Distraction

Posted on Sat Sep 23rd, 2023 @ 4:30pm by Liza Behn & Gideon Asher

Mission: Daemoniacus Tribulatio
Location: Gideon’s condo

Liza had originally planned on finding fresh feed for them for tonight, but after finding out about the death of an old friend, she wasn’t much in the mood. So bottles it was. She tried to paste a smile on her face as she rang Gideon’s bell, but she was sure it didn’t reach her eyes.

Gideon came to the door wearing a scarlet banyan with black and gold embroidering over a white peasant shirt. He wore a pair of fairly simple, loose, comfortably black pants. On his feet he wore a black pair of moccasin style slippers. He greeted Liza with a smile, but frowned when he saw the look on her face, then nodded.

"Come in, my dear Liza," Gideon said. "And tell me what troubles you."

“I just heard about Earl,” she told him by way of explanation. “And Lily Mae! She was such a sweetheart. I hope the witches can restore her.”

"We are proceeding with that hope in mind," Gideon said, not wanting to be too specific when it wasn't clear what the outcome would be. "Here, let me take those." Gideon held out his hands to take the bottles of blood. When Liza handed him the bottles, he led her into the living room and set the bottles down on the coffee table. "Sit, please," he said, gesturing towards the couch. He quickly grabbed two wine goblets and brought them to the couch. The had been dimly lit on purpose, and there were candles on the mantle over the fireplace and strategically placed around the room. "Please, come sit with me." he said. "Did you know them well?"

“Relatively,” answered Liza, taking a seat on the sofa. “He was one of the first people I met when I came to Nashville. We worked together for awhile. We were bouncers at a night club. This is before o got into real estate,” she explained. “I had to do something while I studied to get my realtor’s license. Anyway, he’s the one who convinced me to invest in Google. I haven’t talked to him a lot in the past few years, but… it’s still hard.”

Gideon nodded. "Tell me more about them," he said. As he spoke, he modulated his voice, keeping it calm, and even. His tone was almost neutral, but for the genuine, if subtle, compassion in his voice and demeanor."

“Earl was a great guy,” she replied. “Super nice, ultra friendly, and generous. He’d give you the shirt off his back if you said you liked it. He was really good at telling which guys were creeps bothering the girls and he would flash some fang at them, looking hungry.” She grinned at the memory. “He never bit them, though, of course. Never even actually threatened them. But, it scared them off all the same. He became a vampire about twenty years before we met, after a terminal cancer diagnosis. That’s why he’s so skinny- cancer ate him alive. He opted to become a vampire rather than die, once he was sure that was the only choice.

“I didn’t know Lily-Mae as well,” she said. “I met her a few times, but only in passing. She seemed nice. But I don’t really know much about her. Still, if Earl was dating her, she must have been pretty impressive. You know, personality-wise. I can’t imagine him dating someone who wasn’t as nice and generous as he was.”

"I'm sorry for your loss," Gideon said. "The way you describe Earl is similar to what I learned about him. It seems incongruous that he would summon a demon. The seemingly logical conclusion is that Lily-Mae was the one who led that particular endeavor. But I suppose we won't know unless our next attempt to separate Astaroth from Lily-Mae is successful. Loss is hard. We who can live, theoretically, forever learn that quickly. But such a gruesome end for a man, a friend, such as you describe him to be, is doubly so."

“Yeah,” said Liza despondently. She paused for a moment, then sighed. “Maybe what I need is to get my mind off it for awhile,” she said.

Gideon grinned. "I think we can arrange that," Gideon picked up one of the bottles and popped the cork. He let it breathe a moment or two, the held the opening under his nostrels and inhaled. "Ah... late twenties, perhaps early thirties. A woman coming into her own. She's still alive, which is good. I'd hate to have to arrest you for possession of an illegal bottle of Life's Blood. Not that it wouldn't remind me of days long past, but our world has changed and so have the rules." Life's Blood was the street name what one gets when one drains a person to death. The last gush before the spark of life is extinguished. It had a high street value, with good reason. the the nearly two centuries between the Accords and the Geneva Convention, the only place you could legally draw out a person's life blood was in a war, on a battlefield, especially when your side won the war. But after 1949, even that became illegal. That didn't stop certain governments from doing everything from turning a blind eye to openly encouraging it.

