Working Class Vegas Vamp is a free urban fantasy serial, usually publishing on Tuesdays. It is unedited and subject to change. If published later, it may differ significantly, and will probably include additional material. Typos and English errors are likely; feel free to leave a comment or write me at am {AT} amscottwrites.com (revised as a standard email address. Pesky bots!) Available for a limited time only!

Haven’t started yet? Chapter 1: https://www.amscottwrites.com/2024/10/29/working-class-vegas-vamp-chapter-1/

Chapter 17

I opened my eyes; a metal ceiling gleamed above me. I was safe in Freddie’s vault. Rising, I stretched, then quietly slid the padlocks from the hasps and opened the air valve on the bed. Just in case she had visitors, I’d wait for Freddie to open the vault. After I folded the bed and blanket, I paced little circles around the bench. Too bad she didn’t have a gun for me to clean; I’d be happier doing something useful.

The vault lock spun and the locking arms retracted. Freddie swung open the door, frowning. That didn’t seem like a good sign. As the door opened, it revealed four more women, all wearing striped hair and scowls. “Let me guess, your sisters?”

Freddie nodded, her gaze on my chin. “Yeah. They wanted to make sure I hadn’t been mesmerized. I told them you were strong, but hadn’t deliberately tried.”

I held up both hands. “I swear I did not try to mesmerize Freddie, nor will I try to mesmerize you unless you’re a threat to me. Is that good enough?”

The scowls didn’t lessen, but heads nodded.

Hopefully, a quick explanation would lead to a clean escape. “Great. Thanks. Look, I don’t know why KT chose this moment to try and control me, or what he thinks is going to happen. I’m clueless here, and I’d really like to understand. And I’d also like someplace to hide, and a way to find the trackers on my stuff, and a hundred blood boxes while I’m dreaming.” I shrugged. “But I’m not likely to find any of that here, so I’ll just go. Thanks for your help, Freddie. I appreciate it.” I put on the backpack and picked up the pieces of my phone.

“You’re welcome.” Freddie nodded. “I asked around about the priestess idea. If they have one, nobody but the vampires knows who they are. We—” she motioned towards her sisters, “—don’t think it was Trinity. She wasn’t stable enough to do anything but hunt. We think KT wanted an easy way to put her down without getting blamed. The weres did it for him.” She shrugged. “Why else would you leave a hostage with Trinity?” She shuddered. “Anyway, I have something for you.” She pushed past me, into the vault, then came back out, holding a small device. “This is a bug detector. All it does is find typical transmission frequencies. So don’t point it at a radio or pretty much any modern car, because they’re all connected to WiFi these days.” She tilted it to show me the top. “The lights indicate the strength of the signal, five being strongest. Good luck, Char.” She placed the device in my hand without touching me.

“Thanks, Freddie. Let me know if you need help with anything. I’ll keep this phone as long as I can.” I held up the cheap smart phone. “But I’ll probably turn it off a lot. Text or leave a voicemail. I truly appreciate the help you’ve given me, and I wish you luck.” I meant every word. Finding a safe place for tonight would be a challenge.

“Same, girl. I’ll keep checking on the priestess thing. And I’ll talk to the wolf.” She sighed. “He’s such a stick in the mud. But if anyone can figure out how to deal with this whole thing, it’s him. Now that his niece is back, and the biggest threat is negated, he might be more reasonable. Might.” She smirked. “Still going to be a control freak alpha, I’m sure. Take care. Stay alive. I like you.” She winked.

“Be careful. I like you, too.” Sighing, I left Freddie’s house and jogged to the nearest drugstore. I bought a new set of clothes and changed in the bathroom. I hated to ditch Freddie’s comfy jeans, but I didn’t fully trust her. Bundling the clothes and the bug detector into the plastic drug store bag, I jogged a meandering mile through neighborhoods. Then I slid the bundle into a crack between two concrete brick walls. I was fairly certain I could download an app to my burner phone that would let me check for transmissions. Freddie had my burner phone number, but she hadn’t had a chance to bug or clone it unless she could do that from outside the bathroom door.

I wandered farther westward through the dark streets for about an hour, but I knew that without taking a cab or a bus, I’d never make it to my natural hideouts in time. Taking any public transportation meant the possibility of showing up on a camera. If I stuck to rundown neighborhoods off the main streets, I had a better chance of avoiding anything but doorbell cameras. Plus, I’d previously spotted a rundown church in this area, and had always meant to check it out. While I walked, I slid the phone into an empty diet soda can to block any remaining signal powered by the backup battery.

Two hours later, I reached the church and sauntered around the old building. It didn’t appear entirely abandoned, but it was old and worse for wear. The doors were locked and all the windows were about twenty feet above my head, but there didn’t appear to be any cameras. One of the windows, near the altar end, was cracked. The fancy brick and stucco walls gave me plenty of hand and footholds, and it wasn’t long before reached the window ledge. Pulling the cracked glass from the frame was easy. I stacked the pieces on the wide outer ledge and raised one foot, then hesitated.

