000
Und wird die Welt auch in Flammen stehen...
001
Heavy door closed shut behind her back with a barely hearable screeching sound and a very hearable “thump!” Deathtopia looked around, surveying the large badly lit room she found herself in – well, the absence of light wasn’t a problem, but the enormity of unfamiliar space was. It wasn’t her castle. It belonged to another of her kind. That normally would make it an enemy territory – not the place she wanted to be in right now.
Deathtopia shivered.
Mostly just to pass the time and not because of the feeling of lots of tiny needles poking at her spine.
Well, at least the maid looked welcoming enough.
Dressed in classic uniform – just with inverted colors: white blouse and skirt with the black apron, collar and cuffs, – she was patiently patiently waiting for a guest to stop shivering and calm down.
“Welcome, Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicide-Master” she finally said. “Master Krieger is waiting for you. If you would follow me, please…”
002
Past the long dark hallway, – Deathtopia could swear, the floor there was covered by swaths of mist or smoke, probably just to keep up with the stereotypes – and up by a spiraling stairway, the maid led her to the rather spacious room… a study, perhaps?
A chandelier hanging from the ceiling, rows of old books lining up the wall, a writing table with stationary in one end of the room, a pair of chairs and a small table in the opposite end, along with a fireplace – everything that one would expect to find in an old castle belonging to traditionally European vampire.
Well, fireplace was certainly unusual.
"Welcome, Suicide-Master. Please, enter my humble abode, let us talk, exchange news and use it as a chance to rest" said the owner of the castle, rising up from one of the chairs with a welcoming gesture. He looked like a well-dressed man past his mid-forties, but he was a vampire – so looks told very little about his age.
Deathtopia's certainly said little about hers.
"Is there a need to be so formal, herr Krieger?" Deathtopia shook her head.
"No more than for you to use gratuitous German… Just Krieger is fine – I'm younger than you, Suizid-Meister, anyway. No matter how you may look now."
"That's so many veiled insults in one sentence, Krieger. Impressive," she walked up to him, looking angrily right into his eyes. It would've been much more intimidating if she wasn't so much shorter than him. "You know I still have enough power, right?"
"I sure do." No matter the height difference, intimidation seemed to work – Krieger bowed to her, hiding his eyes. "Take a seat, please."
003
"A drink?" he asked, waited for Deathtopia to nod, then turned to the maid, hiding in the back of the room. "Weisz, would you please…"
In a moment she showed up with a bottle and a pair of tall glasses. Deathtopia observed with curiosity, how the maid filled them with a viscous liquid, coloured red, so deep and dark it almost seemed black.
She took a sip and looked at Krieger with even more curiosity.
"What?" he looked puzzled. "It's a wine. Very good, very old wine."
"A wine for a vampire…"
"Is still a wine" he concluded. "We don't get drunk on it like humans do, but that just makes enjoying the taste easier."
"Not for me" Deathtopia shook her head. "I guess there are things that after being tasted leave your senses numb forever."
"Unfortunate."
"Still worth it" Deathtopia made a round gesture with her glass, then put it down on the table. "Speaking of tastes, though… Why the fireplace?"
"It looks nice."
"It could be deadly."
"Most nice things could."
"That trying too hard to sound deep."
"It is, isn't it?" Krieger chuckled. "But there's some truth to it anyway… I like to watch the flames the same way humans like to look at the caged tiger. It is deadly if let loose, yet it is beautiful. Plus the fireplace can be useful to dispose of things… Tiger can do that too, I guess, but that'd just be a waste of a tiger."
"Dispose… Burn?"
"Of course. Things like the correspondence, reports, notes… everything paper, basically."
"You still are getting those on paper?" Deathtopia was curious. Vampires weren't too good with technology, but even taking that into account…
"Exactly" Krieger nodded. "In our modern day and age paper sometimes is more secure and more trustworthy than other modes of communication. And can be disposed of in more irreversible way. Deleted files can be restored – ashes can't."
