico tried spitting out the wet paper and crawl away on his good arm at the same time. Derek placed a sneakered foot on the departing man’s back, first gently, then full force to pin him against the concrete. The vampire heard something else break. The pit boss wasn’t making any noise now except a pathetic wheeze. He knelt beside him, the knees of his jeans next to the larger man’s head.
“This is the part where I tell you to leave Lonnie alone,” Derek intoned softly. “That you don’t need to bother him or his family ever again. Message sent, right?” The vampire waited for a response, and when none came, he grabbed Nico’s head and turned it so his eyes met Derek’s brown ones. “Right?”
The man tried to nod, his eyes glazed over. A trickle of blood dotted the corner of his stubbled mouth.
“But the thing is,” Derek continued, “I’m hungry. And I just don’t see the point of you being alive anymore. Not that I’m really trying to.”
He leaned down and bared his teeth now. The sharp points glinted from the lone source of light, a flickering spiral bulb above the loading dock door. Teeth met flesh, and Derek ripped Nico’s throat out, drinking deeply from the dark, arterial blood that flowed. A minute or so past as the man’s heartbeat faded in Derek’s ears, the last refrain of a song ending. When he was finished, Derek wiped his mouth on the dead man’s suit jacket, then upended the bowling bag so the paper money rained over his body like lame confetti.