deanna (deanna) wrote in low_tide, @ 2009-12-23 01:39:00 |
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Entry tags: | deanna, john abbott |
The Natural Order of Things
Since 1937, Sloppy Joe's Bar occupied the corner spot at Duval and Greene Streets. The rustic interior and attached 'mercantile' made it feel genuine, like an honest-to-god hang-out instead of the chain establishment it had become. Ultimately, its fame made it a must-see for sunbaked tourists. Most of them were mellow, simply searching for a comfortable place to have an overpriced beer and buy a souvenir tee shirt. But every bar also hosted a man who talked too loud, wore layered polo shirts with upright collars, and whose tan looked suspiciously storebought. He wrested the center of attention away from its rightful owner, the girl at the bar who'd been blindsided by a wall of testosterone and Axe body spray.
John's interest in the man, whose name was Jim, was based not so much on admiration as ardent disbelief. He sat with his back to the wooden wall, using it to scratch an itch between his shoulders. His teeth worked a toothpick. So that was the modern day 'catch'... A man of rehearsed pick-up lines, Corona pale lagers, and eyes that wandered to the plasma screens when a woman spoke about herself. John wondered if he had cracked a book since freshman year literature at whatever state-funded school he attended. When Jim declared his intention to 'take a leak', John finished his beer and followed him down a hallway, past a payphone (practically a relic) and a stack of plastic drink trays.
Once inside the bathroom, Jim realized someone was behind him and turned around, looking suitably homophobic and pissed off. The question -- What the fuck do you want? -- never left his mouth, because John slammed his head into a paper towel dispenser. He hoisted the semi-conscious man's arm over his shoulders and walked him into the hallway and out the emergency exit.
She'd been drinking entirely too much of late. Since the carnival in fact. That defining moment, slumped against a brick wall and sobbing, she'd realized that in order to change, become better than her nature, the redhead required courage. And that she found at the bottom of a glass.
It wasn't the smartest decision, she was aware. But alcohol -- despite the lack of taste, the copious amounts required to affect her system -- helped dull the desire to kill. Unfortunately this also dulled her intelligence in coming up with a better, more sustainable solution. Each night she would drag herself out of a random bar after last call, scrape her heels through abandoned alleys and find an animal more desperate than her to feed on. The vampire of old would've found an easier, more practical solution to her dilemma. But Deanna was close to bottom, and it was hard to see through the haze of a shot glass.
Tonight she'd chosen to visit a most appropriate venue. The redhead was getting reckless the past week and this bar spoke to her. Even as the tingle in her spine alerted her to the presence of another nocturnal creature in the bar, she chose to ignore it. Once upon a time she'd have made immediate contact, engaged her comrade and compared notes. Tonight she couldn't care.
Until she saw the man slink out the back way with a victim in tow.
She debated doing nothing. Order another drink, let him go about his business while she did hers. But then came another thought -- perhaps he'd leave the poor tanned bastard gasping for breath, and more importantly, just enough blood to get her through the night. If she wasn't responsible for the attack, and he was going to die anyway, maybe she'd be doing the guy a mercy by finishing him off. And if not, she could always find a rat or stray dog on the way home.
Deanna flipped a few bills on the bar to cover her tab, winked at the waitress and followed the other vampire's steps outside.
'Would you just relax, for fuck's sake?'
The words drifted around Jim's ears but never sank in. He stood with his cheek scratching the concrete wall and both hands locked behind his back, like a criminal under arrest. The world beyond darkened and tunneled, thanks to his head injury. He wanted to slump but any downward movement made pain shoot into his shoulders. Barely able to hang onto consciousness, he waited for the dreaded sound: A zipper. Because of course, this had to be a sexual assault. Wallet thieves didn't haul their victims outside; they just picked pockets and ran.
Instead, something sharp ripped holes in his neck. When black curls of hair came into his field of vision, Jim understood he was being bitten. The garbled word, "Help!" echoed in the narrow space between Sloppy Joe's and the next building over, but it was over almost as quickly as it started. He went to his knees and rested his forehead on the wall.
