“Hi, my name is Vlad and I’m an alcoholic,” said the pale man with long, stringy black hair. His eyes were sunken and his flesh was starting to sag. He was a vampire too, but no one at the meeting knew that.
“Hi, Vlad,” the room answered back in unison. People sat in a poorly formed circle, tired and dressed in anything but their Sunday best. The group came in their Thursday best––the exhausted carelessness of a well-worn button-up and jeans that could use a wash. Few took the time to shower. Fewer took the time to even scrub their hands clean.
Clean…what an unnatural concept.
“Even though my name is Vlad, I prefer my middle name, Terry,” the man spoke. His voice had the lilt of a southern dance and the dark undertones of Eastern Europe.
The fluorescent-lit room held the air captive with such a stranglehold that the idea of an oscillating fan became an obsessive fantasy. It smelled like old wood rot mixed with stale coffee and pastries. These weren’t the kind of pastries that people woke up craving, either.
Craving…what an odd idea.
If a pregnant woman craves peanut butter, she’s given it. If a man craves a drink, he’s a monster.
People sat with their arms crossed and staring at the floor. No one truly wanted to be there, but they had become addicted to being there.
“Will you share tonight, Terry?” Donald asked. His comb-over was a pathetic grasp at normalcy and drew even more attention to the liver spots. Yet, he had a wonderful way of bringing out the best in people if they could get past his drooping Deputy Dog jowls and nearly exploded red nose.
“Actually, call me Vlad.”
Vladimir Metairie Johnson tongued the canines at the front of his mouth, wondering if tonight would be the night he’d lose it entirely.
“We’re here for you,” Donald nodded.
“I’d like to talk tonight about the weight of a soul,” Vlad started. “As many of you know, I’ve been using on and off for nearly my whole life. I’ve lost friends (Jamie Nuulsen, throat ripped out, drunken bet. Helena Silvio, promised life eternal, chickened out/bled out), I’ve lost family (Mama Dragomedov, outlived. Papa Johnson, sunrise battle during the March Against the Unholy), and somewhere along the way I lost myself (see above). It used to weigh me down. Still does. How many people here have dreamt about a pure soul? A true, golden soul?”
The room raised their hands in staggered pops.
“Well the thing about gold is that it’s incorruptible. Gold only exists as gold. Can’t combine other elements to make it. And for this reason, gold is heavy. I started wondering that if my soul was cleansed and turned to gold––maybe I’d still feel weighed down. Maybe there’s no escaping the choices I’ve made. Maybe being pure means being weighed down by the choices we refused or would not make.”
Empty, slow nods went around the room. The dark windows of the church’s Rec Center reflected the night like mirrors.
“So it sounds like you’re saying we have to accept ourselves as faulty? That we are corruptible creatures full of imperfections and false altruism?”
“What I’m saying is that we need to love ourselves for who we are, for what we are, and not for what we do. Or something like that. I don’t know. It sounded cool in my head, but then I started talking…”
“Better than a silver soul,” said a new voice from the doorway. A man stood in a long trench coat stained with blood and feces. He wore a wide-brimmed hat, aviator glasses, combat boots, and pants typically reserved for the bargain bin at Hot Topic (all black, too many pockets, zippers that led to nothing, and chains that connected to other chains).
He was clearly wasted.
“Oh, here we go…” Vlad whispered under his breath, and put his head in his hands. Of course Hugo had shown up. Supernatural on the CW must have just aired the finale.
“Judas sold out Christ for thirty pieces of silver. When Christ was crucified, Judas attempted to repent for his sin and return the silver to the priests and elders that had paid him. When they wouldn’t accept the return, Judas threw the silver on the temple floor and left, intent on hanging himself. But he found he could not die, and that sunlight burned his exposed skin, and there was an insatiable thirst for innocent blood. Silver became a curse upon his flesh. Also, do you have a bathroom? I think I just shit my pants.”
