Chapter 5: The Counts von CountFrom the other end of the bar at O’Shea’s, the girl in the cat-eye gsses winked at him, he was sure of it.

  And he wanted her. Oh, how he wanted her. Needed her. And not in a romantic-love way. In the predatory way.

  He needed her like a man needs oxygen. Exactly the same way as he didn’t need oxygen.

  He hated that feeling.

  He LOVED that feeling.

  He HATED loving that feeling. But he was hungry, and that meant the darker impulses would have sway that night. So he headed over from his stool and walked toward her, smiling.

  He couldn’t quite expin it, but when he really tried, he found he became quite charismatic. Almost magnetic. Especially to most women. And occasionally men. Usually women, though. He wondered if it was a vampire thing, you know, being able to charm women, to look at them and just say ‘Come hither and be my bride,’ like in the old movies.

  “Hello,” he said. “Do you mind if I join you? My name’s Caleb.”

  The woman smiled and pyed with her hair.

  “Ange. Yeah, you looked cute.”

  “Cute?”

  “Cute. Caleb, you’re not a serial killer, are you?”

  “Well,” said Caleb, with sardonic honesty, “Not anymore.”

  Ange ughed.

  “Perfect. Well, Caleb, I didn’t come to Vegas to be shy. Are you a local?”

  “Why yes. How can you tell?”

  “Noticed you haven’t ordered a drink all night. Just a hunch but I figured that you might be a local because you don’t want to pay the sky-high prices for the strip drinks.”

  “Yeah, I never drink… in bars,” said Caleb. “And since I had the night free, I just… I like the ambiance of this pce, you know?”

  “It’s very frat-boy, though,” noted Ange.

  “Very frat-boy. But that’s what I like about it. The youthful energy. You go to other casinos and you can’t hold a conversation because all the slots are making tons of noise. Here, you can’t hold a conversation because everybody’s having a conversation. A much more hospitable form of inhospitable.”

  “Yeah. I kinda… wanted to be around people, you know? Happy people. Having a good time,” she said.

  “Where are you from?” asked Caleb.

  Ange let out a deep sigh, her smile quickly fading.

  “New York City. Manhattan.”

  Caleb frowned, and said, with all genuine sympathy, “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t,” said Ange, harshly. “I don’t think I could… If I hear one more person asking ‘are you okay?’ or ‘I’m so sorry for what happened?’ or worst of all – telling me I’m in their prayers? I’ve had enough of prayers. I’m done with prayers. Prayers are what drive pnes into buildings.”

  Ange downed her shot in one gulp.

  “That’s why I’m in Vegas,” she continued. “I didn’t want to be where people are mourning. I want to be where there’s a party. I have to admit, I was terrified getting on that pne, but they have all these fancy machines now, and air marshals, and as you can imagine, I got a really good price on the flight despite it being a st-minute impulse buy.”

  Ange ughed at the dark humor behind finding the silver linings of discounts behind all the death and destruction.

  “So. Vegas. 24-hour party. A testament to life. To celebration, and joy, and not everything being so damn serious. I want to drink! I want to eat! I want to fuck! I want to live!”

  Caleb, like most men would in that situation, had his brain shut off by Ange’s penultimate sentence.

  (Decades ter, and for however long he existed, he would be wracked with guilt for not paying far more attention to the sentence after that one. But at the time, whatever low reserves of blood were left in Caleb’s body were rushing to his fangs.)

  “Ange, do you want to get out of here?” asked Caleb.

  “Dear god, yes.” she said.

  ***

  They headed up to her hotel room at the nearby Bally’s. Between Ange’s literal lust for life, and Caleb’s hunger, they probably wouldn’t have even made it to the room if it wasn’t for the fact that the elevator was crowded.

  But when they finally got to the hotel room, it was Ange, not Caleb, who made the first move, grabbing the young man in the denim jacket and practically tackling him on the bed.

  The door closed behind them with a squeak, and he could hear the lock csp. They were alone. Completely alone. Secluded. No witnesses.

  And Ange had her mouth all over Caleb’s neck.

  Caleb ughed, partially in joy, partially in the situational irony. His fangs were already out in anticipation – he was too hungry to feel guilty, just as Ange was too upset and too filled with grief, survivor's guilt, and wine coolers to make good decisions.

