We were sitting on opposite ends of my so-called living room, if you could even generously call it that. It was really just a cramped, drafty square of space wedged between the kitchen kitchenette and my bedroom, furnished with a heavily stained, secondhand sofa and a wobbly folding chair I had salvaged from a dumpster.
Between us, resting on a battered milk crate that served as my coffee table, were the two glorious, greasy cardboard boxes I had ordered earlier.
Chloe A. Crimson, a breathtakingly beautiful, immortal creature of the night, was currently perched on the edge of the wobbly folding chair. She looked completely absurd in my dingy apartment. Dressed in her sleek leather jacket and designer jeans, radiating an aura of pristine, untouchable elegance, she made the peeling wallpaper and water-stained ceiling look even more depressing by sheer contrast. Her glowing, predatory eyes were slowly, silently observing the embarrassing, poverty-stricken state of my living conditions.
I decided to completely ignore her judgment. I didn't invite her in to play interior decorator, and I certainly wasn't the one who had asked for this impromptu midnight chat.
I opened the first box, grabbed a massive, heavily cheesed slice of double pepperoni pizza, and took a huge, aggressive bite. The molten cheese burned the roof of my mouth, but it was absolute heaven. I chewed loudly, maintaining direct, unapologetic eye contact with her.
As I was busy relishing in the sheer, greasy deliciousness of my meal, wiping a stray drop of tomato sauce from my chin, she finally broke the heavy silence.
"I am curious," she said, her melodic voice cutting through the hum of my busted refrigerator. "I saw you die. I watched your head get separated from your shoulders. How is it that you are still among the living?"
I didn't answer immediately. I took my time, methodically chewing and swallowing my mouthful of pizza, deliberately making her wait. Only after I had polished off the entire first slice and reached for a second did I offer a reply.
"It's a mystery to me, too," I lied smoothly, keeping my face as blank as a sheet of paper.
She narrowed her eyes, looking at me with an expression that clearly said she didn't believe a single syllable coming out of my mouth. I didn't particularly care. What was the absolute worst she could do? Kill me? Been there, done that. TWICE. Yeah, having my head aggressively reaped off my neck was still a very, very sore point for me.
"If you don't want to tell me, that's fine," she said, surprisingly letting the subject drop without a fight. She leaned back slightly, her posture relaxing just a fraction. "But before I get into the real reason for my visit, do you want to ask me some questions?"
I paused, a half-eaten slice hovering near my mouth. I was genuinely a bit surprised that she had dropped the interrogation so easily, which instantly made me incredibly wary of what she really wanted from me. But since she was generously opening the floor to my inquiries, I figured I might as well get some answers.
"How did you know I didn't die?" I asked, voicing the question that had been aggressively bothering me since she rang my doorbell. "How could you possibly track me down?"
"I didn't know," she admitted, her gaze dropping to the greasy milk crate for a second. "I, like Luke—by the way, that's the name of the man who reaped your head off—thought you were permanently dead. It's just that... I felt profoundly guilty about the whole incident. You were an innocent bystander caught in my mess. So, I went to the woods where Luke had his men bury you, intending to pay my respects."
I stopped chewing entirely, my jaw hanging slightly slack. Wait. A vampire actually felt guilty enough about my death to visit my shallow grave? I was genuinely floored by this unexpected display of empathy.
"That's when I discovered that there was no corpse," she continued, her eyes meeting mine again. "I saw the violent traces of digging from the inside out. But more importantly, I could smell a very specific, familiar scent lingering in the dirt. Your blood. I followed that scent all the way back to the city, which led me to an abandoned alleyway in the Coldstone district. In that alley, I found absolute carnage."
She paused, giving me a very pointed, knowing look. "Following the scent further from that slaughterhouse led me straight to the front door of this apartment. And here we are."
So, the incredibly overpowered, jealous asshole is named Luke, I noted mentally, filing the name away in the 'People I Need to Brutally Murder Later' folder in my brain. Also, note to self: vampires truly have terrifying, bloodhound-level senses. Mud and rain mean nothing to them.
