One Day Later

Basin City, Nevada

The ride was long to Sin City. On the day before he'd dusted himself off half as soon as he managed to get off the ground and then made himself scarce. He snuck onto the first train leaving from the nearest station he could get to and hid until they were out or Arizona.

And so he came, through the rain and through the mud to a sordid little place on the edge of town called Kadie's Bar. After a little resistance from the doorman, he made his way in and was instantly hit with the heavy bass of loud country music, and the toxic aroma of cheap bear, smoke, cordite, sweat and a few other bodily fluids.

With his eyes toward the young, nubile, blond woman gyrating around the pole onstage, Priest walked to the only empty seat by the cramped bar, recently vacated when the previous occupant's face met the elbow of the man sitting next to him, a towering, muscle bound creature with misshapen, scarred features and a torn leather trench coat on his shoulders.

"Boy, that Nancy sure is something. Isn't she?" said the man, who didn't sound better than he looked.

"Uh-huh." Priest muttered as he brushed broken teeth off the bar, "Vodka double. Keep 'em coming."

Seconds passed and Priest's drink arrived. Seconds gave way to minutes as Priest and the brute at his side tossed back drink after drink and looked up at the girl in silence as she continued her dance number, turning blood to fire in the veins of every man in the room with every piece of thread she slipped off.

People came and went, the girl's number ended and she picked up enough clothes to cover herself before jumping off the bar to a backroom. Only the stench of the place and the brute to his right remained the same.

"I said keep 'em coming." Said Priest, finding his glass empty for too long.

"We're outta Vodka." Said the barmaid.

"How? This is a bar."

"I know what this place is. No one ever drinks our Vodka. What are ya, Russian?"

"Rushing? Nah, I got all night. I'll have a Duff's bear, and keep 'em coming."

Priest had come to regret his decision to jump from the chopper. He wasn't a big man; the loss of his weight wouldn't have made much of a difference. He was rash as usual, and cocky. Nevertheless, it was too late at that point, and not really an issue. They all had standing orders incase this happened. A cargo plain was leaving from Basin City International Airport to the United Kingdom tomorrow afternoon. He would be on it. All he had to do was sit tight and get into a minimum amount of trouble until then.

"Hey buddy, you ever been to war?" asked the brute, his intoxication apparent in his voice.

Suddenly, something changed. The aroma had changed subtly for a brief moment; a new variable introduced itself to the environment before merging into everything else, a scent that reminded him of sour wine and times long gone.

"No." answered Priest without thinking. He looked over his shoulder, to where the scent could have come from.

"Never been ta Kha Sanh?"

Something caught Priest's eye. A woman, small and of her mid-twenties, medium length golden locks tied in a ponytail. He only saw her for a brief second before she disappeared to the other side of the bar.

"Nope."

"Ya remind me of some asshole company man I once met. Or wazzat somewhere else…"

"Erika?" mumbled Priest to himself and gulped the remaining of his bourbon, set the glass on the bar and stared into space for the better part of a minute before his curiosity got the best of him.

He reached into his pocket and took out a few ten dollar bills and slapped them onto the bar before jumping off and crossing the dimly lit room, taking a few sporadic breaths, trying to home in on that specific scent. He soon found himself upon her, standing three feet behind her as she sipped from a daiquiri.

"Erika?"

Calmly she placed the glass on the bar, but did nothing further. For a second, Priest thought she didn't hear him.

"Erika, it's me. It's Judas."

After another moment of no reaction, she turned around slowly to face him. Priest smirked in spite of himself.

"Oh my… Can it really be you?"

"You really are alive…" Erika muttered in an English accent, and then without any other word or gesture, Erika struck Priest across the face.

"Ow. You're definitely you."

"How did you find me?"

"I wasn't looking." Said Priest and paused, looking for the right words, "I dunno what to say…. Can we talk?"

"Are you joking? I haven't seen you in a long time, frankly not enough… There's nothing to talk about."

"Well, we are married. That's got to count for something."

"Married? Really?"

"We never got a divorce, so yeah. Look, why don't you let me buy you a drink…"

"Get away from me."

"Erika, come on…"

"You make sick to my stomach. I don't want to be in the same room with you." Said Erika as she picked up her purse and prepared to storm away, but Priest caught her by the arm and forced her to face him.

"I know you hate me, but I'm different. I just want to –"

"Hey, hombre!" said the brute as he stood up and lumbered towards them, "The lady said to leave her alone."

"Well, buddy. She's my goddamn wife, so if you please, a little space…"

"She doesn't want to talk to you, and I'm guessing she's got he reasons for that… What did you do, beat her?"

"Yes, he did!"

Priest looked toward Erika with wide eyes, but said nothing.

"He did?" asked the brute in a drunken growl, "Man, it gets my goat when guys rough up dames!"

"Listen, it was-"

"A long time ago…" Priest mumbled as he sprang to consciousness. He was lying in a puddle of dirty water ten feet outside Kadie's, wrapping his fingers around the hand of an opportunistic vagrant who was in the process of robbing him.

The vagrant let go of Priest' belongings, and scurried away as soon as his fingers loosened. Priest slowly sat up and got to his knees, and spat out a pair of his maulers as he did so.

"Well, that was gratifying."

Erika stood nearby, her hands buried in her buttoned coat's pockets.

"You're a cold, hard bitch.…" said Priest, straightening his jacket and heading for the door.

"Why? Are you going to say I lied? Do you die ever laying a hand on me? Or are you going to say that it was the norm at the time, where we were?"

"I wasn't going to say that."

"You were thinking it."

Priest hung his head.

"Maybe… You're right, Erika. I haven't the right to talk to you. Now if you'll excuse me..."

