So I Might Be a Vampire - Book 1 (Original Version)

78: Surprise, Motherfucker!

Somewhere around the fourth bar (please don't ask me the name), and after an ungodly amount of tequila, the Hall of the Drunken King was only two blocks away. It was a distance that we were relatively confident we could cover and still be drunk enough not to chicken out at the last minute. We had really pushed the limits of drunkenness in vampires and I considered myself among the leading experts on the topic of how long it takes for a vampire to sober up after two bottles of tequila and a fair amount of walking.

"How far was that this time? Four blocks?"

"Three and a half," Stanley said. "Already losing my buzz."

Frankie had his cell phone out, Google Maps on the screen as he reminded himself what the next bar was. "The Wooly Mammoth is just around the corner. We can fill up there."

"Why didn't we just take an Uber?" I groaned. "All of this walking isn't good for us. We're sobering up way too fast! Are you feeling sober Stanley?"

"I'm feeling sober! How you feeling Ben?"

"Can we go home yet? This is taking forever."

"He's feeling sober!" Natalie responded for him.

"One more bar!" I tried to be more enthusiastic then I felt. "We're doing this, right?"

"Storming the castle!" Natalie and Stanley said almost together, but damn if they didn't sound as convinced as they had before.

"Don't make me give a rousing speech you bastards!" I growled. "I really, really suck at them."

"Just shoot me now," Benjamin groaned.

We stormed into the Wooly Mammoth (the name of the bar has been changed to protect the guilty) and drank ourselves silly. There was no karaoke at this bar, just a lot of over-priced alcohol and a clientele who was dressed way better than we were. For a few moments, I wondered if we had somehow discovered another vampire bar, but the lack of those piercing blue vampire eyes anywhere but among our little group told a different story. It was just rich people who liked to buy expensive drinks because expensive drinks at least kept the ordinary rabble far away from the bar. And there we were among them, rabbling as rabblers do. We got a few looks as we seated ourselves, but they were mostly just innocently curious.

"I gotta piss," I whispered to Frankie and grinned at him. "Don't you bastards go anywhere without me!"

"Storming the castle!" Frankie said without any enthusiasm.

"Storming the castle! Woo!" I echoed and then stumbled off to the bathroom. I stood at the urinal for a long time, taking a long deserved piss, wondering if I was actively reducing the level of alcohol in my system. It was a stupid thought, the kind you have when you're either drunk or stoned, but it was mostly the type of thought you have when the act of pissing is just taking for-fucking-ever.

I noticed the suit first you know. It's funny the things you notice when you're nice and properly drunk. The bathroom walls of the Wooly Mammoth held no graffiti to entertain us errant pissers, only little seven inch HD screens placed at eye level to blast us with the specials on the menu or whatever they wanted to show us, and believe me, those are impossible to hold the attention of the properly drunk. So yeah, the suit on the man at the next urinal, was definitely the first thing that caught my attention. I hadn't noticed when he had come in, you know, me being caught up in the throes of pissing and everything, so for me, it was as if he had appeared out of thin air.

"You alright there?" he asked, with a wry smile on his face.

"I think I just pissed the drunk away," I muttered, deliberately not looking at the dude. I threw a glance his way, of course, a slight turn of the head before jerking it back so he would be assured that I wasn't trying to sneak a peek or anything. Some guys can be weird. There was something wrong about him though, even though I wasn't looking at him, but it was just something I couldn't put my finger on.