B00724AICC EBOK (9 page)

At just over four feet tall, a dwarf that called himself John Smith had the habit of constantly whispering to himself, and initially was the subject of some consternation, but the rich little person lost a lot more than he won and so the muttering had become well tolerated. He once left several comely waitresses a five thousand dollar tip each on a night that he had won a large amount. He now dated the sexiest one but she was now not permitted to work on a night that he played. New players to the game were now told that they could depart if they couldn’t accept the muttering.

Inside the room three separate games of poker were evolving, with mostly well-to-do gamblers, and several appeared to be the seedy variety, dressed to show their robustness and their willingness to inflict pain on just about anyone that crossed their path. One guy with tattooed arms and greasy black hair would look at home on a Harley, and he stared sneeringly, a variation of his many poker faces to throw off the hounds. He only occasionally drove a bike, but he did own several dealerships. Like an actor he showed so many different facades that no one could tell what the hell he was thinking; he actually made himself laugh on occasion which confused even more. He noticed that people tended to fold when he laughed, but it wasn’t easy to feign genuine mirth.

“
Are you going to take all damn night to play a card?” Buford’s smile was disingenuous and his breath reeked of alcohol and rum and butter candy sticks; he was down twenty-seven thousand. The more he lost the further his soul toppled into the debts of despair. He was going to lose his house if he didn’t win big on this night.

An RCMP off-duty police officer was risking his career by gambling at the middle table, and he had been a dirty cop in more ways than this, but it did take months for him to be allowed into the joint. Only when the owner had obtained photos of him with ladies of the evening was he permitted admission. The place had actually been moved from across the street at considerable expense as the owner had believed it was in danger from the officer. The owner had come to believe that he was an okay guy if he overlooked his profession.

Behind the bar were two bodybuilder types, both with their muscular arms crossed. They were like human bookends with their sets of blue eyes observing everything. Dracula immediately noticed upon entering that there were no biters present. He was also instantly aware of the almost basketball player tall owner Fred Young, black short hair with brown beady eyes, who was in the process of bumping up against one of the girls. He was a former boxer with cauliflower ears and a bent nose, and he was not as good looking as he believed. Fred was a notorious bully and womanizer, and felt that he was above the law in forcing himself upon his employees whenever the opportunity arose. The pay was excellent and the tips were great, which allowed him to get away with his nasty business. Dracula could sense the twisted soul of the proprietor and the woman’s distress and it annoyed him.

Two large and fancy black leather booths were further into the room under subdued light, where Dracula and Piers headed. They sat into the plush leather cushions and noticed the four aces sealed into the texture of the table. An automatic wall slid just enough to block the view of the gamblers. It was a place where some had to wait to get into a game. Twenty-four-year-old Olivia Flores brought the master’s Platinum and White Gold bottle of Tequila Ley .925 to the table and very gently placed it in front of him, and she was instantly attracted to him. She placed a kiss on his left cheek, leaving an imprint in Mac red lipstick.

“
Sir, will there be anything else?” asked Olivia. She had such a genuine smile.

“
Your boss is a bit of an asshole isn’t he?” Piers asked.

“
I can’t talk about that,” she whispered. “One of our girls disappeared last year and I don’t want to be number two.”

“
Did she confide that voluntarily?” asked Piers.

“
No. Miss, tell that prick that I want to talk to him.” And with a wave of Dracula’s hand she was commanded to do so.

Piers Anthony shook his head as he knew something was about to occur, but wasn’t sure exactly what. Neither vampire nor beast could stand up to Dracula, at least any that he was aware. Most likely it would not be pleasant for the miscreant, as he had also sensed his nasty spirit. And with the Master’s frame of mind he really didn’t know what to expect, even though he had been informed that he had mellowed over time. It was not healthy for a person to have Dracula take a dislike to him.

Four lovely ladies in short black skirts and tops stood behind the long mahogany bar that stretched and curved into the wall at the end, with a myriad of liquor bottle waiting to be selected behind it. Fred took his hand off one of the waitress and appeared annoyed when Olivia whispered to him. He then stared at Dracula giving him a dirty look.

Piers looked into the master’s eyes. “You’re not going to destroy the place are you?”

“
We’ll see. Going to make some people unhappy in here. Should be good.” Dracula crossed his arms and looked foreboding.

“
Perhaps I should depart and come back later when it’s all over?” Piers smiled as best he could. It was then that the Master placed a single word into his head. NO.

Dracula offered Piers a drink of the extremely expensive tequila but he politely declined. The master opened the bottle and took a single drink to savor its taste. He then sank the contents in a single drink and nodded approvingly. “My heart just beat.”

Piers nodded and realized that his now only beat about once every five weeks or so. Some people believed that vampires had absolutely no heart beats, but in fact the older a vamp the longer the time between beats. But whenever it occurred it was a rush. “When was the previous one?”

“
Year and a half or so?”

Fred approached with the two thugs that was his strength. He advanced with an attitude and carrying a Louisville Slugger baseball bat. “You have the audacity to call me a prick?”

“
Oh, trouble is brewing,” said Henry, the eldest gambler who had just turned eighty.

Dracula stood up as Piers smiled knowingly. Had his friend been human it would be lights out and the author would have feared for his safety, but since Piers himself could kill everyone in the room, the question was how many would be permitted to walk out of there when it was all over?

“
Don’t kill everyone,” said Piers.

Dracula walked around the table where Fred gestured to the goon on the left; he was wearing a yellow t-shirt to show off his muscular physique. He punched the master in the face so hard that it could have killed an ordinary man, but he broke his hand in six places. The second goon turned and ran out the exit as he thought he recognised Dracula. The master picked Fred up by the neck and blurred with him to the end of the bar, with the wind sending cards and hundred dollar bills all over the room. Curses echoed throughout the joint as tempers flared, but they realized that they were dealing with a vampire and no one wanted to die.