004
“Speaking of your work, Krieger.”
“Yes, Suicide-Master?”
“I wanted to…”
“Ask me for a favor?” he didn’t let her finish. “Or just to use my services for a reasonable payment?”
“I wish it was the second option…” Deathtopia sighed. “Who am I kidding: I wish you’d say something like ‘I will do anything just spare my life’ – I wish I could squeeze those words out of your throat with my own hands… But wishes are wishes. Reality is completely different.”
“Thanks… for the honesty, I guess,” Krieger rubbed his neck. “But the truth is… I expected something like that from you. Coming for a favor to me, I mean.”
“You did?”
“Let’s say I have a… a network of connections – humans, half-humans, oddities, – who excel at gathering the information from all sources, including the exterminators, or ‘the specialists’ as they call themselves.”
“Interesting…” Deathtopia pinched her lower lip. “I thought you just went to work with the humans…”
“Vampire hunting other vampires… Not that there isn’t some of us who do that” Krieger said. “But not me. I’m merely an information broker for them…”
“And for us?”
“And for us I’m everything else.”
“Playing the resistance, are you?”
“Oh, it’s less of a resistance and more of a sanctuary – finding new places and ways for oddities to live, trying to preserve the more rare ones by letting them escape… that sort of thing.”
“Interesting job… A good one. Too good” Deathtopia pinched her lip again. “You’re a very strange vampire, Krieger, you know that…”
"I know that I am” Krieger smiled “And you know all too well, that either of us, if we so wanted, could send this world tumbling down, turn it into uninhabitable hell… But what's the point of even trying? It's… too boringly easy. So easy in fact that even humans can do it themselves. Are doing… if you listen to some. And we do many things, but none of them boring – that's just how we are."
“And creating this network of yours – inside the specialists’ networks no less – is not boring, right?”
“It definitely isn’t.”
005
"So, Suicide-Master… You’ve come to me to request a favor… A passage, perhaps, to somewhere… Where could that be…? No, let me guess…" he looked at her with his left eye, closing the right one. "Japan, right? Good choice if I say so myself, if a bit too obvious."
"Obvious?"
"Oh, that country have been very popular among our kind lately… Their exterminators are pretty lax when it comes to oddities that don't threaten people directly" he paused. "I've heard rumours they even allowed one vampire to exist almost freely… Fascinating. And, of course, it is still quite a populous place where you wouldn't need to worry about not having enough people around."
"True, it's not like the south pole or some place of that sort."
"Antarctica was a bad place to be an oddity once, that's true. A dead place… or a place for death" Krieger sighed. "But now some of the more… domestic, shall we say, spirits are making a living there. It isn't a good life by any means, there's still barely enough people to support domovoi or zashiki-warashi, but they make do."
"You sound so proud of it."
"Oh, excuse me Suicide-Master. I am always getting carried away when talking of our little accomplishments. After all – the work is the only joy of my existence."
“I am not sure about that” she cast a glance at the maid, still standing in the back.
“What are you implying? Weisz is a very valuable and extremely skilled helper.”
“As you say…” Deathtopia waved it away with her hand. “So, yes, I need to get to Japan – preferably as fast as possible… How much of a favor it is – and what would you ask in return, if you can say that now?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Absolutely nothing. Weisz!”
“Yes, master” maid replied and left the room – to return a moment later, accompanied by a human figure, wearing a slick black motorcycle helmet with the dark visor hiding the face behind it, leather jacket and pants and heavy black boots.
Deathtopia clicked her tongue.
“Suicide-Master, please meet my another helper” Krieger said. “His name is Ruprecht and he’s quite adept at riding… well, all things – from horses to the most modern mechanical contraptions.”
“Nice to meet you, miss…” leather-clad figure said in a deep growling voice.
“Nice… to meet you too, helmet boy.”
