Egbert

Electus Meus

"It's not going to work." Vikram's voice crackles over the phone.

"Shut up, yes it will." I'm packing a backpack, filled with a first aid kit, a book entitled 50 emergency manoeuvres for dummies, and a pack of gum because while blood might taste good I doubt it will smell nice.

"He's the god of all evil, the prince of darkness. You can't trick your father."

"You're watching Dracula again aren't you?"

There's silence on the other end of the line followed by the click of a remote.

"The point is Eg, tonight you'll probably kill someone and there's nothing you can do about but revel in the chaos. This is who we are. I remember my first kill Dan-"

"You did not kill Danny Mayer."

"Yes I did." He whines back.

"No you didn't"

"Did"

"Didn't"

"Oh yeah? Then explain how he went missing with only a patch of blood left in his room."

"His family moved and that wasn't blood it was strawberry juice you spilt when we visited and you thought I wasn't looking."

"Wrong." Vikram brays. "I t was raspberry." He whispers low enough that a human wouldn't be able to hear.

"Okay I 've got to go. I'm meeting my father in the atrium in ten minutes." I grab my bag, stuffing one last thing in, and my Swiss army knife into my pocket and sling it over my shoulder.

"Okay and remember, the first kill is always the-"

I hang up before he reaches the end of the sentence. Vikram's my best friend but sometimes he can be a bit trying.

I take my sweet time going downstairs; my father's going to be late. He always is. But when I descend the spiral staircase and the foyer comes into view a daunting figure in his most mediocre blue suit is standing at the door, watching me with angry eyes.

"You're late." He stares me down.

I'm not late. I'm three minutes early. There's no point arguing my case so I lower my eyes and apologise. He grabs the door and holds it open for me. We make our way outside silently, walking a few roads down until he finally speaks.

"When you hunt never take your car. And stick to the back roads or woods. There are security cameras everywhere, a downside of this ridiculous centaury. Act natural." Then we lapse back into quiet.

I wait until we're entering the woods surrounding the town, which happen to be very close to our house, (I'm guessing this was by design) then venture a question.

"How does this all go down exactly?" When I get a look of exhaustion I tighten the question up so it's less ambiguous. "Where are we going?"

"To Monty's. It's a bar downtown."

I know Monty's is a bar downtown. Everyone knows that. We reached the end of the forest and come out on the edge of town, our destination is in sight and following father's tips we stay in the shadows. He looks cool doing it, slinking wryly in and out of the darkness. My tactic is to sort of tip toe delicately. Actually there's no sort of about it. I'm tip toeing like a Russian ballerina. Personally I happen to be very proud of that.

"Put your hands down boy you look like a caricature." He hisses out the darkness. I hadn't realised I'd been holding them up as I crept.

When we get there it's stuffed with patrons. There's a few running round in capes but none of them come close to our hiding spot in the trees.