"You're going back in there?" asked Erika, reaching into her pocket for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

"Don't see why not."

"Hmm."

Erika lit her cigarette, took a puff and said as Priest stood a foot away from the door,

"Well, as I do appreciate the fact you're about to be stabbed and shot at, I'll be down the road at a little Greek place, Poppa's Olympian Palace. If you want to… talk."

Erika walked past him and down the road, smoking her cigarette.

"Why the change of heart?" asked Priest, but his wife walked on down the road, and said nothing.

"Here you go…" said the old proprietor in a thick Greek accent, serving two cups of coffee, "It's almost closing time, but we're open for a lovely young couple like you."

"We're getting a divorce." Erika quipped.

"We are?" asked Priest, "I guess we are."

The proprietor awkwardly joined his wife at the corner and eyed the two suspiciously.

"I guess that was the cause for the change of heart."

"I thought you were dead for sure five years ago."

"I guess you did. Most of us LaMagrans collapsed and ashed that year."

"So why didn't you?"

"The devil's not ready yet, I dunno."

"Have any others survived?"

"Not to my knowlde. How about the illustrious progeny of Marcus Corvinus?"

"You don't know?"

"I've spent decades living among the humans, I don't move in those circles."

"We're in dwindling numbers…The three elders are dead."

"Even Marcus?"

"Yes, our own little cupid met his end. Anyway, the house of Ördögház is gone. That's why I moved to the new world coven."

The couple drank their coffe silently for a second.

"I got to tell you, Erika. I'm not sure how we're getting a divorce. Is there a bloodsucker family court?"

"There is a ritual."

"Which is?"

"We cut off our ring fingers."

"Oh. Okay, if that's what you want."

"It is."

Both took sips of their cups of coffee.

"Just… Don't flatter yourself." Said Erika, lighting a cigarette, "I didn't exactly spend two-hundred years waiting on you to release me. I got over our wretched marriage a long, long time ago. I just want it to be over."

"Erika, I really am sorry. But can you dial down the scorned woman tirade a bit? I'm not the adulterer. You cheated on me, with my own brother!"

"…You… You know it was Abraxas' will."

"You could have refused."

"Refused? Have living among the humans for so long made you forget what that monster was like?"

"No. It didn't."

"And it wasn't like that anyway. We…."

"What?"

"Forget it, let's find a knife and get this over with."

"What, now you want to stop? Don't hold up."

"…It wasn't just …. I wasn't just doing it because Abraxas and Marcus wanted it. He was … He was caring."

"What?"

"Grigori. He cared for me… And when we were together, he was gentle… I may have loved you at a time, Judas, but to you, I was just something to use and be discarded when you were done."

"You loved my brother?" asked Priest, hanging his head in grief.

"Judas, look at me."

Priest looked up into his wife's eyes.

"I just wanted to see your eyes, now that you know. I'm sorry."

"You know that Grigori died in 2001?" asked Priest, walking side by side with Erika under pouring rain, the 'Palace' closing up in their wake.

"I'd heard. Did you ever see him before that?"

"No, I'd spent some time in Russia, working for the Romanovs, and I later found out that Grigori and his men were doing the same. Anyway, I'd only heard about it about a year ago."

"I saw him once… In the sixties. He was different, he wasn't the man I loved anymore."

"You know, I'm aware of the broad strokes. But do you mind telling me, what happened after I'd left?"

"Abraxas went mad with rage, he sent out troops to bring you back, and when his rage grew, to find you and kill you. He couldn't live with the idea that you were out there, having left his service of your own accord. You made every day for him torture for the ten years that followed.

"Grigori and I remained for a time, but it didn't last. It pained me to know of the things he'd do when he went out on raids, to other women especially. Then of course, Marcus's reign came to its end and it was Viktor's time. While Marcus and Abraxas had an alliance that led them to arrange our marriage, Viktor had nothing but the utmost detest for Abraxas, he disregarded the accord and arranged for me to be brought back."

"Did you have that grandson Abraxas wanted so bad?"

"No… It appears that it was me who was barren. Anyway, soon after I returned to Hungary, the news arrived of an uprising in the highlands. Apparently, a seventeen year old girl had gained amazing powers overnight."

"The slayer."

"Her arrival, coupled with your absence spelled the end of Abraxas Priest. After that, I just staid at Ördögház. Your kind was never popular there, so I was persona non grata for a while."

"Anyway, what about you?"

"I headed to France, in the beginning. Made my way through Europe, and then to Asia. It was in China that I gave up live feeding."

"Why?"

"I dunno… I just was never in the mood after everything happened. Anyway, a hundred years of wandering later, I worked for the Romanovs, I met another Grigori, as in Rasputin, bit of a wanker. I made my way back to France, then ended up in London, trying to work up the courage to get back to Scotland. I decided to give America a go, scored passage on the Titanic and managed to get to New York.

"I did a spot of work for the government from the forties to the sixties, fought in the wars as well. Oh, and I had a son."

"A son? Really?"

"Frank. Frank Lee. I spent a night with his mother once, and only found out about him when we fought together in Korea. I kept in touch with him in the years that followed. He died in '67."

"I'm sorry. Do you have any other family?"

"Not to my knowledge. Frank had a girlfriend who was pregnant at the time he died, but he'd left her, apparently it mightn't have been his. I don't now either way."

"Well, this is my building." Said Erika, standing by the steps of one of the better apartment buildings in the area, "Come on up, we'll get it done. Say, what brings you to this City?"

"Just passing though, I need to join some people somewhere else, so I won't stay for long."

Don't worry, it's all part of the plan.

Next Chapter

Mr. and Mrs. Priest's reunion takes a turn when Priest, who had been disillusioned with the opposition for some time, sees an opportunity and ponders leaving it all behind.