Path of the Vampire forum

The renovations were complete. Elliot Lancaster d’Artois – a rather pretentious sounding name for a man who didn’t have a pretentious bone in his body – had presided over the changes. Not that much was being changed. They hadn’t used the second floor of the pub for much other than storage. In order to tighten up the business and get rid of the overheads, or a few of them anyway, Elliot started to order less, so that there wasn’t as much of a need for storage. He made sure to keep on top of what was being sold, and when the busiest days and months of the year were. He’d been in this business long enough now to understand the cadence of it. It was just like a song – and he compared everything to music. It had its peaks, and it had its slow moments. One could learn to predict, and could throw oneself into the rhythm, and could come out the other end laughing.

Walls were erected and bunk beds installed. A communal kitchenette and laundry were also installed, and furniture was purchased for the rest. Bean bags and couches, a big screen television, and all the different amenities that travellers might want or need – a couple of computers, internet access, and plenty of plugs to charge different electrical devices.

The place was finally ready. All the beds were made. Everything was in working order. Elliot stood in the doorway, shoulder leaning against the wall and arms crossed over his chest as he surveyed the finished product. It wasn’t much, but it was something. A way for him to reconnect with a past that he could no longer go back to. In this small space he had a grasp of a future that he could want. He could already imagine it, the different souls and personalities that could gather in this space. Artists and travellers. People with stories of places they’d been and people they’d seen. Runaways, nomads, souls with no anchors. Those who did not wish for an anchor, or for a place to settle. People like him. Though he hoped that by bringing them here and, in a way, watching over them as they passed through this precarious city, he might in some way keep them from suffering the same fate that he had.

Forced to anchor. Forced to settle.

Sure, yes, he could leave if he really wanted to. But he wasn’t that kind of guy. He had obligations. And he had love. He could not leave those things behind, not even if he wanted to.

The man cleared his throat and took a breath that he did not need. Now, all he had to do was find those lost souls. A few of them came through the pub, looking for work. It shouldn’t be too hard to drum up some kind of word-of-mouth business. His feet thumped heavily on the stairs as he made his way down to the pub, having to duck his head on the way out the door. He was used to having to duck under smaller doorways. Six feet and six inches isn’t really a friendly height.

Dark hair fell in front of bright blue eyes; he flicked his head to get rid of it, and glanced around. Business had picked up while he was upstairs. There were a few more customers now than there was half an hour ago. He rolled up the sleeves of his plaid, red and white, button-up tee, the silver buttons glinting in the dim lighting. He loved this pub. He loved the Irishness of it – the greens and the mahoganies, and the chandeliers which gave off a dim glow of faux firelight. And, of course, the fire that always blazed in the corner.

Elliot rubbed his palms on the denim of his jeans before making his way toward the bar; he slipped behind it, and began chatting in low tones to the bar staff, preparing for the night ahead.

They call me Court.

That's short for 'Courtney', which isn't a girl's name. It's an androgynous name, but try telling that to a group of third graders on a school field trip during a foggy, Monday morning coasting Ontario, Canada.

Ice bobs up and down in the Hudson Bay, behind the rusty, chain-link fence. Between the fence and the water, laying face-down in a puddle of his own, blacking blood is a gray-haired man. His toupee lays four feet away from him. Somebody drew two big circles around it. I'm guessing it was Marshall.

Mrs. Rhodes--the teacher--herds her class toward the aquarium's double doors.

"Your badge says 'Courtney'," one of the kids says.

"That's a girl's name." Another.

They seem un-phased by the blood.

"Yeah, I know. Look, I need you to keep walking, okay? Follow Mrs. Rhodes." I skim the crime scene as I help direct the half-crying, half-lost kids.

One of the kids stands, picking her nose, next to the face-down corpse of Mr. Who-Knows-Who.

Mrs. Rhodes grabs her by the wrist and yanks her arm. At this point, the girl pauses, in shock, then bawls, blood and snot still stuck to her finger. Sunshine spreads, like smooth, yellow butter, as her orange freckles wash with tears. Her face glistens. The morning fog starts evaporating.

It's like she doesn't understand she should be upset until she sees the horror-stricken face of her third-grade teacher dragging her away from the stab victim.

I'm not an investigating detective. I don't specifically work 'homicide', but I get flung into it, a lot. My badge is so they don't think I'm press. I'm the guy who got disillusioned in college. I watched a lot of crime shows, when I was younger, and thought I'd be chasing serial killers down dark alleys, with a gun. I'm the guy in the latex gloves who looks over the evidence and tries to pull up a detailed picture of the criminal, in his head.

The 'investigating detective' award goes to...

"Hey, Court. You got a minute?" He talks in my good ear, so close I can smell his coffee, bacon, and eggs.

"Not, now, Marshall," I toss my answer under my armpit as I lean over to grab the hem of a child's shirt and turn him toward the doors. Behind me, police officials tape off the area.

