Dragon Bookworks

This is a story that I wrote, inspired by a random song title that popped into my head. It seemed to fit with the vampire stories that I’d been writing and it was fun to do.

Warning: contains adult language

Surrey, England

1983

“That’s it then. I’m done.” Viscous, born Vincent Ian Shiapelli, threw up two fingers and stormed out. He slammed the door so hard I thought the ceiling tiles would come loose. 

I shook my head and swore under my breath. Not this shite again. Third time this week that our drummer had gotten pissed off at the lead singer. Angst, Leslie Allan Purvis, and Viscous co-founded the band a couple years back, and had a row over one thing and another ever since. But this one was a lulu.

Predictable though…Angst will shout after Viscous…

“Yah! That’s right! Bail on me! Just keep walkin’!”

…throw a chair…

The lead singer grabbed the closest chair and flung it at the door. The legs splintered as it struck, successfully knocking a tile down.

…then he’ll shake his fist and tell him…

“Don’t bother comin’ back this time! We don’t fuckin’ need ya!” he shrieked, rattling a knobby fist at the poor, defenceless door. “We’re through this time! Ya hear? Through! Done! Kaput!”

…and kick the speaker.

Angst roared as his foot went through the subwoofer. And got stuck amid a shower of sparks and smoke. Whelp, there goes our last speaker, I moaned inwardly. The singer began to tremble with rage and embarrassment as he tried in vain to retrieve his appendage from the offending sound equipment. Cursing louder, Angst tore the speaker apart and limped out the back door.

Bleeder, Reginald Abelsmythe, the lead guitarist, moved to go after him. I just chuckled and put a hand on his shoulder. He was the new guy. Only been with us a few days. Miracle he’d stuck it out this long.

“Let ‘em go, mate,” I told him. “It’s like this every week. They’ll be back.”

Bleeder looked at me with wide eyes, like I’d grown an extra nose or somethin’. His mouth opened as if to form a question, but snapped it shut again and kept it to himself.

I shrugged and turned to put away my bass, “At this rate, ‘The Tortured Numptys’ won’t ever get a gig.”

“Now I at least know why we’re tortured,” Bleeder mumbled.

***

Two months and three name changes later, ‘Clearly Unbalanced’ was set to do their first gig. Angst had indeed quit for good, but so had Viscous. Bleeder had stayed, which was okay by me. He played a halfway decent lead guitar, and his vocals were well above that of a strangled cat, so that gave us some hope. I was only slightly a slouch myself when it came to singing, so we decided to trade up, depending on the song. 

And we elected to stick to doing covers to stay on the safe side. You know, stuff we knew pretty well.

That just left finding a new drummer. After a week, we hired the first…and only…one to answer our advert. Not that it would have mattered much, it was either that or put the band to rest for good.

Algernon “Howler“ Fitzcribbens was a godsend. He played like a madman, but one who had been born with drumsticks instead of fingers. Me and Viscous were mates, but I hoped he didn’t want back in, because Howler was twice the drummer he was. Maybe thrice.

And the three of us got on smashingly. By the end of our first month together, we had coalesced into a smooth sync. It was like we had been playing together for years. We still had a ways to go, but we were better than ever.

“So, here’s the thing,” Howler said as we packed up after rehearsals one night. “I was talkin’ to me mate, Chris, the other day. You know, the drummer from ‘The Specimen’ over at the Batcave?”

“Wait,” Bleeder cut in. “You mean that spooky nightclub over on Dean Street? Place gives me the willies somethin’ awful!”

Howler chuckled, “Yeh, that’s the one. Anyways, Chris and his boys are gonna be playin’ at Planet X in September, so they’re lookin’ for a filler band. Their other regulars can’t make it, so…”

My mouth fell open. I could hardly believe what I was hearing. “Are you telling us that we’re gonna play the Batcave? Are you taking the mick?”

The drummer smiled and shook his head. “It’s ours if we want it.”

Bleeder let out an ecstatic whoop, but I was rooted to the spot. That couldn’t be right. 

“Without even hearing us?” I asked him, barely croaking out the syllables.

Howler laughed, deep and throaty. With his dark complexion and thick mane of black hair, he reminded me of a wild beast.

He clapped me on the back and said, “They trust me when I say we got somethin’ good. And we do.”

“The bleedin’ Batcave,” I whispered in hushed tones, as if saying it louder would make the opportunity vanish like a puff of smoke. “Christ, I hope we’re ready…”

***

The Batcave was a dark and mysterious-looking place. Its entrance was an old wooden coffin with the bottom taken out, setting up a creepy vibe from the start. Inside, the walls were covered with black bin-liners, and the ceiling was laced with cobwebs, further adding to the macabre setting. No wonder it gave Bleeder the willies. 