“Down the hall, second door on the left. First door is just a closet. I only say that because we’ve had issues before,” Donald said. “And sir? It looks like you may benefit from our group here. If you’d like to come back, you’re more than welcome but I do ask that you refrain from passing any judgment. This is a judgment-free zone.”
“Ask this monster why he couldn’t carry a soul of silver,” Hugo grunted, pinching his cheeks shut. He waited a moment for a reply, then excused himself to hobble towards the restroom. “Oh, second door. Right,” his voice bounced back.
“You’re not a monster,” Donald said kindly, putting a gentle hand on Vlad’s shoulder. “You’re just as God made you.”
“Eeeh, let’s not say anything we can’t take back,” Vlad said, then grabbed his coat to leave. He wished them all well and said he’d be back in a few days, much to Donald’s disappointment.
On his way out, he pushed open the bathroom door and forced the front fangs to emerge. He locked the door quietly before kicking through the flimsy stall and grabbing Hugo by the collar.
“You need to leave me alone!” he shouted in a voice that sounded demonic and hollow.
But Hugo had fallen asleep on the toilet, the back of his coat filling the bowl and soaking up excrement. When Vlad let him go, Hugo’s head lolled to the side and he remained completely passed out. He was the sorriest excuse for a vampire hunter this generation had ever seen.
Excuses…what a peculiar way to justify bad choices.
It was Mardi Gras in New Orleans. The lawlessness and chaos brought out the creepers and weirdos in droves. But they were a different breed than the creepers and weirdos at Comic-Con. These folks still hid behind masks, but let their dark desires run rampant instead of fantasizing about space travel or superpowers. The flash of a nip meant acquiring plastic beads and a thousand drunken propositions. It was hell for the local PD.
Vlad shouldered his way down Bourbon Street, feeling the urge to use as people shoved past him smelling like vodka tonic, or whiskey sour, or Miller Lite––you know, the beer that truly marks a special occasion in a destination event. He noticed Officer Danika Pebbles in a side alley. She had two twenty-something females sitting, handcuffed, both of whom were spouting venomous rhetoric. He could hear it over the swing-jazz marches being played in the street.
“This is Mardi Gras! People are supposed to show their tits!” one said.
“This is a violation of my American constitutional rights!” the other slurred.
“Oh?” Pebbles amusedly replied. “Which amendment guarantees you the right to pull out a double-headed dildo in a public place and use it for tips?”
“Because I’m a human and I am sexual!” the first said.
“It’s called liberation!” the second battled.
“Hmm. Still not convinced.”
“Oh, like you’ve never showed your tits, you prude.”
“Yeah! Flash them puppies! Woooo!”
From the street, a separate woo echoed back in. Vlad leaned against the wall and watched as Pebbles radioed for an escort.
“We’re not escorts!” the first girl yelled. “We are students at Brown University. Pre-Med! Ever heard of it? And my dad is going to…”
“Oh my god…where is my phone?! It was in my bra, but I’m not wearing it anymore!”
At this, the second girl started to sob.
“You need to let us out! She lost her phooone!” the first started to plead.
Two more officers came and collected the girls, who continued to argue that they needed to be let free to find the missing phone. Less than a minute later, they both got tazed when they started to spit on the men who were gently leading them to the drunk tank.
“Oh, to be young again,” Vlad said, stepping out of the shadows and trying his best to be smooth. He was nervously laughing. “Forever young. What a world that would be.”
“Je-sus!” Officer Pebbles said, spinning around and putting her hand on her weapon. “Vlad…how long have you been standing there? You scared the crawdads outta me.”
“Long night, huh?”
“It goes the way it goes,” the woman said, pushing her palms against the sides of her short blonde hair. Vlad knew she was a mother, and she carried herself like a mother, but she hadn’t given up on her body yet. She was still athletic and bragged about doing Jiu Jitsu, a far cry from most of the other middle-aged mothers Vlad met.
“Let me get you off. Maybe we can time what breakfast…our breakfast…wait…what time do you get…”
Pebbles smiled sullenly, and Vlad could feel the rejection marching towards him with more force than a rainbow float of half-naked bartenders.