  (Decades ter, and for however long she existed, the woman would wonder if she picked out Caleb as the one to fool around with because she felt the danger radiating off of him, and had a subconscious death wish. But at the time, she was just thinking about how good he smelled.)

  Whatever the reasons, in the end, they were just two attractive horny twenty-somethings with different, but very, very simir, biological urges.

  At first, when she felt the fangs sink in, she loved it. This Caleb was kinky. It hurt, sure, but it was a good kind of hurt.

  “Caleb… ooh… I need to… ooh… I need to get protection. It’s in my p-purse, can you hand me my… oh my god. Wait… stop…”

  Caleb, however, as mentioned before was hungry. Too hungry. He didn’t even hear her. He was lost in the sensation and the man was gone, only the feasting animal. He didn’t hear her pleas, and didn’t feel Ange starting to try to shove him off.

  So when Ange yelled for Caleb to stop, and he didn’t? Ange assumed the worst she could think of. (Which of course, wasn’t the case. What was actually happening was much, much, worse.)

  She screamed. And remembering her self defense csses that her mother made her take before going off to college, she grabbed Caleb’s hand, and bit down. HARD. Hard enough to leave a mark. Hard enough to leave evidence.

  Hard enough to break the skin and taste the blood.

  And that, Caleb felt. It shocked him. It shocked him so badly, that instead of withdrawing gently with his fangs, he bolted upright and the fangs tore at Ange’s neck like some horrible animal cw, blood spraying everywhere.

  Caleb realized Ange was dying about half a second before Ange did.

  Sadly, that was also the moment he was satiated enough for all the guilt to come running back into him.

  “No. Oh, no no no. NO! Ange! Stay with me.”

  He didn’t know why his bites didn’t usually leave big, gaping wounds, only two little cuts that quickly – nearly instantly – scabbed over, to heal up. He figured that to be a vampire thing. It wasn’t like he had been left a manual by the monster that turned him into this thing, that had been toying with him for months beforehand.

  But that wasn’t happening this time. This time, the wound on Ange’s neck wasn’t closing over. It was too wide. Too deep. She was bleeding out. Caleb took the pillow, ripped off the pillowcase, and applied it as best he could to the wound.

  It was too te. Ange gasped once or twice, trying to pull in air, and then Caleb heard a death rattle.

  Ange was gone.

  And, not only wracked with guilt, Caleb knew he was the st person to be seen with the victim. The cameras were everywhere. Serves him right for hunting on the Strip. Someone should have told him not to do that! Some… like, mentor vampire figure.

  It didn’t matter.

  It wasn’t the first time Caleb had killed.

  It wasn’t even the first time that Caleb had killed when he didn’t want to.

  But it was the first time he had killed as a vampire, the first time the death was completely his fault and his fault alone, and he just… he was done. He just decided. He was done.

  “I’m sorry, Ange. You came to Vegas for joy and life and I fucked all that right up, didn’t I?”

  Right. He was done.

  The first thing he did was close the eyelids of Ange’s lifeless eyes, and lifted her over to the little chair in the room. Then, he searched the spare set of linens hotels sometimes had in the room, found it in the top of the little closet, and changed the sheets, taking the opportunity to tie a washcloth as a makeshift bandage for his hand.

  He carried Ange’s corpse back over to the bed. And then he opened up the windows. He looked out and could see East Fmingo Road and, further on, the Rockies. Good. That meant it was an eastern-facing window.

  He picked up the Bally-branded pen and the hotel stationary, wrote out a long confession and apology to Ange’s family. Expined that whatever they found… whether it was just another burnt corpse or a pile of ash or whatever, that it was tragic, and he was sorry and he was going to make sure it never, ever, happened again.

  He left the confession on the nightstand. Then he y on the bed next to Ange’s body, held her cold, lifeless hand in his, closed his eyes, and waited for the sunrise.

  He only ended up waiting about two hours, when he felt the distinctive sensation of a hotel room telephone receiver repeatedly smashing against his head.

  “Filthy! Mother! Fucking! Rapist! I! Hope! You! Rot! In! Hell!”

  Between well deserved beatings, Caleb opened his eyes and looked up, confused, at Ange. She was angry, angry enough to kill. And as she screamed, Caleb could see something that filled him with fear. He was terrified more than he had ever been terrified in his life.

