Free Everything Sucks Short #1 Underground by R. Smith Page B

off
eas--"
    "You have no idea what it was like!" He
bellowed. "There was no place safe! No haven anywhere!"
    Iris/Idris dropped fang and shoved him away
with a repulsed sneer. "And yet you would've destroyed what little
shelter we had!" She pushed him again. Hard. He stumbled back. "You
were reckless!" She snarled. "And now I see you're sluffing about
with shiftless teenagers? How can you ; of all Vampires;
stand them?"
    He glared at her, and thought back to the
brief time he had spent in the Underground with the rest of them,
all slaves to the Vatican, and at the mercy of their ever shifting
loyalties and squabbles.
    Hector had become a Vampire the night one was
sent to kill his father. Nothing personal, Hector would learn soon
after. Just another night on the job. The price of protection.
Living Hector had stepped into the fray, meaning to save his only
family. The Vampire had been tasked with killing the Seniore
Astigius, but felt bad about the collateral damage in the form of
such a young man.
    Once turned (and fully adjusted) he felt free
for the first time in his life, no longer ruled by duty or fear.
The agents of fear were everywhere, peddling toxic ideas and
poisonous suspicion among otherwise peaceful people. The reach of
their influence seemed endless. They pointed holy fingers, waved
books, and shouted Latin to cast out imagined devils. When
suspicion fell upon them, most could do nothing except bow, hide or
die.
    He felt free of it all as a Vampire. Until he
realized he was the devil of the day. One of many; imagined or
otherwise. Living People fell under Papal scrutiny on a regular
basis, but they could at least stand in front of their accusers in
daylight without howling in pain. They had friends and allies.
Hector rarely encountered another Vampire; and none whom might help
if he was ever caught in the far flung net of righteous
hysteria.
    In the end, he decided to find his maker and
beg for protection. The Vampire had never even revealed his name,
but he'd stayed with Hector those first days, explaining the
basics. Then, one day, he just snuck away, seemingly swallowed by
the city. What little Hector learned about his father's
excommunication, and resulting assassination, gave him a good idea
where he might find more of his peers. There were precious few
Vampires to be found wandering in Spain. So, he left the city of
his birth, and traveled to Rome. The guts of the beast; heart of
the monolithic monster. He hated to set foot anywhere near it. A
stone's throw from the men who defined holiness, and made it their
business to uphold the balance of a righteous universe with
heartless precision.
    Upon reaching his destination, he hid in an
old drainage tunnel during the day, often pacing to pass the time
while water, sometimes hip-deep, flowed by him carrying all types
of filth; rotted or half eaten food, dead animals, even a bloated
human torso once. Rancid garbage. He left the tunnels as night fell
and wandered, hoping to spot a Vampire. He paid attention to talk
on the street, and kept an eye on windows and doors of known
dissidents, confident any assassin he spotted was likely a Vampire.
His wait lasted only four days. A man snuck out of his house in the
dead of night, followed shortly by a Vampire woman. She moved with
effortless stealth, and kept a safe distance.
    Hector fell into step a safe distance from
the both of them. The stench of fear and sweat wafted off the
sneaking man in thick waves, so Hector assumed he was smart enough
to understand the possible consequences of his disobedience. He
watched as the man slipped into a dead-end alleyway, followed
shortly by the shadowy streak of his soon-to-be assassin as she
darted in after him. Hector calmly strolled over and waited for the
woman to emerge alone and bloody.
    Hunger got the better of him when he smelled
the blood, so he called out, "if you're in a sharing mood, I
wouldn't say no!"
    She laughed. He took it as an invitation and
joined her in the