“Vlad, you’re a nice boy. I mean that. But we’ve had this discussion before. You were the main suspect in a multiple homicide case. I’m a cop. People like us…we were never meant to be.”
“I was the main suspect, but the lack of evidence…or bodies…”
“Can’t shake that stigma. People talk. Put yourself in my shoes. I’m sorry, but it’s never going to happen. Maybe in another lifetime.” She smiled. The radio on her shoulder buzzed and when she cocked her head the carotid artery in her neck pulsed like an EDM beat inside porcelain speakers.
The urge was emerging again.
“Be careful what you wish for,” he frowned, clenching his knuckles to keep from losing control.
“10-4” Pebbles said, then turned to Vlad. “Stay safe out there tonight, lots of creepers and weirdos. Gotta run.”
She stepped out of the alley and immediately accosted a topless woman with sagging breasts painted like Snoopy.
The thing that no one ever told Vlad about being a vampire was that rejection never hurt less. It always stung, even after 400 years. The human condition was improved through companionship, even if the human condition was molested into life eternal through bloodlust and murder.
He knew it wouldn’t last with Danika Pebbles, that nothing ever lasted, but he also knew better than to not try. But trying inevitably led to failure, and failure led to self-doubt. Self-doubt led to a heavyset, aging frat bro wearing a backwards hat, pissing down at the far end of the alley. He was pissing on his own shoes and woo-ing at no one.
Vlad only knew one thing that would take away the sting of rejection, the sting of loneliness, and the sting of wandering the earth beneath the moonlight, unable to live and die like his peers.
He needed a drink.
Vlad felt his canines grow and sharpen at the thought like unholy boners. His eyes narrowed, and his feet felt lighter. He barely had to move before he was upon the man and smashing his skull against the bricks so hard that teeth tinkled to the cement like gravel. He bit once on the thick neck and took a sip of the blood rich with booze and felt his world regain order. Everything made sense again. Why had he ever sworn it off, he wondered. Yet, that one taste demanded a thousand more.
In the next moment, he leapt up with such force that both he and the large man were airborne and headed for a rooftop away from public view.
For the rest of the evening, Vlad watched the parades from the roof until every last drop of blood was exhumed from the bro. He smiled and danced under the moonlight, feeling the false sense of happiness surround him like the warmth of whiskey.
Below, the world marched on, paying no mind to the macabre rooftop where a (now) decapitated head was getting defiled by a 400-year-old creature that sang a woeful song about lost love, and a police officer named Pebbles.
When dusk settled in the following night, Vlad awoke hung-over and pissed off. He wasn’t in his apartment, but rather Jordan Plummet’s Love Palace. Jordan was Vlad’s Original and the two had traveled to New Orleans together posing as Acadians. Jordan had also introduced Vlad to blood coursing with booze, drugs, and virginity.
“After the first porking, the blood physically changes. You can taste it. It’s more bitter,” he’d say.
“We’re calling it 'porking' now?”
“The good stuff is the pure stuff. Remember that.”
When Vlad finally had his first taste––a young Creole boy named Marcel, he couldn’t believe the difference.
“I’m obsessed!” he said, mouth dripping with warm blood that steamed in the moonlight.
“Pass the dutchie, brotha!” Jordan replied, and together they sucked the life out of the kid whose eyes became permanently frozen in a state of shock.
Waking up in the Love Palace was a cause for alarm. It was a house of ill repute where men and women came to find their jollies. They’d also find an untimely end to their unremarkable lives.
The people who frequented the Love Palace were the type of people who thought it was a good idea to visit places like the Love Palace. Lonely, ego driven, and desperate, they’d knock the secret knock (shave and a haircut), pay in cash, and sign in with an alias to earn customer loyalty points. The majority of people who went were on something, too. They were stoned out of their minds on hydroponic weed, did key bumps in the alley, or took pills from a 6th-year high-schooler outside who only answered to the name Joey Sabotage.
The customer loyalty program was listed as such:
After the 3rd visit, get a free diddlin’.