  A life, it should point out, which, up to this point, included being supernaturally compelled to commit murder several times over, living with the worry of getting caught, and of course, that one time he was hunted down, drained of blood, turned into a monster, and left with nothing but a cruel ugh to try to figure out what happened.

  So, you know. Pretty major scare we’re talking about here.

  “Ange!”

  Ange stopped screaming to gre at Caleb.

  “What!?” she yelled.

  “You have fangs.”

  ***

  “It’s not exactly a meet-cute, is it?” said Pants, when Angelina finally reyed the entire story to her. “More of an eat-cute.”

  “Oh yeah. If it was a movie, the soundtrack would be from ‘My Cannibal Romance,’” said Angelina.

  She stopped and thought for a second.

  “By the way, please don’t… uh, share what my name used to be. I don’t go by Ange anymore. It… helps. To separate my old life from my new life, you know? Like… Ange was almost a different person, if that makes any sense. And, I’m not her? But she’s a part of me?”

  “What you’re saying,” said Pants, “is that I shouldn’t go around live-naming people.”

  “Exactly. Caleb shouldn’t have live-named Stelian, by the way.”

  “I’ve noticed he’s an ass,” said Pants.

  “He is. And it’s not an excuse, but he wasn’t always,” Angelina sighed.

  “Anyway,” she continued after a brief pause, “If… you are pnning on sticking around – again, Caleb’s not wrong that this is a hard life and that you will end up killing people in the long run if you decide to stick around – but if you are, you might want to come up with a deadname. Even have some fun with it. Caleb. Angelina. Stelian. Something that is a little gothy but doesn’t give away the entire game. Maybe like me and Stelian, you could use a bit of your old name in it.”

  “Pantsylvania?” Pants asked, smiling.

  “No!” said Angelina, ughing.

  Pants stopped for a second, thinking.

  “Okay, this… this is going to sound stupid,” said Pants. “But… it’s got my name in it, it’s a little… gothy… it’s… something that could stick.”

  Angelina raised an eyebrow.

  “Pantessa.”

  Angelina squealed. “I LOVE it!”

  “You don’t think it’s too stupid?”

  “No, no, it’s the perfect amount of stupid!” said Angelina. “Stupid is important. Silliness is important. It’s our most potent weapon.”

  “Weapon? Weapon against what?”

  “Against the horrors,” said Angelina. “Jokes and silliness and ughter in the face of absurdity, horror, pain, and loss. In-jokes build community, build family. God gives his most ridiculous battles to his silliest clowns.”

  “Seems a bit childish, though,” said Pants. (Or Pantessa. She was still kind of mulling it over in her head.)

  “It’s the furthest thing from childish. Whimsy and frivolity are ancient wisdom. Silliness is battle-tested, hard worn. It is the best and oldest weapon, and always will be. They say that depression turned inward is anger, depression turned sideways is wit. Wit, in the right hands, is as deadly a weapon as a dagger or stiletto. And turning it sideways will cause your victim to bleed out.”

  “I… never thought of it that way,” Pants said.

  “Well, Pantessa, if we didn’t ugh we’d have to start screaming. And if we ever started screaming, I don’t think we’d ever stop.”

  “Pantessa,” she said. “Pantessa… Pantessa… Yeah, I’m liking it. Can even shorten to ‘Tessa.’”

  “So you’re going to go with Pantessa?” asked Angelina.

  “Maybe. I’m trying it out,” said Pantessa.

  ***

  On some nights, South Point Casino had a midnight special. Steak dinners, plus drink, for 12.95. Locals all flocked there and lined up before the pce even opened - tourists didn’t even have a chance, because if you waited until it officially opened to line up, there was just no chance you’d get served before sunrise.

  Caleb hated going this far down south. The further he got from his “haven” – ha, that was a pretentious word for his hovel! – the less time he had to work with. The sunrise never slept in or came into work te.

  (Hmm, thought Caleb. ‘The Sunrise Never Slept In.’ If he ever decided to write, say, a noir book about a vampire detective, he now had a really good title. The kind of title that perhaps, was perhaps actually better than the actual title of some vampire-detective-noir books.)

  Anyway, he had to go to South Point because this would be where you would find the Counts.

