He was starving. He’d just arrived in this city, a city of brotherly love, and found that no one was very loving after twilight. Most of the stores rolled up their carpets, locked their doors, and hunkered down for the night. It was a Tuesday, for God’s sake. Shouldn’t something be open by around this time?
The Harley rumbled through the night, its light on in front of him but the man seated in the saddle looking from one side of the road to the other, looking for anything moving along the side of the road. There, a girl, dressed in goth clothes and looking around, trying to look nonchalant. He could smell her fear. He didn’t care. He was starving.
He parked the bike next to her and turned on whatever charm he had, but the woman was already running. He sighed, flicked the kickstand down with his foot, and took off after her.
She ran down the street, looking back, but didn’t see him – until she slammed right into him. Like running into a brick wall, she bounced off him.
“Where ya goin’, sweets?”
“I…I’ll scream.”
“I’m askin where ya goin.” He looked her up and down. “I ain’t gonna rape ya, unless you like that kinda thing.”
“I will scream—“
He put her hand over her mouth. “No, you won’t – oh, a biter, eh? So’m I.” He picked up her lithe small body and pulled her down a set of stairs that lead probably to a cellar apartment. The lights were off and he heard nothing through the walls. Her muffled screams would make noise to any passersby, but there didn’t seem to be any.
“Shhh, shhh, ain’ gonna hurt ya. I promise ya that, sweets…”
#
The girl cuddled in his arms. “That…”
He chuckled. “It’s a drug, you like it?”
“It’s…It’s like wow.” She looked up at him, eyes glossy and looking a bit stoned. “Give it to me again.”
His brow furrowed for a minute, and then he pushed aside the collar of her leather jacket. Two marks, like punctured holes, were tattooed on her neck, and one of them had two drops of blood dripping from it. “What’s this?”
She yanked her jacket up to cover the tattoo and scrambled up out of his arms. “I got—“
“Tell me,” he ordered.
She was rooted to the spot. “Sorority,” she said.
“Where is this sorority? What school?”
“Have to go!” She scrambled up the stairs.
He watched her go, curious. Someone else’s hunting ground?
He grinned. Well, I should go introduce myself.
#
It took some riding for most of the night before he found the clubs. He had to avoid a few police patrols when he did it, but they didn’t seem to come down here to South Philly. Or if they did, they were in packs.
Undergrounds, drug dealers, whores, and all night clubs, gambling houses – this is what he’d often hung out in. He parked the bike outside of a club with a loud Latino beat. Some gangbangers watched him, a big bald white guy, dismount from the bike. He did it slowly and deliberately, ignoring them at first.
“Hey, Gringo, you’re gonna lose that bike there.”
“No, I won’t, because you’re guarding it.”
“Haha, gringo, fuck you. I’m nobody’s guard.”
“Do it for money or I hurt you, your choice.”
“Fuck you! You and whose army?”
The bald man removed his sunglasses. His eyes were a clear blue, like a Caribbean ocean. He methodically put the glasses in the pocket of his jacket. “So I’m guessin’ you ain’t doin’ the former, but prefer the latter?”
“What’re you fuckin’ sayin?”
The bald man moved. In one minute he was standing in front of them, and in the next, he had dragged the speaker to the bike and slammed his head on the marble step right at the tire. “Keep an eye on it,” he said, though the man was unconscious, possibly dead. He turned to look at the rest of the gang. “Touch it, you end up worse’n him.”
He stomped on the man’s neck for good measure, issuing a crack – if he wasn’t dead, he would be soon – and walked down the street.
“Hey, baby, wanna fuck?” Three women came out of seemingly nowhere and latched themselves onto him. He ignored them, shaking them off like they were snakes. They yelled at him and called him a faggot, but he wasn’t out looking for them.
He found some more goth kids hanging at a street corner. Goth kids didn’t normally get stoned in his experience, but they were often high and manic. He stopped, and waited until they noticed him. He looked at all their necks.
“Lookin’ for a ‘sorority’,” he said using air quotes.
“Ah, yes,” said a young man with long stringy black hair and long, painted black nails. He was dressed in red velvet and wore whiteface with black lipstick and eye shadow, but no eye liner. He came over and traced a finger on the bald man’s face –
The bald man grabbed the man’s hand and held it. “Sorority, queerbait.”
He nodded down the street. “The Armory.”
“Far?”
“Only three Goth bars on this strip, an’ that’s the oldest one,” said a boy. “We Goths gotta stick together.”
“Right after the head shop,” said someone else. And the bald man let go of the other man’s hand. “Can’t miss the Armory.”
The street had a bit of an incline as he walked back to his bike. He wanted to get it a little closer.
#
The Latino’s body was gone, and so were his friends; the bike was untouched. He checked the gas tank to see if they jimmied it, and also checked other connections that some delinquents could separate or cut. Everything seemed in order and he started it up. He drove back up the street, past the goth kids, and toward a large, three-floor brick building. This was definitely an armory.
He parked the bike a little ways down, in front of a convenience store with way too much inventory stuffed up against the windows. The inventory was old, with faded letters on most of the packages. Then he walked back to the Armory.
This music he couldn’t hear, but the bouncers looked professional. No one hung out outside here. No valet parking, either. Two huge men in black t-shirts with a silver icon on the right breast stood outside. On the back was the name of the place, “The Armory” in silver gothic lettering.
He walked through the snake of the line, even though no one was there, to give the men time to look him over. He knew he didn’t look goth enough to save his life – he screamed “biker” with his leather jacket, dark green t-shirt, leather pants and scuffed biker boots. He still wore the sunglasses and the light reflected a bit off of his bald palate.
“Evening,” he said to the bouncers.
Both men folded their arms against him. “You on the VIP list?” asked one.
“Wish I was,” he said.
“You new?” asked the other.
“Yeah.”
One tapped his earpiece – no expense was withheld from this place, the bald man thought. He nodded to some reply, and the rope was lifted. “Enjoy.”
There must have been cameras. He had no idea what to do, but he opened the huge mahogany doors. Now the techno spilled out into the street, and he had to force himself not to listen so closely. He stepped through the foyer, crowded with kids and Goths drinking, and walked down the small hallway to the dance floor.
For a Tuesday night, it was crowded. He could see the DJ up above them all, like a priest at a mass, a spotlight on him, and him performing dances with records and headphones. Mystified for a moment by that, he hardly felt the tap on his shoulder.
He turned to see a woman in a full, white evening gown standing before him. His mouth literally dropped to the floor. She was stunningly beautiful, the gown strapless but with a very, very low neckline that showed a diamond in her navel. She smiled and held out a drink for him. “On the house for first timers,” she said.
He took the drink and sniffed – pure Jack Daniels. “Mighty kind o’ ya.”
She held out a dainty hand. “I’m Anilia. I manage the place.”
“Bomber,” he said, taking her hand in his left and kissing the air above it.
“Charming,” she replied, the smile warmer and he felt her body temperature rise. “Let me take you to the VIP room.”
Words 1448
Inspiration: This might be my next novel. I’m taking him out of the World of Darkness (for the most part) and giving him some typical “vampire mojo”. The Armory is the name of a place I had gone to a long time ago – not quite a club, but it was a meeting hall. “The Rack” is a World of Darkness concept. Some concepts will be changed to avoid copyright issues (hopefully).