After the 5th visit, free knobbin’.
After the 10th visit, free cheesy breadsticks.
No one got to ten, though. Around visit 7 or 8, Jordan sank his teeth and the people with fake names and drug-driven motives disappeared quietly into the night while new customers showed up. Whether it was perfect or tragic that no one ever went looking didn’t matter because the end result was the same.
“Why does my mouth taste like…a soft…strawberry cloud?” Vlad asked, finding Jordan passed out across two naked and exsanguinous bodies. “Did I score some V-Blood last night?”
“Dawg, you think V cards pass through these doors? Only freaks with the kinky shit. And they call us monsters.”
“What am I tasting?” he asked, clicking his tongue trying to re-ignite the taste buds.
“No bullshit…a zebra. I don’t know where you found one or how you got it here, but you straight up ganked a zebra and sucked it dry in front of like four of my customers. And no bullshit, they paid out the ass to watch you do it.”
“Those four right there?”
“Thems the ones. If you weren’t making me so much money, I’d say you had a problem. But hey, you do you.”
Reality came rushing in like a rugby player’s stiff-arm. How was he going to explain this to his rehab group?
Hey everyone, I lapsed. I knew I had a problem when I stole a zebra from a zoo and sucked it dry in front of people so my friend could make some extra cash.
An even more startling realization occurred. That’s exactly what he had to say if he had any shot of getting better. Radical candor. Brutal honesty.
Well, almost.
If he explained he was a vampire, then he’d be dragged outside and crucified. It was literally written into the bylaws of the New Orleans AA chapter. Some idiot in recovery probably thought it was a riot.
It wasn’t.
There was a fine line between honesty, and choosing not to reveal specific facts. If Vlad caved and revealed his true nature and they put him on the cross, his father would have died in vain. That simply wasn’t an option.
“I know you’ve changed, son,” his father said, the night before the March Against the Unholy. “They’re coming for people like you because they don’t understand people like you. But you’re my son, and that’s all I have to know. So I’ll be right there fighting against them.”
“I’m gonna miss you, Dad,” Vlad told him, for the first and last time.
After the march became a massacre and bloodbath, Vlad knelt in the ankle-deep blood, slurping up the remains and promising that one day he’d get better. He’d been stabbed a number of times, once with a gold-tipped spear in an unsuccessful attempt to save his father, and once in the arm with a knife lathered in garlic butter.
After hundreds of years the wounds healed, but the Day of Atonement still hadn’t come, no matter how promising the times seemed.
“Brosef,” Jordan said from across the room. “If you decide you’re gonna get clean, and then decide you’re gonna fall off the bandwagon, just give me a heads up. As much money as you made me last night, we both know money ain’t shit compared to friendship, yeah? We’ve gotta be golden. Incorruptible in the face of adversity. Because we are adversity personified. Your struggle is my struggle.”
“Gold is heavy. Maybe our friendship weighs us down.”
“Being weighed down isn’t a bad thing. It keeps us grounded, ya know? Pretending there’s order in chaos so that we don’t lose ourselves in the abyss. Yo, you slam that cop yet or what?”
“I doubt it’s gonna happen.”
“You sure? She stopped by looking for you last night. Not in uniform.”
“It’s probably because I stole a zebra.”
“Ohhh, that explains all those 'not so black and white' puns. You know what? She’s actually on track for a free diddlin’.”
Vlad looked up, amazed.
“I didn’t realize she came here…”
“She’s a human, homie. She’s not exempt from temptation and curiosity. I’d have told you sooner, but I have a rigorous NDA which I take very seriously.”
“If she comes back asking for me, please please please let me know.”
“Will do. You heading to a meeting or something?”
“Kind of. So there’s this guy who’s been trying to kill me forever, but he just...is bad at it. I think I need to confront him. Give him the old 'jab a stake or leave a wake' moment.”
“Be careful. Sometimes those slippery bastards are crafty.”
Vlad nodded and ran a finger through his thick, dark hair as he left. It was matted with dried blood and zebra bits.