  You see, South Point was pretty far from the strip. And to attract gamblers to take the long taxi ride from the hotel room – or to attract them to stay in the hotel and take the long taxi ride to the shows – South Point was one of the few casinos in Las Vegas that paid 3:2 on a bckjack. A few years ago, all the strip casinos started paying 6:5. That little change meant that the house edge went from around 0.5% to a whopping 2%.

  Card counting only shifts the odds the tiniest amount - maybe one percent, in the pyer’s favor.

  Which is why the card counters never pyed at the strip.

  Of course, risking money at the tables wasn’t the only way to make money card counting. That was where the Counts Von Count came in. Cardi, Trey, and Jack – Caleb didn’t know their st names, and didn’t ask.

  Instead, they ran a card-counting school based in Silverado Ranch, suckering in mathematics aficionados and gambling addicts alike. They even offered one-on-one sessions. Private sessions. For advanced training.

  And sometimes, advanced draining, thought Caleb. It was a nice gig, if you had the skill for it.

  The three Counts met through Caleb, actually, when he gathered most of the vampires he could find together for the session where he id down the “guidelines”. There they found they had very simir quirks. You see, Caleb wasn’t lying when he told Pants that the “rules” of being a vampire were different for everyone.

  Almost everyone was invisible to a silver-backed mirror, but could be seen on film, security cameras, and aluminum backed mirrors (which was 99.9% of all mirrors made since the 1900s).

  Some couldn’t – or wouldn’t – cross a line of purified salt. Caleb himself hated garlic, but it didn’t bother Angelina one bit. It wasn’t like a few cloves would send him screaming in terror, it just smelled fucking awful and his nose was sensitive as hell to it. He used to love garlic when he was alive, too, so he knew it was a vampire thing.

  The Counts von Count had arithmomania. An obsessive urge to count. Old Eastern-Europe folklore said you could stop a vampire by spilling a bag of rice or beans, and they would stop to obsessively count the beans or rice as they picked them up. That actually would have worked with the Counts.

  And while none of the Counts gambled themselves, you understand, (too risky, left them too exposed,) they absolutely knew – well, were compelled, really – to watch the cards. To keep a bckjack “true count” in their heads, no matter what the distraction. So they’d sit at the bar, order waters that they wouldn’t drink, and pyed penny-ante video slots while their students would wait for their signals to start increasing their bets.

  A few more vampire tricks to mesmerize the pit bosses when they started getting suspicious, and they actually had a pretty good thing going. Besides, who could accuse them of card-counting? They weren’t even pying bckjack!

  The good news was that Caleb saw that Trey was working tonight, keeping one eye on the bckjack table and one eye on the pit bosses, absentmindedly pying the penny slots. He sat down to his immediate right.

  “Not there,” said Trey. “On the left.”

  Caleb nodded and moved. There must have been a third important thing he was paying attention to that Caleb would have blocked.

  “Forgive me if I don’t make eye contact,” Trey said. “I’ve got a lot on my mind right now.”

  Trey picked up his gss of water, and took a sip through the straw. A few moments ter, there was the sound of celebration as one of Trey’s “lucky” students hit a bckjack on his biggest bet of the night.

  “Rumor mill is that Philip’s working on something big for you,” said Trey.

  “Word gets around, I see,” replied Caleb. “It’s about the serial killer. The stalker. I think I might have a personal connection to him, and I want to stop him before he kills again.”

  “Professional rivalry?” asked Trey.

  “We have a shared history. But that’s all I’m going to say about that. Point is, I want to stop him, and st time he left a clue. I think it was a message. For me, especially.”

  “I’d raise my eyebrow to show that I’m intrigued, but that’s my signal to Lara over there on table eight to bet big, and her true count is minus 1 right now. If it goes to minus 3 I’m going to swirl the straw in my drink and that’ll tell her to move on.

  “So you are intrigued,” said Caleb.

  “Depends on the message. Why’d you come to a crystal-math addict anyway?”

  “It’s a bible verse. ‘For the LORD had said of them, They shall surely die in the wilderness. And there was not left a man of them, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.’ I know Joshua is the first name of the Stalker,” said Caleb.

  “Well, that does sound like it could be meant for you, but what does that have to do with me?”

  “The bible verse is Numbers 26:65.”