"Aw, c'mon. Watch this."

"No." I'm glad I'm not a detective.

I'm glad I don't have to ride in a squad car with Marshall Prewitt, who smells like onions, who should get a prescription for medical-grade deodorant to cover the caustic stench of his body odor, who gets mayonnaise on his tie, when he eats. Instead, I work with people who don't talk, don't expect me to talk, people who don't stare at me in horror, disgust, waiting for some type of emotional response too hard for me to muster past the blaring 'boom' of their own emotions pushing mine back, slapping mine in the face.

If every time you met a person, your emotions brawled in boxing rings, mine would be amateur, and everybody else's would be professional.

Getting to know dead people is easier than talking to the living.


"I just think you'd be happier in Harper Rock, Mr. Apple. You been going to Jim for a while, now, and he says that you may just need to, you know, transfer. He says it just looks like the best decision. He thinks so. I think so. You don't got anybody, here, anyways, and, besides, they been needing somebody up that way. You'll do fine." Theodore has his fingers interlaced, palms cradling the back of his bald, chocolate brown head. He wears slick, black, modern-chic glasses, an ironed, white button down. There isn't a wrinkle or a stain on him. That includes his personal life, replete with sterling family, business networking, and gym time.

My hair is a mess. My shirt isn't ironed, but it isn't wrinkled, either.

I have no family to miss me. I have no love life to speak of. I live alone, with my cat, Hodge, on the second floor of an apartment building on the bay. In the morning, I drink my coffee by the window, by my plant, Rachel, who I water, talk to, and play violin for.

I take Hodge. I take Rachel. I take a backpack and I run, rabbit, run.

I leave everybody and everything in the kicked-up snow, grass, and black dirt from my bloody paws.

Uprooting myself isn't hard. It never has been.


The door came to a slow close, before it opened, again, the air gasping out of the bar and into the night, sending music and chatter across Courtney's bone beige, hemp loafers.

It took him a good five minutes of standing there, in the dark, streetlight haloing his head, to work up the fortitude to make his move.

The people's emotions clamored over his skin, spiked footballs off the side of his head, as he pushed his way into Lancaster's. Hodge the Cat under one arm, Rachel the Plant under the other, Courtney stood still, even when somebody came through the door, bumping his bulking backpack.

His face and neck flared red. Another person bumped him. He knew he was in the way, but his legs locked up, the same way they had outside the door. He waited as Hodge mewled, kneaded, rubbed him with his cheek, getting hair on Courtney's chest.

He kept waiting, breathing, collecting himself like people catch flying paper, while driving down the highway at ninety miles per hour with the windows rolled down.

He crumpled himself inside his hand, clung to himself as hard as he could, and worked up the ability to walk forward, through layer after layer of auric field, all shoving and pushing at him, roughing him around the edges. He found an empty place at the bar, then set his plant down, hugged Hodge closer as he cleared his throat into his fist to grate out, "Excuse me?" to somebody who looked like they worked there.

It was open mic night. There were a few different initiatives that Elliot tried to get off the ground. As much as he liked to hog the stage in the back corner of the pub, he couldn’t play all night, every night. And he had to acknowledge that not everyone was a fan of his kind of music, even if he did, sometimes, choose to cover some of the mainstream pop songs (much to the amusement of those who knew him). Besides which, he wanted to give small unknown bands a chance to get themselves heard. A few, he hired on a regular basis. The majority of which he discovered on open mic nights.

Someone else was organising the musicians. The clientele were split between the different areas of the pub; the middle was clear, somewhat. A few people gathered around the pool tables and the dart board; a quieter group gathered around the fireplace. The majority gathered around in front of the stage, mingling and lingering, while a whole thriving mess of people gathered around the bar. That was the main draw, right? The main reason people liked to come out of their homes. To socialise. And one could not socialise without alcohol, or so it would seem.

There’d been a technical difficulty at the beginning, but they’d sorted it out and the music was now underway. Currently, a guy in his mid-twenties had the stage; he an acoustic, and a rough voice. He was good – but Elliot didn’t have the focus to pay much attention to him. Liza, the shift manager, was telling him about a particularly difficult customer who’d slipped over in the bathroom; she’d hit her head and was currently sitting in one of the quieter areas of the pub having been attended to by the staff. The customer in question had complained about the cleanliness of the establishment, and Elliot had to make sure the complaint had been dealt with in due course.

The customer was intoxicated, Liza explained. Her words were slurred and she doubted that anything would come of the complaint; at the same time, however, Liza explained that they had treated the customer with all due respect. The toilets were constantly checked and cleaned but could not be attended to every minute of every day. In the end, the customer had conceded that yes, the mess could have been recent, and that it was her own clumsiness that could be to blame. Elliot nodded, thankfully, and ordered Liza to make the girl a cup of coffee and make sure she was still doing fine. On the house.

