Demon Vampire (The Redgold Series) (34 page)

“A light snack, they were mostly fat.” Del was showboating. The bouncers were an uncommon fill that he had not found in several weeks.

“Sit down young vampire, What is your name?” The Russian man was drinking vodka on the rocks.

“It's Del, Del Marin.” Del looked at the man closely. If this tall Russian was a real vampire, he didn't fully look the part. His teeth were sharp, but retracted. He was very skinny and looked almost malnourished. He had no glow about him, no lure of power or fascination that the vampire Del encountered had possessed. There was no measure of the suave grace even Del had obtained over the decades of being a monster of the night. The blood inside Del had changed and he was well aware of it. Something in this man was either newer or older than Del. The man was not the same type of vampire Del knew himself to be.

“Well, Del Marin. You have a fun little name there. What did you used to do?” The tall man reclined back in the chair. He put his left boot under the edge of the table, anchoring himself from falling. The boots were a foreign material, something Del had never seen before, they were shinny.

“I used to be a lawyer. I was a tax lawyer in America.” Del's voice dropped.

“You seem depressed at the mention. I'm not talking about that life.” The man's fox pelt shifted, leaning off his shoulder, about to fall. “No, I don't want to know what you made of yourself with your gift. I want to know what you did when you were still a human being.” The Russian man lifted his other leg to cross over the first. He was now balancing on the back two legs of his chair.

“Why do you care?” Del hadn't thought about Demy for many years. He didn't want to think about his past. Del wanted to make something of himself apart from his aspiration to be with her. The man's comment had set Del into a fit of anger. “What does it matter who I was, or what I once wanted?” Del stood up. “Who the hell are you to pry?”

“Sit down.” The man said calmly reaching for his drink off the table.

Still standing Del replied. “What did you say? Why?”

“I can't protect you if you get us thrown out of the bar by causing a scene. Now sit down before they notice the bartender is missing.” The man began to sip the vodka in his glass.

Del noticed several people in the bar paying extra special attention to him and the man at the table. He had made an unwelcome spectacle of himself without knowing it. Del didn't think, which was exactly what he was good at. This was his one persistent advantage and constant flaw. Every action he took was in the moment, no premeditation involved. Del needed to learn how to be careful and retain the qualities that made him such an unsuspecting criminal. He had to find a way to escape from the sight of these new people.

“What do you want from me?” Del wanted to hear what the man had to say. He stared down, trying to avoid eye contact.

“My name is Yugo Sokolov. You have passed my test. You're young, but that only means I can teach you whatever the hell I want and you'll listen.” Yugo sipped more of his vodka. “Moreover you'll accept it and learn faster than my other students.” Yugo let his legs down off the table and finished his drink in one final gulp.

Del was interested. It was a path and he didn't have many to choose from at the moment. “What do you teach? What do you have to offer me?” Del wanted to blindly accept Yugo. This was the most generosity Del had been shown since he was shot nearly a month ago.

“What you did to that bartender was swiftly and beautifully executed. You have an innate talent that few are able to obtain.” Yugo chuckled for a brief second to his own amusement. “I can teach you to conduct the notes you instinctively strike, to ring into existence the sounds of joy into your everyday world. I can teach you how to fully use your vampire gift.”

In the years since he was made a vampire, Del had never come across the concept of a vampiric gift. His thought was that his condition was a curse, given to him by the vampire that nearly killed him. To Del, it was a virus to infect the fated or the damned. Those chosen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He saw himself as a victim, by not having a hidden talent or ability given to him by anything tangible. Del had accepted the fact that he had lost everything he once loved. The loss of his simple little life. Yugo was telling Del something very different.

“What gift?” Del was curious.

“The gift of focus that you undoubtedly have.” Yugo peered around the room, keeping an eye on anyone that was still tracking their presence in the room or considered them threatening in the least. “Will you sit?”

Del nodded and sat down.

Yugo explained. “Focus is a very common gift to have, it manifests in each person uniquely, molding the gift to suit them individually.”

“Then what do you have?” Del was being bold. Yugo was being frank with him. Del knew he should be polite and respectful, not rash. Del's nature directed him to do it.

Yugo leaned towards Del. “Hold out your arm.” Del obliged him.

Yugo took a hold of Del's left hand in his. There was no change at first. Del felt a slight tingle in his chest, but nothing harmful. Nothing worth noting. Del was beginning to think Yugo was delusional.

Yugo stared into Del's eyes and spoke. “Now try breathing.”

Del attempted a breath, there was no air to take in. Del had a second of terror over take him. There were no words Del could say and no way to warn anyone else in the bar that Yugo had done something to him. From that small instant he placed his hand on Del's chest the panic was setting in. Del needed to breath. His red eyes bulged, staring at Yugo for help.

“Try exhaling.” Yugo instructed.

Del exhaled. A small thrush of water poured out from his mouth and nose. It wasn't vomit, the water was from Del's lungs.

The rest of the bar patrons saw the water that flowed onto the ground as a good sign for a night gone bad for Del. That he wasn't able to handle his vodka and nothing more.

Yugo patted Del on the back to help him cough up the remaining fluid. Yugo whispered into Del's left ear. “I can change the physiology of any living thing I touch. Most of the time without the target ever knowing.” Yugo continued to pat Del on the back, the last of the water came up. “The water won't kill you, but it made my point well enough. There are some vampire gifts that are quite potent if used creatively. Yours is one of those gifts.”

“What can I do that you can't?” Del cleared his throat. “You can kill with a touch.” Del coughed.

“So can you.” Yugo leaned back into his chair.

Del had a puzzled expression.

