Scared Shiftless
I could smell the vampire from the opposite side of the room…
No one else knew he was there. But as they say, the show must go on.
I clung to my microphone, belting out the last note of Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.” It was a crowd favorite, and I had the voice for it. Most humans couldn’t say that.
If angels really sang, as one critic who saw one of my performances wrote in the local LGBTQ+ publication, I’d be a member of their choir.
Not that I was an angel. We didn’t sing praises to God. We only serenaded our meals.
At least, that’s what I used to do. Before I was bitten.
That’s how we hunted humans: shifting into whatever form they found most alluring, wooing them with song. Then dragging them down to our watery lair… for dinner.
How was I supposed to know, on that fateful night, that a vampire had made her way onto my menu? Even more, how could I be expected to realize that if I was bitten by one, I’d lose my abilities? That I’d be stuck like this…
By day and by night I was Nicky—total diva.
By late-night I became Nyx—every vampire’s worst nightmare.
I’d tried to keep those worlds separate. Until this bloodsucker, whoever he was, dared to stalk Nicky’s audience.
He’d crossed a line.
For most folks, Leotards and Lace was just another hole-in-the-wall gay club. Hell, I wasn’t even gay. And I wasn’t one of the drag queens normally featured on stage.
Big misconception—if you’re trans and you sing, that doesn’t make you a drag queen.
Gina had finished her set, to the hoots and hollers of a semi-rowdy crowd, just before I took the stage.
I didn’t elicit the same response from the audience.
When I sang, the crowds were hushed. They listened intently. The cheers came all at once—after I’d finished my number. Some of the crowd came for the queens. Others came to hear me.
The club owners didn’t care. Everyone paid the same cover charge.
And now that I was on stage, Gina’s fans migrated to the back of the room where she made an appearance to fraternize with her fans.
The vampire was talking to her…
It wasn’t the first time I’d seen a vamp on the prowl. He bought her a drink, he flirted with her, locking eyes with her, capturing her with his vampiric allure… irresistible to most humans.
But I was a professional. I had a song to song. And another one after that.
I finished the Whitney number, and the crowd erupted in cheers. I gripped my microphone tightly, brushing one of my long sliver-white strands of hair out of my face and tucking it behind my ear.
I was slated for a second song. It was my signature number—my version of Roberta Fleck’s rendition of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.” Haunting, but oddly seductive. Based on experience, half the crowd would be making out with each other before I vocalized the last note.
Sure, the Whitney song was a classic “diva” number. It highlighted my status as a powerhouse singer. But this one… it was enchanting. It had gained me something of a cult following. It was why the majority of the crowd had come.
The house band started to play, but my attentions were fixed on the back of the room as the vampire took Gina by the hand and led her out the door.
I dropped my microphone and took off through the crowd. My second number wasn’t going to happen. Not tonight.
I didn’t have my weapons on me. I usually had a stake, a crossbow, chains, several cloves of garlic… I’d make do. I had my methods.
Most people were surprised how quickly I could run in heels. Truthfully, my kind—elementals, that is—can move incredibly fast even if we’ve temporarily (or in my case, semi-permanently) assumed a human form. I didn’t notice much of a drop-off in my speed in heels. Hell, I was so used to them that I might have even been faster in heels than in running shoes.
I pushed my way through the audience to the back of the room. I ignored the man who grabbed my ass as I made my way past all the bodies; I didn’t have time to exchange gropes for slaps.
I pressed forward, shoving people aside as I reached the back of the room. I wasn’t about to let Gina, or any of my queens, get taken by a vampire.
I looked outside.
Leotards and Lace wasn’t in the worst neighborhood. Not the best, either. It was in Kansas City’s historic West Bottoms district. It was fairly safe during the day. At night, it was a bit of a different story. A lot of red-brick buildings, mostly abandoned. Most of them originally erected in the early twentieth century for manufacturing, now converted into loft apartments, artist studios, and eclectic shops and other attractions.
With all the tall buildings and alleys, a scream, even if someone was bold enough to investigate it, would be hard to track down from a distance.
And since vampires also moved fast—almost as fast as me—I had to find Gina before the vamp bit her. Vamps don’t tend to waste a lot of time once they have their victims alone.
I sniffed the air.
I could smell the undead. Most people couldn’t; humans have a notoriously bad sense of smell. Most vampires didn’t realize they had an odor. A skunk doesn’t know its own scent. But other supernaturals—elementals, like me, and probably werewolves—could smell a vampire from a hundred yards away.
They were that rank.
It was a distinct, pungent odor. A bit like iron.
And I knew these alleys better than the vampire. If he lived nearby, or frequented this area, I’d know it.
A lot of vampires hunt outside of their regular stomping grounds. It was still wiser, from a vamp’s perspective, to hunt in a variety of different neighborhoods. Less chance of getting caught.
