Regardless of the years, the centuries of time he had travelled,
the world still had the familiar smells. The scent of rot from the dead and
gone and the sweet aroma of blood from the living. Casually walking down the
streets of Gotham city in the dead of night, Dracula took his time to become
familiar with the city he sensed was home to his new adversary. Breathing in
the salt tanged air and grim of the night, the undead being could already make
out Gotham’s sorted history. A city over 200 years old, Gotham’s foundation
stood over the corpse of the Gotham before it, and the Gotham before that. Entire
generations worth of civilization, crushed under the weight of the latest, the
one still thriving. Every alleyway he passed, he could make out the lingering
spirits of the murdered, the lost and dispossessed over the decades. Wisps of
cold air lingered where their lives had been cut short, unable to find release
or peace from the grave. A trait he admitted they both had in common. Suddenly a
scream caught his attention, drawing him to look back into the alleyway he just
crossed.
A woman in a fur coat was being dragged back into the dark by two
men, their ragged attire and body tattoos hinting they belonged to a local gang,
with one of them brandishing a firearm he kept on the weeping woman’s forehead
as they dragged her behind a closed dumpster out of sight from the main street.
Curious, Dracula crossed the road to get a better view, his black coat swishing
to a non-existent breeze in the air.
“Come ON Mickey, just take the purse so we can head to the bar
already!”
“Fuck off Carl, I want her coat! TAKE OFF THE FUCKING COAT BITCH!”
Crying a stream of tears down her face, the woman hesitantly
pulled her fur coat off, showing that underneath she wore an expensive blue
dress that highlighted her slim waist and exposed cleavage through a v-cut at
the front. “H-h-here, please don’t hurt me.” Snatching the woman’s coat out of
her shaking hand, Mickey smiled a crooked grin eyeing up and down the young
woman’s body and at her face, now that it was visible from the overhead lamp
post.
“Well, well, well, look at THIS Carl, we’ve got ourselves a
looker!” Indeed, she was quite beautiful, the blue dress contrasted well with
her full luxurious red hair and golden earrings, her green eyes still full of
tears after the man snatched up her coat and tossed her purse to the other man.
“Maybe money and a new coat isn’t enough for tonight huh? Maybe our fun time is
RIGHT here.”
“I do believe that is enough…”
Snapping back to look behind them, Mickey and Carl found a middle-aged
man in an old green tuxedo and black coat stand close to the wall opposite
where they crouched in front of their prize. Slowly yet purposely, he took off
his yellow tinted sunglasses and pocketed them before taking off his hat and
pressing it to his chest. “The both of you make for poor predators indeed.” The
man spoke with a thick European accent. “Your prey has known of her impending
death for quiet some time now, by now she would taste bitter and stale with freight
and bile, do you intend to spoil your meal before you feast?”
“Who the FUCK are you ass-hole?!” Barked Mickey, brandishing his
revolver at the man while cradling the fur coat under his arm. Carl too pulled
out a pistol of his own, despite their attention on the intruder, the woman was
still too terrified to move. “Yeah, piss off! Or else you’ll be smoking cigars
out of your fucking forehead!”
“Even I know that meat tastes best when it is calm, relaxed.”
Smiling, the man stepped back, his coat pressed against the dirty and dark brick
wall behind him. “Meat that is angry or scared, tastes angry and scared… It is
quite bitter, the joy of life robbed of its flavour.”
“SHUT UP!” firing a warning shot that made the woman whimper, the
bullet sparked and ricocheted just a few inches from the man’s head, yet he was
unflinching, except for his toothy smirk. “Get… Out… NOW!”
