Chapter 2
-Cue Song- Oh Oh Oh Sexy Vampire, by Disko Warp-
He shoved a bandaged fist in the vampire’s mouth breaking his fangs as it clawed at him. He shook it off and backpedaled onto the street, while dodging another vamp lunging at him from above, he kicked the third in the chest. The one he had just punched was already healed up as it came after him yet again. He shot it multiple times in the head with a handgun, but it just kept coming. It felt like he was fighting three of himself, but with the added bonus of claws and fangs. Jake gave up and asked for help. “Khonshu, why won’t these pinche(1) mosquitos die?” The vampires looked at him like he was loco(2) as they exchanged red-eyed gazes with each other across from him.
“Hmm, maybe you need to stake them through the heart?” Khonshu suggested from behind him where he leaned against a wall with his arms folded. Jake looked around, sped across the road, and threw himself in through a window in a nearby closed café, glass shards falling around him. While ignoring the sudden jarring alarms and the pursuing vampires he quickly picked up a chair, snapped off a leg, turned and jumped while stabbing one of the vampires in the chest. She froze and looked up at him with her eyes widened in abject horror before suddenly smiling and beginning to laugh at him. She pulled the makeshift wooden stake out of herself and threw it back at him with enough force to pass straight through his own heart and out his back and into the wall behind him.
“Hijo de puta.(3)” He cursed as he huffed and healed up a few seconds later. He ran back out of the building and into the dark streets. He’d been fighting for a while now, too long, and was getting tired even with the suit. He could feel the others starting to press against the wall of his mind, giving him a headache on top of everything else. “That…didn’t…work.”
“Apparently.” Khonshu said dryly. Jake tried to rein in his temper, after all there was no way Khonshu would be deliberately fucking with him. He was his friend. Jake used his suit to pull himself up to a light post and then to a nearby roof where he began running…away across the rooftops. Which was not his style. The bastardos(4) flew after him. Of course they did. He’d run into the three bloodsuckers tapping into an old homeless man under an overpass. Khonshu did not need to urge him to erase their existence. They’d been fighting for miles throughout the city since then. He was stunned no one had noticed them. But then he supposed people were used to looking the other way when supernatural shit went down these days, safer that way.
He looked towards his God sitting cross-legged ahead of him as he rolled to avoid some talons that ripped through the cement of the roof like butter as they passed him by. He tried using his suit’s bandages to pull himself in odd directions and trip up his pursuers. It kept him just ahead of them, barely. “I’m…hah…open to suggestions!” He shouted reluctantly as he ran, they were fast, and right on his heels. He wasn’t feeling desperate, he was Jake Lockley, Señor Noche, he did not feel things like desperation, he gave those kinds of feelings to others. He was just annoyed was all.
“Why not ask the worm, he’s…occasionally useful when it comes to knowledge like this.” Khonshu offered. Lockley sneered.
“No.”
“Then don’t stop running.” The God said unhelpfully as he appeared to the side on the roof of another building. Jake could not believe how his luck was going tonight.
“Mierda!(5)”
He wasn’t about to let those parásitos(6) know of him, not if he could help it. They were useless dregs anyways. They’d just try to suppress him if they knew he existed. He saw a train moving ahead of him at the end of the line of buildings. He jumped from the last roof, his trench coat’s leather strips flapping around him in the moonlight as he landed on the roof of the speeding train with a loud thump. The vampires landed behind him. He turned and faced them, flexing his fists and moving into a more secure fighting stance, balancing against the wind. The woman, a pretty redhead, her lips still stained blood red, smiled cutely at him and gave him a gauntly wave, wiggling her lengthy sharp fingernails. “Ha, why don’t you share some of your tasty blood, crazy mummy-man, I promise I’ll be gentle, maybe you’ll even like it.” Her fangs elongated grotesquely. Jake glared at her; she was decidedly not his type. He could be picky like that.
“Vete al demonio, puta.(7)” She fake pouted and then actually giggled.
“Been there, done that.” She said matter-of-factly as she pointed at him and the men with her shot forward like trained hounds. “Get him.” Jake snarled; this just wasn’t his night. And he really hated vampires.
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Steven opened his eyes, and then promptly closed them again with a full-bodied agonized flinch. Why did he feel like he’d been hit by a lorry that had then backed up over him? “M-marc?” He called out softly. The answering silence was unnerving and…lonely. It hadn’t been long since he’d learned that he wasn’t the only person within his own body and mind. But he had already somehow grown used to sharing his life with him. Without him, he felt…lost, abandoned. Steven swallowed a painful lump in his throat and got up. He was stronger than this. He was.