Vamps are like any criminals, and hunters are sort of like detectives. They’re creatures of habit who tend to repeat their behaviors. And we look for patterns.
This was common knowledge for the older and wiser vampires. While they were more likely to get stuck in a routine—the old-dog-new-tricks sort of thing—those who’d been around a century or two had so many different habits in their stalk-and-feed routines that they were harder to track. Not to mention, older vamps didn’t have to feed as regularly.
This vampire was, I wagered, either older or an out-of-towner. And he was about to meet his match.
I followed his scent down an ally not far from the bar. And I saw him. He had my friend, Gina, pressed against a wall. He was whispering into her ear.
The bite was coming…
“Hey, asshole!” I shouted.
The vampire turned, eyes glowing red.
“What you been smoking?” I asked. “I mean, I’ve seen bloodshot eyes before…” I looked past his shoulder and nodded at Gina.
She took off running in the opposite direction, grabbing her phone from her brassiere.
I had to do this fast—stake this vamp and drag his body off before the police showed up. So far, I’d evaded any problems from the police. But since they probably didn’t even realize vampires were real, I doubted they’d respond well if they caught me staking one and dragging his body through an alley.
Gina turned the corner, almost twisting her ankle. She wasn’t quite as graceful in heels as I was. When she wasn’t in drag, after all, she was Geraldo. A rather handsome Hispanic gay man.
And he had a totally different personality—Geraldo was a quiet artist. Introverted. Sexy in his own way. But I wasn’t his type, being a trans woman, so I’d never pursued him.
Only as Gina did she wear heels. Gina was a rambunctious, glamorous queen. But Gina only lived on stage, and for brief moments after her shows. She didn’t have as much practice in heels as I did.
You’d rarely catch me in flats; my butt looked better in heels. What can I say?
The vampire snarled. He was pissed. It was like some random stranger had walked by and taken food off his plate.
I knew he’d be angry. Angry vampires can be difficult. When they rage out, they get an extra dose of strength.
But this wasn’t about strength—it was about speed and agility. That’s where I had the advantage, because angry vampires also tend to act recklessly.
His jaw dropped, flashing his fangs in a futile attempt to terrify me, and he charged my position.
Sure, he moved fast. Not as fast as me.
I didn’t have my stake on hand, but I had my heels. I quickly grabbed my shoe from my right foot and kicked off the other.
Everything happened so quickly, it was all a blur.
I widened my stance, bracing for the collision. As the vamp dove at me, undoubtedly hoping to tackle me and feed from me, I thrust my stiletto heel into his heart.
Wide-eyed and jaw-dropped, the vampire looked at me in shock. The bloodsucker’s skin turned gray before he collapsed at my feet.
“Perfect,” I said to myself, looking over the vampire. Most vampires tried to stay up with current styles. They almost always wore black. Not because they were “goth,” but because black allowed them to blend into the shadows.
But older vampires, who’d walked the earth for more than a century, tended to default to older styles. I suppose they found keeping up with trends wearisome. And by the look of this one, the way he was dressed, I was certain he hadn’t been turned any time in the last hundred years.
This was what I was looking for.
Most younger vampires didn’t have a clue who Alice was—the vampire who stole my abilities. This one, an older vampire, would at the very least know of her. Even if he couldn’t tell me where she was, it was the best shot I’d had in a while to gather actionable intelligence on my target.
Usually I’d stake a vamp, and once it was clear they didn’t have any helpful information, I’d cut out their heart, burn it, and be done with it.
I’d have to take a little more time with this one, just in case he had information I could use. Couldn’t do it here. Didn’t have enough time. Not with the cops likely on the way.
I used to take more time with the vamps I caught. But over many hunts, I gained a sense for which ones might be more or less helpful to me.
A good interrogation took time to prepare. Of course, with my heel firmly lodged in the vampire’s heart, I literally had all the time in the world. Once I got him out of the alley.
I had a place. Not my apartment. Another place, for situations like this.
Contrary to popular belief, staking a vampire doesn’t totally kill the creature. Remove the stake and they come back. But it’s generally the first step. Hard to cut out a vampire’s heart if he’s still breathing.
And, technically speaking, he’d stay like this—dormant and corpse-like—indefinitely, so long as my heel remained in his heart.
Not that I intended to take any longer than necessary.
I had to set the scene: bind the vampire to ensure he couldn’t escape, then make sure I was near a window so that when the sun rose I could pull the curtains, if needed, as a way of forcing the vamp to talk.
Hopefully it wouldn’t take that long.
I cracked my knuckles and grabbed the vampire. I tossed him over my shoulder, careful not to dislodge my stiletto from his chest in the process. It must’ve been quite a scene—a diva, now barefoot, with a body across her shoulders in a fireman’s carry.
I might not look like much—but I’m one strong bitch.
And this vampire was about to find out I could be intimidating as hell when I wanted to be.