Hugo was walking down Frenchman Street with a gym bag slung over his shoulder. His hair was cut short and his glasses were gone. Brand new tennis shoes absorbed the weight of his steps.
“Turning everything around, I see,” Vlad said from an alleyway. The hum of the streetlights was almost drowned out by the thump of zydeco swing from a nearby dive bar.
“Last night, I hit bottom,” Hugo said, keeping his eyes down and continuing to walk forward. “That group of yours found me and listened. Actually listened. I was able to be honest with myself for the first time in years, and you know what happened? They accepted me for who I was, faults and all.”
The fire inside of Vlad turned to rage.
“So you hijacked my group to save yourself, you coward.”
“I was in a bad place, Vlad. I thought I’d never escape the shadow of my father, never live up to his legacy, never plunge a stake through the heart of an unholy abomination. Last night I learned that that’s OK. I don’t have to live up to my father’s expectations. We’re different people, me and him. Sure, a kill here and there would be nice, but my life is my own. Not his. Not anyone else’s. All the mistakes I’ve made, well, I need to own them. So I’m sorry for always trying to murder you with weak attempts at assassination.”
Vlad could relate to everything Hugo was saying in some capacity. While he didn’t feel the burden of living in his father’s shadow, he felt the burden of outliving everyone he’s ever been close to. He felt the sting of death at the corner of his lips every time he smiled. Worst of it all, he had seen the world grow and change so much, while he was cursed to always remain the same. Forever trapped in a state of stasis, the vampire was chained to a world that would rather not acknowledge his existence.
“Where are you going? Shouldn’t you be hunting me?” he asked Hugo.
“I’m going to Jiu Jitsu. Officer Pebbles invited me. She said I had a lot of potential. A guy my size with my agility could be a great training partner, she said. And she’s got a hot little mom bod.”
“You stay away from her!” Vlad warned. “Pebbles has a good soul. A companion’s soul. Even if I only get a decade or two in with her, it will have been worth it. So back off!”
“You know, if I were still hunting you I’d know exactly how to push your buttons. I’d know who to go after for leverage. But now, after one meeting with AA, I forgive you. A life of anger and rage is no life at all. I forgive you, Vlad. And I forgive myself. And that’s the truth because I understand the value of honesty. I’m not in shape. I have a long way to go to undo the years of bad diets and habits, but at least I’m able to admit that. I can’t expect honesty from others if I can’t even look inside myself for it.”
Hugo’s words sliced into Vlad worse than a stake through the heart. It wasn’t because he felt left behind by the world, or because there was nothing left that he could tangibly cling onto, but rather that Hugo was right. He had kept his true self a secret for hundreds of years and that type of weight created the workings of a living hell.
When officer Pebbles came around the corner wearing compression shorts and a sky blue sports bra, Vlad knew that life wasn’t going to get any easier.
“Hey Hugo!” the woman said, giving him a playful hug. “Oh, Vlad. I didn’t see you there. You good?”
“I heard through the grapevine that you were looking for me,” Vlad said, trying to chuckle over his awkwardness. “You know grapes are the basis for wine. So the grapevine will become the grape-wine. Or the great-wine!”
“Do you know anything about a missing zebra?” she said, her tone suddenly less playful and more authoritative.
“A what now?”
“Or about a decapitated body found on a rooftop above Bourbon Street?”
“N—no why would I know about…”
“Can you tell me your whereabouts between the hours of 11 p.m. and 4 a.m. last night?”
“I saw you and I went home!” Vlad pleaded, feeling the moment run through his fingers like dripping muscle sinew. Hugo wasn’t even taking pride in the grilling. Instead, he looked concerned.
“I stopped in at Jordan Plummet’s Love Palace and he gave me a different story,” Pebbles said. “And I wasn’t there for the reasons it sounds like. He’s a known associate of yours.”
“Oh. Guess you were just…diddlin’ around looking for answers.”
Pebbles’ cheeks flushed red and she looked down quickly.
