A/N: Well I had this sitting around for a really long time, typed it up two days after the first chapter, but then I just grew apathetic and put off posting it, but today I decided "Eh, what the hell" so I hope you enjoy.

Chapter 2

A Temporary Living Space of No Reputable Regard and the Good Doktor

"The necessities of life are often times mixed with the luxuries of want, but contractors are very well aware of this."

~Steve Lockhart

"It's almost sad seeing the mortals lose their youth only to think of the days of yore."

~Sarah Young

As I continued walking home I saw the decaying of the city. Neon signs shifted from the names of clubs to hourglasses and Xs. Coffee shops, and the like, became general stores, then liquor stores, and finally pawn shops with barred windows. Night goers changed from ostentatiously dressed clubbers to shrouded hoodlums looking for easy pickings. The only consistency was the government controlled structural integrity of the city, which even, if examined close enough, favored the clubs over the slums.

I'd liked to criticize this for some reason, but where do I have fingers to point? Is there any true reason to why the city degrades like so as you move from area to area. The obvious finger would have been pointed to Capitalism. Where the commercialized money flows thickest is where the city looks its best. But yes, of course money flows through the slums in the form of prostitution rings and the drug trade, yet this money is heavily concentrated and closely watched, thus making it ineffective to give the area the economic boost it so dearly needs. This attack on Capitalism has its holes though, because Communism would do no better, as is explained by the increasing amount of potholes and cracks around me. These thoughts come to the simple conclusion that due to my inability to fix these problems, I should not dwell on them.

As I walked I gave a quick glance to my arm and the wound it sustained. I saw it in a bittersweet light; I traded a physical trait for a mental one. The pain I felt from it was alien to me several years ago, due to the hormone injected into a human's blood stream once bitten. The hormone's job is to release large amounts of dopamine calming down a vampire's prey and making it docile as they fed. The first time I was bitten was frightening, I hit such euphoria that I collapsed on the ground in a pure ecstasy I had never felt before. Most slayers try to get their first bite off the job minimizing the risk of failing to get their kill, which normally meant dying. For me, my retired mentor had a friend of his bite me, and this "friend" eventually became my current employer, but I won't get into that now. Anyways the problem about the hormone is that one quickly builds a tolerance. Only about five bites after that did I reached a semi-euphoric state, then it finally toned down to be a mere painkiller, and now I am left with nothing but two aching hole wounds in my arm. Though the discomfort took its toll, I gained with it the pride of my experience.

As I continued my walking I began to grow bored still being several blocks away from my home. So my eyes turned to those around me, and hatred boiled up towards them. Winos and drug addicts laid about the streets and walked past me with blank cold stares. Fucking vagabonds, they live in America and while they get the chance to live the American dream they simply beg for other people's hard earned money… at least they had a chance… Anyways I'll admit it, I have killed them before, put them out of their fucking misery, and they have it coming anyways right? Yeah, of course they do, they're just a waste of life.

To calm myself down I decided to no longer focus on the world around me and mentally beeline myself home. The surrounding scenery lost its decaying appearance as the poor consistency finally evened out into a permanent state of disarray, and the people that were in my vicinity became simple figures moving by me on my way home. The only thing that reached my ear was the soft chatter of the silhouettes and the distant horn of cars.

After quite a long walk I reached my humble abode. It was a post-war apartment living space I estimated to be built around the late fifties or early sixties. Its exterior walls were constructed of red brick that remained in fairly good condition. The front of the building had a concrete stoop with two green lamps at the top illuminating the entrance. The door was wooden and in good condition with nothing substantial or noticeable about it. As you look further up the building windows appear, most with air conditioners placed in them. Such windows were on the side of the building also, but instead if air conditioners they had been barred off to prevent intruders. It would be understandable if someone were to become wary of their neighbors after spotting the rusted guards covering the smudged glass.

I entered the building without a key, for the landlord leaves it unlocked and relies upon others to lock their own homes, which is a fairly smart idea if you ask me. The hallway of the building was fairly tacky; the lights tried to appear pleasant and old fashioned, but the pealing gold paint and the plastic flames made it fail in this category. The wallpaper was tattered near the bottom molding and was decorated by vertical light pink stripes with golden fleur de lis in between. The floor was wooden, but the majority of it was covered by an almost sickly green rug that extended from the entrance to the far end of the hallway. The doors of the corridor were made out of cheap wood and retained circular knobs along with elderly keyholes. The doors were labeled by number and floor by either a piece of metal or a discolored spot where a piece should be.

To put it simply, the place was unkempt, but even without aesthetics, it remained practical. It's an overall nice place in my opinion, a good deal for a low budget. The budget was lowered further for me and my acquaintances though, because we did not take residence up in an apartment. After a few minutes of discussion with the landlord, he let us live in the underground bomb shelter from the Cold War. Let me assure you though, we didn't expect explosives to drop anytime soon, we just wanted a cheap living space.