  It took all of Trey’s willpower to not raise an eyebrow at that.

  “Okay. That is intriguing,” said Trey. “You think there’s something spooky-ooky going on?”

  “Who knows? But the minute ‘numbers’ came up, I thought of you and your team.”

  Trey paused and thought. “Jack’s really the one you want to talk to. He’s the one into the Biblical Numerology, the Gematria, Isopepsy, and steganographic methods using ELS.”

  “ELS?”

  “Equidistant letter sequences. Bible code stuff. The kind of stuff that you’d dismiss as supernatural hokum, run by chartans, except…”

  “Except we exist,” said Caleb, completing the thought.

  “Exactly. I’ll get in touch with Jack and Cardi. What does your tomorrow night look li– hold that thought.”

  Trey picked up his gss of water and swirled his straw. Over at another table, a fifty year old woman picked up her stack of chips and made her way over to the cage to cash out.

  “Give me all you know on the message, and on the stalker. Any detail, no matter how small. It may be significant. I’ll get together with the team, run some computer simutions, see if we can find anything that’s in the general shape and size of a clue.”

  “You’d do that?”

  “Caleb, I’m not a fan of people who kill for the fun of it,” said Trey.

  “For what it’s worth, I don’t think this guy’s killing for the fun of it either,” said Caleb. “I’m going to tell you something in confidence. I think he’s being supernaturally compelled to kill. The stalker might be as much a victim as any of the girls.”

  “And what makes you think that?”

  “He’s not the first,” said Caleb.

  Trey finally raised his eyebrow.

  “You were,” Trey said, quickly putting the pieces together. “You were the first stalker. I knew the stalker murders seemed connected to the 1997 killing spree by… wait.”

  Trey, as he was supernaturally compelled to do, worked out the math.

  “You were a serial killer before you were turned!”

  “I think my sire – whoever he was, was making me do it. Which means I think that with this guy out killing people? Makes me think my sire might be back.”

  “Who else knows?” said Trey.

  “Me. You. Angelina. And Pants.”

  “Pants?”

  “She’s new. Very new. Might not be sticking around,” said Caleb.

  “Ah. New new. Who was the rotten bastard who turned her?”

  “That would be me. But only so that I could preserve her witness testimony. She was a victim, I caught her just before she was bleeding out, and all the leads we have? They’re thanks to her.”

  “Caleb… just when I think I start to like you, you do something shitty like that,” said Trey.

  “Yeah, well, I kinda get the feeling I’m running on borrowed time. I can’t shake this… feeling of dread. I know I should probably just… wait this out. Just stick to hunting in North Las Vegas and ying low, not go poking my nose into trouble, not if I wanted to survive. But I’m… I don’t know what’s going on with me. Death wish? My soul finally rotting away inside this corpse’s shell? Point is, I’m pying with fire and I’d give myself even odds that I’m not going to survive it. And if I don’t, you make sure Angelina gathers everyone for another meeting. She’d be the new eldest, so she gets to set the new guidelines.”

  “Don’t be so pessimistic, Caleb,” said Trey.

  “Pessimistic?”

  “I’d say your odds of surviving this were closer to 6:5. You’re a bastard, but a clever bastard. That gives you a slight advantage in your favor. At least now that you’ve got me on your team.”

  “That’s… kind, Trey.” Caleb paused. “Morbid, but kind.”

  ***

  Right, thought Caleb, heading towards the Camry in the parking lot. It was getting close to the time to head home, get to sleep for the day. He had just enough time to stop by Angelina’s pce to pick up Pants if she wanted to stay with him.

  Poor kid. Wasn’t fair. And it was all Caleb’s fault. He might need a long vacation after all of this. Maybe Norway. Yeah, it was cold, but thirty days of night sounded really rexing right now.

  Pssh. Like he could ever afford it.

  There was so much on his pte, though, that it sent his head spinning. He tried to make a mental list of it all.

  A) Check with Philip, get information on the Stalker. B) Check with the Counts after that, see if they turn up any leads. C) Check the police radio scanners, try to find out if there are any patterns. D) Train his new childe how to handle unlife, or kill her as painlessly and humanely as possible, could go either way on that one. E) Work on himself, and being a better person. Which was way, way, way, down the list of priorities, but everyone was calling him an asshole these days, which meant that he was absolutely an asshole. F) Dodge the nine-iron currently coming at high speed towards his forehead. WHAM!!!

