Children of the Night
"Cripes, Sam, why do we have to meet here? Hell's Kitchen isn't exactly safe," said a female voice.
"Stop worrying, Tasha," teased a boy of about sixteen as he ran a hand though his dark, greasy hair. "West-Midtown is about as safe as any part of Manhattan. Oh, and don't call me Sam. It's Lord Diego now."
"Lord Diego…right," muttered black girl. "All I'm saying is that that there are other places I'd rather hang at this time of night than in some garbage infested alley behind an abandoned building."
"Chill. Julian and Mitch, I mean, Count Angelo will be here any minute."
It was then that a black van turned down the alley and cruised toward Diego and Tasha. "This must be them now," said Diego.
The van stopped, its doors opened and two guys in their late teens stepped out. One was blonde and the other a redhead. Like Diego and Tasha, they both worn all black clothing.
"Where were you guys?" asked Tasha.
"Down at Club X picking up tonight's…entertainment," answered the redhead as he gestured inside the van. There lay a blonde girl, unconscious, her hands and feet bound with duct tape.
"Whoa! She's sweet. Any chance of us sampling the goods before we kill her?" asked Diego, licking his lips.
"No! You are not to touch her, Diego. I mean it!" blasted the group's blond leader.
"Okay, sorry, Julian."
"Fine. You're forgiven. Now you and Angelo grab her and bring her inside," barked Julian. Quickly Diego and the red-haired Angelo moved to the van and dragged the girl out.
"Jeez, Julian, what did you do to her? She's out cold," asked Tasha.
"Simple really. I distracted her and Angelo slipped a little something into her drink," he replied.
"I can't believe we're really going to kill someone," gulped Tasha nervously as she opened the door to the building. The inside was completely bare except for a large workbench that, ominously, had shackles attached to it.
"This is a vampire cult, my dear. Not Students Against Drunk Driving," glowered Julian. "Of course we're going to kill people! You don't think the Dark Lords of the Underworld are going to bestow their magic on us if we just say 'Please!'? They demand a sacrifice of blood!"
"Okay, okay. Don't bite my head off," grumbled Tasha.
A few feet away, the other members of the group were having a hard time moving their human cargo. "What has this girl been eating?! Bricks?" complained Angelo.
"Yeah, she's slim but weights a ton!" agreed Diego.
"Stop your whining and just get her on the table," growled Julian. "We can't keep the Dark Lords waiting forever."
Diego and Angelo dragged the girl over to the workbench and laid her out on top of it. Angelo then produced a large bejeweled knife and began to cut the tape from the girl's hands and feet.
"Hey, that knife looks like it cost some serious coin. Since when could you afford something like that?" questioned Diego.
"Let's just say Julian and I have started up our own business," chuckled Angelo he shackled the girl's hands and feet to the table.
"What kind of business?" probed Diego.
"The kind that not really YOUR business right now," interrupted Julian. "Speaking of business, where did you leave our…merchandise, Angelo?"
"It's in my gym bag in the van," the redhead informed.
"The van!! Do you know what kind of neighborhood this is?! Go out and get it before some junkie breaks in and steals it!"
"All right, all right!" groused Angelo as he headed for the door. Minuets later the young man returned and tossed the bag in a nearby corner. "Okay, I got the bag. Now can we get this show on the road?"
"Yes, now is the time," proclaimed Julian. "Hand me the sacrificial knife." Unhappily, Angelo did so.
"Uh, I hate to point this out, but it's almost 3 a.m. If this is a human sacrifice, shouldn't we have done it at midnight?" wondered Tasha.
"Midnight sacrifices are for bad horror movies," refuted Juliann as he marched over to the bench were the cult's victim lay. "Hear me, oh Dark Lords!" he cried as he raised his hands to the sky, knife in hand. "We beseech you to bestow your power on us, your humble servants! As a symbol of our devotion we offer you this girl's life!"
"Give him credit, he knows how to put on a good show," whispered Angelo.
"Shut up!" hissed Diego.
"For you, my Dark Lords!" cried Julian as he plunged the knife into the girls' chest.
But their was no screaming. No blood. Nothing.
"What the…" began Tasha
Suddenly the girl's head rose up and her eyes shot open. "Bibbity, bobbity, boo!" she giggled.
The four black-clad teens all screamed. The girl then savagely punched Julian in the temple and he fell to the floor in a heap. The blonde then stood up on the table and glared at the other three cult members. "Who's next?" she asked.
"Did you see that?! The knife and shackles just passed right though her!" gasped Diego. "That ain't possible!"
"Says you, dork," snapped the girl as she jumped down off the table. "Now, who wants to start the bleeding first?"
"Get her!" ordered Angelo. "There's more of us than her!"
With that, Diego and Julian closed in on their would-be sacrifice. Moving like lighting, the girl kicked Angelo in the stomach sending him gasping to the ground. Diego tried to grab her but he passed through her body as if she were intangible.
"Oh, God. She's…a ghost," whispered Tasha as she backed away.
Diego turned to try to grab the girl again but was met with a punch to the jaw. He whimpered as he fell to the floor and lay still. The girl then turned and brutally kicked Angelo in the head. He groaned, collapsed and then lost conciseness. She then turned and faced Tasha.
"But… you were out cold. How…did you…he passed though you!" Tasha stammered.
"You want to know how?" the mystery girl smiled. "It's a little thing called a Gen-Factor. It lets me change my density from anything from a diamond to a gas. When I felt those bastard's drug kicking in I changed to my highest density. When I've that tough I don't even need to breath. My Gen-Factor then cleaned that stuff out of my system at a hyper rate. I've been awake since they started to drag me in, just waiting for the right moment."
"Who are you? WHAT are you?" gasped Tasha.
"The name's Sublime. I'm a Deviant," informed Sublime. "And just so you know, nobody screws with the Deviants!"
"Oh, God," wheezed Tasha. Suddenly her legs began to wobble and she collapsed.
Sublime stood stunned for a moment. "She fainted. I've never seen anyone faint before."
She then looked around at her former kidnappers. "Freaks. I should call Sideways Bob. He'd come down here and do all kind of horrible stuff to you before he killed your Gothic asses."
Sublime paused to consider that option for a moment. "Nah, not ever you scum deserve that. But I'm not just going to let you walk away from trying to kill me." It was then that she noticed the bag that Angelo had brought in.
"What this?" she said as she opened the bag and sifted though the contents. "Well, well, well. What do we have here?" Sublime smiled.
"Ten keys of China White! The purest heroin out there," said NYPD officer Ross Harris to his superior, Detective Mike Milluis of the Narcotics Division.
Milluis took the gym bag from Harris and looked at the drugs thoughtfully. "Now where do a bunch of kids get their hands on this much high-grade smack? What happened here, Harris?" he asked.
"Wish I knew. My partner and I were responding to an anonymous tip. When we got here we found four unconscious teenagers and the drugs. Oh, and some workbench with shackles on it and a knife driven about and inch into the wood. Freaky!"
"That's an understatement," said Milluis. "Where are the kids now?"
"The boys are on their way to the hospital. Looks like someone beat them up pretty good. The EMP's are still working on the girl. Seems she's in shock or something. She keeps going on about some 'ghost girl.' If you ask me, I think she might be on acid."
Milluis pondered the new information. "Harris, I don't think we'll ever know for sure what happened here. To be honest, I don't think I want to know. What I do know is that these kids were caught with ten keys of China White. Considering their ages and the amount of drugs involved, we shouldn't have any trouble getting them all tried as adults. Whatever they were up to tonight, they're gonna pay for it."
"Amen to that," replied Harris. "Amen to that."
The End