Everyone Dies in the End #15

Ramzke

 

He paused at the bottom of the steps, hand on the rusty iron rail, peering through the persistent rain at the figure. Even in the shadows his eyes perceived the flare of the hips, chin-length hair—thick and cut in a Japanese style he found odd for a Romanian woman. At last he smiled, an expression his face found odd. “Hello, Katarina.”

She led him inside, through a hall well painted and subtly-lit with ceiling accent lights, passed a closed door. He sensed a presence behind the door, but didn’t question Katarina. She was blood. The hall feed into a well-adorned living room. Ample brown leather couches, glass-topped coffee tables, numerous throw pillows, a TV inset in the wall. The screen was dark. Ramzke didn’t know if there were any functioning stations. It didn’t matter to him; television wasn’t a part of his life. Maybe it was a part of Katarina’s, but somehow he doubted it. She caught his glance and shrugged. “My minder likes it.”

Ramzke cocked an eyebrow. “Minder?”

“Yes, you fool. Did you think I furnished this in a week? Or that I sleep unguarded during the day? Your clan would have done well to have the same. If you had, you would not be in the trouble you are in now.”

The force of her answer surprised Ramzke; he balled his hands until nails bit palm’s flesh. He felt the pulse in his neck, the racing of his heart, but forced himself to stay calm. Yes, her words hurt, but only because they were true. He and his clan had grown complacent, and that complacency lead to their, for lack of a better word, enslavement. Katarina, from the eastern clan, was here to help them out of it. He took a deep breath and then nodded.

“You are right. You are right, my sister.”

She sighed and plopped onto the biggest couch, gesturing to the other. “Please have a seat.”  He did.

She pulled a white cup of steaming liquid from the glass-topped coffee table beside the couch, and sipped.

He grimaced. “What the hell is that?”

Katarina smiled. That teasing smile she had always used on him. She loved to shock him, trick him, get a reaction, but he loved her just the same. She was blood, more than a comrade, his own blood, his own sister.

“Just tea,” she answered with a shrug.

“Why?” Their kind didn’t need human food. In fact, they couldn’t use it, their systems were incapable of processing it, turning it into any type of usable energy. He had always believed that was the crux of the cravings. Only blood, raw blood, rejuvenated, replenished, gave life.

She raised her shoulders, briefly flexing the strong, yet supple skin under the wide-necked, black t-shirt. “I don’t know, brother. It is just a taste I’ve acquired through the years. It warms me, I guess.”

“Your stomach handles it?”

She winked, a very unvampire-like gesture. How strange, thought Ramzke. Katarina was the one living in Europe, the one with close ties to the old country, to Wallachia, yet she was the rebel. She was the woman who accepted the human ways as if they were her own. As if reading his thoughts she reached for the pack of Citanes on the table. She shook out two, offering one to Ramzke.

“No,’ he laughed. “Why would I?”

She took her time in answering, lighting the cigarette with a flick of a red butane lighter. She drew deeply, and tilted her head to exhale into the room, away from Ramzke. The angle of her neck flashed her white scar, the thin line delicate, the distant memory raising the hair on the back of Ramzke’s neck.

The slender shoulders rose again, and she smiled. “What will they do? Kill me?” The smile broke into a laugh, then a shared laugh. “Anyway, they help me blend with the humans.”

Another drag of the cigarette, her lips flaring as they drew the smoke into her lungs. “But you didn’t call me to discuss my personal habits, did you?”

“No.”

And then he told her about Vader, about the alliance. Her eyes flashed when she learned of Thedorus and Vinnie’s death, but otherwise she listened in silence, smoking her cigarette, and then another, her dark eyes glittering in the smoke. He finished and silence reigned.

After a moment Katarina spoke. “So,” she dead-panned, “you, in essence, are Vader’s bitch.”  Ramzke’s fists clenched, but he could tell by slight curve of her mouth that she was only picking at him, hoping for a reaction. Ramzke smiled, refusing to give any indication of the passing anger.

“And,” she blew a slow stream of smoke, “you want your little sister to save you from the bad man.”

He held his smile, knowing the teasing would soon stop. Katarina was indeed his little sister, at least when measured in human years. It was, however, she who had first been turned. Turned by the Count himself. She cleared her throat. “All kidding aside, brother, I don’t understand why you don’t leave the city. He is sending you south on this mission,” Katarina used her fingers to couch “mission” in quotation marks. “Why do you return?”

“Because of the others, Katarina. Vader never lets more than one or two away from the penitentiary.” It was Ramzke’s turn to shrug. “If we don’t return, if I don’t return, he will slaughter the others.”  She nodded.

“I had no idea you were such a sentimentalist.”

Ramzke shook his head. “Do not make fun. It is not sentimentalism, they are our kind. We cannot let them be slaughtered.” He knew the statement was a lie, but he wasn’t sure which part was untrue.”

Her eyes locked his.  “Whatever… I assume you have a plan?” Ramzke did.

It took less than five minutes to explain it to her. When he finished, they stood shoulder to shoulder by the room’s small window, looking into the darkened alley.

“So, you will help?”

Katarina laughed. “Ramzke, you knew I would help before you came here. You are my brother, my blood, and your coven are my kind. Of course I will help.” She lit another cigarette. Her third or fourth, Ramzke had lost count. “Anyway,” she smiled. That smile that had led many humans to their death, “it sounds like fun.”

“Then it is set.”  Ramzke turned, “I must go, my time is limited.” Katarina placed a hand on his arm. “Wait. I have a present.” Without another word she walked into the connecting kitchen. He heard the rattling of metal, and then her voice. “Follow me.”

He trailed her to the hall door they had passed earlier, the one where he had sensed the presence. The swung the door in. The room was dark, and the smell of dried blood assaulted Ramzke’s nostrils, making him giddy with need. The room contained one piece of furniture, a straight-backed wooden chair.   In the chair, easily visible to Ramzke despite the dark, was a young boy, no more than seven, securely bound with Zip Ties on ankles and feet. His mouth was tightly gagged, his eyes wide with terror, tears coating his cheeks.

           Katarina nudged Ramzke. “Here, it’s easier.” In her hand she held a 10” butcher’s knife. He accepted the gift, and without sound whirled, slitting the boys throat wide. The power of the stroke toppled the chair, and Ramzke fell beside it, eagerly drinking the warm blood.