Life's Blood had a taste and caused a pleasurable reaction in vampires that was so powerful, it could not be accurately described, but it was a hard high to chase. It very quickly lost its potency. You could extend that by mixing it with blood from the living or Life's Blood from a recently killed animal. That extended the shelf life, but also diluted the potency. Most youngsters wouldn't know the difference. But Gideon would have been able to tel just from the scent alone.

"May I pour you a glass, my dear?" Gideon asked. The scent of blood put a hungry glint in his eyes and his fangs protruded a bit.

“Of course,” agreed Liza. “Bringing Life’s Blood to the Havildar-Major’s house would be the height of foolishness, not to mention drinking it in the first place.”

Gideon decanted the blood into two glasses and handed one to Liza. He held his glass up in a toast. "Absent comrades," he said. "And new friends."

“Sláinte,” agreed Liza a bit sadly as she clinked her glass to his. “May both find peace.”

"Here's hoping," Gideon said, taking a sip from his glass. Was there any peace for a vampire? There wasn't really a Hell in Jewish tradition, or any kind of damnation, really. The culture and religion of his birth was familiar with the idea of demons like Astaroth and Asmodeous, but the entire religion and culture was rather vague on what happens after one dies. Death was supposed to be the ultimate peace, but as a vampire, that peace was far off for Gideon. "So, how can I take your mind off of your troubles?"

“I’m not sure,” she replied honestly. “Maybe I just need to veg out in front of a movie or something. No, wait! I have a better idea. Tell me your story. I don’t get to hear much about the old days and I never lived them myself. And then maybe I can bore you with stories about the Baron,” she added a bit mischievously.

Gideon chuckled. "My story is long and winding," he said. "But I can tell you a bit of it. I was born in... in the Christian calendar it would be the thirtieth of April, um... 772CE. The Jewish calendar would make the 9th day of Iyar, in the year 4533. I was born into the Golden Age of Spanish Jewry, as Gideon ben Asher ibn Zechariah. Gideon son of Asher son of Zechariah. I was raised much like other nice Jewish boys of my time. Like many other Iberian Jews, there were many professions we were excluded from, and others were were only permitted to practice among our own kind. Most afluent Iberian Jews were merchants and sometimes also money lenders. The Iberian Penninsula was controlled by Arabs Muslims at the time, but there were also areas control by Christians. As merchants and often nomads, we could move freely through both areas. Arab and Christian nobles would have us pass messages between them, and sometimes act as emissaries and ambassadors, and sometimes we were asked to be spies. We were also vizers, physicians, bankers, etc.

My family were merchants. We were forbidden to study the warrior arts, so we frequently hired Christian and Muslim guards when traveling. We were officially forbidden from learning to fight, but I found ways around that. Unfortunately, they didn't teach me how to fight Lycans, which led to the end of my mortal life. Our caravan was attacked by a pack of Lycans. I suspect it the attack was instigated by some Christian or Muslim leader in an "unholy" partnership with a Lycan leader. As I said, we sometimes acted as spies and I was not always invited into the details of those arrangements. Regardless, I was the only survivor, and then only because a group of what are now the Blood Rangers had been tracking the Lycans. These knights attacked the Lycans and ran them off. The patrol leader, seeing me near death, turned me. She'd offered me the choice of dying without avenging my family, or living forever and making the Lycans pay. In a moment of what I once regarded as weakness, I took her up on her offer of immortality and vengence. Centuries passed before I made peace with that decision."

“I know what you mean,” agreed Liza. “It took me a long time to come to terms with what I’d done. But in my case, I was perfectly healthy, but an old maid. I was completely taken by a Vampire who took a liking to me and let him get into my head. Anyway, what was it like? Living before we were in the open?”

"Sometimes I think it was better than it is now," Gideon said. "When were true 'creatures of the night'. Creatures of myth and legend, tales of whom were used to frighten children, but whom most people didn't really, truly believe were real. We lived in the shadows. We had rules, but they were ours, not those of society, not exactly. If I wanted to play with my food, I could mesmerize somone, a woman, since that's the way I'm sexually oriented, seduce her, make her my slave, and take what I wanted from her, whether that was sex or blood or both, either until I tired of her or I got caught. That doesn't paint me in a good light, but I assure you that female vampires regularly did this to human men and women, and some men did it to other men. It was as much about power and control as it was about sex. And about forbidden fruit. I know I felt as though human women were unknowingly taunting me. I thought I longed for them, but it was easy to confuse the lust for blood with the lust for sexual gratification, especially when you're young."

