Mortal Agent of a Vampire - Chapter 25

Take note, readers. While it’s downright silly to write this in a note that no one but me (and Vince isn’t a human being) is going to see, this is me, and isn’t it true that to love me is to love everything about me? Anyway, pay attention, if there’s anything that stands out about this note, it’s definitely this next paragraph.
To put it simply, here comes the j□j.
The coffin was very small and I couldn’t even turn around, so I had to lie face down in a rigid position. I could now understand why Vince scoffed when I asked him if you slept in a coffin. No ghost wants to sleep in a coffin, one night can give you whiplash and frozen shoulder.
“Let me out!” I yelled, “This joke has gone too far! I want a refund!”
No one paid any attention to me. Whoever the guy was that put me in here, he’s definitely gone. I struggled desperately until I was out of breath.
A vibration in my chest startles me. It was the cell phone. I shook it and it fell out, it was Vince and I picked it up.
“You’re in?” His voice was smooth, sounding peaceful, and I sighed in relief.
“Yes.”
“Let me jog your memory. What did I tell you?” He emphasized, “Stay in the car.”
“People who are accounted for that way in movies end up getting out of their cars.” I argued.
“Everyone who gets out of a car in a movie ends up in a bad place.”
I’m reminded of Jurassic Park, the guy squatting on the toilet being chewed up by a T. rex. In contrast, God summarizes my current situation.
“Can I go back and do my review, Daddy?” I urged him, “Come on, tell me, are you okay? I’ve had enough scares today.”
“I thought you wanted some excitement.” Vince doesn’t sympathize with me at all, no energy, “It says haunted house on the door, can’t you look it up in the dictionary?”
“Please-” I trailed off.
Vince sighed hopelessly and made a concession, “Okay, I don’t have ……” He had just said a few words when I heard a bump and Vince’s voice disappeared. Then there was further confusion, I heard the noise of shooting and mirrors breaking as if a thousand wasps were flapping their wings at the same time on the phone.
“Vince! Vince!” I called out to him frantically.
There was no echo.
Suddenly, everything paused, quiet as if it were the center of a storm. I crossed my fingers, feeling like a criminal standing in the dock.
After a long time, a neutralized voice came over the airwaves, “Oh, you know what?” He sounded like a character in a Shakespearean stage play – a do-gooder, “I love you so much, Vince, you can’t imagine how lonely I’ve been all these years. Day and night I’ve thought about you non-stop, where you are, what you’re doing, who you’re with ……” He said it as if he was about to cry. I think he was Angelo, there was something familiar about the voice, but due to the distortion caused by the phone I couldn’t remember where I’d heard it for a moment.
“Stop it, you make me sick.” Vince spoke my mind. There was a hint of patience in his voice. Fear punched me in the stomach. Could he have been restrained? Or worse, was he hurt?
With all my might, I tried to escape. But this damn coffin it just wouldn’t open, and I was no escape expert.
As I was exhausted, the stage play spoke again, and he laughed a long, long laugh, going from low to high, a horrible laugh that could make one’s head spin, like it was churned up straight from the bottom of hell.
The laughter ended abruptly.
“I always envisioned our reunion. Just like now.” The stage show paused, “I dream of it over and over again, looking into your eyes – I love your eyes, Vince, always have, that look, as if you’re the king of the world – my fingers sliding over your brow bone and cheeks, finally resting on your lips as I lean toward you leaned down and felt your breath on my face with tension and fear and hate, and then …… ” His voice trailed off.
I suspect I strung a line to the j□j pay phone.
Stagecoach laughed again, softly:
“And then, I put the dagger in your heart myself.”
My heart shrunk into a ball.
“Chutzpah.” Vince said through gritted teeth. Safe word.
A suppressed j□j followed. There was a twinge of pain, as if my chest had been ripped open and an ice pick had run through it.
“No!” I hissed, feeling rolling tears slide down my face. The world was falling apart around me, my mind in total chaos.
“Hey, are you still online, Lyle?” I heard the stage play say softly after a while. I suddenly realized I was sobbing, and I wiped away my tears as anger blazed through my body.
“You better make sure Vince is okay! Or I’m going to kill you!” I cursed, if I could I would have crawled over the airwaves and ripped him to shreds by now.
The other man paused, “Oh, don’t worry, I won’t end him now. He’s a mistake that should be righted where it began. But, speaking of death,” he raised his voice suddenly, “do you know what the most painful death in the world is?”
‘I won’t let you go, no matter how far you hide!’ I said hatefully.
“Buried alive.” He asked himself, “Enjoy your last breath of air, human.” With that, he cut off and beeped, a gurgling busy signal coming from the phone.
As much as I hated to admit it, he was right. The air in the coffin was diminishing drastically, and I was beginning to gasp for air, the carbon dioxide like a pair of invisible black hands around my throat.