“Your gift is an oxymoronic commonality among vampires. There are others that share certain traits. Though no two are exactly the same, they can be grouped into categories.” Yugo explained. “The gift of focus can be used to build on the user's personality. Most focus vampires become writers or artisans. There are psychic vampires that use windows to see into other's minds. Useful a few hundred years ago if you were a king that wanted to know the strength of an opposing army. Finally, there are alteration vampires. Talents that shift molecules and bend physics to their will. These are the most dangerous vampires out there, but they are not invincible.”

Del listened quietly.

“How can I defend myself against someone that knows what I'm about to do?” Yugo was opening up a world that Del was bewildered by. He was powerful compared to the strongest man. Yugo was telling him there were true beasts in the world that had obtained far greater strength than he could fathom.

“Then you have a weakness?” Del proposed.

“Psychic vampires can only see the thoughts and actions of people. If you don't think it, they can't see it. I've seen how you move, you never think, you act on pure impulse. You are their bane. Those of us that have alteration gifts have great power over you, but can be easily trumped by the power of psychic vampires. There is a form of balance, as strange as it is.” Yugo tilted his feet onto the table again.

The fire down the block had drawn the attention of everyone in the area. The club was mostly empty. No one was staring at Del or Yugo anymore.

“Then what do you want to do with me? If you can kill on a whim, what good am I to you?” Del was nervous with his words. He didn't want Yugo to lose interest in him, or to have a repeat of the last few minutes. Drowning was not a welcome experience to him.

“Relax Del. I want to teach you. To mold you as my new prodigy. I want to give you the mentoring I had to forage for. With a focus vampire at my side, a psychic gift would have no hold over me. Maybe after thirty or forty years you'll no longer be my student and we will be able to take on a psychic vampire to complete the set. Who knows, if you're a good student, the future will be good for both of us.”

Del accepted wholeheartedly.

Ten years passed as Yugo instructed Del in the most efficient ways to kill a person, a vampire, or a vampeal. It was 1980. Del had learned precision, to be reserved in his actions until he struck out. His assassinations had become perfunctory. In their time together, Yugo taught Del proper etiquette, and vampire etiquette. The certain ways to address a situation that contained vampires. The ways he should conduct himself. All of the necessary things that would keep him alive as a vampire when meeting other vampires older than him. Yugo formed Del as a skilled assassin. In time, Del was fulfilling contracts. He was making a wealthy living. Yugo had enough money to have other vampires hunt for him. Del never had to fish for victims as he used to. Del shuttered to think about telling Yugo that he once fed on livestock. In time Yugo viewed Del's progress overall as astounding. He was less than a hundred, and he was as precise as an elder. Everything from Del's manners to his executions, each action was beautiful in its own way. One day, Yugo had an idea to teach something new to Del.

Yugo's loft in downtown Moscow was a small mansion in itself. Inside were decorations with tapestries, paintings, and antique art from the last few centuries. Hard wood floors, dark reds and warm browns filled the color of the room. Yugo and Del spent almost all their time inside, aside from contracts, they were shut-ins. The main living room held three long, ornate couches, rimmed with gold lace. With a red and gold pattern on the cushions, they were far more pleasant to the eye than to the ass. They were centered around a black coffee table. Yugo had a collection of different eggs, each in a separate glass case mounted in a cabinet against the far left wall. Paintings of the Romanov family were abundant across the rest of the loft.

On a cool summer evening, Yugo approached Del.

“Have you ever thought of playing any instrument?” Yugo asked Del.

Del was laying down on one of the red couches in the living room. His feet were up, crossed on the other end of the couch. He had just awoken for the night. “Why ask me this now?”

“I want to know if I can teach you one more thing.” Yugo opened a small trunk in the corner of the room. He retrieved three large wine goblets and placed them on the coffee table in the middle of the room. Yugo walked to the mini-refrigerator where they stored their excess blood. He took two packets, piercing the bags and pouring some of the red liquid into each of the wine goblets.

“What are you doing with our blood? Isn't that tonight's dinner?” Del sat up on the couch, irritated by Yugo's stunt.

“Listen.” Yugo dipped his middle finger into the fullest glass. He quickly drew his fingertip around the rim, playing the glass note inside. It was a mid range tone. Yugo played the next goblet, it was the same. The third glass had a lower pitch.

“I don't see what you're getting at here.” Del questioned Yugo.

Yugo played the three goblets in quick succession. There was a melody to it. It rang in Del's ears. He liked it.

“What is that?” Del asked Yugo.

“You're new lesson.” Yugo licked the blood off the tip of his finger. “I want to teach you the one thing I never have to anyone else. I want to train you to be a musician as well as an assassin.”

Del sat forward from the couch. He dipped his index finger and middle into the blood of the larger glass. Then his right index and middle into the other large goblet. Del did not hesitate to play the three notes with speed and rhythm. He played them with a beat, over and over again to Yugo's delight. After a few seconds, Del was creating variations on the pattern and composing a small song. He was a natural.

Yugo smiled.

Del stared at the goblets. “How do you think my first lesson is going?”

“I don't think of it as a lesson when I hear it played this way.” Yugo closed his eyes, listening to the simple melody.

“Than what is it?” Del asked, still playing.

Yugo's answer shaped Del's life from then on. “A career.”

During the following years Yugo taught Del the finer details of playing musical goblets. He instructed everything from how much blood to place in each glass to what types were appropriate for each note. Yugo was extensive. Del's time spent learning music transformed him. He gained a soul to his life that gave him purpose again.

Del hadn't had a special craft or ability to call his own since he became a vampire. Yugo gave him a talent, a way to express himself. Eventually Del mastered the art and Yugo sat him down for a talk that would change his life.

Del sat on his favorite red and gold couch. The three rows of goblets were placed on the coffee table in front of him filled with varying levels of fresh blood. Del was busy practicing his compositions when Yugo walked up to him.