Sharpe was off his game; normally, they didn’t get the time to scream. Sharpe was a vampire, and his incidents of birth left him with an interesting skill set. He’d tried to become an assassin; it hadn’t gone well. Assassins tend to spend a lot of time around blood, and spending a lot of time around blood made Sharpe rather…unpleasant.

 

This wasn’t true of all vampires; blood has a different effect on all of them. Ventus, Sharpe’s uncle, for example was made much clearer and sharper by the presence of blood (So he kept a vat of it in his study. It made for interesting conversation whenever he invited people in. Although, he only ever invited people in when he needed to kill them, so, while they may have been interesting, the conversations were never very long.)

 

Ventus had seen a shining light in Sharpe, which is why he’d killed off his parents when the boy was only young. As such, he’d had the opportunity to groom him to be his own, personal pet tiger. (Well, if tigers were six foot tall, muscled, obscenely strong and nearly invincible. Which, thankfully they aren’t, otherwise I imagine the world would be a much different place. (That would be truly terrifying…DUM DUM DUUUUUUUMMM!!))

 

Anyway, we’re getting slightly side tracked, I feel…

 

Sharpe bounded gracefully down the long, dusty hallway. He’d dealt with the first wave of hapless old fools fairly quickly, record time he felt (And believe me when I tell you, that he’d gored his way though plenty of old-man filled rooms in his time). The hall was dark, but of course that didn’t matter to Sharpe, what with his supreme hunters’ vision, even further heightened by the sickening amount of blood he was coated in. He could clearly see the small, whimpering man hiding behind one of the thick walls that separated the hallway from its adjacent rooms. Considering that he’d man had pissed himself, Sharpe figured that he wasn’t going to be that much of a threat. The Vampire came to the door at the end of the hallway and paused. ‘Now here’s a target’ he thought to himself; he could feel the power pulsing out from behind the door, rolling over him in hot, skin crackling waves. He sniffed the air, and put his ear to the door; two people. Most of the power was rolling off one man, tall and dark looking, with an aura that like tar. The other man was…interesting, he was taller than his friend by a little, and his aura was starkly bright and clean, which in a city of sin like Golden Morovar was a rare thing: But the most interesting thing about him was the way that power fluctuated off him in waves. It fired off him sporadically, like…like an Otter. A big, crazy, drunk, PCP addled Otter that had no idea at all where it was or what in gods name it was doing. Sharpe had never seen anything quite like it before; it was…pretty, in a sort of bizarre, quaint kind of way. At times, it seemed like more power was flowing off him than there was in the constant, seeping flow of heat pouring off the evil man standing opposite him. Sharpe concluded that, whatever awaited him in the room would most certainly be…entertaining.

 

He took a step back from the door, and threw his arms out to the side. Figuring it would be best not to hold anything back, he yelled a piercing roar before bounding forward and kicking down the door.

 

He flew towards the dark-souled man, figuring him for the most threatening of the two, with his claws raking at the air in front of him. Rather than the soft flesh of his human opponent, Sharpe hit a wall of pain.

 

He hadn’t expected that.

 

He rolled back to the door, wincing in pure agony, and paused.

 

“Oh my…” said Scorpius, looking intently at Sharpe, as if he was studying a difficult algebraic equation “Now, that is unusual. You should be dead.”

 

Sharpe merely snarled, and lunged at his foe again, but like the last time he was stopped in his tracks by the bites of a billion stinging insects.

 

“See…Now, this isn’t working for me.” Scorpius shouted. He was…offended by his lack of power over the man, but not worried, considering the assailant was unable to get within five feet of him “What are you? You’re not human, if you were human, you’d be dust.”

 

Sharpe was silent once more, just as his uncle had taught him. Scorpius didn’t like that very much, so as an incentive, he decided to blast him again with the killing spell that proved so ineffective. “What are you!? TELL ME!” He threw the spell at him again and again, each time Sharpe rolled in agony on the floor, but remained as silent as the grave. (A phrase that’s cuttingly appropriate, considering he’s a vampire and…you know…? Oh, fine, suit yourselves…)

 

“Stop it!” Brian shouted from the corner of the room, still sitting where Scorpius had thrown him “For gods sake! Cant you see you’re hurting him!?”

 

“Of course…Of course I can. Really, come on, had you not guessed by now that I’m a bad guy?” Scorpius shot at him, without easing his barrage of spells “In fact, I’m the bad guy.”