Gideon grinned and showed his fangs.

"On the other hand, if you were careful," he said. "You could drain people no one would miss all the way to the end of their lives. 'that no one would miss' meant different things to each vampire and at each time. For me, if I was hungry and in the mood to inflict pain, a low-life criminal was an easy target. I often stalked the lower parts of the cities looking for criminals to devour. As long as one was careful and cleaned up after oneself, you could get away with that kind of thing. It was useful when you were on the run from the Church, later the Inquisition, or other religious groups and their hunters, or even an angry mob. Unfortunately, being in the shadows sometimes meant living in sewers, eating stray dogs, stray, cats, rats, and anything else you could get your hands on. And during a plague, it would sometimes mean feeding on the sick. During plague, there might be too few healthy humans about to get away with feeding on one. They'd notice and even if they didn't, we needed healthy humans to make more healthy humans. For the record, Bubonic plague and Typhoid taste revolting. Worse than Lycan, if you can imagine."

“I’ve never been desperate enough to try Lycan blood,” replied Liza, nose wrinkling. “Although I did once attempt to suck the Lion virus out of a human who had just been bitten and didn’t want it. It was bad enough. Poor guy still became a Lion. But, in his words, ‘it was worth a shot.’” She grinned. “It does sound like a romanticized version of our lives. I don’t drink from live vessels very often- it’s just more expensive than I can justify. Although,” she added with a sly grin. “The first time I did was at a Blood Ball. Legal, obviously.”

"Ah," Gideon said. "Those were rare before we came out of the coffin and the human attendees usually didn't survive, unless they were enthralled. Woe to the vampire foolish enough to think they could just bite and take flight. If the humans got wind of what was happening and didn't track them down and burn them at the stake after torturing them, Blood Knights like me would do it for them, albeit with the humans none the wiser. Blood Balls... which sounds like a social disease when you say it in English, anyway, Blood Balls have become much more civilized. Though I tend to prefer a quiet night at home with a few donors to choose from so I don't get too hungry and finish one off, maybe with a friend or two over to share the experience. It's a bit risky for me to attend one. Can you imagine the scandal if some young human got killed by a vampire who went into a frenzy. Yes, the donors have to sign a waiver absolving us of all culpability unless the Rangers, the Hounds, or the human police can prove it was intentional and not 'accidental frenzy', but I am the senior investigating officer here. If I'm there, I'm in the middle of the investigation, my Rangers have to investigate me, I have to explain how someone died while I was present, even if I wasn't in the room when it happened. Things can get messy quickly. Still, I do sometimes go to them." Gideon grinned. "Listen to me," he said. "So serious. Tell me about the first Blood Ball you attended!"


“It was sometime in the 20s, I forget when exactly,” answered Liza. “The Baron felt I had worked hard and deserved a reward. He’s the one that paid. The actors were great. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought they really didn’t know we were about to hunt them. They had a great time, though, with all the food and dancing. Live band, of course, in those days. Then the old grandfather clock struck 12 and the hunt was on. It was actually pretty fun. I caught a small girl- well, I should say woman, as she was of age- which felt a bit like cheating, me being so tall. But it was fun. After I drank from her, she told me there were more than enough actors for each vampire to catch a couple, but I didn’t find any others. It was still a lot of fun.”

"At the blood balls I attended early in my vampiric life, I sometimes lost control, killed a few humans," Gideon said. "Others did, too, which could cause a brawl if you killed someone's pet, especially the pet of someone powerful. Then I found a pair of vampiric women who showed me how to have real fun. We'd find a few humans and take turns drinking from them and each other. I'd never felt ecstacy like that before, blood flowing between myself and another vampire in a circuit of sorts. Then we'd break and whoever came out lower on blood got first drink of whichever human they desired to taste, and then back to each other. It was incredible. Like I said, I'd never felt that way before. I don't do that at a Blood Ball anymore, but I do have dates, I guess you'd call them, where we both bring a willing human and have a really good time. Easier to keep from killing if it's not a mad frenzy at a large gathering."