Behind him, John lit a cigarette. "On a scale of things, that was pretty pathetic, mate." He rubbed a thumb into his eye socket. "I'd say I did your girl a favor, but it would be rude." When the blubbering sounds began to grate his nerves, he gave Jim's head a solid kick and sent him into the sleep of the inebriated and concussed.
That was unexpected. Not the biting, the woman noted. She could read the vampire's intent like a beacon as he'd escorted his meal outside. No, it was the brevity of it all, and then laying the drunken lout out onto the pavement to resemble a robbery-assault. Deanna could make out the unconscious man's heartbeat, a bit high at first but soon steadying. Hell, if his head hadn't been used as a soccer ball just now, chances were the guy would've stumbled off to seek medical attention. Or a group of his bar buddies for payback (not that they'd be successful).
She leaned against the door as she quietly pressed it shut. "On a diet, or just taking your time?"
He looked over his shoulder at his company. "Neither," he said. "Not that anyone usually questions me. You know..." He made a generic gesture at his face, which still bore the crested forehead and nose of a vampire. With a crunch, it settled into the aristocratic features of the long-deceased John Abbott. Exhaling smoke, he flipped through the man's wallet and pulled out a couple of credit cards and a wad of cash, stuffing them in the pocket of his own trousers.
John frowned and sniffed the leather. "You know, even his money smells like cheap cologne." He tossed the wallet on Jim's stomach.
"Yeah well, I am." In her long unlife, Deanna's encounters with others of her kind were short-lived. Most vampires were predatory, instinctual, vicious. It was her own maker that taught her to rise above and learn to blend with the daywalkers. It provided a much more vibrant feeding ground, and allowed her to cultivate her more upscale desires -- namely, Dolce and Gabanna.
Now she was faced with a vampire who seemed to suppress his baser instincts, yet still acted as predator. Violence, theft. It made about as much sense as her decision not to kill. She needn't bring out her own face for the man to realize the redhead was a kindred spirit, as least demonically. "So what gives?"
John's cigarette hand lifted, scratched at his eyebrow. "Is this going to be one of those conversations?" he asked, squinting at the redhead. Loose pieces of gravel scraped the asphalt under his shoes as he turned toward her. "I don't kill my prey, so you, spoiling for a fight I suppose, decide to take offense on behalf of the species and call my ferocity into question, or worse, my masculinity. Honestly, I don't see what it has to do with you."
He backed up to the wall next to Jim and crossed his ankles. "It isn't a soul, if that's what you're thinking."
Deanna smirked as she pulled out her silver case and withdrew a cigarette for herself. "Heh." Her zippo flared to life and she inhaled deeply. "Maybe a month ago I would've." A wreath of smoke circled long red tresses. "You'd never see me coming; and your nuts would be oozing down your leg before you blinked."
Slender fingers brushed back strands of hair from her cheek. "And it has to do with me," she countered, "because I'm trying to become what you've already achieved. The problem is, I've got one thing you don't, and can't figure out how to reconcile it."
John looked at the legs of his trousers, dubious. Being the sort with a vivid imagination, he couldn't help picturing his testicles sliding down his thigh and calf like a cracked egg. An unpleasant idea, to say the least. "So," he said haltingly, "You're above unprovoked brutality, but you're not above wanting me to fear you." He crossed his arms, using his smoke as a pointer. "And yet you admire me. That sounds like nonsense." The fact that he hadn't taken off running, or snarled at the implication, meant he was either more patient than the average vampire or older and a bit wiser.
"And see," Deanna rejoined as she blew out another plume of smoke, "you recognize the contradiction. Down deep you know I can make good on my threat, yet you stick around for the trump card." She took another drag of the cigarette before tossing it to the asphalt, and ground it underneath her heel.
She twisted the door handle and propped the steel exit open. "C'mon," the redhead motioned, "first round's on me. If you're not scared."
Well, that was a wasted cigarette, he thought. How many drags had she gotten from it? Three?