  Sometimes when you juggle too many priorities, one of the ptes gets dropped.

  Caleb got dropped like a stack of ptes.

  ***

  “So,” said Angelina at the dive bar. “Don’t overcomplicate things. Just walk up to a boy you like, ask if you want to go somepce secluded to make out, and give him a hickey. If he says no, come back, and we’ll pick out someone else. If he says yes, find somepce private and the rest will come naturally.”

  “Is that safe?” asked Pantessa.

  “For him? No,” said Angelina.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I do. And – first, off, I’m going to be your backup and lookout. Secondly, if he tries to get rough with you, you can break his arm like a twig.”

  “I don’t know. This just seems so…”

  “Predatory?” said Angelina, completing the sentence.

  “Yeah.”

  “It is. We’re predators. I mean, I try to be nice about it though. Just remember. Jugur vein, not carotid artery, pierce, don’t scrape, just bite deep enough to get the blood flowing, and lick, don’t slurp,” said Angelina.

  Pantessa was nervous.

  “What if I kill him?”

  “Tess, can I give you a word of advice?”

  Pantessa nodded.

  “Try not to.”

  “Won’t he remember what happened?”

  “If you do it right, it’ll be a night he’ll never forget!” said Angelina. “Oh, don’t mind me. This is your first hunt! You thought the Capri-suns were good, wait until you have the fresh stuff. God… you never forget your first time.”

  The newly rechristened Pantessa headed over to a man in his te twenties, overweight, and sitting alone. As she walked over, she waved to him and caught his eye. He waved back.

  “Hello. I’m sorry, have we met?”

  “No. I’m… Tessa.”

  “Tessa. Nice to meet you. I’m Vincent. Here for work, I’m doing social media for the Interop convention. What about yourself?”

  “Me? I’m a local. Look. This is going to sound weird, but… you’re cute, you looked a little lonely, I’m a little lonely, and I really want to be with someone right now.”

  “Oh. Sorry. Most of the people I know are already coupled up. Otherwise I’d be happy to introduce you.”

  “I… I meant you,” expined Pantessa.

  “You did?” Vincent was incredulous.

  Great, thought Pantessa. She picked out a victim with low self esteem.

  “Look, this is incredibly forward, and no, I’m not a prostitute or a con artist or anything. I’m just… thirsty,” Pantessa said.

  And then immediately realized what she just said.

  “I mean! I’m thirsty for human contact. I’m uh, I need to feel attractive and loved, and yeah, maybe this isn’t the healthiest way to go about it, but… and it would just be making out. Nothing further. If that’s alright.”

  “Well, I mean, I don’t know…” said Vincent.

  Angelina came over to the two of them.

  “Tessa, who is this nice young man?”

  “Oh, this is Vincent. I… yeah. I was just taking your advice and asking him to… dance.”

  “To dance?” said Vincent.

  “To dance,” said Angelina. “My friend Tessa here is an excellent dancer, Vincent.”

  “I don’t know,” said Vincent. “This all seems so sudden.”

  “One second,” said Angelina.

  She grabbed Pantessa gently by the shoulders, and turned her so that she was facing her. She reached over, and unbuttoned the top button on Pantessa’s blouse, then turned Pantessa back towards Vincent.

  “Seriously, Vincent. This isn’t a scam or a trick,” expined Angelina. “Tessa just got her heart broken and she needs to know that she can still drive men wild. Honestly, you’d be doing her, and me, a favor.”

  Surprisingly, that did it. Pantessa slowly walked towards Vincent, and all of Vincent’s survival instincts went bye-bye, as she kissed him, held him in her arms, and slowly dragged her lips down his chin towards his jugur vein.

  Angelina was right, thought Pantessa. The real thing was way better than the Capri-suns. And for a brief moment, she fell in love. Fully and completely. Vincent was the most important thing in her life. The greatest thing to ever happen to her.

  She wanted him. Oh, how she wanted him. Needed him. And not in a romantic-love way. In the predatory way.

  She needed him like a woman needs oxygen. Exactly the same way as she didn’t need oxygen.

  She hated that feeling.

  She LOVED that feeling.

  She HATED loving that feeling.