“I’ve done that, too,” confessed Liza. “With an old boyfriend. I’ve never been able to bring myself to do it again, though.”

"That bad?" Gideon said. "Or that good?"

“Oh, goodness no,” she replied. “Nothing like that. No, I was only with him to annoy the Baron. It was right after that interview where he said I was like a daughter to him and the tabloids had a field day.” She rolled her eyes. “So, in retaliation, I went out with- you’re not going to believe it- Harvey Cullen.”

Gideon laughed. "That may not have been the smartest move," he said. "You could have gotten yourself into a lot of trouble. Fortunately for you, your baron has learned restraint. Trust me, it wasn't always so. In the 'old days', he might have staked you out on the eastern wall of his keep and waited for sunrise. I'm sure over the years he's want to do that to me, but now too old for that alone to kill me. One of the advantages of old age and maturity. And of course, there are laws against that sort of thing." Gideon didn't state the obvious: That while brief exposure to sunlight wouldn't kill him or even be more than mildly uncomfortable, prolonged exposure, even at 1200+ years of vampiric life, was a different matter. That would be extremely painful and take time and the drinking of copious amounts of blood to recover from. It would, however, briefly leave him with a gorgeous tan.

“Honestly, I’d have been more worried about Cullen, if I thought he’d try something like that,” replied Liza. “But I think he could tell I wasn’t serious. Sometimes I think he’d have liked to kill Cullen anyway, but then he’d have hundreds- no, thousands of angry fangirls on his hands. Maybe millions. I’m really not aware of how popular he is among humans.”

"Hmmm..." Gideon said. "Very, at least among the Goth crowd. There have been a few scandals we've had to clean up." Gideon didn't expound. A number of Cullen's groupies over the years had vanished. Some had turned up later as vampires, depressed and living on the streets, often turning tricks for blood. Some living off of vermin because instead of spending eternity with them, Cullen had kicked them to the curb without teaching them how to survive. Vampire society did their best by these cast offs. It wasn't just Cullen who created them. others did as well. The thing was, turning someone, bringing them across wasn't easy, and it wasn't a guaranteed success even for the oldest and most experienced vampires. So, for every successful turning, how many fail turnings were there? Did he incinerate them all? Forensics would be making getting away with that more difficult now, so the fact that Cullen kept getting away with, well, murder, meant that the rock and roll vampire was getting help from someone. But that wasn't a story Gideon wanted to tell. Instead, he grinned, his fangs showing. "So," he said. "You survived a night with the rock and roll vampire. How am I ever to compete with that?"

Liza grinned. “It shouldn’t be difficult,” she told him. “Cullen isn’t very… considerate. As evidenced by the way he treats his followers. It’s the reason I ghosted him. Although I’m not sure he even noticed I was gone.” She grinned again, wondering if he had even realized she was there in the first place. He really had been a bad idea.

"Well," Gideon said, grinning again. "I'm world renowed for my... consideration, so hopefully you won't feel the need to ghost me." He reached for one of the bottles of blood. "Speaking of which, may I refill your glass?"

“I really shouldn’t,” said Liza warily. “But what the hell? I don’t gorge myself often.” She held out her glass for a refill.

"Here you go," Gideon said refreshing both her glass and his. As they drank, their complexions changed slightly, and they began to look ever so slightly more human. Not quite the rosiness they'd get from drinking one or more humans dry, but a hint of a rosy glow nonetheless. "So, what other adventures have you had? Followed any other rockstars or celebrities home? I'll certainly not judge."

Liza grinned. “No, he’s the only one,” she replied. “I don’t think I could handle any more.” She shook her head. “No, I tend to limit my adventures to the mundane. I did one of those tours through the Grand Canyon once. That was fun. I thought about hiking to the top of Everest. Yanno, to see all the dead bodies,” she added with a wink. As if that were the only reason to do it.