It wasn’t much to look at, really. Some of the tables had to have been held together by the wads of gum pressed underneath, and the chairs might likely collapse if you looked at them too closely. But the club’s patrons didn’t care about the furnishings. They were there for the show. 

For the music.

At first glance, you might think that it was pretty much your average punk crowd. Spiked hair, shaved heads, ripped clothes, leather, and piercings. It was all that, but there was something else. Maybe it was the darker atmosphere of the club itself, but some of the punks turned out in all black, from their makeup to their fishnets to their Victorian threads. It was definitely taking a turn towards Gothic.

Unfortunately, on our first night, ‘Clearly Unbalanced’ was greatly unexceptional. The songs we did were some we were comfortable with. So they were somewhat adequate covers of popular bands like The Sex Pistols, The Killing Joke, and Siouxsie and the Banshees. The classics. The crowd’s reception was lukewarm at best, with a few of the attendees shouting at us to play something new.

No one was dancing.

At least they didn’t throw things at us. I’d heard some horror stories of crowds turning on bands. I really didn’t want to end up another one of them.

So we kept playing, doing our level best, but somehow not exactly lighting up the place, you know. I looked out across the sea of uninterested faces and wondered if it would be like that every night. Even though we were laying down our best rendition of ‘Follow the Leaders’ by The Killing Joke, it might as well have been a funeral dirge.

I was crushed. Playing a real gig at a real club was everything I had hoped for since the music got into me. But it was turning out to be a massive letdown. My mates felt it, hell, the crowd felt it too. By the time we had started our second set, I was just about ready to pack it in and head home. Maybe go back to school like my mum always nagged me to. Be an accountant like Dad.

And then, halfway through the set, something felt…different. A change in the air sent a chill through my bones. I didn’t think the place had air-con, but maybe it kicked in, blowing cold air across the stage. A glance back at my mates told me they hadn’t felt anything at all. Sweat was pouring out of Bleeder by the bucketful. They were still belting out the sounds, completely oblivious to any shift in the atmosphere.

But something was decidedly different. 

That’s when I saw her.

Looking out across the dance floor, I caught a glimpse of a shock of red hair. It stood out like a beacon amidst the dull blondes, brunettes, and skinheads. My guts knotted up, and a cold sweat ran down the back of my neck. I looked down at my hands for a split second at a changeover, and when I raised my eyes again, the splash of colour was gone. But the feeling in the pit of my stomach was still there.

My skin tingled with gooseflesh when I saw her making her way through the room toward the stage. Picking her way through the crowd, crossing the empty dancefloor. Stalking like some predatory beast.

She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.

No, that wasn’t right. Beautiful wasn’t the right word. Certainly, she was very attractive, but stunning might be the better word. I couldn’t take my eyes off her as she drew closer in the gloom, entranced by the way she nearly flowed across the floor. She was wrapped in tight leather and fishnets, like many of the other clubbers, but the way she wore them made her seem far more elegant. Her form was petite but curvy in all the right places, and her skin was so pale it was almost iridescent. And her lips were soft, and full, and red.

Glistening like blood.

I very nearly lost the beat when she looked up and met my gaze. Her eyes were the deepest, brightest, and most intense green I had ever seen. They seemed to pierce right through my very soul. Everything else faded away, leaving me lost to drown in those eyes.

At some point, I must have realised that the song had ended, but I was still playing.

“Mikey-mate,” Bleeder hissed in my ear. “This song don’t have a ruddy bass solo!”

I could feel my cheeks flush with embarrassment, so I did the only thing my fractured mind could think of. I put down my bass and threw up the “horns” to the audience. There was some polite applause, and Bleeder shouted into the microphone.

“Back in ten, tossers!” And then he says to me, “What the bloody hell was that? Mikey, you alright?”

I just nodded, still spellbound by those eyes, and let Bleeder lead me off-stage. As soon as the girl was out of my vision, I snapped fully awake as if I’d been doused with ice water. Quick as I could, I hurried round to get to the redhead.

But she was gone. Just the same boring crowd lurching off for soggy chips and watered-down booze.

Was I tripping? I stayed away from dope, after I saw how it wrecked my brother. I guessed it could’ve been the smoke in the club, though. But she seemed so real. I shrugged and headed off backstage to get ready for the final set. 

Maybe we would come back tomorrow night, after all.

***

And we did come back. Not just the next night, but the rest of the week too. Either the crowd began warming up to us, or we got better with every set. People had started dancing! There was even a bit of polite applause when we added in one or two of our own songs. That gave us such a boost! We weren’t exactly a smash, but they weren’t running out on us.

All that was well and good, but it wasn’t what kept me going. 

Every night for the rest of that week, that girl showed up halfway through our first set. I felt more than I saw when she came in. Every time, she would make her way to the stage where she would watch me intently.

Not the rest of the band.

Just me. 

There was something magickal, unearthly, about her eyes. They were filled with desire, hunger…and something more. And every night when me and the band broke off between sets, she was gone. She never stayed for the last song. 