His smile widening, Dracula continued to step back, even with the
wall already at his back he was still able to find purchase and keep moving
backwards. When he did, his black coat enveloped his entire body, splaying out
and slithering over the surface of the wall like the tendrils of a pitch-black
octopus with the man’s smiling face at its core. Flowing and cascading like
water, the black mass stretched and slithered, reaching up until it covered the
three-story surface of the alley wall and the man’s face flowing high up with
it to reach the top. Too confused to run and too intrigued to stop looking, the
pair of goons watched on hypnotized by the cascading pillar of blackness that
swayed and danced like a slithering serpent. Unseen by the pair, the darkness
spread down to the ground, taking its time to flow and stretch so it coiled
around the two men, encircling around their feet. Then with a crackle of air,
the darkness peeled itself free from the brickwork, like a cobra it swayed and
danced around the two men, circling them.
The woman had already put her hands to her tear-filled eyes long before
the spectacle began. If she had the courage to look up, even for an instant, she
would have found her would-be attackers staring up at the open maw of a pitch-black
snake; its coils having already wrapped around their two bodies and holding
them tight while they stood transfixed by the swaying patterns of its jet-black
flesh, the tentacle ridden surface of its ebony scales that swayed hypnotically
like seaweed in the tide and glowing yellow eyes that stared straight through
their own. When the serpent struck, it was so quick, there wasn’t even a scream
and they had dropped their handguns long ago.
“Perhaps I may escort you home?” Looking up from her spot on the
ground, the woman looked up to see the man on one of his knees, her fur coat
bundled in one of his arms while he offered an open hand to help her up. “T-thank
you…” Getting up on uneven legs, the red-haired woman slowly wrapped herself up
in her coat and looked around, finding her attackers missing. “What happened?
Where’d they go?”
“They had… Poor taste.”
Guiding her out of the alley, she never saw the pair of men cold
and dead on the ground, their skin chalk white and sporting a pair of holes in
the side of their necks. When he looked back in the alley, Dracula smiled at
the two new pair of cold wisps floating in the alley way, their ghostly arms
reaching out for him, their faces twisted into shock and horror before he
turned his back and led the woman back to her home.
*
Holding tightly to the man’s arm, Vivian as she introduced herself
found that her saviour seemed much younger than she first thought, perhaps
because her eyes were blurry from her tears from earlier, but she swore he was
well into his forties or fifties, instead he looked like he was barely into his
thirties, his silk black hair tied back and his skin less pale then she
remembered. He was rather handsome she was embarrassed to admit. He claimed he
was in Gotham city to check out prospects into old property, during their walk
she found his accent and mannerisms eccentric but charming. When they made it
back to the front gates of her home, Vivian smiled before reaching into her
purse and pulling out a card with gold trim. “Thank you for helping me, I don’t
know how to thank you… Except maybe this, there’s a party happening at Wayne
manor tomorrow, the social elite will be there to dine and chat, you might find
a few ‘prospects’ like you were looking for.”
Delicately plucking the invitation from her hand, Dracula smiled,
leaning forward to stare the woman into her eyes, she stood motionless,
hypnotized by his golden almost reptilian gaze. He had quite the meal out of
the two attackers, but their blood was stale, spiced with chemicals and anxiety
that left a bad taste in his mouth, but the woman in front of him would
certainly make a highlight of the night. Leaning in closer, his lips pulled
back, barring sharp teeth and fangs that jutted out ready to pierce warm skin yet
again. Idly, Vivian raised a hand to brush a strand of hair from her eyes, when
Dracula spotted it. A simple band of silver around her middle finger, it
captured his full attention, making his pull back. “You are… Betrothed?”
Blinking back awake, Vivian looked down at her engagement ring and
smiled warmly. “Yes, Patrick is over seas on business, we’re going to get
married in the spring.”
Recoiling with his coat almost shivering at the mention of the
word, the man had a look on his face that was a mix of revulsion, fear… And a pang
of regret. Stepping back, he bowed with a courtesy, his hat at his back and a
flourish of his gloved hand before wishing her well and stepping away to
continue his walk. Shrugging her shoulders and fluffing the fur of her coat to
hide her blush, when she turned her back to enter inside she never saw the man’s
coat splay open like the wings of a bat, and take off into the air,
disappearing into the night’s sky.