Loud music blared over the room as the two boys walked into the newly opened club. After that they were meet with little light and an arrangement of gothic décor from black Victorian styled chandeliers to crimson walls with black rose silhouettes. This was the "Blood Club". To them anyways, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Well, as far as the gothic culture went anyways. There were girls with pale white faces adorned with blood red gems and black lace, most in corsets or tight dresses, and men ranging from ripped band t-shirts with black jeans to looking like vampiric lords.
"Well, it doesn't look like a medieval torture chamber," one of the boys commented. He was the taller of the two, with ripped black jeans and a shredded black shirt. His hair was dyed black with the ends dyed purple, a little bit of blond showing at the roots. His brown eyes scanned over a few women nearby.
"That shoots down about twenty rumors," the other said sarcastically, a crooked grin on his face as he looked around and took it all in. He had on a black shirt with a dragon design on it, dark jeans, and a black jacket with chains on it. His hair was also black, with streaks of bright blue and toxic green in it. His blue eyes scanned over the decorations, the tables, everything about his environment. He noticed that some booths had curtains around them, starting to wonder what on earth that could be for.
"Welcome to the Blood Club! I hope you enjoy your night!" the two heard, turning to to look behind them where the chipper voice had come from but found no one. Looking at each other, they shrugged, heading to the bar at the far end of the room and taking a seat at the corner. Picking up a menu, the scanned the drinks and looked confused.
"Dude, it says that there's blood in almost all of these..."
"Yeah, I can see that,"
"You think it's real blood?"
"Probably not, stupid. 'Blood' is probably cherry or strawberry sauce or something. Or maybe they have a special mix thing called 'blood'?"
"Not exactly," the bartender said, startling the two boys into looking up at him. "It's exactly as it reads, it's blood. We vampires can live without it after all," he explained.
"I'm sorry, what?" the taller boy said.
The bartender sighed, casually cleaning a glass. "It's always easy to tell when the humans get in. Sometimes I wonder if the bouncers do it on purpose... Probably. Well, that's fine. You two won't be making it out of here anyways."
"What the hell does that even mean?!"
"Oh don't tell me you haven't noticed?" the bartender glanced to them, grinning wide enough to show his lethal fangs. His eyes also started filling in red while only moments ago they were pure brown. "The second you stepped in here, everyone could hear the heartbeats from you two and most have been staring at you this entire time. It's rare around these parts that a vampire gets to feed from a human... So when given a chance they can go overboard. Which is why, you boys won't be leaving this place alive tonight."
The boys paused and looked behind them, seeing that several men and woman closing in on them. "Wait!" the smaller of the two said as his friend freaked out and tried to make a run for it. In no time he was grabbed by a frail looking , he scream calling the attention of anyone in the club. Before his friend could even move to help he was grabbed up too. Though he kicked and tried to throw punches he quickly found himself immobile before crying out in pain. He felt several bites all over his body, at his neck, wrists, arms, even one at his side. He tried struggling again but that only seemed to cause pain. He very quickly started to feel dizzy, his vision doubling before starting to fade black.
"Just WHAT is going on here!?"
It was the same chipper voice he had heard earlier, that had welcomed them to the club. Only instead of sweet and bubbly, it sounded annoyed and even angry. He couldn't contemplate it anymore though because soon enough he wasn't seeing or hearing anything.
"...oh gods-...Sele-...onna-...ill me...she's gonna kill me gonna kill me gonna kill me!"
That sweet voice slowly filled his head again, though at the moment he couldn't fully comprehend what it was saying. His eyes remained closed as he slowly regained awareness, taking in a mental assessment of himself. First off he noticed that he seemed to be laying down now, on something rather soft at that. A couch perhaps, but why was he on a couch? The second thing he noticed as he got more feeling back in his limbs is that he ached terribly, specifically at his neck and everywhere he remembered being bitten.
Bitten?
That's right, he remembered now. He had just entered the new club at the outskirts of town that was the popular target of rumors in town since it opened. Not only would people that went in there go missing or come out completely mental, but the fact that it was a gothic club was where most of the rumors came from, with most people claiming and assuming that there was major drugs and other such nonsense that tended to be slapped onto the gothic label. Yet it had all been wrong, it was a club for vampires, a creature that he had until now believed was a mythical creature that didn't exist.
