"Are you going tonight?"
"Maybe, I don't have that much money left."
"Fuck man, I'll pay for you to get in. I heard the owner will be there performing tonight."
"What's so great about her? When she's around there aren't as many drugs in the club. She's a fucking heroine Nazi or something."
"Hot as hell though. There isn't a straight man alive who wouldn't take a piece of that ass."
"Come on, let's get moving at least, JoJo's scored some bud back home."
The two junkies put out their cigarettes, one spitting out the ball of phlegm in his mouth onto the pavement. The place they spoke of was no giant club with flashing sign lights plastered all over the outside. Access came by going through the underground sewer system into what looked like a club beneath ground. And oddly enough, a mixture of both mortal and immortal lowlifes would be found hanging around there.
Leaning against the building out side of said alleyway he raised an eyebrow, flicking his own cigarette from between his lips and putting it out on the ground. Benny stuffed his weathered hands into the pockets of his jacket before pulling his hood up over his head to keep his ears warm as he walked off in the direction of his bar.
* * * * *
Mark looked about the club, nostrils flaring as he let out a sight of disdain towards the people around him. More women that usual in these events, but the largest majority were mortal, which was revoltingly odd. Why the hell had Benny sent him here? It made little sense if any for him to hang around in this vast club full of drugged out pseudo-intellectual want to be Goths. The phone call that had awaken him from an unexpected nap still fresh in his mind.
"Mark, I might have a lead for you. Listen up, it may just be a pile of bull, but something is going on there. Don't know what it is, but it's something strong. All the shit of the earth is hanging out there, mortals, demons, and everything else you ain't wanting to touch. They talk about a woman who runs it as if she's God. She might be one of the last of her kind and she might be able to help ya."
It was too late to argue with Benny, but to early to think if following the advice. He finished his rest, ate a poorly made breakfast, and still tried to catch up on what the world had supposedly become. Which meant watching excessive amounts of CNN and MSNBC.
Now he was pushing his way through the masses of gyrating bodies, perfume and cologne heavy in the air accompanied by body odor. Near the bar, shouting conversations came into earshot. The neon lights that flashed on and off with the pulse of the music illuminated the inside of the literal underground club. The ceiling covered and veined in pipes that were abandoned and rusting, all the walls cement and metal grating, weeds and fungus growing out of cracks in the floor all to testament to the buildings quality.
In his hand he squeezed the poorly drawn map Benny had given him, the ink running and smearing into the lines and creases of his palm. A condemned apartment building full of homeless drug addicted squatters littered the floor was the entrance. The basement lead into the sewage system, which was only the beginning. He walked along the sides of the sewer for a mile or two before a thick chain link fence blocked his path, and he had to take a detour that ate up another mile. The sewers ended at a steel door marked 'High Voltage' the padlock rusted and broken to allow entrance. He could already hear subtle undertones of music from where he stood, behind the door cement steps lead further downwards to the final destination. By the looks of it the place had once been used as a water treatment center.
He watched the women clad in next to nothing rolling their hips and the men as well, drugged, and jumping up and down, hands above them in the air. What was he supposed to find here? And if it was a 'who' how would he ever locate them?
Sebastian closed his eyes; his head floating free from his body while his arms rolled back and forth raving on their own. He was so hot and in his stomach the boom of the bass rumbled. His eyelids were on fire; fingertips crawling like maggots and his lungs had swollen to the size of buoys. Each breath taken was deeper and fuller than before and he feared if he breathed too hard he would explode.
The music changed. The screaming and metal guitar riffs changing into long drawn out melodic words. His eyelids peeled back as his sights groped for the stage knowing what was to come. She was their, wrapped in red leather, so frail she looked to be on her deathbed. Her fingernails were long, pointed, and painted black, hanging on the tips of her fingers like leeches. Hair, wet, and red clung to the features of her face as if the strands were painted on, the brush strokes still fresh and gleaming. Every time her lips parted soft foreign words escaped, strung together like silk ribs tied into a noose. The crowd no longer thrashed as violently, moshing ceased, and conversations halted.
She closed her eyes, the floor underneath her rattling, her vision of the crowd hidden, the lights too dim to allow her to see. Her music was playing in her club for her people, to which she was feeding her soul. They didn't care what she sung to the, demonic chants, reinforced Latin words from a choir behind her. It felt like a mix of having sex and hitting up heroine. Hips throbbing while she sung in chords and growls of ancient rituals, words that hadn't graced the Earth in thousands of years. The black in her began to swell, eating at her mind. The crowd replied in gasping moans and pleas for more.
* * * * *
Mark squinted, his brow scrunching together as he attempted to focus his vision in on the woman on the stage. It was hard to tell who she was, as he was so far away and her bright red hair combed into her face hiding her appearance though the rest of her clothing revealed light apricot flesh bulging with bone growths and ridges along her arms and hands so common in her people. But there was an air of familiarity about her.
The people who had once leaned in close to one another to shout conversations now stare dumb founded, jaws slack while they watched her. It was impossible to name what language she spoke in, it constantly alternated between the fluid movements of Latin like words to others that were like verbal rocks, sharp and hard, words that made you spit when you spoke them. Watching her was difficult to do, it bit at his insides as if there was something unholy and evil about her, but those same qualities were the car wreck that didn't want him to pull away.