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He took the El to the fancy north-side neighborhoods and looked up at the
fancy walk up's and brownstones and dreamed of a better life. He prowled the
libraries and colleges and read stories of the many self-made men in America
and he dreamed of a better life.
As a boy, he would talk of his dreams to his parents and his few friends.
These would earn him scorn and later beatings from his father and his friends.
He learned to keep his dreams to himself. He also learned to hate those around
him. The bosses didn't have rippling muscles and leather skin.
The bosses didn't have the blank stare of a man who had learned to never hope
for more than he had. The bosses
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didn't suffer beatings and derision for dreaming and hoping.
His father called the bosses "Sir".
James worked hard and earned a scholarship to an Indiana
Public college. He had wanted one to the University of
Chicago, but his grades weren't quite good enough. He pledged a fraternity,
but not the one he wanted. He just wasn't quite good enough. He graduated with
honors, but not high honors. Every success was accompanied with a failure.
What followed was a string of jobs that were almost good enough. It seemed no
matter how hard he worked, how smart he was, he was always playing to some
affable pretty boy. He always answered to men who weren't half as smart, but
had superior social skills. James learned to hate these men as he hated those
he had left behind in Gary.
James nurtured his hatred. It became his constant companion. It hardened him
more than his father's beating ever could. James had always been cool, but now
he was cold. He was critical and used his subordinates without mercy.
Still, he dreamed of the big cars and the fancy houses.
Whatever he had was never enough. James was cursed.
Then, one day, James became damned. He had been an easy mark for the demon,
though he didn't know him to be a demon at the time. He appeared to be just
another lonely salesman in the hotel bar, a man who learned to nurse a buzz
and strike up conversations with complete strangers, a man who measured his
life in margins and sales.
The conversations had drifted through many topics as it always had. James
didn't know it, but the man guided the discussion through James' tormented
youth, making him
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revisit one failure after another, then onto his career, his ability to do OK,
but never breakthrough and succeed. The man egged James on and James' anger
grew. It grew to rage.
Then it grew to white hot hatred. The man smiled and said, "Would you like it
to be different? Would you like the power?"
"God Damn straight, I'd like the power. I'd give my fucking soul to show those
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shit eating grinning pretty boys a thing or two."
The man just smiled and said "Good answer."
What followed was a dizzying blur of activities. A ritual needed to be
performed, a ritual that required blood. A local working girl seemed a useful
enough object. They took her to a place that the man knew. By the time she
realized where she was going it was too late, she was in their power.
They had her in an isolated room, in a lonely part of the faceless town. She
was quickly stripped and bound. The man had sodomized the woman and required
James to do the same. James did so, with no particular concern for what he was
doing. He didn't enjoy the act. He was too concerned about her cleanliness.
Then James was directed to inflict wounds upon the woman. He obeyed. Then he
was told to open the veins in her arms and let her blood flow, drawing her
life slowly out of her body. The man began to ask him question.
"Do you want power over your enemies?"
"Yes."
"Do you want to walk the nights, leaving fear in your wake?"
"Yes."
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"Will you serve my Master and bring destruction upon the weak and
undeserving?"
"Yes."
"Do you offer you soul as payment for the power you will receive?"
"Yes."
With that, the man held a brass chalice under the flow of blood pouring from
the dying whore. He held the cup up to
James. James knew what he was to do.
James held the cup to his lips, but hesitated. It was not the thought of
drinking blood, rather drinking her blood. Who knew what drug or disease
coursed through the body of the wretched creature? The man's eyes glowed red
and James drank more out of fear than anything else. The woman died as the
last drop of blood flowed down James' throat. He could feel it.
James looked into the eyes of the man and began to feel dizzy. His head spun
and felt lighter and lighter. He heard the man laugh as his consciousness left
him. James didn't know it at the time, but he too, died that night.
James slept the sleep of death for some amount of time. It might have been
hours, it might have been days. He didn't know. He woke and his mind was clear
and only knew a driving hunger. He had tasted blood and he needed more. The
man was gone, but the rotting corpse of the prostitute was where he had left
it. She had been drained of her blood and was no good to him now.
James instinctively knew what to do. He hunted and killed.
He survived and learned about his powers. He grew and
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learned what he was, a vampire. He learned of others like him. He learned how
to survive.
He used his new powers to visit death upon those that had wronged him. His
parents were long dead and he regretted that they had eluded his vengeance. He
found some of the bullies that had tormented him in his youth and taught them
the true meaning of power as their fat bodies yielded up their life's blood to
him.
He visited his old bosses and managers; all the pretty boys who had stood in
his way, all the men who had thwarted his dreams. He taught them the folly of
their actions. He always knew he would make them pay and savored it as they
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did.
He spent years, moving through the endless night bringing death upon those who
had wronged him; those who had denied him, those who had slighted him. James
was now the power, but James was cursed.
As always, his reach again outdistanced his grasp. He became bored with the
affairs of men and turned his attention to the affairs of the undead. He found
once more that there were those who stood over him, those who had power over
him, those who hunted him and made him hide in the shadows. That was about to
change.
James looked at his two bugs. His new acquisition was going to work out fine.
He was strong and full of hate and rage. He had little native intelligence and
also blamed everyone else for his lack of prosperity. It was an easy thing for
James to strip away all his cognitive abilities and make him the perfect,
deadly, servant that he needed.
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James was cursed. Though he had devised a good plan to accomplish his ends, he
was growing restless and impatient.
As with so many of his failures, he could not allow his plans to unfold, he
wanted results. He thought of ways to hurry the plans he had made.
James was cursed and it was a curse that spread death in its wake.
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Chapter 7
Kit lay the black pistol on the tray in front of her. Before she had met Jean,
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