John cleared his throat and shook his head. "No, I'd be a fool to go back inside a bar I've just kidnapped someone from." He thumbed down the alleyway, because there were always other places to get a drink. "I'll walk along with you on one condition," he said, stepping away from the wall and putting his empty hand in a pocket. "If you'll stop going out of your way to intimidate me. It's unnecessary and I'm not the kind of vampire that works well on."
He waited to see if she'd join him.
"Aren't you a mister smarty-pants," Deanna smirked. She let the door swing shut. "I can be a sarcastic bitch, though. So as long as that's not on your list, we should be okay."
She stuck out her hand. "Deanna."
"John," he said. Now that he knew she wasn't instigating a physical confrontation, he readily offered his hand. He put little stock in spending his immortality arguing with his own kind. They left Jim to his eventual recovery and headed southward behind the Duval Street shops. John took up a study of her clothes, which were high-end for a vampire who seemed more interested in fighting than fashion. He waited until they hit a perpendicular road to resume the conversation.
"What have I achieved that you want so badly, you passed up an opportunity to decimate my balls for it?" He laughed and tucked his cigarette into his mouth.
In the intervening silence of their walk, Deanna popped a stick of gum and began to chew. Fresh breath, fresh in people's minds. How many vampires had she run across over the centuries that didn't take care of their teeth? Once she'd witnessed an emaciated demon gumming its victim. The horror stuck in her mind for weeks. "Mmmm. Control." She blew a bubble for fun. It exploded against her lips and with one finger, the redhead scooped up the gooey goodness and slid it back inside her mouth. "You let the jack-ass -- and I use that term because I have no background other than your comment about cheap cologne, and honestly, who but a tourist looking to score with a local splashes that much on before hitting a bar -- yeah, you let him live."
For a moment, John was fixated on the remnants of that bubble, and the relish with which Deanna's finger wiped it off her lip and put it back into her mouth. He imagined she'd do the same with blood. Et cetera.
Gathering his wits, he faced forward and asked, "Do you know how much more attention the police pay to murder than a mugging?" John flicked a finger against his cigarette butt. Ashes hit the sidewalk. "That's if he reports it, and he won't. He was an exception to my ordinary rule, which is that I rarely feed on a person unless I like them, and if I like them -- and I often do -- why would I only want to have them once?" This was directed to her. Thankfully, she was done with the oral demonstration.
She raised her left hand to push back hair from her forehead and paused, then switched to her right. The last thing she needed was a remnant of cherry-pop bubble tangled in her tresses and an emergency salon treatment. "If you've been around as long as I have, you get good at hiding the bodies. First rule: don't get caught."
Deanna kept in step with her companion as his words rambled in her skull. "And if they come back with a few buddies and a crowbar? They may not report the crime, but they will keep a grudge, John." Judging by the way he held himself, the redhead surmised he could take care of himself if needed. Though something suggested he preferred not to fight unless he had to. "So what do you do otherwise? If you're not feeding on someone, who's your supplier? Tell me you're not one of those vamps who pay for it. That's so base."
He had scoffed at her idea of hiding bodies like a common criminal. "I was born in 1853. That's certainly long enough ago to have learned to hide bodies. But I thought the point of our conversation was having none to hide," he reminded her. "And you should know the second rule I have, which is never bite someone sober or conscious enough to identify their attacker." It was why he struck Jim before sinking his teeth into the man's neck. What would he tell the police? That he was roughed up in the bathroom by a tall man with dark hair?
A twosome of young women approached and he parted ways with Deanna long enough to let them by, then rejoined her on the other side. "Most nights, I take what I need and leave the rest. I'm not above visiting a butcher on a bad day."
"I'm asking questions, professor!" She raised her hand dismissively. Deanna took a moment to watch the women as they swayed into the distance. Gods, she hadn't had a good fuck in ages. It was all internal angst and that played havoc with her libido. She shook her head slightly as the redhead turned back around. "There's the difference. I'm at a stage where I don't know if I even want to do that. Fucking soul. What was I thinking?"