The entrance to the shelter was at the end of the hall. There was an open doorway with about six steep steps going down. Then you hit a concrete landing and look upon a steel door with a picture of the generic nuclear symbol with text below dictating, "Fallout Shelter." The door itself had only one key and the owner of the key seldom exited the shelter. It was a poor idea if you ask me, but so far no problems had aroused from it.

I rapped my hand on the cold metal and waited for it to open. Ten seconds past and I knocked one again. The suddenly I hear a shatter from the other side and then fumbling steps. Then I heard some curses and ramblings switching between German and broken English. After another fifteen seconds had passed the door flung open as I stared upon Jerry, my least favorite roommate.

Jerry, which I was quite sure wasn't his actual name, was an aging man of ghastly figure. His clothes, at that moment in time, consisted of a rubber black apron, a sleeveless shirt, worn jeans, and a pair of scuffed up shoes. His attire though was rather mild compared to his extreme appearance. His entire body was fairly sickening, his skin was pale and clung to his body and to what little muscle he had. His only visible appendages were his long arms that had the span of six feet and three inches, which was strangely longer than his actual height of six feet and one inch. Nevertheless, the veins that coursed through his arms occasionally bumped out if the skin when his muscle flexed too tightly and shifted with general movements. His hands and fingers were long and, like the rest of his body, lanky and boney. His middle knuckles could curl about fifteen degrees back when he extended them, but this always came with a series of cracks. His finger nails were yellow and bitten down to the nail groove and gave an overall appearance of poor health. This unfavorable appearance sadly was not only from the collar down.

Jerry's neck could be compared to a tree stump with thick poison ivy vines crawling up to a malnourished head. His eyes sunk into his skull and were colored a light faded blue that stared critically at me as he realized who I was. His teeth were slightly misaligned and tinted with a sickly tarnished yellow color. His mouth was twisted into a disapproving scowl with both upper and lower lips dry and cracked. His hair was non existent on the top of his head, but grew thick and grey on the sides, without much keeping. The most prominent feature of all though was his nose; its shape was Armenian and protruded at least an inch away from his face ending with an almost sharp downturn. When I see his nose I questioned if he was a full blood German, but I never inquired for my own personal safety. Overall Jerry was of deathly appearance and a product of age with substance abuse.

Jerry was a key example of what happened to most slayers who lived past their fifties. Normally, slayers only live to their thirties and if they live past then, chances would be they would lived on into their forties, and that is when time catches up with them. What makes slayers different from the average "sensible" person is because they expect to live so shortly, especially slayers who practiced in "The Transitioning" period, most of them indulge in as many physical pleasures as possible. If a slayer doesn't die past his prime though, this binging of drugs, alcohol, and lechery tends to poorly effect the individual. So even if a slayer lives past his fifties he's suspected to die during his early sixties, about the age that Jerry is. To my displeasure though, he doesn't seem to be dying anytime soon.

With thirty some years of being in the immortal world as a slayer, Jerry did gain a reputation, especially in the medicinal field. His actual time spent slaying only lasted about a year, for he had acquired a PhD in biology and a Masters in virology previous to his slayer's work, and due to this Jerry believed he could be of more use trying to find the inner workings of the lycanthrope and vampire diseases. Mainly focusing on vampires Jerry made several important discoveries such as why silver can inhibit a vampire's quickened healing and how vampires use the nutrients in human blood more efficiently than the human body does to create prolonged amounts of energy from little materials. All of these discoveries came at his attempt to cure the disease and after twenty years of being funded by The Vatican and several influential immortals he was sad to release that there was no currently possible solution to vampirism. With this knew the well to do man suddenly lost all of his funding and was jobless, so out of need he began working as a slayer doctor for hire, which leads to how he ended up here. Nevertheless Jerry insists in taking the old bomb shelter's fairly large pantry as a space for him to continue his work. Even knowing he can't succeed in curing the disease, he continues his research, most likely because he has nothing to live for.

Looking me over once more, Jerry inquired, "What the fuck happened to your arm?"

"An immortal I was hunting caught on to me and during the scuffle we had, well she bit me."

"Sloppy ass man whore…" he whispered harshly under his breathe which he raised again as he said, "Come on in, Greg has still not returned, because unlike you he never fucks up."

Jerry had the mouth of a sailor and his distaste for me only worsened it. See, Jerry doesn't find my form of slaying to be actual slaying; he more or less finds me to be a lazy gigolo because I'm too weak to man up and crack some skulls. For a doctor Jerry wasn't really a progressive person, and after living, for what he feels to be an eternity, he prefers the olden days. Still as I look upon him I think he doesn't miss the olden days, but his youth that those days had retained.