"Oh? You're awake now?"
He opened his eyes and turned his head towards the voice to see a small, pixie-like girl sitting across from him on another couch, an ornate coffee table in between them. Her natural red hair was in perfect ringlets, bound up into short pigtails that fell down to just above her shoulders. She had very pale skin, that made her make up stand out all the more. She had black, sparkly eye shadow on and bright emerald green eyes with very thin ring of gold right dead center of the green. Her lips were adorned with pink lipstick that matched the colors of her claw-like nails, but the paint on her nails had glitter in it. She wore a pink corset and a tutu like skirt, made with black and pink tulle. Her stockings were pink as well with black bat silhouettes all over them, and then black combat boots to finish the look.
He raised an eyebrow at her. "What are you like...twelve? You shouldn't be wearing a corset like that, perverts will be all over you."
The girl looked surprised before her face flushed red and she looked insulted. "I'm twenty one!" she corrected him.
"Really..." he said, looking her over again. He found it a bit odd that she dressed so childishly if she was that old, but he looked past that and realized she had a pretty nice figure, a nice chest, and a gorgeous face.
Oblivious to it, the girl calmed herself and smiled sweetly at him. "My name is Rosa, or Rose if you want." she said.
"Devlin," he said with a slight nod. "Dev if you wanna shorten it."
"It's a pleasure to meet you!" she said with genuine happiness.
"So, who are you exactly?" he asked.
"I'm the owner of this club. As you've already been able to guess I'm sure, I'm a vampire too. Humans aren't normally allowed in here, unless they're volunteers. I'm not sure how you and your friend got in, but...your friend-...well...he's-..." she bit her lip, giving a good look at one of her fangs unintentionally.
The boy frowned and sighed, sitting up. "So where is he?"
Rose's tilted her head a bit. "I'm sorry...?"
"The boy who was with me. Jonathan. Where is he? He's hiding somewhere, right? Trying to freak me out? Or like... Woke up before me so you brought him somewhere?"
Rose bit her lip. "U-uhm..." she stuttered nervously.
The expression on his face fell. "Rose, he is alive isn't he? There's no way he's dead."
"W-well...you see...the vampires that attacked you were apparently really, really hungry, and he was attacked first...as it is, you barely got away with your life..." Rose said uneasily.
Devlin stared at her in silence for a moment, making her shift uncomfortably a few times. "Your lying," he finally said.
"I really wish I was-"
"NO! There's no way he's dead!" he roared, standing and slamming his hands on the table as he stared at her, hoping to make her admit that Jonathan was alive, or coax him out from hiding somewhere.
Rose flinched and cowered a bit, making Devlin frown and sit down again. "I-I am SO incredibly s-sorry Devlin...b-but...he really didn't make it. For a long time, I didn't think you were going to make it... I really did try to save the both of you! He was barely alive when I got to him, but he was more concerned about you. He insisted that I check and make sure that you were alive. It took me a moment to make sure, I was in such a panic and there was such an uproar that I couldn't hear your heart beating right away. When I heard it, I turned to tell him, and-..." she trailed off.
"That bastard... He always had to play the 'selfless, protective' type... If he hadn't made you check on me maybe you would have helped him to live." he growled under his breath.
"And if I had ignored you for him, you could have been the one dead, with him being the one to be sitting on the couch yelling at me about it. Or who knows, if I tried helping him, he could have died anyways, and I could have lost the both of you," Rose countered with a frown.
Devlin grew silent again, running his hand through his hair a couple times and appearing to be deep in thought over it. Finally, he looked back to her. "Am I going to be like you?"
"What do you mean?" Rose asked, blinking.
"I was bitten multiple times. Am I going to turn into one of you? That is how you vampires works, isn't it?" he asked.
"Well..." Rose trailed off.
"Rosabella O'Meadhra just WHAT happened down there?!"