Despite the creepy tracking methods, I found myself feeling a bit more well-disposed toward her. Coming to apologize at my grave was a surprisingly human thing to do.
"So, is this Luke guy a vampire, too?" I asked, tossing my pizza crust back into the box.
"Luke? It's... complicated," she sighed, rubbing her temple as if just saying his name gave her a migraine. "You could say he is partially one."
"I see..." I replied.
I didn't see at all. 'Partially' a vampire? What did that even mean? Did he only drink blood on the weekends? But I didn't press the issue, mainly because just thinking about that glowing-eyed bastard was starting to seriously piss me off again. I decided to pivot to a broader, more pressing question.
"How could the existence of vampires not be widely known by now?" I asked, gesturing vaguely to the window and the sprawling, oblivious city beyond it. "In the age of the internet and smartphones, how is this a secret?"
"Ah, this is mostly due to the extreme discretion of our people, paired with millennia of aggressive history manipulation," she explained matter-of-factly, as if discussing corporate policy. "Since we are immortal, we have more than enough time to carefully and methodically erase our traces from human records. We also heavily rely on the spreading of false information to keep humanity chasing ghosts."
She offered a small, almost arrogant smirk. "The rumors that paint vampires as being allergic to the sun or repelled by garlic are completely bogus. And don't even get me started on the wooden stake or silver bullet nonsense. Like almost all true immortals, we can only actually die by complete decapitation."
Her smirk faded slightly as she looked at my perfectly intact neck. "Well, at least, that is exactly what I thought until I met you."
So it's like that, I thought, rapidly digesting this massive lore drop. Decapitation is the standard off-switch for immortals. Good to know.
"Are there other supernaturals?" I asked, my curiosity fully peaked.
"Of course," she nodded. "The world is teeming with them, hiding in plain sight. Ranging from Lycans and Demons to Angels and Fae. Even Gods."
"Wait, hold on," I interrupted, raising a hand. "Gods exist? Like, for real? Actual, mythological deities?"
"Yeah," she said casually, utterly unfazed by my shock. "It's just that you need to reach a truly absurd level of power to ever come into contact with one of them. They don't typically bother with the lower realms."
I was officially, entirely mind-blown. The supernatural world I was suddenly venturing into seemed incredibly deep, complex, and profound—like a bottomless abyss of terrifyingly strong entities.
Well, at least I definitely won't die permanently, I thought jokingly, relying on my glitchy system to keep me sane in the face of literal gods and demons.
I took a sip from a cracked plastic cup of tap water, leaning back against the lumpy cushions of my sofa. "Alright, I have nothing more to ask for now. You can go ahead and say why you are truly here."
Chloe suddenly looked uncharacteristically nervous. She shifted her weight on the folding chair, her glowing eyes avoiding mine for a second. "I am here to ask something of you," she said, her voice laced with heavy hesitation.
"What?" I asked, taking another sip of water.
"Well... there is really no good way to say this, but I want you to be my fake boyfriend."
"WHAT?? WHY?!"
I violently choked on my water, coughing and sputtering as the liquid went straight down the wrong pipe. I pounded my chest, staring at her through watering eyes. Had she lost her immortal mind?!
"This... well, what happened earlier tonight is the main reason," she said, wincing slightly at my dramatic coughing fit.
"You mean when that psycho literally reaped my head off?!" I rasped, my voice an octave higher than usual.
"Yeah. I should explain from the start so you understand the political situation better," she said, interlacing her slender fingers. "My family is one of the absolute oldest vampire families in the world, created by my father over 5,000 years ago..."
"Wait, you mean you're almost 5,000 years old?!" I blurted out, my eyes bulging out of my skull. Was I being propositioned by an ancient, bloodsucking fossil?
"What?! NO!" she snapped, a highly offended flush coloring her pale cheeks. "I am just 22 years old this year!"