 

“STOP IT!” Shouted Brian again, this time putting some force behind it, although he was entirely surprised that he put enough power into it to shoot Scorpius off his feet and into the wall opposite him

 

“WHAT!?” Scorpius shouted, forgoing the usual human methods of standing up and walking, preferring instead to lift himself off the ground and float menacingly towards Brian “WHAT IN THE SWEET, UNHOLY MOTHER OF ALL THINGS EVIL IS THIS!? A CONVENTION OF THE ‘WHAT THE SWEET FUCK IS GOING ON’ SOCIETY!?!?” Scorpius was utterly fuming. He was very much used to things going exactly the way he expected him to go, and as of late, they hadn’t. He was in the very foulest of foul moods, and Brian just happened to be the target of his current ire. “I SWEAR, BY GOD, I AM GOING TO BURN YOU DOWN TO ASH, YOU PITIFUL MOUND OF HORSE SHIT!”

 

“Oh…oh dear.” Brian declared, feeling that this would be a very good time to start a stand that sold fudge and lemonade.

 

There was a rip and a tear, as the beast Sharpe flew through the air and raked Scorpius across the back with his claws. Scorpius cried in agony as he fell from the air, turning to see Sharpe fleeing, with an unconscious Brian tucked artfully under his arm.

 

“GET BACK HERE!” He yelled, throwing spell after ineffective spell after Sharpe, and managing to turn the two headed Elephant man into a steaming pile of gelatinous goo “FUCK!” Scorpius turned to look at the frozen, terrified forms of Simyan and Darius (Who had, incidentally, stopped obsessing over the fly) “What the fuck are you looking at!?”

 

 

*          *          *

 

 

Brian awoke in a daze. He was beginning to make a habit of waking up in strange places with absolutely no idea where he was or how he got there; he was going to have to do something about that.

 

He sat up, and leaned back against what turned out to be a filthy brick wall in a dark and foul smelling alley. ‘This’ he thought ‘Is worse than last time…Marginally.’ Sharpe slapped him in the face.

 

When all was said and done, Sharpe was very nice. He was a very, very nice guy; genuine, you know; that rare kind of nice that you don’t really get very often: So after all the blood was dried up and the carnage was over Sharpe reverted to his nice, pleasant self. It used to be, when he was young, that he would be utterly disgusted with himself after these little uncle-induced episodes, but since then he’d come to terms with the fact that he was merely a weapon to be wielded by his Machiavellian, evil spirited guardian, and he was alright with it. (Well, as alright as you can be when you’ve got next to no control over your actions, and could be forced to terrorise and murder whole buildings full of people at the drop of a hat.)

 

 

“Hey,” Sharpe said, his gruff, gravelly tone sounding, quite inexplicably like Brians “Wake up.”

 

Brian focused on Sharpe, he was a mess. He was dressed in what looked to be a very expensive suit, and covered head to tow in a mix of dust, ash and dry blood. It was then that Brian remembered exactly who it was that was standing opposite him; if he could have, he would’ve backed as far away from the man as he could, but since there was a brick wall behind him that wasn’t planning on going anywhere any time soon, he consented to sit there, whimpering “Please don’t kill me!” and sobbing quietly to himself

 

“I’m not going to kill you,” Sharpe said, with a toothy, fang-laden smile “You probably don’t know it, but you saved my life back there. So you’re, well, off the menu.”

 

All of this took some time to register with Brian, but when it did he slowly stopped crying, and looked Sharpe in the eye “But…but you saved my life…Not the other way around.”

 

“Yes, and no,” Sharpe said, standing up and holding out a hand to help Brian from the ground “You saved my life when you threw that bastard off me; another one of those spells and I’d have been a mindless gibbering vegetable.”

 

“But…No. I didn’t. I didn’t throw him off you, he must’ve just…fallen, or something.” Brian said, in a mumble. Being confronted by a man with fangs who was covered in blood tends to addle the brain somewhat.

 

“You’re babbling.” Sharpe said simply “You need a whisky.”

 

“Yes…” Brian said, wearily, taking Sharpes hand and letting him haul him from the ground “I think you’re right. Do you…have a name, maybe?”

 

“Sharpe. And you?”

 

“Brian.”

 

“Well, Brian, let’s go get a drink.”

 

“No!” Brian slapped his head, pacing the alleyway “No! Shit! Oh god, I completely forgot! Fuck!”

 

“What?” Said Sharpe

 

“Shit! I forgot about Darius and Simyan!” Brian slapped himself over and over again “Shit! Oh god, I can’t believe I forgot about them! They’re going to be pissed!”

 

“What…Were they back there in that building…?” Sharpe blanched, thinking of all of the people he’d killed

 

“Yeah! They were in the room with us! Floating about next to me!” Brian didn’t know what to do. If he went back, he risked getting caught by that psycho again, but if he didn’t Simyan and Darius would surely be horribly, horribly killed.

