A Night at Club Vampire 2 (11 page)

Nigel lunged for the other vampire.

Scared of how it would turn out, Lacey ducked back behind the sofa and closed her eyes. She heard a mixture of snarling and cursing combined with the sound of her furniture breaking. Some more crashing, glass breaking, more snarls.

She had no idea how long the fighting lasted; the terror of the situation held her in its grip. When the apartment became silent she opened her eyes, fearful of what she might see, but knowing she had to look. She opened them just in time to see Nigel plunge a silver butter knife through Joseph's heart.

"Oh my God," she gasped, getting up the nerve to stand and cautiously walk over to Nigel. Instead she stood frozen in the spot, wide-eyed at the horror she had just witnessed.

At the sound of her voice, Nigel turned to look at her. Lacey gasped and began to back away again. That wasn't Nigel, couldn't be
her
Nigel. The man standing before her looked like Nigel but had white eyes that shone like pearls. His lips were partially parted displaying a set of fangs similar to the ones which had pierced the side of her neck. He appeared to be covered in blood, both his own and the other, now dead vampire's.

Her neck!

In all the excitement she'd forgotten that she was bleeding. Her hand automatically went to the side of her neck. Warm liquid seeped from the wound, when she removed her hand. She brought it to her face and screamed. Her hand was covered in her own blood.

She felt dizzy, and clutched the arm of the sofa to steady herself.

Lacey looked back to Nigel, then to the corpse which he still held against the wall by the neck. Before her very eyes the dead vampire turned to ash, the grains falling to the floor, settling into her shag rug.

"Lacey. Please don't be afraid. I can explain," Nigel stated, putting his hands out to his side, palms out. "Don't be frightened. I was going to tell you, I swear to God I was."

The shock of the incident passed and she found herself shaking, sobs burst in her throat and tears flowed. She collapsed onto the sofa. She could hear Nigel slowly advancing towards her.

When he sat down next to her, she turned to face him. His eyes were back to the grey she recognized and the fangs had also disappeared. He looked normal again. But he wasn't normal. He wasn't even human. At least not anymore.

Nigel placed a hand on her shoulder. "I didn't want you to find out this way. I swear to you I was going to tell you tonight."

Shaking her head violently, she inched away from him. "Get out."

Nigel hesitated and reached for her again, "Lacey. Please. Listen to me."

"Get out!" she screamed it this time, her tear-filled eyes, which spoke of anger, confusion and pain, glared at him. "You're like him. You're one of them. A monster! Get out!"

There was silence for several long moments as they both sat and stared at each other.

The tension within the room grew, to unbearable heights.

"Alright, if that s what you want." Nigel finally said, ending the silence. Standing he walked to the door and paused, turning back to her, "I'm sorry about the mess, I'll send you a check to cover the damages."

"I don't need anything from you," she growled, "I don't ever want to see you or any of your kind again."

Nigel nodded and left without saying another word.

Lacey ran to the door and locked it. She fell against it and sank to the floor. Dropping her face into her hands, she allowed the tears to flow freely.

****

Travis made a show of yawning before replying. "It's only..." he leaned back into the apartment to glance at the clock on the wall, "Nine am. We just got to bed. The clubbers left the place trashed last night. Can't it wait?"

"No it can't. Now!" It was just then that Nigel took notice of the fact Travis hadn't bothered to put on a stitch of clothing to answer the door. He quickly averted his eyes to avoid seeing any more of Travis than he already had. "And for God's sake put on some clothes. Fuck, I can't believe you answer the door like that."

"Hey, if you don't want to be seeing shit you shouldn't see, then how about not waking a guy up in the middle of the morning?" Heaving a loud sigh Travis gave in. "Fine. Give me five minutes and I'll be there."

"Good. And get William up and bring him along with you. He should hear what I have to say as well." Knowing Travis wouldn't care for the task of having to wake William up, but not wanting to do it himself, Nigel quickly crossed the empty VIP lobby and exited into the main floor of the club.

