“You boys lost?”
The man’s voice, with its slight Southwestern twang, came from behind me to my left. As Pedro, my Patron, was sitting on that side, I ignored it. To be honest, it was hard to focus on it in the busy, bustling diner as it was. Pedro had told me the place’s name, saying that it had the best salsa burger in the entire country. I gotta admit, that’s not exactly what I imagined a vampire who’d been around for half a millenia would remember, but whatever. I’ll admit the tomatoes, peppers, and Kobe beef were like someone painted a sunset on my palate, but that’s what happens when all your senses increase by a few orders of magnitude.
Place has a bit of a fly problem, I thought angrily, as it suddenly seemed like a horde of the buggers had taken up residence just outside of my arm’s reach.
“Hey, shit for brains–talking to you too,” the man continued from right behind me. I nearly whirled around whipped out his throat just for the hell of it, but caught myself.
Don’t want to announce to a room full of gazelles that a lion walks amongst them, I thought. Although this asshole is definitely moving his way to the ‘slowest gazelle on the veldt’-territory. I glanced over at Pedro just as the diner’s cook slammed his hand down on the bell in the order’s window.
The look on Pedro’s face that was my first warning. The Old Ones tend not to show fear. I think part of it is showmanship, but most of it is because after walking the earth for centuries there’s not a whole lot you haven’t seen. So understand, when an Old One has a face like a seal who has just seen an orca hop out the water and start walking up the beach towards him, that’s a bad sign.
My second warning? Well that was the fact the sound of that bell just kept ringing…ringing…ringing like the sound had been suspended in mid-air. My master, before turning me over to receive my training as a young vampire, had told me sound or light seeming to be off was a sign of magic. What particular brand of magic was not important, as generally magic is a big neon sign saying “GTFO” in 100-point, bright neon green font. (more…)