“”Suicide-Master…” Krieger turned her attention back to himself. “If you allow, Ruprecht will take you to the airport where a jet is already waiting for you. Sadly, it isn’t magic, so you will need to make a stop to refuel along the way – but otherwise it is the fastest and the most direct way to get where you need.”
Deathtopia looked at Ruprecht and Weisz then at Krieger, then she frowned:
"So, let me sum it up: you knew I was coming, you knew what I wanted to ask of you and you were already decided on granting my request. Why all the talking then? So many pointless words."
"I couldn't pass on the opportunity to meet the legendary Suicide-Master herself" Krieger smiled. "Plus the pilot episode works better if it has a guest star."
"Pilot episode? Hah!" Deathtopia laughed. "Do you really think you'll get full-blown series, silly old vampire? Even I didn't…"
"...As of the time of this writing" he pointed a finger at her.
"Don't give anyone hope…"
"Anyway…" he picked conversation up. "I really wanted to meet you face to face."
"Is there a reason for this?"
"Reason… Tell me, you know what I am?"
"What… A vampire?"
"You can say that, yes. But that's a misnomer… Or, should I say, 'a vampire' had become an umbrella term for all sorts of oddities, sometimes very different in nature."
"True, I guess… Which one of them are you then, Krieger?"
"Nachzehrer."
"Ew" Deathtopia grimaced.
"Don't you approve of our eating habits?"
"Not one bit."
"In other time it'd be a reason to pick a fight…" Krieger closed his right eye again. "But now… it doesn't matter. What does – do you know how we are coming to be?"
"Not like the proper vampires that's for sure…" Deathtopia's face still held an image of revulsion. "Something about people dying in a freak accidents? Suicides?"
"Sometimes, yes. But also the first victim of the plague was said to turn into the undead…"
"So what? Oh… Are you that old, Krieger?"
"Yes, I am, Suicide-Master. Of course, I wasn't the very first victim – just the first in my local community, but you guessed right… It was that plague – the worst plague this world had seen, the plague whose name was beauty."
"You've seen her."
"I did. And I sacrificed my life to her – but… apparently that sacrifice wasn't accepted. Or so I thought when I woke up from my death.
"You can call it a survivors' gathering if you want. But actually I just wanted to meet a person, who stopped that plague. A person, that managed to cure the world. I would consider that payment enough for a transit to Japan for one."
"You've picked the wrong person then" Deathtopia said, looking down at her feet. "That'd be the one I'm trying to get to in Japan."
006
"Oh, whatever, grandpa!" Deathtopia suddenly jumped off of the chair. "Don't be so grumpy, old vampire. All this talking had bored me to no end… I'm in the mood to break some rules!"
She looked at the flames in the fireplace – they shimmered and fluttered under such gaze, causing nearby shadows to shift and fall into place anew. One of those was trying to move under the Suicide-Master's feet, but was swiftly caught and used as blanket, covering vampire from head to toe in black, then washing down off of her onto the floor into deep black puddle.
Where there was a little girl right now stood a young woman, wearing tight jeans, black sleeveless top and a leather jacket, embellished with rivets and spikes.
"Let's go, helmet boy" she said, bumping his shoulder with her fist. "Hope you get one of those for me, a-hah-ha."
"His name's Ruprecht" said Krieger grumpily.
"Ruprecht Tropischesque Hundefäden, got it, gramps!" she waved without looking back at him. "Bye!"
Krieger noticed that her jacket had "DEATHTÖPIA" on its back written in the heaviest of heavy metal fonts and chuckled, then shook his head.
"Go, old vampire" he said, speaking mostly to the air of his castle. "Go and look for your princess. Will you find her or not – that's not for me to know. But that isn't what matters. You're searching, that keeps you going – that's what important. For most of us… most of us could be motivated only by our appetite – but you, you definitely are something else."
He paused, looking at the flames, then shrugged.
"Still would be nice if you'd succeed…"