Devlin jumped and turned to the woman that suddenly sat in a chair in the corner of the room, behind a desk he hadn't noticed until now. All he could see at first was a little bit of blond with black streaked hair, until she swiveled the chair around to face them. Then he could see that her hair was pulled back into a bun with a braid running around the base of it twice, making him think her hair was pretty long, and a few wispy strands left out of the up-do that he supposed was her bangs, even though they were pretty long too. The woman also looked very professional, in a neat deep purple blouse with black skinny jeans and heels. She looked to be a bit older than Rose as well, but what blew his mind is how that woman got into the room without him seeing her. The only door he could see after looking around was behind the couch he sat on, so she would have had to walk by him. Even if she had come in when he was looking down, he was pretty sure he would have seen some sort of movement with his peripheral vision or at the very least heard footsteps. Yet Rose didn't seem all that phased by the woman's sudden appearance.
She did, however, flinch when the woman said her name. "Aww... My real name in front of the cute boy? C'mon momma Selena..." she pouted.
Devlin raised an eyebrow at Rose calling him 'cute' before smirking slightly.
"Would you like to tell me why I had to get my brother to clear out more than half of the club goers and get rid of a dead body, a HUMAN body at that?" Selena said calmly, though the expression on her face was that of a scolding mother who wouldn't take lies.
Rose whimpered, hunkering down some. "It wasn't me, it wasn't me!" she insisted, covering her head with her arms. "And I don't know who did it! I mean... I saw this boy and his friend before but I was just rushing by! I hadn't seen their faces before so I greeted them, but I was too distracted to notice the heartbeats. But I don't know who let them in! And I don't know why no one working for us decided to escort them out before something happened..." she explained. "But maybe no one saw them...?"
"That bartender," Devlin said, getting the attention of the two girls. "He had brown eyes, before they turned red I mean...that's all I took note of though. He was talking with us and waited until we were surrounded before telling us that this was a vampire club, and he looked like he took some sick sort of pleasure at the thought of us dying."
"Brown eyes? That's the new boy, isn't it momma Selena? The one you hired last week?" Rose asked, looking back to her.
Selena nodded, looking off to the side in thought. "Why yes, yes I did. Although now I don't think he's going to have a job anymore..." she said, grumbling the last part. Looking back to the others in the room she smiled in a much gentler and more genuine way. "My apologies, for the lack of restraint of the vampires in attendance tonight and for one of my employees. And of course also for the loss of your friend..." she said sincerely.
"Your employee-? I thought Rose here said she was the owner of the club." Devlin said.
"Oh yes, she is. She's the one who bought and decorated the place and on the surface of things is the one in charge. However, she's... Well not the brightest bulb of the bunch. So when it comes to the more serious things that's where I step in to help." Selena said, as Rose simply smiled and nodded.
"Well, anyways... Isn't there something you can do about Jonathan's death? Some sort of...vampire police or something we can go to?" Devlin asked.
Selena and Rose both frowned. "Well, there is a form of vampiric 'police' as you say but you two were human... And since there was no exposure from their actions, it's impossible to get them in trouble for something like that. In simplest terms, humans are our food. So they don't amount to much in the eyes of vampiric law."
Devlin's eyes widened, before they narrowed and he scowled. "So...there's literally nothing we can do!?"
Selena stared at him for a moment, studying his face before sighing. "Well, against my better judgement, there is technically something you can do... If you say that he was your brother, instead of just your friend, then you can get away with taking vengeance on those who killed him in any way you see fit. Vampire society doesn't always work exactly to human standards... So when it comes to killing and revenge, no one questions it if it's done in retaliation for a family member or mate, whether the offense caused a loss, simple embarrassment, or injury."
Devlin processed her words before nodding, her face serious. "Then I'll get revenge alright... How do I find the ones who did it?"
"First, we wait for your change to be completed," Selena said as she stood and started to make her way to the door. "Since I interrupted your conversation earlier, I'll take the liberty to tell you that yes, you're going to be like us but you're not one of us quite yet. Your transformation will take a few days."
"Great..." Devlin sighed exasperatedly.
Selena smiled. "Until then, Rosa has taken on the responsibility of being your sire. Once your transformation is complete, she should be able to help you avenge your friend by picking out who exactly was responsible," she added before leaving the two alone again.
Before he even really knew what was going on, Devlin suddenly found himself squished against Rose, who was hugging him to her happily. Though he could tell she did it just out of pure innocence, he couldn't help but to feel just a tiny bit happy about the side of his head being pushed against her chest. "I'll be a good sire! I promise, just you wait and see!" she giggled gleefully.