Nigel needed to inform William and Travis about the death of Joseph. While in the world of the vampire it was more or less a kill or be killed type of existence, the death of one of the King s favoured would not be taken lightly. No one but Nigel's elite group would ever know of the vampire's death; however, considering the tension between the two vampire bloodlines it was necessary to inform them. Just in case.

He had yet another ulterior motive for calling them to his office. Nigel needed serious relationship advice. The way that Lacey screamed at him, the way she called him a monster - the exact words he had feared he'd hear - still lingered in his head. She had such fear in her eyes contempt in her tone. Despite just meeting her a couple days ago, it stung. It felt as though she had taken hold of his cold heart and ripped it out.

Once in the office his first order of business was to grab a bottle of blood. He drank it down, tossed the bottle in the waste basket and grabbed another. He supposed he couldn't blame her for feeling the way she did. He
was
a monster, in many ways. The blood in his hand was a case in point. And he did feed from humans, with and without their knowing.

No. He wasn't a good man, not in a number ways. Nigel certainly didn't feel like one at the moment. Maybe he was just like Joseph after all.

A knock sounded at the door.

"Ya. Come on in it's open," Nigel yelled as he seated himself in the black leather, swivel chair behind his desk.

Travis, William, Trinity and Franny piled into the office. He hadn't requested Trinity and Franny to join their little meeting, but was grateful that they had. Perhaps once the matter was settled about Joseph they could lend some advice from the human female perspective. Granted, Franny was no longer a human, but she had been until just a short while ago, before she d met William.

"So what's going on that we needed to get up for?" William asked barely squeezing his huge frame into one of the armchairs. Franny perched on the arm of the chair next to him.

"I killed Joseph," Nigel said in a voice devoid of emotion.

"The
King's
Joseph?" Travis asked leaning forward on the sofa, eyes glued to Nigel.

"That would be the one I m referring to," Nigel confirmed with a nod.

"Shit man! Anyone know but us?" William asked, reclining in the chair and crossing his massive arms over his equally massive chest.

"Lacey. She was there. He was trying to drink from her, among other things."

"Where is she?" Trinity demanded, looking around the office for signs of the girl.

"Home, I imagine," Nigel shrugged, he had no clue really.

"I'll go get her," Franny volunteered standing.

"You're not going anywhere yet," William tugged on the back of her black terry cloth robe featuring the words Club Vampire embroidered on the front and pulling her back down on the chair beside him.

"What is she going to do, really?" Nigel reasoned. In truth, he had never considered what she might do now that he was gone.

"She could go to the police," Trinity stated.

"The police we can handle," Travis assured her. "Besides what's she going to show them? A pile of ash?"

"She could go to the press. Perhaps not the 'Times' but some trash rag would love a juicy story that revolved around Club Vampire, regardless of how absurd it may sound,"

Franny pointed out.

Yes, that could cause some problems. Reporters would swarm around the club and him, asking him a slew of nonsense questions and making assumptions. They might be jabbing in the dark, but if you make enough random jabs, eventually you'll get lucky. The last thing he needed was publicity, with reporters crawling around the place day and night.

"You should have brought her here, Nigel. You should know better than leave her alone after finding out."

Travis had a very valid point, one which Nigel agreed with one hundred percent. He should have glamoured her, gotten here back to the club and
then
figured out a course of action.

"So how did she react. She knows, right?" Trinity asked.

"She knows. She called me a monster and for a moment or two I was a tad scared she was going to faint."

"Most women can t take that kind of information easily. It's not every day you learn the person you slept with is a vampire." Trinity explained.

"And to find out because you watched him kill another vampire, not cool, Nigel,"

Franny added.

Well we've determined I'm a not cool monster, with no common sense. Very nice.

Nigel closed his eyes and leaned back against the cool leather of his chair. He massaged his temples for a few minutes, trying to clear his mind of the hundreds of thoughts racing through it. "Okay, so what do I do?" He finally asked.