He moved to his fish tank to feed his fish and then his eyes were drawn unwillingly to one of the postcards beside it. He slowly reached for the card, a colorful one from Dubai. He touched it gently, feeling its glossy smooth texture on his fingertips. Then he frowned and abruptly tore it off the tank and let it drift to the floor. He then frenziedly started pulling all the others off one by one till there was a chaotic pile littering the ground. He was breathing hard like he had just run a marathon and looked down at the mess he’d made. He sobbed and knelt down to begin gathering them all up into his arms, trying to hug them to his chest. “Mum.” He cried out. He stopped when his eyes caught on one that had fallen face down. He focused on the neatly printed words on the bottom, ‘All the love in the world, Mum.” He wasn’t sure how long he had kneeled there on the hard floor just staring at those words. But eventually he started looking through the others. He reread each and every one of those cards until the words had burned themselves inside his heart. What must it have taken Marc to have written these to him? What must he have felt, while pretending to be their mother, after what she had done to him? He could barely imagine it. He didn’t want to imagine it. He gathered up the cards again, this time very carefully, and placed them into a box that he put under the bed for safekeeping. He washed himself up and went into the kitchen to make breakfast.
When he reached for his usual cereal, he hesitated. He stared at it consideringly for a moment and then put it back. He went to the closet to get dressed. It was time to do some much needed shopping. “Oy what’s this then?” Steven asked as he picked up a flat cap hat that had been sitting on a shelf. “Must be Marc’s.” He mumbled to himself as he went over to a mirror to try it on. He turned his head this way and that and muttered, “I look like a total wanker,” and then tossed it behind him on the bed flippantly. He got dressed in his regular clothes and left the flat. Unbeknownst to him, his reflection remained in the mirror glaring after him.
Steven sat next to Crawley, his friend and living statue busker. Bags containing a coffee machine, and groceries sat next to him. “So Layla’s off doing superheroy things, helping out the Goddess Taweret, important stuff an all that, course she’s still a bit reluctant, yea, and she won’t admit it tho but she’s been having fun. You can hear it in her voice when she checks in, which hasn’t been as often as I’d like but... She’s alrigh’. Wish I could join her, but it’s not like we’d be much help without the suit, yea? But I do miss her tho. Loads.”
Steven sighed after his rambling rant, while Crawley continued to stare into the distance unblinkingly. Steven nodded in agreement. “Yea, you’re right, it’s not like we’re useless. We could have stayed with her if we’d forced the issue. But she needed some space after…everything… to get her head on straight, and so did we to be honest. We’ve really got to sort ourselves out. We’re a complete mess, mate.” Steven ran his fingers through his hair, frustratingly.
“So Marc’s gone right now. Like just gone. And I, I realized, how much of his life he’s been sacrificing for me. It’s not right. None of this is right! And I just hate it.” Steven crumpled forward and asked tearfully, “You know what I mean though, right mate?” He sniffed, smiled painfully, and nodded at Crawley who didn’t move an inch. “Yeah, you know. Well thanks for the convo mate, I really needed to get some of that off my chest, I appreciate it an all.” He picked up his bags, left him a tip in his bowl, gave him a short wave and left for home. “Latters gators.” He called behind him. Crawley blinked.
“Look Marc, it’s your favorite food. If you want it, you better come out, or I’m tossin’ it and we are having vegan.” Steven threatened. A mug of black coffee and a plate filled with crispy bacon, scrambled eggs, and a stack of syrupy, buttery pancakes sat steaming in front of him as he looked smugly at the mirror on the table. Steven smiled dangerously and slowly lifted the filled plate over to the garbage bin. “Last chance, Marc, 5, 4, 3, 2…” He counted down, as his hand was about to let go, it froze against his will.
“Wait!” Marc shouted. Steven grinned, pleased as punch.
“You’re back!” Marc looked around, confused for a moment.
“Yeah, I’m here.” He stiffly moved over to the table with the food in hand and sat down. “Did you make all this?” He asked, his voice soft, vulnerable.
“Yea.” Steven responded. “So I’m sor-“ He began. Marc cut him off.
“Yeah, me too buddy.” Steven looked at their reflection hard.
“I understand how hard it was for you Marc, I do, but just don’t run away from me next time. We can talk things out. Ok?”