“It’s my duty to follow any hard leads—that came out wrong—I’m obligated to diddle around in—hold up…”
“I get it. You have needs,” Hugo said, putting a steady hand on her shoulder.
“How about we never say that again, sound good?” Pebbles replied, peeling his paw away. “Swing by my office tomorrow, Vlad. We need to have a chat. A real heart to heart.”
“And remember, Vlad,” Hugo began. “Honesty allows your soul to soar. It frees it from the crushing weight of our own secrets.”
Pebbles smiled at Hugo and motioned with her head that they should get going to class. They didn’t even say goodbye to the man in the alley who was pondering the idea that maybe rock bottom wasn’t one singular event. Maybe it was ripping out Pebble’s eyes and drinking Hugo’s sweet, sweet virgin blood. Maybe it was that the only two people he considered friends aside from Jordan only wanted him to suffer. Or maybe it was doing nothing at all and letting the natural order restore itself.
“Not my style,” Vlad said, and used his inhuman speed and strength to pull them both up onto a rooftop for the most heinous of defilings. Not even dental records could be used to ID the corpses by the time he was finished with them.
Donald had corralled the meeting into its usual circle. The folks there desperately held onto their paper cups filled with lukewarm coffee. Each was engaged in a fierce battle to reclaim their soul from the grip of an unseen beast. Their only salvation came from the courage to call it by its real name.
Addiction.
Vlad came stumbling in and slumped into a chair. A noticeable air of unease puffed from the inhabitants like an A-bomb of 'here we go again'.
“Vlad, welcome back,” Donald said, doing his best not to let the throbbing vein in his forehead show. Even though these meetings were about recovery, they were also about discipline. “Is there anything you’d like to tell us?”
The vampire looked around the room and saw the types of people he continuously targeted. He saw the sad faces of bad decisions and consequences of regret. He saw decaying human flesh with even more rotten souls.
Vlad couldn’t relate to them. He never could. Even though they all had more in common than any would care to admit, he forever felt alienated by his burden.
“I do have something to say,” he started. The fluorescent lights illuminated the imperfect floors with beams too far apart, and chairs barely holding it together after decades of abuse. “I have a problem and I can’t stop using. No matter what I try, I always find myself hungry for just one sip. And one sip leads to another, and another, and another, and before I know it––I’m fucking the neck of a decapitated corpse. Figuratively speaking.”
The room nodded in consolation relating to moments in their own lives where they lost control of the outcome.
“What else?” Donald asked. He crossed his legs and leaned forward. This could be the breakthrough they’ve all been waiting for. “Speak your truth, Vlad. We’re listening. Rehabilitation cannot begin without honesty.”
“I’ve been in love more times than I can count,” Vlad said. “And it always ends the same. They get to know the real me and it freaks them out. Or they don’t even give me a shot because at one time in my life I was a 'suspect' in a 'multiple homicide'. It’s like no matter what I do, I can’t shake the stigma of being different. I don’t fit into a box, and I never have. The only box I’ll ever fit into is my casket.”
The room nodded again. A man in a trucker hat with three-day-old stubble scratched his arm and chuckled to himself.
“Do you want to talk about how it felt being accused of something you weren’t? I know you’ve spoken before about the guilt and torment of that homicide investigation. The lingering effects are still very much alive. Maybe speak to those feelings.”
“Fine. Let’s say I did do it. Let’s say I’ve killed people. I am a monster without any remorse who loves bloodshed and the macabre. If I lived a thousand lives, that’s a part of me that would never change.”
To Vlad’s shock, he wasn’t met with disinterest or terror, he was met with mild applause. And the applause felt good. It felt healing.
“Keep going,” Donald said.
“Sometimes I kill because I’m sexually frustrated. Sometimes I kill because I’m bored. And sometimes I kill because people are idiots and it’s the only way I can feasibly get through the day-to-day grind.”
More mild applause.
“I want to commend you for your bravery here. I’m a trained counselor with years of experience, specifically on the idea of mapping. I want you to ponder something for a moment. When you say 'kill', is it possible that you mean 'use'? Is the killing you refer to symbolic of the actions you commit unto yourself?”
