BOB's Bar Read online

“Semper fi, Devil Dog,” Colonel Walton said to General Lysander, raising his beer in a toast.

  “Semper fi back at you. Your hair is so grubbing long, though, that no one would know you’re a Marine,” the general said. “Get it cut.”

  “Nut-licking monkey-assed bureaucrat.” Colonel Walton shook his head.

  For an instant BOB thought the two were going to fight—and that would break process—but Bethany Anne spewed blue D’Shalah Tusteron from her nose and Admiral Richards held back a laugh. The two men shook hands, and BOB realized that they were not angry. Somehow words that should have been taken as insults were endearments.

  It made no sense to BOB, but hopefully it would to the Collector.

  Turning away from the confusing humans, BOB checked the uplink. The first product had reached the Collector, so even if this project ended now it would still be considered a success. But there were six more humans, six more humans with stories to tell.

  It looked around the table, ready to nudge one of them to continue the process, but realized that wouldn’t be necessary. Bethany Anne was going to tell her tale.

  BOB didn’t continue the pretense of cleaning the already spotless glasses. It settled in to listen.

  The Vampire Vigilante

  By Michael Anderle

  “I still think that was all bullshit. You could have faked that pic, but it was a good story. Now, I’ve got a fucking decent story, if you’re all ready?” Bethany Anne asked as she looked around. “I can’t claim it’s as good as starting a war, but I did get a movie out of it.” She scrunched her face. “Sort of…” She shook her head. “Nope, I probably can’t claim that either.”

  “Let’s have it.” Tanis set her coffee down and leaned back in her chair.

  “Go for it,” Amanda said.

  Bethany Anne raised her drink in a toast, took a sip, and started talking. “So, I’m in New York City visiting my shopping therapist—” She looked at Terry Henry and Ryck. “That’s Christian Louboutin, for you Neanderthals—and there were some issues in the news about some gangs having too much fun with tourists. At that time I had been modified for less than a year, and for half that year I was asleep while my body was upgrading.

  “So after watching the six o’clock news that night, I decide to have a little fun and stretch my legs. Later that evening I grab a pair of black pants, put my black Under Armour long-sleeved shirt on for some protection under my chest armor, which I also put on, and tie my hair back. I left my weapons in the room, thinking my body mods would protect me or, worst case, I’d take a weapon from a gang member if I needed one.”

  “Body mods?” the Marine General Ryck Lysander asked, clearly confused by the term.

  “She’s a vampire,” Amanda said, winking at Bethany Anne.

  Bethany Anne decided to ignore the incorrect assumptions about her being a vampire. She had gotten this shit all the time back on Earth a dozen decades before. It was easier to roll with it than correct everyone’s mythology, so she just nodded. “That's right, although in my dimension vampires and Weres were a byproduct of modification by a race of aliens called ‘Kurtherians.’ Seven bad clans, five good ones. Suffice it to say I was modified by a member of a good clan, but he wasn’t the be-all and end-all of information and knowledge at that point in my life.”

  “I could unmodify you if you want,” Tanis offered. “Lots of people turn themselves into vampires or werewolves...or dolphin-octopuses—whatever. Can easily be undone.”

  Bethany Anne nodded. “Um, appreciate it, but it gives me some terribly cool abilities if I connect to the Etheric correctly. For example,” Bethany Anne cupped her right hand and a red plasma ball formed, “this could melt somebody.” She looked up and tossed it toward the ceiling, and it grew larger and turned white. “Or just be a pretty white light.”

  Tanis shuddered. “Plasma... Stars, I hate that stuff.”

  Bethany Anne shrugged in response. Interestingly enough she didn’t hear TOM—the alien resident in her nervous system and able to speak with her—bitch about that comment, so she continued.

  “I left the hotel about half past ten that night to walk the thirteen blocks to Central Park.” She looked around, but most seemed to be following her story about a city they might not have a clue about. She mentally shrugged, figuring, Why the hell wouldn’t they?

  It wasn’t like they weren’t in some interdimensional bar.