The phone was still on, but my eyes blurred and consciousness drifted away from me. In the last moments of wakefulness, a pair of hands with green painted nails flashed through my mind. It was those hands that held me in the coffin.
Oh my God, it was him!
Darkness took over me.
When I woke up again, I realized I was in a hospital, lying in a bed with an oxygen mask on.
“Danke Gott!” someone said from beside my bed. I turned my head and saw Goddess Daphne.
“Thank you for the compliment, I appreciate it, but my name is Marlene.” She introduced herself.
As soon as I ripped off my oxygen mask, I sat up straight, “Where’s Vince?!” Can’t figure out why she’s thanking God, and so is Nellie, they know damn well they’re vampires, don’t they? The Pope should have ordered them to be burned.
“Oh relax, I was going to tell you about him.” Marlene smiles a little, she’s wearing a tailored peacock blue strapless dress dress today that’s to die for, but I’m not in the mood to admire it.
“What did Angelo do to him?!” I questioned loudly, drawing sideways glances from the patients in the surrounding beds.
Marlene pulled the curtain up and sat down at the front of the chair, her back straight and slightly sideways, her arms folded and poised in front of her. A truly ladylike sitting position, I was reminded of the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen.
“Angelo didn’t do anything to him.” Marlene said.
“Liar!” I reached for my gun, but it was empty. With a killing wave of dizziness, I fell back onto the bed. Vince’s last call came to mind. That j□j…… I felt like someone was ripping my guts out, and the tears were about to spill out again.
“You’ve got it all wrong, I have to say.” Marlene put a hand on my shoulder, and for some reason the gesture brought a wave of comfort as I gradually calmed down.
“All we care about is the turf, and with Luz dead, it’s an opportunity. Angelo wants Vince to take over the West Coast. Believe me, Vince knows how to expand his influence, and Ruiz only plays rock and roll. Angelo traded some terms with him, and that was it.” Marlene said, “It wasn’t Angelo who took him.”
“You mean the …… green fingernails.” I really didn’t realize that there were vampires who were turned so young, no, so early, and he hadn’t even changed his voice yet! Don’t they have a law that says you can’t turn a minor?
“No, we don’t have a law like that, we just don’t usually do it.” Marlene hid a small smile, “That’s a cute nickname you gave him.”
There was another ‘stage name’ that I decided not to tell her before she died laughing, “Who is he?”
“Gabriel.” Marlene looked enigmatic, “He’s a mean hearted guy.”
Why am I not surprised?
“Where is he?” I’m sure I can find Vince by following him.
“You tell me.”
That’s what Mohammed said when I approached him about Vince’s whereabouts. It’s like all of a sudden, I’m on vampire radar.
“How do I know?”
The goddess looked at me strangely, “He’s Vince’s shifter.”
I froze. Yes, Vince had shown me what he looked like when he transformed, but he had hidden Gabriel’s features, so how could I have thought that he was a middle schooler? About a hundred years ago, Vince had asked to be separated from him, but he’d never acknowledged it. Jesus Christ, I was joking with Vince about something about his dad coming to take him home, and it was clearly the other way around, okay?
It all came back clear as a sandy ridge at low tide.
I remembered Gabriel’s (still green fingernail smooth) words, “Vince was a mistake that should have been righted where it began.”
Where it started, I knew where that was. When Vince was a human, he was a Romanian aristocrat, a real fop, living in a castle, waving his money around and making noise.
One day he was attacked while hunting, it wasn’t human, it was a vampire. He was transformed, the other party took control of him and made him prey on his mother, and by the time he regained consciousness, all of his loved ones had been poisoned and he was left all alone.
Time waited for no one, I leapt to my feet, “I have to go.”
Marlene stood up without a hitch, smoothing out the folds in her skirt that weren’t actually there, “Good luck.”
As I lifted the curtain, I remembered a suspicion.
“Why did you save me?” I looked back. She’d just said that the only thing they cared about was the turf.
“To keep you safe,” Marlene spread her palms, “It was a condition of Vince’s promise to cooperate.”
He’d sold himself, for me, and I almost whimpered like a puppy.
But wait, Gabriel threatened to kill Vince, and if Vince dies, they won’t have to answer to me …… I smell something fishy here. Catnip, by the way, Marlene called Vince a ‘naughty kitty’.
After a moment of hesitation, I decided to try to give an inch, “Can you help me?” I wanted as much leverage as possible, I wanted to see Vince safe and sound, I wanted …… to be with him.
“It’s a feud between them, I can’t interfere, Angelo will not be happy. But ……” Marlene considered, and suddenly she smiled brightly, “Gabriel ruined my labyrinth.” What a blood feud.
We’re flying straight to Romania.
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