Even as he issued the order, he noticed the young guy who’d pushed his way to the counter. He wasn’t noticed because he was any different to any other customer, but mainly because of the cat in his grasp. After a complaint about cleanliness, it probably wouldn’t do for that same customer to see a cat indoors – there probably was some kind of health and safety rule about no animals allowed where food and beverages were being served and consumed. Not that Pi had ever followed those rules, obviously – but the Border Collie was now at home somewhere, rather than roaming the crowds of the pub.

Elliot wasn’t really at all concerned about the cat. The customer himself, however, was reaching for attention. Elliot pushed his hair out of his eyes and approached. The closer he got, the more aware he was of this particular soul’s state of emotion. Frazzled would be an understatement. Elliot tried for his warmest smile as he leaned forward.

“How can I help?” he asked, shouting a little to be heard over the din, his Australian accent strong and foreign in a place filled with the strong tang of Canadian slang.

While the customer assessed Elliot, Elliot, too, assessed the customer. Shorter than he was, but that was no surprise. The majority of the damned city was shorter than he was, and he had a slump to the shoulders to prove it; every now and again one might find him straightened to his full height, but that was normally a defence mechanism, the same way a cat will bristle or a dog might snark and prickle its hackles. More often than not, however, Elliot slouched; he hated confrontation. He aimed to please. And he had learned long ago that he appeared far less intimidating to others if he tried, somehow, to drop down to their height.

The guy in front of him looked a lot like everyone else. Normal. There was nothing wrong with normal. In fact, there was a high possibility that plenty of the women in this bar would find this plant toting, cat hugging male specimen to be a good catch. Something about the eyes, maybe – not quite brown, not quite yellow, but a soothing mix in between. Unlike Elliot’s – a startling blue, contrasted by pale skin and dark hair.

Elliot made sure to keep his focus on the customer at hand. It might have been easy for him to glance sideways; somewhere, in the distance, there was the clatter and clash of glass. Someone had dropped something. There was a small shriek that followed, and then shrill laughter. No one was hurt. It was all absolutely fine. Movement in the corner of his eye assured Elliot that one of his capable bar staff were on their way to deal with the incident.

The establishment was Elliot’s. He was the boss. The employees respected him, as he was not a hard boss to work for. But nor did they expect him to do their work for them. They were like a well-oiled machine when Elliot was around; they were eager to please, and so worked like their lives depended upon it. Elliot was completely at his ease as he stood there, attending to the one customer, allowing the pub to churn around him, a veritable vortex of noise and demand, a storm of which he was the calming eye. And he had the patience of a rock.

And so, as the customer slowly worked out what it was he wanted, Elliot stood and waited, the smile resting neat upon his lips, that dark hair again falling over his eyes but this time, he left it there. It was a constant hassle, and it didn’t matter what he did to cut it off, the mane always grew back again. Sometimes within hours. It was an irk he had learned to get used to.

It was tempting to reach out to this poor male with powers of pacification; get him to calm down a bit, and to not be so damned nervous. One didn’t have to read emotion like listening to a finely tuned instrument to see it. Maybe it wasn’t nerves. Anxiety, maybe, was a better term for it. Fidgety, unsure. Elliot arched a brow when the guy finally spat out what he wanted.

Pancakes.

Elliot laughed. A small laugh. One that erupted as a shot of air from his nose. He wasn’t laughing at the request. Not really. Instead, he was laughing at the way in which memory struck a person. Unexpected, and out of the blue. He remembered a place back home; The Pancake Manor. In the middle of the city, it was, and it was open twenty-four hours a day. He remembered numerous occasions where he and his friends would stumble into the Pancake Manor after a night of pubs and clubs; and when they came out again, slightly more intoxicated but at least full of food, the horizon would be pink with the rising sun. Those were the good old days.

But he could hardly send this inquiring customer halfway across the world. Elliot’s brows furrowed. There was a menu, yes. Lancaster’s did sell food, but it was more lunch food. Dinner food. Chips with aioli, arancini balls, fresh made pretzels, oysters, calamari. Salad, Bruschetta, garlic bread. Rice paper rolls. Simple things. A very simple menu, but enough food to soak up the alcohol. Elliot shook his head.

“I’m afraid I can’t help you there mate. I don’t know where you can find pancakes at this time of night. We do have a menu, though – anything else catch your fancy?” Elliot asked, reached over one of the bar staff – Liza, again, who was now pouring a cider from the tap – to retrieve one of the menus. He slid it across to the awkward customer.

“If you do order from here, though, I’ll let ya go upstairs,” Elliot said with a flick of the head in the direction of the door that would lead up to the backpackers.

“Not too sure how well the cat’ll do down here,” he said, matter-of-fact, gesturing again with his head to the cat squirming in the customer’s arms.