"Go back and talk to her," Trinity advised. "See where you stand with her."

"Oh I think I am pretty clear where I stand with her," Nigel gave Trinity a smirk, "I'm pretty sure she cancelled our date when she demanded I leave and never came back."

"Give her today to consider what happened and then go see her tonight. Just show up at the time you two agreed on before the incident. Just don't leave until you know the issue is resolved." Trinity told him.

Nigel looked over at Franny who nodded her head in agreement.

Lacey's finger hovered over the laptop's
Send
button. After spending hours trying to fix what was broken, throwing out what couldn't and then cleaning the ashy remains of vampire Joseph - which was a bugger to do since the ash had nestled itself into the fibres of her brown shag rug - Lacey had spent hours online researching. Researching vampires

- their origins, their traits and so one and so forth.

There were numerous variations of the myths and theories. Some articles claimed that they could be killed via a stake through the heart. She knew first hand that was correct, but in the instance of Joseph it was via a silver butter knife through the heart. The butter knife had been part of a silverware set given to her by her grandmother before she passed on. The butter knife in question was now sitting in the garbage can, along with her broken-beyond-repair Tiffany lamp. Her favourite lamp.
Damn vampires!

As she still considered her decision to send the exposé article she d written on the club, she thought about poor Terry-Ann and how she could not remember close to twenty-four hours of her life, thanks to Nigel and his club. The club needed to be shut down. The public needed to read this article.

Considering what newspaper she worked for, she was certain that most people would consider what she had written as nonsense. However, there would be those who would give it thought. Those people would dig deeper, discover things about the club, its owner and workers. Her article may not only jumpstart her career, but be the catalyst to what finally brought vampires from the depths of myth into reality.

Was that what she really wanted? She mind shifted focus to Nigel. So sexy, so magnificent. His body perfectly sculpted, his smile intoxicating, with charm which seemed to ooze out of him. He made her feel special, perfect, desirable. He made her feel like she was important to him. But she now knew that to be a lie. He hadn't even tried to defend himself or make her attempt to persuade her to change her mind when she told him to get out. He just left with an offer to send her money.

There's your answer right there Lacey
, the voice of reason within her argued.
They use
humans for two things food and sex. When they no longer want either from you they
either wipe your mind or kill you.
Was he planning on wiping her mind? If he was, then why hadn't he?

Lacey gave a quick shake of her head. It didn't matter what the reason was. The world had a right to know the truth! She pressed the
Send
button, dispatching her article to the editor of her paper. Sitting back in her chair, Lacey watched as the little envelope swirled around the screen and imagined it popping itself into the recipient s mailbox.

She stared at the monitor in front of her, not sure what to do next. Not sure how she felt about what she had just done. She wasn't sure how long she sat there, just staring when the buzzer roused her from her blank state.

Six pm.

Who would be showing up at 6 pm without calling first on a Sunday evening? Whoever it was they'd just have to come back; she wasn't in the mood for company tonight. She stood, walked into the living room and peered at her reflection in the full length mirror, attached to the outside of the washroom door. When she had finished cleaning she had taken a long, hot shower and slipped into a pair of checker print boxers and black camisole. Her red long curls were puffy, sticking out wildly, in all directions down her back. The two red fang marks on the side of her neck, seemed to mock her. She had wondered a number of times throughout the day if she would require a rabies shot.

Nope, no one was going to see her in this condition.

The buzzer sounded a second time.

"Shit," she muttered crossing over to the intercom. She depressed the
talk
button asking, "Who is it?"

"Nigel."

Lacey froze, shocked.
What the hell is he doing here?
As much as she wanted to be angry at his coming back tonight, she couldn't help the feeling of excitement and anticipation.
Hormones, only hormones. Just get rid of him and you can put all this
behind you. Like a bad dream.
"What do you want, Nigel?" she asked trying to keep a gruff tone in her voice.