Louder applause. Perhaps the breakthrough was actually coming.
“I use because I choose to use. I take my life into my own hands and yeah, I don’t always make the best choices, but sometimes a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do!”
Rising applause.
“You’re finally letting your guard down, Vlad. Keep this momentum up.”
“Four hundred years! That’s how long I’ve been trapped in this body. Literally! I’m older than the internet. Older than television. Older than the telephone. Older than both world wars. Combined!”
“I’ve felt the same way. Using made me live lifetimes of loneliness,” the man in the trucker hat said, as he began to weep.
“So maybe I’m done hiding. Maybe it’s time to reveal to the world who I really am!”
“Say it, Vlad. Say it out loud so that we can all share in your achievement here today.”
Before he could, trucker hat man stood up.
“My name is Scott Grainey and I’m a recovering alcoholic.”
Another.
“My name is Julia Po and I’m a struggling but recovering alcoholic with a history of substance abuse.”
And another.
“My name is Miguel Santiago, and I am an alcoholic who will no longer let my disease define my life!”
The crowd was being whipped into a frenzy. The participants were hooting and hollering for each other as they rose with honesty to reclaim their identity.
“My name is Vlad,” the man said, “and I’m an alcoholic. But I’m also a vampire!”
He pulled his lips back and forced his fangs to grow. His soul finally began to feel free, lifted from the burden of secrets.
The room stopped clapping and fell into a horrified, deathly silence.
“Oh...I wish you hadn’t told us that,” Donald said, hiding his face behind a hand. “I really wish you hadn’t done that.”
“But…you said…”
“I know. I know. It’s partially my fault, but I’m also not…like you. None of us here are…like you. And you’ve read the bylaws in our handbook. I’m sorry, pal, but if we’re to get better, we all need to follow the rules.”
Scott and Julia and Miguel stood up and grabbed Vlad by the arms, pinning him to the floor. The others in the room started smashing through the wooden tables to pick up makeshift stakes or wrapping their shirts around the points to create torches. The alcohol inside of the sweat-stained cloth created an ease for the fire to leap from a candle and ignite the stick.
“You told me to be honest! Everyone did! I’m being honest, and now you punish me for it?!”
“Honesty with yourself is one thing. Honesty with your therapist is another. Honesty with your AA group is another. There are levels to this thing.”
Vlad was dragged outside where a bench was kicked apart and reconstructed into a crucifix. He was hoisted onto it and bound in place.
Yet amidst all the chaos, coming clean did help. For the first time in over 400 years, he felt lighter. He felt like admitting who he was somehow made him stronger. It made his soul shine like gold in the morning sun.
“Go ahead. Kill me. When you do, know that I’ve won because to vanquish me, you had to become me. We’re all users, abusers, and lost souls looking for redemption. Well, not me. I know that a fiery demise awaits, and that’s OK. Light me up!”
Scott and Donald held their torches to the bottom of Vlad’s impaled feet. The flames leapt onto his pants and spread faster than the warmth of whiskey. In a matter of seconds, Vlad was fully engulfed in fire, where he roared with laughter as his pale skin and hair fell off in thick, smoldering chunks. His jaw fell slack and open, and his neck began to droop.
In another matter of moments, there was only a skeleton. A moment after that, there was just ash. Vlad had burned far faster than a non-vampire human and, to celebrate, the meeting went back inside for some coffee and pastries to toast to the death of the secret monster that had been plaguing them for years.
It was Donald who took one final moment to survey the scene and noticed the curious relic at the bottom of the cross.
There, shining in the light of the fire was a small puddle of gold. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but Donald believed it to weigh exactly 21 grams.
“Huh,” he said. “Maybe that old bastard was onto something.”
He let the gold cool, picked up the chunk and put it into his pocket, then went inside to celebrate the night with a raspberry Danish and some Sleepy Time tea.
Gold––what an odd thing to model a soul after.