"Oh. Sorry," I mumbled sheepishly, rubbing the back of my neck.
"Anyway," she continued, glaring at me briefly before regaining her composure, "As I was saying, our family is an ancient one. About 2,000 years ago, my father received critical, life-saving help from an extremely ancient and unbelievably powerful human mage named Atticus White. To repay this massive blood debt, my father foolishly promised the hand of his firstborn daughter to Atticus's son."
She let out a long, exhausted sigh. "Now, I am technically engaged to the son of this mage. Luke White. The man whom you met earlier today."
"Ah," I muttered, the pieces finally clicking together in my resurrected brain. "Now I get why this asshole killed me without a second thought. He saw us together in the alley and thought you and I were an item."
In other words, I was just collateral damage in this ridiculous, millennia-old supernatural soap opera. Just absolute GREAT!
"Exactly," Chloe nodded. "And that is exactly why I desperately need you to be my fake boyfriend. As your resilience has already been spectacularly proven to me tonight, I don't have to worry about him actually killing you. If you keep coming back, maybe he will finally understand that I want absolutely nothing to do with him and give up."
"Why don't you just explicitly tell him that to his face?" I demanded, genuinely baffled by the convoluted logic of the undead.
"I tried! Repeatedly!" she said, her composure slipping into genuine frustration. "He is an arrogant blockhead and entirely refuses to hear it. Also, since his father is a terrifyingly powerful mage and currently serves as a regional head of the global Magic Council, not to mention being the grand benefactor of my own father... it's quite difficult to just tell him to get lost without starting a war."
Another self-entitled, rich, powerful prick who thinks he owns the world, I thought hatefully, my mind instantly flashing back to the billionaire bastard who had gotten me fired and beaten in the alley just yesterday.
I looked at the gorgeous vampire sitting across from me, rapidly calculating my options.
"So, will you help me?" she asked, her glowing eyes practically pleading.
"What exactly will I gain from this?" I asked coldly, leaning forward. "After all, I am certainly not your friend, and frankly, considering I lost my head over your domestic drama, you already owe me massively."
"I didn't intend for you to do this highly dangerous favor for free, of course," she said calmly, her aristocratic mask slipping back into place. "I would pay you handsomely for your services."
"How much?" I asked, genuinely tempted despite the glaring, neon-red warning signs flashing in my head.
"Ten million dollars," she stated softly, without batting an eye.
"Cough! Cough! I am sorry, what?!" I hacked, almost choking on my own saliva this time.
"Ten. Million. Dollars," she repeated, enunciating every single syllable perfectly.
"You've got yourself a deal."
I didn't even hesitate for a microsecond. I shot up from the lumpy sofa and practically lunged across the milk crate to aggressively shake her cold, pale hand. Pride and safety be damned. For ten million dollars, I would let Luke chop my head off every single Tuesday.
"Thank you," she said, heaving a massive, very un-vampiric sigh of relief as she shook my hand. "What is your bank account number? I will transfer one-fourth of the payment immediately as a retainer, and the rest will be wired after the job is successfully concluded."
I grabbed my cracked phone with trembling fingers, quickly pulled up my banking app, and read her my routing number. She tapped silently on her own sleek device for a few seconds.
Not long after, my phone buzzed in my palm. A push notification slid across the cracked glass.
No sound in the entire history of the universe was sweeter to my ears. I looked down at the illuminated screen and stared at the bold green numbers: +$2,500,000.00.
I was absolutely ecstatic. My heart was hammering against my ribs so hard I thought it might crack them. It seemed my crippling, lifelong poverty issue had just been violently and beautifully assassinated.
Having finalized our insane business transaction, Chloe stood up from the folding chair, smoothing out the invisible wrinkles in her jacket, and walked gracefully toward the apartment door.
"I will be in touch, Sam," she said, glancing back at me over her shoulder.
"Sure thing, boss," I grinned, not even looking away from the millions of dollars displayed on my screen.