And then my brain hatched a desperate plan.

On Sundays, the Batcave was shut up. Not for any particular religious reasons, they just needed a day to recover from the usually wild Saturday nights. So, on Monday, the girl with the red hair appeared as per her usual. But this time, I was ready for her.

I hoped.

As I watched her glide through the throng of body-slammers and dancers, I whispered a hurried prayer to Whoever-Might-Be-Listening that I could do this right. When she reached her normal spot in front of me and locked those luminous, hypnotic eyes on mine, I swallowed back my fear and stopped playing.

Right in the very middle of the song. 

My mates picked up on the cue and followed me, just as we had rehearsed it earlier. Without looking away from her gaze, I laid down a slow, sensuous bassline. Howler picked up the beat on the drums, and Bleeder joined in with his guitar from the back.

The crowd froze. This was new and different. The girl’s face was a mask of confusion at first, but I watched it turn to delight as I started to sing low and soft.

Your eyes like daggers, piercing through the night

Your skin so pale, cold as winter light

Lips so Dark and Red show your true Desire

Impale me with your Love, set my soul on fire.

Impale me with your love

Make me feel alive

Bite me with your kiss

Your love I can’t deny

Impale me with your love

Let our passions arise

My heart is pounding, my blood running high

I feel your breath on my neck like a gentle sigh

My flesh it trembles at your silken touch

Impale me with your love, I want it so much

Impale me with your love

Make me feel alive

Bite me with your kiss

Your love I can’t deny

Impale me with your love

Let our passions arise

Bleeder came in as my voice grew quiet, his guitar starting out as a soft whisper, then building to a soaring melody around the deep tones of my bass. He didn’t just play the notes; his fingers made the instrument absolutely weep with passion and longing. I thought I might burst before his solo faded into the background, and I was up to sing again.

I can’t hide from you, I become your Prey

We’ll embrace the night and deny the day

Impale me with your love

Make me feel alive

Bite me with your kiss

Your love I can’t deny

Impale me with your love

Let our passions arise

The crowd was stunned silent as the music faded. Then after a heartbeat, it roared to life with shouts and whistles and applause. We had done it! The club was ours! I looked back to give my mates a smile, but when I turned around again, the girl was gone.

My heart shattered into tiny fragments on the stage. None of the applause mattered. Positively crushed, I dragged myself out of the spotlight and left my bass behind.

I was done.

“Sorry mate,” Bleeder tutted, putting a hand on my shoulder.

“It was fuckin’ brilliant!” crowed Howler, banging his sticks together.

Bleeder shot the drummer a look. “Listen, let’s get a pint. Forget about her.”

I shrugged him off and shook my head. “Maybe later. I need some air.”

While my mates went back to catch a bow and maybe chat up some of the birds, I headed out the back. The door slammed harder than I meant it to, scaring off some moggies that were rummaging around in the alley. Not really knowing what else to do, I plunked down on the kerb and ran my hands through my hair. Surrounded by old papers, broken bottles, and other assorted rubbish, I felt sadly at home.

I had poured everything into that piece. All of my heart and all of my soul. There was nothing left.

“I’ll bet that’s not true,” came a whisper from the dark, startling me out of my sullen mood. “I’m sure there’s plenty more.”

With a clatter, I leapt to my feet. The red-haired girl seemed to materialise out of the shadows. Her green eyes held a shimmer that lit up the entire alley and made my heart skip a beat.

“I…um,” I said, most eloquently. First impressions matter.

“I would say it was beautiful, but words aren’t enough,” she purred with a voice as light and lovely as she was. “I loved it! Thank you.”

“Ta,” I managed to blurt. “I, uh, hoped you would. Like it, that is. I didn’t want you to go away again.”

She smiled, and I melted. And it was only a half-smile, you know? She didn’t even show any teeth. I wanted to kiss that smile, those red lips.

“I’m Michael,” I said instead. Real smoothie, I am. 

Her lips twitched into a wry grin. “Just Michael? No moniker like your bandmates?”

I covered my nervousness with a chuckle. “Nah. I tossed a couple about though. Manacle. Mindkill. Susan. Nothing seemed to fit.”

An unexpected laugh burst from those lips and she covered her mouth with delicate, gloved fingers. It was a genuine laugh, coming up from her toes. The sound was its own beautiful music trilling through the night air. 

I took that as my cue. It was time to make my brilliant move. The one I’d been practicing in the mirror all week.

“Say, you wanna…get a…a drink or something?”

So swift and smooth, I didn’t see her move at all. She took me by the arm and smiled sweetly. The light played over her blood red lips as they parted to give me just a glimpse of her perfect ivory teeth. 

A little too perfect. And…sharp?

“That would be grand.” Her breath was hot and moist against the skin of my neck. “And maybe a bite?”