'Aw crap.' The first person Deanna confided in, a fucking stranger who was also a vampire. Bad combination if he couldn't keep a secret. Vampires who regained their souls were five rungs down on the ladder and it'd seriously mess up her street cred.
He came to a slow stop. John waited until she noticed and turned around to raise the question. He had the common decency to keep his voice down and lean in closer. "Are you're telling me you have a soul and you asked for it?" His confusion was evident. Vampires with souls were the stuff of legend, like Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy, so coming upon one was an oddity in itself. But her having the desire to request one indicated Deanna either had a shred of decency at the outset, or a masochistic streak a mile wide.
He didn't recoil in horror, nor did he immediately fang out and take her head off. Those were the obvious reactions Deanna expected. The first she'd have walked away from, the latter... well good luck with that. She might have a soul now, but the redhead was still a Bitch in Heels™.
"Long story," she began. "Forget that, let me sum up. Terrorized the world for over two centuries; dusted by a Slayer; tormented in Hell; got an offer to come back with a wish attached and that was the first thing that popped into my head."
John dropped his cigarette, glanced at a streetlamp and then back down at the sidewalk. The wheels in his head began to turn, past the specifics of Deanna's situation to broader issues of relevance. He scratched his forehead near the temple. "Well, this brings up other spiritual questions, doesn't it," he mused. "Such as, if a demon hasn't got a soul, what part of you is in Hell, what... Aspect of your being? Do personality or memory have metaphysical substance, and so forth."
His hand moved to his jaw, then outward with a shrug. "None of which you care about, I'm sure. What you're concerned about is how to feed off a human without being knifed by your guilty conscience, and you think the answer's self-control. If your intentions are pure, one might ask why you haven't gone off human blood entirely. It isn't as if we need it. Let's go in there." He pointed at another bar.
"You're right, I'm not," she lied. He brought up serious questions but wasn't in the mood to entertain them. She followed John's motion to a hole-in-the-wall establishment. The paint on the outer wood peeled, the latter half of the neon sign proclaiming the place Clarence's flickered on and off intermittently. "And every time a bell rings, a vampire gets her soul," the redhead muttered under her breath.
She stopped short of the front door. "Not like we'll be bothered much. Good choice." Deanna unconsciously smoothed the flow of her dress. She was way overdressed. So much for anonymity.
He opened the door, swept his arm inward for Deanna to go through first. Inside, it was dark and moderately crowded, this place more for regulars than vacationers. People moved about comfortably, popped quarters into bartop games and a jukebox. John moved towards a table in the back and stopped short of pulling out her chair. Sometimes, gentlemanly manners went a bit far between a pair of vampires. Once seated, he rolled up his sleeves. "The truth is, I don't think all vampires naturally crave a good hunt, any more than all humans are driven to shoot animals with bows and arrows. The thirst is there, and the lack of guilt, but the bloodlust?" He shrugged.
She took her seat, thankful that John didn't feel the need to play gentleman. She hated when anyone treated her as any less than an equal. In any meeting Deanna was the preferred aggressor, and despite their civil conversation what these two were engaged in couldn't be in any way construed as a 'relationship'. "I do... did," the redhead lazily responded, a wave to a woman wearing a white tank top and jeans she assumed was a server. "Nothing better. Mind you, my idea of a hunt, uh, differed from most. I didn't chase through cemeteries and back alleys. Fear only came when it was too late."
The redhead ordered a bottle of whiskey and two shot glasses from the brunette, who grumpily introduced herself as Darla. "And what are you having, John?"
As he ordered a beer, John thought that fear was usually too late, as it was prompted by obvious signs of danger, but kept the opinion to himself. Every vampire -- himself included -- like to think of him or herself as a renegade of sorts. Ego came with the territory of immortality, and it increased exponentially with age at the expense of wisdom. "So you have two addictions to overcome, haven't you? The thirst for blood and for fear. I've long thought of ours as the worst kind of addiction. Humans hold most of the power in the equation, with their taste and their smell... That obsession we have with them, to the detriment of everything."