  She put her finger and thumb near each other. “I was about this far away from my own building when I overheard a couple street people talking about vampires in Brooklyn. I loitered for a moment and realized it was a story about a vigilante who went around wearing a red cape and was often mistaken for a vampire since the inside was lined with red satin.” She smiled, thinking back. It hadn’t been her the first time, but she could hum the tune and play a few bars.

  “I didn’t have a red-lined cape with me, but I did have these.” She indicated her eyes and willed them to glow red, and her fangs announced themselves when she smiled. “And these.” She pointed to her fangs.

  “You have fangs?” Cal asked. “Awesome!”

  “Like I said, pale and interesting,” Amanda remarked.

  Her fangs retracted and her eyes went back to normal, and she continued, “After a couple moments, I decided that the Vampire Vigilante would return to New York City.”

  She waggled her eyebrows. “But this time I was going to make sure she had badass footwear and a bit more class.

  “I continued walking, taking every dark and scary alley I ran across, only to find the fuckers weren’t hiding in alleys. However, I came out of one just as a pimp was about to bitch-slap a woman. It pissed me off so fast I didn’t realize my eyes had started glowing and my fangs had descended until the woman looked over his shoulder at me, scared shitless. He turned around with his slapping hand still raised, then reached down to grab a Glock .40 he had in his waistband. His hands were shaking so badly he ended up shooting himself as he tried to draw the pistol.”

  “Bloody pimps,” Amanda said. “I encountered a few of those during my early years on the streets of New York. Nothing but fucking idiots preying on the weak, if you ask me.”

  She smiled. “I’ve no idea whether he shot his prick off, but I like to think so. He went down screaming, so I kicked him in the head and knocked him out as I walked by.”

  “Good on ya,” Amanda said, and Bethany Anne winked at her. “When I was half a block away I realized I might have fucked up my new Louboutins, so I stopped right there in the middle of the sidewalk and took off my pump to look. Sure as shit, that fucker’s head had scuffed the side of my shoe.”

  She reached forward and grabbed her drink to take another sip. Everyone at the table was laser-focused on her story.

  “I was pissed and I considered going back to Dickless and kicking him a couple more times in frustration, but there were police sirens a few blocks away. It was New York so they weren’t going to be there in seconds, but I kept walking anyway. I went another four blocks before I found an all-night store that had a decent pair of black hiking boots. I switched shoes and jogged back to my hotel, where I left my Louboutins behind the counter for safekeeping.”

  Bethany Anne shrugged. “Apparently the Vampire Vigilante wasn’t going to have fabulous footwear,” she mumbled as she took a sip, “but she was going to continue to be badass, or so I hoped.”

  “Aaah, the conundrum of the female superhero.” Amanda smiled.

  Bethany Anne nodded in agreement and continued, “This time.”

  “I decided to just head straight to Central Park. I had heard that the southern end was busier, so I went that way. I wasn’t there twenty minutes when I got my first chance to have a little fun. There were two punks harassing a little old lady. Now, I can move blazingly fast when I want. This time I thought I would be a scary dark bat, so I shinnied up a fire ladder and settled down in a dark corner. I willed my eyes to blaze red and my teeth to grow, and whispered a demand for them to stop into the
wind.” She paused a moment.

  “And?” came from Tanis—the prompt she wanted.

  “Nothing fucking happened,” Bethany Anne admitted. “I had to practically yell at the sumbitches to get them to look up at me.”

  There were chuckles around the table.

  “I apparently didn’t scare them much even with red eyes—which did freak them out a bit—and long pointy teeth, which they couldn’t see because my ass was in a dark corner at night. They were turning back around to continue their bullshit with the old lady when I jumped down right beside them. I had been fifteen feet up, and they were about thirty feet away. Now, I was still getting used to my strength then. I grabbed Thug Number One’s collar and pulled.

  “I ripped his shirt right off and the fucker barely moved, so I backhanded him into a wall. I didn’t waste any time with Numnuts Number Two, just cracked his skull with a punch. Unfortunately,” she said with a loud sigh, “the old lady was out cold—apparently I had scared her senseless. I had to carry her to a safer location and leave her on a bench.”

