So I'm a Vampire... Now What? - Book 2 (Original Version)

Chapter 1.4: The Other Vampire Pt 4

I'm going to take a moment here to bring you up to speed on the difference between movie vampires and real vampires.

Claude and I had experimented, almost immediately after I was turned, to find out what was true about the vampire legends. I mean, anybody who turns into a vampire is going to want to know just how many of those legends are true. It's basic human nature and curiosity to find out what's going to kill us, and in my case, I had Claude who was mostly interested in making sure that I didn't actually kill myself by accident. One of the first experiments had been with religious artifacts, and I'd seriously had no idea what Claude was even doing until it was halfway done. All I'd wanted to do at the time, was drink my coffee. See, at that point, I had forgotten that as a vampire, I was supposed to be affected by the sight or mere presence of a crucifix.

It had been a seriously disappointing first test, at least for Claude.

The real surprise that night had been the effect coffee had on me: it had fried my brain real good. Apparently, too much caffeine is a verified vampire killer, much more effective than holy water... if you can get a vampire to drink it.

As you know, movie vampires are thwarted by crucifixes, and I suppose by every other religious symbol under the sun, but they haven't really investigated other symbols in the movies. It's always about the crucifix and the power of Christ compelling the demon vampire, never about any other religions. It gets stupidly complicated when you look at it really carefully. Besides, I have yet to see a Jewish vampire being thwarted by the Star of David: that shit would be seriously hilarious.

***

So yeah, Daemien hid his face as if he was on fire, I just rolled my eyes at his overly dramatic reaction. Claude was just looking cocky and holding the crucifix firmly in front of him. When Daemien moved to the left, Claude made sure the cross followed with him.

"Yes!" Claude said triumphantly. "Finally someone it works on!"

There was a lot of hissing going on from Daemien.

"You wouldn't happen to have any holy water on you, would you?" Claude asked me, and I just gave him a blank look and shook my head.

"Why the hell would I have holy water? You know that doesn't work on me."

"But it works on him! Look at him, go!"

"But why is it working?" I asked, and for the first time, Daemien noticed my lack of reaction and stopped mid-hiss, but I could see he wasn't wholly convinced.

"Maybe he's really, really, really Catholic?" Claude suggested.

Daemien risked a look at me while shielding his eyes from Claude and the offensive crucifix.

"How is this not affecting you?"

"I'm an atheist?" I said.

"NO!" He yelled. "You're doing it ALL WRONG!"

Daemien turned and lunged at me, hate and murder in his eyes and damn he was fast, but something clicked in my head, and it was as if everything was going in slow motion, and Daemien was just going average speed. He ran at me, hands raised into claws as if to scratch and tear, and I stepped forward and donkey-kicked him right in the chest. Daemien staggered back, gasping for air. I didn't wait for him to recover. I stepped forward and kicked him in the balls as hard as I could. Daemien whimpered and grabbed his possibly ruptured balls, curling up into a fetal position.

He looked at me as if I had betrayed him in the worst possible way.

"You motherfucker," he whimpered.

Something wooden whipped through the air and smacked Daemien right on the bridge of his nose, instantly breaking it in a rush of blood. As it bounced high in the air, I could see it was one of the wooden sandals that my mother wore around the house, a painful remnant of my childhood that was known to Hispanic children everywhere as La Chancla.

Claude and I turned to see my mom and about five other aunties (family and otherwise) approaching us, my mom brandishing the other sandal in her hand.

"You watch your language, Chupacabra!"

"Mom?" I sputtered, caught completely off guard.

"Auntie Rosita?" Claude sputtered, equally surprised.

"Good job bringing el vampiro down, mijos, but we've got it from here," Mom said. She turned to the aunties behind her, and I could see she was wearing a heavily embroidered jean jacket. It had her bowling league logo on the back that said, "Las Ninjas Rosas," just like the one Ronnie had been wearing. Needless to say, there was a substantial amount of sequins and bling surrounding the hot pink logo.

The world had suddenly gone insane but was about to get even crazier.

"Ninjas Rosas, ataque!"

The Pink Ninjas attacked.

Music: Metallica - The Unforgiven