He accepted the mug as it arrived. "If they ever learn to properly turn the tables on us, we'll be sunk."
"You mean like Slayers?" the redhead shrugged. "Bad enough when there was one. At least -- if we got wind of their territory -- we could steer clear. Nowadays," Deanna pulled out her cigarette case again, confident such a low-rent place flouted local smoking laws, "even Darla there could be a hunter."
She pushed the case towards her drinking companion as she lit up. "Oh... obsession. I had a major one with a Slayer. Would go out of my way to antagonize the bitch, to pick fights. Until she finally staked me." Deanna sucked on the cigarette deeply. "And do you wanna know the worst part since coming back? I found her -- helpless -- in an alley not too long ago. Did I eat her? Rip out her guts and wear them like a feather boa?"
The vampire slunk back into her chair. "No. I hijacked a car and drove her to the hospital. What the hell is wrong with me?!"
"Since you already know what's wrong with you," John said, taking one of her cigarettes, putting it in his mouth, and lighting up with a match from a book on the table, "The better question is... Why are you so bothered?" The brand tasted different than his usual fare and he studied the cigarette critically between puffs. "Look, you have two choices, right? You can either turn over a new leaf and live with them," he gestured to the people around their table, "Or you can ignore your soul and go about your immortality as you always have. Plenty of people commit murder without giving remorse a moment's consideration."
He slid the case back to her. "And no. I wasn't referring to vampire slayers. I was referring to the power any human has, based on the fact that they have something we crave."
"Yeah, I think I knew that. The craving, I mean." She gave the waitress a mental undressing as she brought the bottle, glasses and John's beer. "You're not gonna make me finish this alone, I hope." A small smile.
Deanna poured out two shots and pushed one with the back of her hand to the other vampire. "Here's what I'm having trouble reconciling," she continued. "If I go down this... path, accept the soul and become something new... I mean, I'll still have ridges and teeth and need blood to survive, but--" She downed the whiskey and slammed the shot glass upside down on the rickety table. "What does that make me?"
"You want a label? A social caste?" John picked up the shot glass between two fingers and downed it. "I'm the worst for that sort of advice," he said, a bit throatier with the whiskey burning its way down his esophagus. "If you don't think letting humans live makes me a social pariah amongst the undead, then my lack of interest in global or even regional domination takes care of it." He set his cigarette in an ashtray and rubbed his palms back and forth. "I haven't got to tell you how few immortals come from upper or even middle class society, as it is, and forget about literary circles. Most of us were the scourge of the earth before we were bitten."
"Ha! None of us belong to a caste, John!" Deanna poured two more shots, then took another hit from her cigarette before flicking some of the ash into the receptacle. "We huddle together in numbers to keep the predators at bay, live on instinct. Only a precious few bother to venture outside our caves and take a look at how the world really is, and adapt to it." She took another shot. "We're no better than neanderthals."
The redhead didn't even wait for him to finish his shot before she poured herself another. It disappeared just as quickly. "That's what's bugging me. I'm trying to, for lack of a better word, evolve, and I haven't got the first clue how."
"There's a caste system in every group," he argued, scowling, though not in a bad mood. "As freeborn creatures, we're obsessed with it. Even you believe yourself somehow better than the rest of us lot, because you're older, two centuries old, in fact. You're a smarter hunter, or at least you'd have the world believe so, because you don't resort to cemeteries and back alley chases, which is where of course you found me. You're able to injure me before I've done so much as blink. Aren't those all things you've said in the name of separatism, of being somehow 'better'? I won't bother pointing out the obvious matter of your clothes."
John nursed his beer, barely swallowing before he went on, "And now you've gone and gotten yourself a soul. Sooner or later, you'll give yourself the moral high ground because of it, and you'll say you're better because you asked for it."
