Somebody in Boots

[dirtywhiteboy]

Years ago, Ruben had wondered how long it would take for the sun to burn him into ashes. It had been a random notion, one he hadn't seriously entertained, but he thought of that time every now and then. For a man who couldn't see himself in a mirror, he was strangely reflective.

It was three a.m. The bars had announced last call an hour ago. Even in Las Vegas, some laws still held. If you wanted to drink after two in the morning, you had to go home or somewhere else.

He was stepping over the legs of the dead man in the alley, heading towards the sidewalk. He'd learned to eat quietly. Someone would probably find the body eventually, most likely an unlucky garbageman. Nevada was warming up, careening towards summer.

There was a pale moon trying to shine down through the light pollution, and Ruben turned his face up towards it. The moon was cold, remote, but it was also kind. It wouldn't burn him.

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[dori_bell]

Dori rocked onto the balls of her feet. Her knees were dusty and she brushed at them with her fingertips. The way he spoke made it sound prayerful, like a sacred thing being shared between them. "Of course," she said. "You showed me." Upon getting to her feet, she extended a hand to the vampire, the palm curved upward in invitation. Her veins were stark and blue in pale flesh.

[dirtywhiteboy]

His palm made contact with hers, and he stood up. He was tall and solemn-faced, like an undertaker. There were a few drops of blood on his white button-down. The lack of light meant no one could see.

He adjusted the long coat on his shoulders, ran his hand over his cowlicks. He wore no watch, but he knew the hour would soon grow early. That meant dawn. Which meant they should go.

"Let's walk."

[dori_bell]

"Alright."

Dori wandered with him into the street, leaving the scene of his latest killing to be discovered in the morning. She wanted to be more discerning in her identification of a second victim; she believed in a right time for death, an order to things, and she was guided by instinct. She still had a hold of his cooler hand, the calluses on it rough as though he’d been a laborer just yesterday. She tugged him to the north until they came to a girl with dyed red hair, seated within the partial shelter of a bus stop.

“Her.”

She pointed with their joined hands.

“I want her. Will you hold her for me?”

[dirtywhiteboy]

He'd been listening to the night as he walked, the sounds of far-off traffic combined with the buzzing of the streetlamps. Her hand was very soft compared to his.

He trained his attention on the girl, tilted his head to the side. A contemplative predator. Inside his coat, his shoulders rolled.

"Just say the word, and she's as good as got."

[dori_bell]

That pleased her.

Dori watched the girl for a moment. She wore headphones so she was less aware of her environment, and she was deep into the pages of a thick paperback. That wasn’t why she appealed to Dori, and she wasn’t sick from some terminal affliction. It would be difficult to explain, but Dori detected sourness in the set of her mouth and shoulders, a kind of disdain for her surroundings that made it easier to excuse her from the mortal coil. Life, big brother would claim, was a gift even at its worst. It was too quickly snuffed to take for granted. Dori had ushered off people who would’ve loved another week, day, or hour because they recognized that. So she had come to believe that behaving otherwise was tacky.

She turned to the vampire and issued instructions.

“Hold her arms from behind. I’ll do the rest.”

She looked up and down the block. There was no one around. Letting go of his fingers, she began to walk in the girl’s direction like a fellow traveler just waiting for the bus.

[dirtywhiteboy]

The night had become still, or perhaps Ruben felt so much anticipation at what he was abut to witness that he'd blocked out the shadow-song. He wondered if Dorothy's world tunneled down to the size of a narrow corridor as his did when he was about to take a life. When he got close enough, he could hear tinny music coming through the girl's headphones. She had a tattoo on the back of her neck.

"Hey! What..."

"Hush yerself," the vampire said, tightening his grip on her arms as she bowed upwards, trying to break free. "This ain't gonna hurt for long. I don't think."

[dori_bell]

“Shhh….” Dori bent at the waist and cupped her hands around the girl’s cheeks. The effect was immediate. The fussing stopped, the girl losing herself in the blonde’s gentle eyes and enlarged pupils. “Hello,” she said softly. Her eyes held steady as she eased onto the bench and sat beside the redhead, close enough that their legs touched.
When she was comfortable with the connection, Dori placed a palm in the center of the girl’s chest, above her heart and lungs. A spiritualist would label it as the green chakra, but Dori only thought of it as a convergence of life force. She wiggled her fingers. Slowly she began to pull her hand away, and that energy, so necessary to maintaining life, went with her. A perceptive person might see a haze in the air, like a light mist; others would see nothing. Dori stretched the connection between them farther and farther, like a rubber band drawing taut. As she did so, she didn’t blink. She barely moved with respiration. The girl’s eyes widened.

All of a sudden, Dori snapped her hand into a fist.
It was done. The girl went as loose as dirty laundry in Ruben’s hands. Her headphones were on crooked.

“Done,” she said.

[dirtywhiteboy]

Ruben's sharp chin was digging into the girl's shoulder, his height making it necessary for him to lean down so that he could watch. He looked like some strange bird of prey because of the way he was perched over her. He saw...something...like a vapor-trail. Having been a part of the dark for nearly six decades, he'd learned that there were more things than vampires that went bump in the night.

When the girl's heart just stopped, like a candle being snuffed out, he was mildly disappointed. He'd expected more of a struggle than that. Still, that was a mighty fine talent Dorothy had. He released the redhead's arms, and she slumped to the left. The music was still playing, and he turned it off because it was annoying him.

"That was beautiful, Dorothy," he said solemnly. "Quiet and deadly, like the sun comin' up."

[dori_bell]

Death didn’t have to be sadistic; sometimes it was downright anticlimactic.
Dori stood up and put a moist hand through her hair. She was winded and wobbly. Her pulse beat just a tad too fast, as if she’d taken a puff from someone’s emergency inhaler and her lungs were full of steroids. The younger and healthier the person, the more jittery she felt.

She gave Ruben an uncertain smile.

“Forty-two years. Three! Forty-three, I mean. I’m right now.”