 

“What? No they couldn’t have been…There was only two people in that room, you and that freak.” Said Sharpe

 

“No, no they were definitely there…Couldn’t you see them?” Brian asked

 

“…I suppose not. Must have been under some sort of spell…”

 

“That’s all very nice, but we need to work out what we’re going to do about it! I can’t leave them there…That psycho’ll kill them!” Brian shouted at Sharpe

 

“Hey! Slow down, slow d-“

 

“Uhm…hello, Brian?” Simyan said, quietly, inching her head around the corner of the alley “Darius! Darius, he’s down here!” There was the resounding sound of footsteps echoing down the dark, empty streets and Darius popped around the corner

 

“Hells! There you are!” Darius ran down the Alley to Brian “You alright, man? That guy didn’t hurt you, did he?” Sharpe didn’t say anything, after all, they’d just seen him covered head to toe in blood, fighting (Quite literally) tooth and nail with a fanatical evil sorcerer.

 

Brian issued a long sigh “Jesus, thank god you guys are all right…” He gave Simyan an awkward hug “I was worried we were going to have to go back for you. What happened, how’d you get out?”

 

“Walked…” Darius said with a shrug

 

“That weirdo stormed off after you two left,” Explained Simyan “And after a while whatever spell he had us under just wore off, and we were able to just walk out…”

 

“Wow,” Brian mused “That seems…Unlikely, to tell the truth.”

 

“Would you prefer it if we had to fight out way out past hordes of foul-smelling evil warlocks bent on the destruction of the earth?” Simyan scowled

 

“Well yes, I would.” Brian admitted to her “That would be a much more interesting story. Don’t you agree?”

 

“I agree,” Darius said “Totally. It’d definitely have been more exciting.”

 

“Yes,” Simyan frowned at Darius “But we’d both be dead, because you’re a useless fuck.”

 

“Hey! You take that back!” Said Darius, upset

 

“Everybody just shush, please,” Brian interrupted “I think you all need to meet Sharpe; Sharpe this is Darius and Simyan.” He gestured between the two “Guys, this is Sharpe…And yes, you are a useless fuck, Darius.”

 

Darius sulked while Simyan took Sharpes hand, with trepidation. “Isn’t this the guy who killed everyone back there Brian?”

 

“Well…Yes, sort of.” He bent close to Simyans ear and whispered “I think he might be a Schizophrenic, you know?”

 

“No, I don’t. What’s a Skitzo-Frenik?” She whispered back

 

“Someone who’s two people, in their head…” Brian quickly added “But not like, a shape shifter or something; it’s all just mental.”

 

“Yes, Brian, we have the mentally disabled in this world too,” She snapped “You mean Milton-Watts Syndrome, like in that book.”

 

“What book?” It was Brians turn to be confused

 

“There’s a book here called “The Curious Case of Mg. Milton and Mr. Watts” about a magician who’s doing experimental magic and accidently splits his mind in two. He becomes an incarnation of evil, and flits back and forth between that and himself, until he eventually chooses to accept life as the evil incarnation. It’s a cautionary tale for practitioners of magic, about the toll it can take on the mind.”

 

“…You think he might be wondering why we’re whispering, after you took half an hour out of the day to give me a full book report?” Brian quipped, because he’d seen Sharpe looking at him funny.

 

“It’s ok,” Sharpe said, jovially “I can hear you. I’ve read that book, by the way, very good; but no, that’s not what happened to me. I’m just a regular old Vampire.” He began to whistle, and leaned up against the wall, tapping his feet in time with the quaint little melody

 

Brian gulped “A vampire?”

 

“Indeed,” Sharpe replied, and continued his whistling without missing a beat

 

“Not like…Not, you know, like a…Dracula kind of vampire?”

 

“No…I suppose not.” He paused for a little think “I always wanted to be, though. He’s very posh, is Lord Dracula; my uncle took me to meet him when I was really little, up in the Vansel-Trania Mountain range at his castle, kept in contact ever since. Really nice guy, once you get past the kind of horrible preconceptions that the great, herculean mounds of human remains set you up with...” then, with the startled look on everyone’s face, he added “…Oh, no no no. His castle used to be a monastery, he lives over catacombs. The bones are from down there; he’s working on an expansion project I think, something for “Interior Design Magazine” to get their jollies off on.”

