I decided I was being a tweak and headed into the house. As I stepped over the threshold every single cut, slash, gash, scrape, contusion, and bruise flared at the same time. I stumbled forward into the dark house, unable to ignore the pain. Mo’Lock grabbed hold of me, flipped the light, and shut the door. At my feet I saw tiny pieces of shattered glass. It didn’t take long for either of us to realize we were not alone.

Dave, the vampire I should have killed earlier, was waiting for me in Sam’s living room.

He was to our right, standing next to the window he had obviously smashed through to get in. I’d thought he was ugly in the shadows of the Houdini house. In the dank yellow light of Sam’s living room, he was absolutely fucking hideous. He had rough skin as white as boiled chicken meat, and this gross little upturned nose filled with ancient vampire nose-hair. Mo’Lock and I stood still and said nothing. It was a standoff.

I couldn’t take my eyes off his nose and I knew it was because I was high. He looked like a rabid pig in a suit. As soon as that thought entered my head, I laughed. The vampire was about to make his move, but my chuckle stopped him cold in his tracks, confused. It caught him completely off-guard and gave Mo’Lock the opening he’d been waiting for.

The ghoul lunged at the bloodsucker and tackled him mid-torso. They hit the wall hard, shattering paint and plaster as they fell to the floor. The vampire hissed and kicked and clawed. Mo’Lock held his own, planting a rapid succession of alternating right and left hooks down on Dave’s ugly-ass face.

It was dead versus dead. The vampire kicked the ghoul off him. Mo’Lock landed on his feet. Dave did that vampire-rising-from-the-casket thing, rising straight to his feet, absolutely rigid, without bending a limb. Pretty impressive, actually.

I moved as far from the fight as I could and fell against the wall. My body was freezing up. Suddenly, I felt like I was dying. Either that or a major anxiety attack. The wounds all over my body were throbbing and stinging. Infection, I thought, it had to be infection. Please let it be an infection. I began to sweat profusely.

I turned around, still leaning on the wall, refusing to fall, until my back was resting against the surface. Mo’Lock and the vampire were really going at it, exchanging blows at speeds that blurred their motions. In a flash, the tide of battle had shifted and the ghoul was getting the worst of it. He was staggering back a bit and taking far more shots than he was throwing. Part of the reason was that the stupid ghoul kept looking over at me wriggling against the wall, sweating like some kind of freak.