you. Get dressed. I have to attend a council meeting and somehow convince them all you’re worthy of the honor I’ve bestowed on you, and that I didn’t do this because my dick decided to be desperate last night.”
My face soured. I didn’t like what he was insinuating. “I’ll have you know, I’m pretty fucking awesome. And what about work? And does sunlight kill us? I was hella sensitive to it yesterday. What about garlic? Do you all really sleep in coffins? Do I have a reflection?” I gasped at the thought of never seeing myself again.
Diego rubbed his temples. “Read the pamphlet, Drew. I’ll come get you in three hours. Call in sick to work. Or better yet, call in dead.”
With those ominous words, Diego disappeared out the metal door, slamming it shut as he left.
And the moment he was gone, I freaked the fuck out.
After I was sure Diego had left, I went back to the welcome basket and tore it apart. I don’t know what I was looking for, but it felt good to rip it open. I threw all the contents out onto the bed. My eyes landed on the bag of blood that had been forgotten as soon as I heard the word royalty. I grabbed it and stalked over to the kitchen where I found a straw and poked it through the bag, Capri Sun style. I could do this. I could drink blood like it was a totally normal thing to do.
Holy suck, what was happening to me?
As horrible as it was to admit to myself, the room temperature blood wasn’t as good as drinking it directly from Diego’s veins, but having a little snack did help to calm me down a bit. With my head slightly clearer, I went over to the bed to find the pamphlet among the strewn about items. If this was going to be my life, may as well read the how-to guide.
I got distracted by a pair of big round Gucci sunglasses. King of the Damned had good taste. Placing them on my face, I walked over to the mirror to admire them. I slid them down my nose, blew kisses to myself in the mirror, and fake laughed as I checked myself out. Noticing a trickle of leftover blood on my lip, I leaned in closer to the mirror to wipe it off. That’s when it dawned on me that I could, thankfully, still see my reflection. I really needed to read that pamphlet.
This time when I went to look for the leaflet, I didn’t let anything distract me. Except maybe the Magnum condoms, I bet those were Diego’s size. From my brief encounter with his member of the undead, he needed the Magnums. But do vampires even come? Is it to stop infections? Does bacteria even affect the nonliving? Holy shit, I’m a vampire.
A real life vampire.
This was normal. Totally cool.
I needed something to do, or I was going to completely lose my shit.
Right, the pamphlet.
I sat down at the kitchen table with my Capri blood and How to Be a Vampire 101 booklet and started reading: So, you’re a vampire. Now what? I bet you have a lot of questions about your changing body. Questions that are perfectly normal. Let’s dive right in. Geez, did this thing have a table of contents? I needed to know the important things like sex-ed and how to function as though I weren’t a vampire. Like at work. Oh shit, work. I needed to call my boss, Lacey, and let her know I wasn’t coming in today, or like ever, depending on what the rest of this pamphlet said.
My phone was almost dead from not being charged last night, but it had enough battery to make a quick phone call. Putting on my best fake sick voice, I dialed her number.
“Drew, where the fuck are you? You were supposed to be here twenty minutes ago,” Lacey answered, straight to the point.
“I know, I’m so sorry,” I coughed. “I’m sick. I can’t come in and spread my germs around the office.”
“As disgusting as that sounds, the Love Yourself group moved up the presentation. They are coming in today, and you have to be here. They loved what we did last time and want us to start marketing their new Out of This World line. Something about aliens, or X-Files, or conspiracy theorists. I don’t know, they kind of lost me with that one. But you need to get here,