  Bethany Anne shook her head at the memory. “It was fucking embarrassing.”

  The people around the table laughed. “But,” she said, holding up a finger, “that was only strike two for my vigilante work that night. It was the bottom of the seventh with three men on base, and I was just getting warmed up. Fifteen minutes later I overheard a beat cop listening to a call for backup some seven streets away. There was a gang fight going on, cops were down, and the police had surrounded the building. It was five stories tall, and they needed more people and SWAT before they could go in.”

  “So off you flew?” Ibarra asked.

  She shrugged. “Well, it was more like ‘Off I boogied.’ I could have gone through the Etheric, but I didn’t know where the fuck I was going. Instead I ran like the wind, which was an exercise in frustration. When I got there I stepped into the Etheric—moved into that dimension and exited elsewhere—and came out about ten feet above the roof of the building the cops had surrounded. Letting gravity take over, I dropped and landed without making any noise this time. Which surprised the hell out of me—not because I wasn’t that good, but that night had been one mistake after another. I searched for and found the door and a ladder that led down into the top floor of the building.”

  Bethany Anne pointed again to her eyes. “I turned on the red peepers and the long white teeth again. By God, I was going to scare the shit out of someone that night.” She smiled, remembering the fun.

  “I made it down the ladder into the building and came out of the stairway door four feet from two toughs. I had heard them laughing, so I knew they were there when I opened it. Everyone in the building was looking out the windows and thinking about the cops or other gang members, so no one was expecting me to come in from above. Dipshit Number One said something belittling, so I used him to open a nearby apartment door by kicking him hard enough to break it down when he hit it.”

  She shrugged again. “Unfortunately the gang members inside were a little trigger-happy, so they shot him seven times before they realized he was a friend. I sent the second guy in after the first, but they didn’t shoot his ass.” Bethany Anne sighed. “I kinda wish they’d had the presence of mind to catch him, though. I threw him into the apartment hard enough that he stumbled twice and crashed through a window, falling five stories and yelling the entire way down.

  “Now, those inside the apartment started firing randomly, so I bolted down the hallway since I only had on chest protection. The reason for that is another story I’d rather not get into now.”

  “Why not?” Ryck asked, looking at her chest.

  She looked down and motioned to her breasts. “The sweater puppies are a bit of a pain to protect but I like having massive holes to heal even less, so I take precautions. ’Never leave home without chest protection’ is my motto.”

  Ryck blushed at her answer, something Bethany Anne noted with more than a little pleasure.

  She looked at him and smiled, letting him off the hook for pointing out the obvious. Bethany Anne was not that hung-up on anatomy and waved away his embarrassment.

  She decided to skip any more explanations regarding why she liked chest protection and continued.

  “I was running down the hall when I smelled popcorn and realized I was fucking famished. Who the hell was making popcorn when the cops were about to storm the building? I realized it was probably an old couple who didn’t give a shit about what was going on around them and were just waiting it out, so I left them alone. The Man Above knows I didn’t want to send two old people to Saint Peter early.

  “By the time I had made that decision, I turned a corner to a landing with two elevators plus a stairway. I was about to go down the steps when the elevator dinged and three thugs got off carrying a fourth, who was tied up and struggling.

  “I stepped back onto the landing and crushed one of the gang member’s kneecaps. He let go of the trussed-up person, and the other two dropped him as well. The guy screamed in pain as he hit the ground. I tossed one into the wall, then turned to the second as he pulled out a massive hand-cannon—a Remington .44 Magnum. He saw my face and made the sign of the cross, then started speaking to me in Spanish, which I don’t understand. I just walked toward him, red eyes blazing and teeth glistening. The guy was about ready to shit his pants, so I put out my hand and the piece of shit dropped the .44 into my palm. I opened my mouth to ask him a question, but he turned in fright and slammed right into the edge of the doorframe, creasing his forehead and busting his nose. Blood sprayed everywhere as he flopped to the ground.”

  “And through all of this you didn’t get a scratch?” Ryck asked.