The rumors said vampires entering consecrated ground burst into flames or got struck by lightning. Or melted like the Wicked Witch of the West. But I was running out of time and, therefore, options.

Swallowing hard, I clamped my jaws together and slid my foot into the opening, feeling for the narrow windowsill. My foot didn’t burn, so I climbed inside, but I faced an entirely different problem.

I teetered on the windowsill, two stories above the empty, hard church floor, with no way to climb down the smooth wall or anything below to cushion my fall. Well, I had a lot of speed; maybe that could make up for gravity. Cautiously turning, I crouched and put my fingers on the edge of the sill just outside my feet. Before I could overthink, I slid my feet and legs over the side, flattening my feet against the wall to slow my fall.

Hanging by my fingertips, I let go, and tried to run back up the wall like a cartoon character. I didn’t succeed. Impacting the floor, I let my knees and hips collapse, and rolled to my side, then got back on my feet. Ouch. My soles smarted, and my joints ached, but I’d survived. I explored the space, searching for a basement door or crawl space, but found neither. What I did find, though, was a door to a choir loft.

Climbing the stairs, I stepped gingerly across the dusty, creaking floor, grateful I was light. On the far side, a door led to a closet. But a hole in the ceiling dashed my dwindling dreams of a hideout.

Returning downstairs, I explored the area again. At the back of the church, three doors in a row created the outer wall of a confessional. The priest would sit in the middle, while penitents kneeled in the tiny rooms on either side, speaking to the priest through a small, screened hole. My best bet was securing the priest’s room. I found an old board to block one speaking hole. The bottom of a broken chair blocked the other hole. Shoving a ladder-back chair under the doorknob would close off access to the priest’s room. It wasn’t exactly secure, but it was the best I could do for now.

Leaving the confessional, I tied the church’s main double door handles together with scraps of cloth and rope, and hoped today wasn’t the day the owner tore the place down. I also hoped Freddie successfully negotiated with Karski, because I’d much rather die the day away in a comfortable bed. Returning to the confessional, I secured the space. Then I sat on the floor, leaning against the back wall, and waited to pass out. I hoped the wolf was reasonable, because mere survival took way too much time and energy for a working class vamp. In hindsight, all my preparations were too little, too late. They’d depended on way too much luck and not enough planning for emergencies.

In short, I’d been an idiot.

My best remaining hope—and it was hope, not planning or certainty—was the wolf. He’d be justifiably angry that I’d left him struggling with KT, but on the other hand, I’d be useless in an armed struggle. KT wouldn’t have paid attention to anything but Karski, and anything I’d done physically would have been a pinprick in comparison. I had a bargaining chip—my potential influence over the hold KT had on Karski’s niece.

So much hope, so little certainty. True death seemed more and more likely. The world would probably be better off with one less vampire, anyway.

*

I woke still secure in the priest’s confessional—a minor miracle. My back cracked and popped as I stood, and my butt ached from sitting on concrete all night, but I was still here and free. Undoing all my security measures, I scattered them, then left through the back door, which I locked behind me. I kept moving west through neighborhoods, the houses getting larger and nicer as I walked. Near a major street, I took a chance and bought another cheap burner phone in a gas station, disabling the location services immediately. Then I called Freddie, while walking to a neighborhood across the street.

“Hello?” She answered in a neutral tone, with an odd echo.

Relief I had no business feeling swept through me. She was a business associate, not a friend. “Hey, it’s Char.”

“You’re alive. Awesome.” A huffing laugh. “Smart of you to ditch the electronics, even if it’s expensive.”

I was burning through my emergency funds at a swift pace, and hunger rode me hard. I’d have to mesmerize another human, or find a blood box source. Both were perilous, one for my body, the other for my soul. If I had one. “You found them?”

“I know where they are. I didn’t go anywhere near them, because the wolf and the vamp are watching my house. I’m routing this call through a series of services, so the chances of tracing it are low, but we should wrap this quickly. If you call the wolf, be ready to ditch that phone and run, because he’s not happy.”

“So I shouldn’t bother.” Even though I’d already known that, my spirits sank. I’d have to spend most of tonight finding a safe lair rather than planning for the future.

“Eh. I didn’t say that. He’s still your best chance of a decent plan. Personally, I’d just get some guns and walk into KT’s tower. Demand your birthright as the Queen Unbound, and make them all kneel. But that also seems suicidal, so maybe my advice isn’t so good.” She sputtered laughter.

I joined her. “Yeah, I don’t see me going all Rambo. Maybe you and your sisters can get away with that, but I’m one working class vamp, not a commando or a mobster.” I needed a strategy.

“But more seriously, it might actually work.” Freddie’s tone was sober. “The guns get you past the human security, and you can take on KT in the privacy of his tower.”

