The Adventures of Dave and Grey
Chapter 1: The Ninja Dies
It was Saturday night and Dave was determined not to let the week go out as a total loss. He told himself he would take the night off, just get out and have a good time. Unfortunately, his new ultra cool, wafer thin, and very expensive digital camera had somehow managed to find its way into his pocket. If he really meant to take the night off he wouldn't have started in Hollywood, either.
In the first club he tried he happened upon Jamison Benz- shit-faced and surrounded by giggling women, naturally- and he fell back into the old routine. Two clubs and several drinks later landed him in the Asp Hole, which turned out to be a bad idea. The rumors were true; Ash Rivers had apparently developed sixth since for any paparazzi lurking around. Dave was politely escorted out by a nice man with no neck before he could even order a drink.
By midnight he had somehow managed to find his way across town, to a bar that made no pretenses of catering to anyone but the down and out. He vaguely remembered a phone call to one of his connections, who told him pictures of Benz drunk were a dime a dozen and The Comet had already done a six page spread of them last week. Dave sat hunched over the bar with a beer in one hand and his cell phone in the other, waiting for divine inspiration or alcohol to tell him what to do next.
He kept cycling through his list of contacts as he tried to think of what he could bargain with to pay the bills. Back in the old days he could have leaned on Grey to fix things. Paul Grey, never Paul because he said he always hated that name. They went way back, back to when they were both struggling actors landing nothing but extra roles in bad movies. They met at the snack table on the set of Fists of Doom 4, and from there they developed the closest relationship two straight guys could develop without getting confused.
Grey could always be depended on to help out when he was in a fix. Grey had also gone missing three years ago, with no warning or forwarding address. Dave could never think of a good reason why anyone would want to murder or kidnap a no-name tabloid reporter, so he chocked it up to being a woman or family issue and moved on with his life. On his nineteenth pass through the phone's library of names he realized he had a hell of a lot of contacts, but no real friends left. The thought of that, and Grey's disappearance, prompted him to order something stiffer. He toasted to Grey and winced as it burned its way to the pit of his stomach. He hadn't eaten anything in hours, a recipe for disaster, but he was too depressed to care.
This wasn't supposed to happen to him. He was the best in the business, David "The Ninja" Kim, notorious for bypassing the ban on telephoto lenses by sneaking dangerously close to the stars. From somewhere beyond the haze of alcohol developing a voice told him maybe that was the problem. All that stealth didn't mean a damn thing when he bragged about it later. People- high profile people- recognized him, they looked out for him.
It didn't help that he had a habit of buying nice things he didn't need, nice things like the camera in his pocket that he'd bought that very afternoon when he had ducked into an electronics store to loose Carmen Vasquez's bodyguards. The damn camera caught his eye before he even caught his breath. Stress made people do stupid things, so it wasn't like he could be blamed.
Everyone had off weeks, and sometimes they had off months, too. His job was largely a matter of being in the right place in the right time and being able to run faster than any given celebrity's bodyguard or boyfriend. "The Ninja" was good at that. "The Ninja" was going to become a full-blown alcoholic if things didn't change soon. Dave took another drink, assured himself he was no Benz.
He saw someone sit down next to him from the corner of his eye, and as he turned the look the twinge in his side reminded him that he'd failed that last part earlier in the week. The pictures of Leslie Liam scratching herself in public had gone for a thousand, but since half of that had gone to medical bills Dave was still in a bad position. The woman sitting at the bar stool next to his must have seen some of the desperation in his face. She looked at him like he was a lost puppy in a silk shirt and fashionably tattered jeans. Black with blue flames, he realized, was a lame trend in shirts that he never should have fallen for. He sat up a little straighter and put the cell phone away to try and scrape together a few shreds of dignity, but then the room lurched dangerously. He realized, a little too late, that he was drunk. He saw all the bottles lined up behind the bar were a blur of interesting colors, and he knew that he was actually really drunk. The woman laughed and put a hand on his shoulder to steady him.
"Careful," she said, smiling kindly. Women never smiled kindly at him. They never looked at him unless they'd had a few or were willing to skim the mediocre end of the dating pool.