I entered the bunker and saw the ever familiar sight of my home. The size of the shelter was larger than most, and had a few strange quirks. The main room was the size of a decent master's bedroom. On the right side of the room there were four single beds equipped with one pillow and one blanket each. They were all nicely set with about a foot in-between one another, and at the end of them they each had their own steel footlocker having a hamper beside it. There was also a wardrobe in which all clothing was stored. On the left side of the room though there was a kitchen like area. A wooden table was placed off center to the rest of the room and was surrounded by four chairs, all steel and foldable. Pressed up against the wall was a long steel desk and a fridge, far out of its prime. On the desk there was a microwave, a hotplate, and three metal cups each holding an amassment of different utensils. Also in the far corner was a cabinet which held about four pots, several special utensils, and all of their canned or boxed goods. The entirety of the room was illuminated from a single hanging light turned on and off by a chain switch.

The next room was the bathroom, a simple room with a sink toilet and standing shower. The fact that the apartment was just a refurbished bomb shelter made the water source questionable though. All the water that flows into the bathroom comes from the city's supply, which is fine, except for the fact that if a bomb did fall, chances would be the entire water supply would become irradiated. I also doubt standard chlorine would be enough to purify radiation. Nevertheless this flaw for the initial design actually makes the place inhabitable, so in all frankness there is no need to argue there.

The last room was reserved for Jerry and was initially the pantry of the fallout shelter. As previously stated Jerry is not only a doctor, but a scientist, and because of his knowledge he struck a deal with our employer. She would fund his research just as long as he gathered information on what she wanted him to. Perfectly fine with this, our contractor made sure that Jerry had an extra room to continue his experiments. Not like I had anything against it, but the stench of rotting immortal corpses, I have to admit, was not pleasant to fall asleep or awake to. Sadly I have no say in that situation hence I had to simply deal with the grotesque smell that often floated through the makeshift apartment.

"Sit down," Jerry stated pointing to one of the chairs near the table. As I sat he disappeared into his room and then entered with a green toolbox where he kept all of his medicinal supplies. "Now tell me how did you initially treat the wound?" He inquired flipping the top open.

"Well I had nothing to clean the wound with besides hand sanitizer so I used that." I replied as a bottle of hydrogen peroxide was placed on the table.

"After that?"

"I used two adhesive bandages to cover the puncture marks and went straight back to the apartment."

"Put your arm out." Jerry demanded of me. I complied and as he looked over my arm he whispered almost under his breath, "Well at least you did something right." Jerry then quickly ripped of my bandages took out some cotton balls, dabbed them in the hydrogen peroxide and used them to clean the wound. After about five seconds or so of rubbing, he replaced the ripped off bandages with fresh ones. "Done, now go to bed, you and Greg have to both pick up our payment tomorrow afternoon." Then after quickly closing the case and dropping the cotton in the plastic bin besides the fridge he disappeared back into his "lab".

I hated Jerry; I hated him for so many reasons. I have killed hundreds of immortals and he won't even acknowledge me as a real slayer. Just because I don't go around toting a sword and a gun I'm made inferior. Not like I have any animosity towards Greg, but he gets to much credit from Jerry. Also, might I add, he seldom calls me by my actual name most likely because he finds the title "gigolo" to suit me better. Probably the thing that angers me the most is I have done nothing to harm or insult him, his anger is unfounded and unjust, to which I have no ability to assuage.

Yet as I criticize the man, I follow his orders, not like there was anything better to do anyhow. I undressed into my boxers placing the short sleeved black shirt I had been wearing into the hamper, and placed my jeans on the footlocker to wear another day. Before entering my bed though I walked over to the restroom to wash my face.

The bathroom, as described, was a simple and functional room, well besides the toilet. I had only used the toilet once, and after an unpleasant experience with it and a plunger I decided it was best that I used the restrooms of the places I hunted in. This of course caused a problem when I had a natural urge in my sleep, but I simply solved this problem by dressing and using a nearby twenty four seven McDonald's Restaurant.

Going to the sink and rinsing my hands to splash my face, I looked at myself in the mirror. Not to be a narcissist, but I'm fairly proud of my appearance. I have a decently angular face with very few feminine features excluding my nose. Not saying it appears to be the nose of a woman, but it is a much softer element to my face mostly because of how the bridge smoothes down with a slight upturn at the end. My jaw is angular and had stubble which I knew needed to be shaved tomorrow. Looking back at me from the mirror were my own eyes, which had a brown and blue hazel color to them. My hair was a light brown and was worn short with the front up. I take pride in my looks, not only because it boosts my ego, but it's practical while hunting. Meals of immortals are often chosen by looks.

After the wash I returned to the main room to lie in my bed. As I got myself comfortable I listened to the only sound available which is the muffled frustrated growls from Jerry's lab. Before I drowsed into a sleep though, I began thinking about what I accomplished that day, which I realized was nothing out of the ordinary. It was just another passing 24 hours of my life I would never get back.