The dude that resembled a biker smashed his fist hard on the table. “I don’t even know how much money I had on the table!” He was aware of exactly how much money he had but thought the opportunity might be there to steal more. “How the hell are we going to sort this out?”

Dracula put Fred down as the baseball bat rattled on the floor where it dropped. “Look into my eyes,” he commanded.

Fred got lost in those dark brown eyes as he was pulled into Dracula’s mind, and permitted to observe past scenes of horrible blood and terror; disembowelling and carnage that Fred would have never imagined if he lived to be a hundred. The scenes appeared so genuine that he could smell the air. It was an assault on Fred’s nervous system that would haunt him forever; a scene where the stench of corpses littered long ago fields of battle from Gettysburg with silent U.S, Model 1842 muskets strewn everywhere. Vampires were decapitated by the master in a myriad of acts of throats slashed and of gushing blood and heads being decapitated by various swords. Men screamed like little girls. And for good measure the Master threw in Fred’s death by slow strangulation, and it felt so genuine that his heart had started to flutter. It was all in his head but as real as actual torture. A slice of his mind was opened so that he would never forget.

Fred voided his bladder then and there as Dracula stepped back and away from the mess; he commenced to shake and couldn’t stop. Fred would never ever be the same again and in the coming days would sell the place to another businessman.

CHAPTER TWELVE

ZACHARIA STARRED UP at the building where he resided but something was wrong. His vision seemed to be askew and even the night appeared and smelled different. That building looked way too tall, as if the structure had grown overnight. Even the bricks were larger than normal. And as he examined the area further he realized the whole world was disproportionate. He was certain that they hadn’t got to him with the horse tranquilizer so what the hell was going on? Had one of them been a blood wizard? He didn’t think so because he would have sensed it immediately.

He felt peculiar, so much so in fact he couldn’t describe it even if he wanted to do so. Hadn’t he been killed and turned to dust? Now that was an aberrant thought. The battle had been lost? His private domain infiltrated by five thugs? Partial images were chaotic like a mirror that had smashed on the sidewalk, reflecting back what had occurred. Zacharia turned his head and looked up, watched as the four bitters, one by one jumped out of his window, turned into bats and flew off into the night. His mind was fuzzy and somehow impaired, judgements were jumbled. A light rain had commenced and he shook his head vigorously.

The night had never been so foreign.

Zacharia used to love the sound of the rain, but now it annoyed him. He wanted to conceal himself from the precipitation even though it was light. It bore the sensation of heaviness and of a strange texture, as if he was wearing an unfamiliar coat. Was he at all making sense? Instinct made him turn his head abruptly as he heard a mouse near the corner of the building; it was crunching and eating some sort of insect, making one hell of a racket. And again the night appeared different somehow, it simply looked unusual but he couldn’t determine why it was atypical. That placed him at a high level of annoyance. Confusion reigned as a monarch with an imposing sword. But he felt so damn unconventional; his senses were uncharacteristically abnormal. His level of confusion had never been so complete. He stretched and then sat on the wet cobblestone, and neither of those simple acts felt normal.

He thought that he was going to eat that mouse if it didn’t stop its damn racket. Zacharia was going to thoroughly enjoy biting the life out of it. It was an odd thought to have. Or was it? He shook his head and even that didn’t feel proper.

It was difficult to concentrate on the situation, and some damn cat close by was occasionally meowing and disturbing his concentration. His mind seemed to function in images, one after another, as if parts of a movie were being thrown at him; birds being a recurring topic of interest. He felt unusually warm. It was a sensation that he was improperly put together, like a child having built a model car but with some of the pieces having been from a different make; the end result some sort of hodgepodge that didn’t make sense.

He batted at a huge moth that flew by but then stopped himself from doing it again.

Zacharia brought his right foot up to his ear and scratched vigorously. He started to lick his right paw and wash his face. There was that mouse again, and this time it was consuming a different insect. That was the improper weight that tipped the scale. He wiggled his ass and took off after the mouse but it went into a small hole in the side out the building and out of reach. He sat and his tail jumped in frustration. Several attempts were made to get his paw into that hole but it was all for naught.

It was then that Zacharia looked at his paw and realized that he was not supposed to have a paw. But as he awkwardly checked, lifting one leg and then another and another and another, he in fact had four of them. And then it hit him like an axe to the neck; his soul had gone into Moon Diamond. Perhaps keeping the cat alive for all those years, attached to a small part of his soul was probably not the best idea. Additionally, with no body to return to what was he going to do? He thought for sure that he was going to vomit.

And after several minutes of heaving a fur ball popped out.

“
Meow, meow” he said. But it was meant to be two repeating F-words. He turned and walked up to what was his own skull and sniffed it. Zacharia placed his paw in the nasal passage and as it stuck he panicked. It was with the realization of the insurmountable situation that it all boiled over, and then the Siamese cat took a proper fit, emitting sounds that no cat should be able to accomplish. He jumped five feet into the air as he had released himself from the skull. A small stray Border collie in the area ran for his life at the sound of it.

Zacharia was in a quandary and he could not deduce any solution whatsoever. He could now detect Moon Diamond but the cat’s soul was as an entity that was always around the next corner. He had control over the cat, and a good thing as he could not imagine having no control. Dracula was the only possible resolution to the absurd situation. Perhaps a spell existed to reverse the wearing of the cat suit. Dracula was most knowledgeable in the ways of vampires and his only chance at a normal existence. It was impossible and yet he retained some hope of a reversal spell or some plausible solution.