"I'll have to take you to Reykjavik in the winter," Gideon said. "The Icelandic Airwaves music festival in November, Northern Lights, volcanos, ice caves and tunnels, the Blue Lagoon, and New Years Eve. Unless you insist, I'd prefer to skip the Icelandic Phallological Museum. Exploring the worlds largest display of penises and penile parts doesn't really interest me. But if you insist, I'd take one for the team... er... that didn't sound right at all, considering."

Liza couldn’t help but laugh. “Stop!” she said. “That is not a real place! Who would approve that? Oh! I’d love to sit in the meeting for that one. Or explain it to potential investors. Can you imagine? ‘So we’ve got this idea for a museum dedicated to dicks. No, no, not famous men named Dick. We mean real dicks. Like cocks. Johnsons. Beef whistles. Yanno.” Again she laughed. “I almost want to see that. Almost.”

"I think their first exhibt was a bull whip made from a bull penis," Gideon said. "If you can believe that. And yes, it is actually a real place. They acquired a their first human penis but it was small and unimpressive, so they're looking for a younger, larger one." Gideon laughed loudly. "I'm surprised some down on his luck vampire or lycan hasn't donated theirs. After all, it would grow back eventually. I'm surprised more than one hasn't tried that." Gideon laughed again. "I imagine their cafe sells appropriately shaped corn dogs, foot long hotdogs... let's see here... popsicles, lolly pops, stick donuts, OH! Can't forget creme filled eclairs and Boston Creme Pies! Sorry. I can be terribly juvenile sometimes."

Liza was too busy laughing to care. “Not at all,” she assured him. “I’m sure the planners had to think like that to come up with stuff. I wonder if they serve blood in phallic shaped glasses.”

"Well," Gideon said with a grin. "I wouldn't be joining you in drinking from them. I'm almost, just almost, sad to say that I never got into that hedonistic, polysexual and/or metrosexual vibe that is so frequently popularized. Don't get me wrong. I'm as hedonistic as the next vampire, possibly moreso. It's just that I'm a heterosexual hedonist." Gideon laughed. "Besides, if I'm planning on drinking blood from the region of someone's groin, I'm going for the ephemeral artery!"

“That just seems unsanitary,” replied Liza, still laughing. “And also vaguely sexual.” She sighed. “Thanks,” she said after a moment. “I’m definitely feeling better about everything. Although now I’m going to be thinking about the Phallological Museum for the rest of the week.”

Gideon smiled. "I'm glad you're feeling better," he said. Then he grinned mischievously. "Though I assure you, should you ever interested, I would be happy to give you a much better reason to think about something phallic for a week."

That, of course made Liza laugh. Not because she thought the proposition was outrageous, but because he was so bold as to just blurt it out and also because it was an extremely cheesy pickup line. “I think I like your attitude,” she said finally, the remains of her laughter in her voice. “Just put it right out there. It was cheesy, but you get points for originality.”

"Ha!" Gideon said, with a twinkle in his eye. "I did not put 'IT' right out there! That, my dear, would have been crass! I am a gentleman. I don't just put 'IT' out there for anyone. You have to ask nicely... or beg... begging is better, but I've done nothing this evening to inspire begging."

Liza laughed again. “Well, to be fair, you did keep my mind off of some really unpleasant events,” she allowed. “That’s worth something, I’m sure.”

Gideon held up his hand. "I almost never attach strings to kindness, especially within my home with an honored guest," he said. "That would be rude and possibly also crass, depending on the strings." Then he grinned and let his fangs show. "On the other hand, I would also not prevent you from showing me what you feel my actions this evening are worth to you, if that was your wish."

She gave him an appraising look similar to one she might give a bottle of very expensive blood she was considering splurging on. “It might take all day,” she finally replied with feigned regret.

"I can think of worse ways to wile away the hours before next sundown," Gideon said. "And depending how late you stay, you might have to spend the day here with me anyway. Seems like we might have the day to take."

“A whole day? Well, that is tempting,” she agreed, drinking the last of the blood in her cup. “Whatever shall we do with all that time?”

"A day does sound like a long time," Gideon said. They had been moving closer to each other ever since the conversation turned flirtatious. Gideon leaned in and kissed Liza on the lips, gently. He could taste some of the blood she'd just swallowed and it set a little thrill through him, then whispered in her ear, close enough for his breath and the faintest touch of his lips to tickle Liza. "We'll just have to go slow."