“Where his overwhelming forces will jump me, knock me out, drug me and use me as a puppet. No thanks.” Even though Freddie had successfully entered KT’s tower, she’d admitted they hadn’t gotten far. If KT and most of his vamps hadn’t been downstairs dealing with the smash and grab, the badgers might have found themselves in a whole lot of trouble. KT may have even anticipated an attempt to retrieve the Alpha’s niece and let them in deliberately, to prove how useless it was. But he’d probably thought he’d be dealing with the logical, practical wolves, not the chaotic, troublemaking badgers. And the gargoyles. They didn’t seem to fit into the picture. “Why are the gargoyles involved?”

“Hmph. They have reasons, but they’re not sharing.” She sighed. “You could contact them, but dealing with them is tricky. They’re all lawyers, fulfilling the letter of the contract, but not caring about the intent.”

“Interesting.” That didn’t entirely jive with my experience working with Matias at the drag bar. He’d been helpful to me beyond his employment terms. But perhaps that was my mesmerizing ability, as the wolf claimed. “At this point, I need any allies I can get.”

“You do. I talked to my sisters some more. We’ll support you, but eventually, we’ll need some return favors.”

I chuckled. “To be specified later and I can’t turn them down? I’m not sure I need help like that.” I wasn’t committing to open-ended contracts.

“We’re not stupid enough to back you into a corner. The thing is, we know Vegas would be better off with you in charge. KT’s getting more and more out of touch. He understands business and powerful people, but he doesn’t understand that when enough regular people band together, the results can be catastrophic. And while he’s charismatic on a small scale, he’ll have a hard time with a mob. That kind of destruction is bad for all of us.”

“That’s probably why he wants me. He thinks I can stop a mob. Even if I could, I wouldn’t. I’m not doing that to thousands of humans who just want to have a little fun without losing their lives along with their money.” I’d warned him, and he’d laughed. He deserved the consequences.

“Maybe he wants you to take on the legal authorities. I’m sure he can control one or two, or maybe more when he’s present, but he’s looking for more complete protection.”

Freddie was probably right. Controlling the people in charge was more KT’s style. He wouldn’t want to deal with the little people who did the real work, like me. His lack of respect towards me wasn’t just my “baby vamp” status; it was because my working class life satisfied me. He’d probably believed the Unbound Queen would roll over everyone and rule the world with enthusiasm. He didn’t understand me, or real leadership. Despite the poor example of recent politicians, I knew real leaders served their people, rather than the other way around. “I’m not doing that.”

She snorted. “That’s why I’m willing to support you. I know that more and more people will find out about supernaturals. With the increasing surveillance everywhere and all the other scientific advances human have made, our secrecy is thing of the past. We need someone who can act as an intermediary, someone who understands regular humans and those in power. Someone persuasive, but not selfish. Someone to smooth the way into the mainstream. Someone who’s not stupid enough to believe a prophecy can become word-for-word reality.”

“People join cults for a reason.” We’d stayed a secret this long because our numbers were relatively low, and we avoided publicity. Klaus Theoden had shattered that rule and expected me to use my power to enforce his position. I had no reason to help him, especially after he pushed me so hard. Overall, the supernatural community had been smoothing the way for a long time. Books, movies and TV had celebrated and reviled us, but more and more, we were shown as regular people with some extra talents and different weaknesses, both good and bad. Eventually, someone would correlate the DNA differences, too. I suspected that the differences right now were seen as unknown mutations or corrupted samples, but that couldn’t last.

“That’s the risk we’re taking. With your power, you could easily become a cult leader over millions, including us. We’re counting on you staying true to your working class roots, Char.” Freddie’s warning was clear.

“I’m assuming you’ve got plans if I don’t.” Probably one of those sisters and a high-powered sniper rifle, which was a smart way to go.

“Yep.”

“Good. No one should have unrestricted power. Why haven’t you taken out KT?”

“We’ve been talking too long. I’ll text you Karski’s number and XXX, the gargoyle’s. Later.” The call clicked off. Thirty seconds later, a text chimed. I’d find a scrap of paper and write both down, but for now, I needed to move, because Freddie was right. We’d been talking too long, and I needed to find safety for the coming day. I powered off the phone, removed the battery, and stuck the phone in a flattened beer can, wrinkling my nose at the smell.

Returning to the main street, I flagged down a taxi. “Airport, please. Cash tip if you keep me off camera and get there quick.”

The man grinned. “You got it, honey.” He stuck a piece of blue tape over the lens of a camera in the ceiling and flipped the meter on.

I sat back and relaxed. It might not be the only surveillance, but whatever else he had was probably his, not the company’s. I was done with running on foot. I’d retrieve my next car, more funds, search for transmitters, and get closer to my next hideout. Then I’d find a food donor and figure out a plan. I had a badger girl-gang; I didn’t need the wolves or gargoyles. Maybe…

***To be continued***

Working Class Vegas Vamp Copyright © 2024 by AM Scott. All Rights Reserved.

Cover by Achlys Book Cover Designs