  “Well,” she started, as blood rushed to her face, “the fuckers had a teacup dog—you know, the kind grannies have?—and this little piece of fluff ran out of the elevator and bit the back of my calf while I was taking care of business. I was so surprised by the thing I involuntarily kicked it away from me. I didn’t mean to hurt it, but it went flying over the side of the staircase and I could hear it chirping its little barks as it bounced down the steps.” She rolled her finger like a Slinky going down steps. “Chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, splat!” Bethany Anne shrugged. “I really didn’t mean to hurt the dog. I went down the steps after that little debacle and found it walking around on the mid-landing, but it kept bonking its head into the wall so I left it there.”

  “Seriously?” Tanis asked. “You didn’t even check it over?”

  She looked at the speaker. “Hell, no! It bit me, so why should I have? The little fucker could have fallen down the next set of steps too for all I cared, so I left it behind.

  “I didn’t want the .44 nor did I want to carry it, so I took out the rounds and ditched it down a garbage chute. I made a quick run through the fourth floor to confirm it was clear, then knocked out a hall light so I wouldn’t be backlit and looked out a window as a SWAT van pulled up. My chance to be a legit vigilante was getting smaller and smaller, so I raced down the next set of stairs, listening to make sure I wasn’t going to walk into a group getting pumped to come up. I shouldn’t have bothered with super-hearing. The asspricks were in the apartment underneath the one where the first group was holding court, only two floors lower. They were pretty pissed about their kidnapped member, and were trying to decide what to do.”

  She took another drink; telling stories could be exhausting. “So, I turned back around, and found that the guy I came to grab was slowly being lifted back up by the jackalope gangalang I’d thrown into the wall, while Busted-Face was trying to help the one whose kneecap I’d crunched. I lashed out at gangalang’s knee and grabbed the dropped body this time when gangalang screamed. I then hissed at Busted-Face, who dropped his friend—who screamed in pain, I might add—and turned, hitting the same damned edge again. This time he knocked his ass out. I left my two screaming friends with busted knees behind when I heard pistol shots in the hallway and carried my trussed-up friend downstairs two floo
rs.

  “On the third floor I ripped his gag off, and before I could say anything he was screaming, ‘Vampire, vampire!’”

  “By now I was wondering why the hell I hadn’t just carried my pistols or kept the one I’d taken. I could have just shot them all, which would have been painless. I decided then I would go armed all the time.”

  “Did you tell anyone on your team this story?” Terry Henry asked. “John or any of those guys?”

  “Hell no!” she replied. “Are you fucking kidding me? I’m embarrassed to tell this story to all of you. As far as I can tell you folks are from different dimensions, so there is no fucking way you can repeat it anyone who knows me—except for Terry Henry.” She shook her head. “And if this story does come out, I swear I’ll figure out a way to get to your dimension just so I can spread lies that will make your sea stories here seem tame.”

  Not that she had a fucking clue how she’d accomplish that. She just hoped they didn’t have an idea how to get this story back to her people.

  Bethany Anne shook her head. “There would be absolutely no redeeming value in admitting this shit to John, Eric, Stephen, Darryl, Gabrielle, or any of the others.” She shivered. “Saint Payback would be a bitch and bite me on the ass for decades should that happen.”

  “What happened with the trussed-up whiny bitch?” Terry asked.

  “Well, after getting his attention—”

  “How?” Cal asked. He smiled over his glass at her. “Sorry, felt I should ask something. I get antsy if I stay quiet too long.”

  Bethany Anne winked at Cal. “If you would use your lips for drinking instead of asking, I’d finish and you would know.”

  She continued, “I slapped him and yelled, ‘Snap out of it!’ a substantial number of times.” She pursed her lips. “It worked a hell of a lot better for Cher than for me.”

  “What happened next?” Ryck asked, his cider forgotten as he listened.

  “Well, SWAT did me a solid and shut off the power to the building, and once that happened it was all over but the screaming. I ran through the building with my eyes glowing red, beat the shit out of everyone, and disarmed anyone with a gun. I tossed the guns out the windows; even tried to make sure I didn’t hit anyone below. I swear my efforts at being a badass up to that time were much more effective. To this day, I still wonder how I did so poorly that night.”