 

Brian was confused; not only was he still in pain from where Scorpius had thrown him about the room like he was a Rag Doll, and Scorpius was a Gorilla on bear-steroids (just, you know, for when bears need that little extra edge…) but he was also beginning to find little allegories and relationships between this world, and his. He did in fact think that, if he asked, Dracula would turn out to be Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen with a castle and, hopefully, a more attractive wife… (Have you seen her? She looks like Kim Woodburn) “So, Sharpe. That whiskey you mentioned?”

 

“Indeed?”

 

“Lets go do that…now.” Brian said, massaging his head with his fingers

 

“Wahey! Drink!” Darius shouted, punching the air with a triumphant fist

 

“Wait, hang on…” Brian scowled at Darius “You’re a drunk now?”

 

“No…” Darius looked confused, and pouted a little

 

“You started out as an uptight, slightly deranged, scary, nice guy. You then became a slightly distracted, uptight, deranged, scary nice guy…Then we lost you for a bit, and now you’re a drunk!?” Darius deteriorating mental condition had been bothering Brian for a while now “What the fuck is going on?”

 

“I think the author got bored of me.”

 

“What?”

 

“What?”

 

“…” Brian paused “…Wait, what?”

 

“I said nothing…” Darius, cowed, looked into the sky as if gazing into the face of an angry god “…absolutely. Nothing.”

 

“No, I’m almost certain you said something about an author?” Brian pursued

 

“NO! I didn’t! Shut up Brian! Shut up now!”

 

“Jesus! Fine! Weirdo…”

 

Sharpe did one of those annoying throaty coughs that people do when they don’t need to cough, but want to get your attention; and when you ask them why they did it, they don’t want to admit that that’s why they did it, so they tell you they needed to ‘clear their throat’ which is, quite frankly, bollocks. “Gentlemen, the Whiskey?”

 

And with that, they all awayed to the nearest pub, for Whiskey and delicious, delicious Schnapps; and there they spent the rest of the night; arguing, fighting and generally getting on like a house on crack…or is it on fire? Surely it’s sex on fire, house on crack? I mean, sex on crack wouldn’t make much sense…Or no, It would definitely make more sense than house on crack. But houses don’t get on with fire, do the- Ah! Now I get it, now I see!

 

 

*          *          *

 

 

 

Block 4A, Retail Complex, Hansberry Road, Martinstown is the address of a small, dirty, understaffed Pizza Take-away restaurant (I use the word restaurant loosely) in the Ards Peninsula area of Northern Ireland. Pizza Paradiso, as it is so inappropriately named, have on their menu a fourteen inch triumph of a creation known as ‘The Terminator’. This is created using a thick, deep dough base, rich, evenly spread tomato sauce, seven sumptuous varieties of cheese, five premium meat toppings and a host of extra spicy hot-peppers. ‘The Terminator’ has been scientifically proven to be the greatest Pizza in the known Universe (and Pizza Paradiso has a sun-bleached piece of A4 Paper in the window to prove it). I bring this up, not because I want to make you all hungry (Which will hopefully be a nigglingly annoying side effect) but to demonstrate how a great many small, insignificant factors can come together to create something completely perfect; and might I add, delicious.

 

With vague and scarily realistic dreams of fantastic Pizza, Alan Greenspan woke up. Not, as you might think, the Alan Greenspan who was once the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of America. No, this Alan Greenspan was a small time art dealer living in London, who looked nothing at all like the other Alan Greenspan and was also no where near as instrumental in the downfall of the Global Economy (Although, in fairness to him, he did his part…He liked loans, did our Mr. Greenspan). Alan ate a meager, pretentious breakfast of toasted fair trade bagels, topped with organic low-sugar jam and washed it all down with a tall glass of freshly squeezed Guava juice. He showered, dressed in a suave black suit, and stepped onto the bus for his morning commute (where he got to sit next to a man who was not only covered in a light coating of vomit; but who was also covered in a light coating of vomit (I figured that would be good enough to use twice)).

 

He reached his gallery after two hours of jam packed London roads, which are very much like other roads, only with a significantly higher percentage of angry cockneys per square inch. He stepped up to the front of his chic, ‘modernista’ art haven and almost fainted. His building was ruined! Badly spelt graffiti was sprayed all over the walls, his pristine white canvas of a front was spattered with gaudy daubs of red and blue, green and orange; like some sort of mildly offensive, dyslexic Jackson Pollock. “Bob 4 Pieminstr” said one piece of graffiti, “Bob 4 Kng!” said another and one small, beautiful cursive script read “Bob for total overall leader of the unified countries of the planet earth, who would all fall under one flag and know no boundaries by land or by sea” and one more, written in big letters over the stylishly lettered sign that hung above his Gallery window, read “FLUFF POWER!”

 

Alan died a little inside.