Dave blinked, trying to make sure that the vision he was seeing wasn't just the booze sloshing around in his head. She was good looking, with short hair with highlights that probably cost as much as the coat with the weird, feathery lining. She looked at him with the kind of interest that could be considered either creepy or flattering, and the alcohol convinced him it could only be flattering. It also told him that he was not a pathetic loser, that he was damned good looking even if everyone described him as 'average and Asian', and that he could totally score with a chick like the one sitting next to him. He grinned, opened his mouth, and later was totally unable to recall what kind of words had been exchanged in order to lead to them to a room together. Names might have been exchanged, but he couldn't remember hers. He was content with being able to remember his.
Dave felt like he was being skipped head from one disjointed moment in time from the next, but before he could stop and try to put things back in order he was moving ahead again. They were outside the club, in a cab, then a room. Clothes were coming off at that point, so he didn't really mind the feeling of being helplessly whisked away. It kind of turned him on. The place was an absolute dive, with the debris from either several nights of sex or one big orgy scattered all over the place. Once the woman's tongue was in his mouth and his shirt was off he decided that was okay.
When he was down to his pants he clumsily tried to make it even by taking off her bra. She laughed when he was unsuccessful with the clasp and pushed him back on to the bed. He landed with a grunt, way harder than he expected. She was stronger than she looked.
There was a mirror over the bed. While Dave and his reflection were exchanging bewildered looks she straddled him and handcuffed both his hands to the bedposts. That was okay, he didn't mind spicing things up. He stared at himself in the mirror, so drunk and stupid it made him laugh. Who cared? He was still gonna get laid. The woman titled her head up so he could see her reflection grinning back at him.
"I want to show you something," she said.
And then the woman in the mirror, the woman on top of him, melted away. Dave gaped at what replaced her. No amount of alcohol could make what was on top of him in her place look good. She was still smiling, showing all the jagged yellow teeth that jutted from her lips. She was still almost naked, and for one surreal moment Dave was glad he hadn't managed to get her bra off. Her pebbly skin was dotted with oozing boils. She was still on top of him, and his hands were still handcuffed to the bed.
He didn't think to scream until she leaned in and sank those jagged fangs into his throat. The ecstasy that flooded him chased away the pain and terror, made him careless to the fact he could hear his heartbeat slowing to nothing. Dying didn't seem that bad, just as long as that feeling never ended.
He felt like he was floating above himself, but then again it might have been the mirror on the ceiling. The woman- the creature, whatever she was- pulled away from him. Black spots danced in front of his eyes. He blinked, and found it was difficult to force his eyes back open. He saw her cut her own wrists with fingernails that were like claws. He let his eyes slide closed, but still felt it as she pushed his head back with one hand and pressed the bleeding wrist to his mouth. Fire oozed down his throat, spreading out through his body and ripping his eyes open. It was better than before. He tried to lean forward, press her closer, but he was stuck. The creature pulled away from him and crawled off of him. As she rose from the bed she teetered and nearly fell, but she caught herself on the nightstand.
"Goddamn, how much did you drink?" Even her voice had changed. He vaguely remembered it as being melodious. Now it was just harsh and raspy. The slur was probably something separate.
"Dunno," Dave said. It wasn't what he meant to say. He wanted to ask what she had done to him, what she was, what the hell she thought she was doing. He wanted to demand she let him go, be reasonable, let him shake off whatever drug she'd slipped into his drink. And instead he said that.
The word was barely out of his mouth when he felt something in his guts twist, felt his guts actually start to shift position entirely. Pain followed like thunder after a lightning strike, making him forget about how thirsty he suddenly was.
In the middle of the screaming the creature moved back and gagged him with a sock. She wiped her hands, with their grotesquely long fingers, and moved away to have a seat at a chair that faced the bed. It groaned bled a little more stuffing from the tears along the back. As Dave writhed and pulled against the handcuffs, the beautiful woman he'd followed out of the bar reappeared in the monster's place. She gave him the same sweet smile from before, all perfect teeth and glossy lips.
"Don't struggle like that, sweetheart," the woman said. Her voice was normal again to match her face, and husky like she was really getting off on watching him in agony. "This is going to take a while. It'll only make things worse if you struggle. I know."
He realized what she meant when in the mirror he saw the first sores rise on his chest. Some of them burst, oozing puss down his chest as his skin began to turn jaundice yellow. He screamed, and the sound muffled by the gag. The woman laughed and crossed her legs, settling in to watch.