Another shot, followed by a drag of the cigarette. "And what about you, John, hmmm? You mask your hunt with deception, finding drunkards who won't remember your face. You abuse them before sinking your teeth in, then fish through their wallets for spare change, which you then spend at bars while pontificating about how imperial you say I act." Deanna gritted her teeth, but not in anger. "You think that doesn't make you 'morally superior' in our so-called caste? You blend in just as much as I do. If I have to own who I am, so do you."
"The difference is, I've denied none of it, bragged about none of it." John lifted his shoulders. "I have no qualms with who I am and what I do, and I'm not the one having a crisis of identity." Beyond that, he offered no further explanation. His hesitation to kill humans had little to do with morality and nearly everything to do with his own selfish wants and desires. He recognized it and carried on, starting with the shot she'd already poured for him.
Deanna ruminated as smoke wafted across the table. "You're a big help," she groused. "Essentially you're suggesting what? That I've made my bed, so I should lie in it and whatever side I roll out of, I go with?"
"Essentially." John pushed his sleeve above his elbows. "Or there's this. Immortality is tiresome without purpose. Sometimes even with it," he said, giving that admission with a tilt of head. "To curb the boredom, we all need something into which we can invest ourselves. Why did you ask for a soul? What did you hope to get out of it?"
Two shots were poured, but left to rest on the table. Deanna stubbed out her cigarette as she searched for an easy answer. "Like you said, immortality without purpose. I thought I'd had one, see. Cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war. Shop 'til I dropped. Love 'em and drain 'em. But when you spend what felt like decades in hell being punished for, what, doing what came naturally?" The whiskey went down easy. "That just proved to me there was no natural order."
The bottle was half empty now. The redhead drummed acrylic nails on the scratched table as she debated ordering another. "If I was coming back, I wanted a new purpose. I just hoped that it'd be more apparent and less guilt-ridden."
"Maybe you should've asked to be a personal injury lawyer," he said, smiling. John stubbed his cigarette in the ash tray and scratched his cheek. "I live for temporary fixations," he said. He folded his arms on the table. "Half the time, I'm so bored I think I might turn to dust where I'm standing. All this advice is easier given than followed. Believe me, if I had one-tenth the zest you claim to have had before that Slayer punched your ticket, I'd call myself satisfied." He admired that sort of stamina, the love for being a predator. He just didn't have it.
Deanna smirked. "That's my problem. I'm never satisfied. I'm always looking for what's next, to shake up the status quo--" Her eyes went wide. "That's it," she mumbled.
The redhead downed the whiskey shot that sat in front of John, and stacked one on top of the other. "I'm not one for resting on my laurels, and I enjoy a challenge. Hell, I relish it. So I'm a vamp with a soul, that's gotta count for something, am I right? It means something. You said so yourself. It's practically mythic. The door's wide open to who I wanna be. What I can be. Be all I can be."
"You're not about to enlist, I hope." John pulled some of the cash from his pocket and set it on the table. He waited to see where Deanna was headed with this new line of thinking, though he doubted it was any place beneficial for most vampires.
The smirk turned into a grin, the kind that suggested you didn't want to interfere with its owner. "Khaki against pale skin? Not a good look." She grabbed the bottle and took a swig. "Nope. I'm gonna become what I feared the first time around.
"I'm gonna be a monster slayer." Deanna popped the bottle back down on the table. Liquid sluiced up the neck and over, and drizzled onto her hand.
"Ah." With an index finger, John scratched an inch behind his ear, a gesture that joined his rueful expression and indicated regret for any small part in this he might've played. She would've come to it in her own time, but he hadn't tried to derail the train. "Would you mind doing me a favor and waiting until tomorrow?"
The grin became a laugh. Deanna gingerly licked the alcohol from the back of her hand, from wrist to fingers. "There's a lot of stuff out there that's worse than you. I've seen shit that would straighten your curls. And like you said, you don't kill your prey. That gets you a pass."
Usually, he thought, but John saw no need to correct the misunderstanding now. He picked up his beer and raised it in Deanna's direction. "To free passes," he said. "Cheers."