“Hm.” Marc grunted in vague agreement and began eating with gusto. He almost inhaled it all. Food hadn’t tasted this good for a…well a long time. Not since the last time Layla had cooked for him, and that was ages ago. His sharp eyes noticed the missing postcards and then skipped over to the new coffee machine on the counter. “Coffee’s good.” He offered quietly. Steven beamed.
“It is? Good.” He’d never made coffee before, so it was a fun and new experience for him. He was glad he’d gotten it right, for Marc’s sake. Steven turned on the telly, while Marc nursed his mug. The news playing stopped him before he could put on his favorite National Geographic channel.
“A new and violent vigilante has been terrorizing our city once again.” The solemn newscaster began as a grainy video recording began playing. The footage seemed to have been recorded a distance away, so some details were a little fuzzy, but they could clearly see four people fighting on top of a train. Three of them were fighting one. They could also see the fangs, claws, and sharpened ears of three of the people, and the strange, oddly familiar costume of the fourth.
“As you can see in this recording that was captured last night, this black clad character appears to be fighting several of what appear to be for want of a better term, vampires, on top of a moving train near Waterloo Station.” Steven was glued to the screen, amazed as he watched the hero exchanging high speed blows with the three vampires.
“Wow so vampires exist. That’s a thing.” He said and cocked his head. “Did you ever fight vampires?”
“Nope.” Marc replied simply. He sipped his coffee and studied the TV, following the fight with an expert’s eyes. The program then switched to a street view where a woman whose face was obscured was being interviewed outside Scotland Yard. Her voice was distorted as well as she said,
‘I’ve seen him, he saved me, yeah? I think he called himself, Señor Noche. He only spoke Spanish.’
The camera once more switched back to the train scene as the newscaster continued talking. “We have also heard reports of a similarly dressed individual murdering a number of suspected criminals the other night in White Chapel according to the local authorities. Unfortunately, it looks like our city will once again be forced to host a costumed mass murderer with a God complex, thinking they can do whatever they want without any consequences…” The man continued talking as the video zoomed in, and they saw the emblem of a moon shinning on the back of the vigilante’s coat. Steven swallowed loudly.
“Marc, do you think?...” Marc put his mug down and clasped his hands under his chin as he leaned toward the TV.
“Looks like.”
“He’s the new Moon Knight!” Steven crowed. Marc snorted.
“Well it’s not like Khonshu would want to be without an Avatar for very long. Seems like this guy is pretty skilled too.” He said, admiration tingeing his voice. Steven moved close and tapped the figure on the screen.
“That suit tho, sorta creepy, I mean cool, but definitely dodgy.”
“Hm.” As they watched, the vigilante, or new Moon Knight was powerfully kicked off the train by one of the vampires. He fell heavily onto the street next to the track, where he was then immediately run over by a passing speeding truck. Steven and Marc both winced.
“That must of hurt.” Steven said sympathetically. The truck came to a stop, the guy quickly getting off to look at the man he’d just run over. Señor Noche was twitching on the pavement struggling to get up as a vampire flew over, hopped into the empty big rig and started backing up. “Oh no, it’s going to back up over him!” The lorry driver dodged out of the way, but the vigilante was only just up on his knees when it then hit him, again. "I can't watch." Steven tried to cover his eyes with his hands but Marc pulled them back down.
They couldn’t hear the crunching sound, but they could easily imagine it. “Poor bloke.” Steven said. He was surprised the BBC was showing all this on the telly considering how violent this was. They then saw the vampire leave the truck and fly off into the night in a stream of black smoke. “Those vampires managed to get away!” The truck driver sat on the ground with his head in his hands, shaking, as Señor Noche crawled brokenly from underneath the rig and limped out of sight of the video. Marc took a breath.
“That’s not our problem anymore, Steven.” Steven twiddled his fingers on his chest.
“Yea, yea, no you’re right, the new guy will handle it, I’m sure, glad we don’t do that anymore.” He said, trying to reassure himself. “But vampires tho? That’s, kinda cool innit?” Steven couldn’t help but add wistfully. Marc leaned back in the chair until his head rested against the wall.
“Yeah…” He sighed while closing his eyes.
(1) Fucking pinche
(2) Crazy loco
(3) Son of a bitch Hijo de puta.
(4) Bastards bastardos
(5) Shit Mierda
(6) Parasites parásitos
(7) Go to hell, Bitch Vete al demonio, puta.
Fun Fact:
Jake seems to curse a LOT, not my fault though, I mean you try telling him what to do... *shrugs*