Vampire in DC

Vampire Rule N°25: Power is power; soft, personal, financial or otherwise. Be sure to cultivate lest your foes overtake you and drag you to your final death.

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'I kind of miss my nights as a humble Crackhouse Resident,' John Harker thought, his blue eyes glaring at the offending piece of paper sitting, menacingly, on his desk.

A paper surrounded by many others, so many of them that they formed a small pile; forms, daily reports, monthly reports, more forms, bills from suppliers, bills from the state, warnings from the Gotham City Council who need to justify their cursed existence somehow and decided that hounding a small East End business owner was the way to go.

"To think that we're razing the rainforests for this…" John growled, this was a shame, a bloody shame.

The paperwork was unending, perhaps due to the limited amount of time he has each night to complete it in between two bouts of blood drinking and time spent in the field maintaining that sweet reputation of his.

Or because of some curse put on those who achieved positions of power, forcing them to waste away as each available hour of their painful existence gets consumed by the wicked mountains of mind-numbing, soul-crushing, dick-limping paperwork.

He heard about it before when he had yet to file his first LLC, when the Bubbles Metal Collecting was nothing but a risky gig with a single hoodrat instead of the huge hustle of hoodrats working hard hours.

Whispers spoken by grey-bearded, slick-haired entrepreneurs and elderly accountants, tales of zero-sum bills and bullshit regulations that appeared on their desks on their own.

'Nah, that's just superstition,' said the literal vampire, shaking his head and signing away at yet another paper.

Slowly but surely, progress was being made and John's most powerful enemy until now was facing a seemingly inevitable defeat.

A demand to allocate funds to buy new equipment in that car-flipping business, allowed.

A warning against a driver who tried diverting funds from the metal scrapping business, issued.

A business-plan to open that long-awaited home development and renovation company with Carl from the NA meetings, studied and considered before being approved.

The man had a busted back, but he's spent his entire house fixing and flipping houses for another man's fortune, he had skills and contacts that even his years wasted on opioids couldn't destroy, at least this time he'd actually get a fair wage and a percentage of the money he's generating.

A better deal than anyone would offer a recovering addict with a criminal record, and he was the vampire.

The desk was soon all but emptied and John was already salivating at the thought of a future snack, Vicky had been hounding him for another date, and Max was enjoying a rare night of free time since they've opened that cafè/cupcake shop she always wanted.

So many possibilities, so little time. It was the kind of problem John enjoyed having, the kind that puts a smile on his face while he approves the fitting of new toilets in the hostel after Greg from accounting busted the old ones yet again.

'I should probably deduct it from his salary,' He thought, before remembering that man had recently made peace with his wife and was trying to get more involved with his kid's life, 'Nah, let's just send him a memo.'

With a stroke of masterful penmanship, the evil beast was subjugated and our pointy-toothed hero ushered in an age of peace and prosperity for all the dopefiends, crackheads and gin-breathed wrecks to enjoy.

Until the former junkie attacked.

"Evening boss!" Reginald said, pushing the door open with his hips, carrying something John couldn't see, "I've got something for you, your eyes only."

"Oh no…" John's eyes shook, looking at a yet another pile of documents being carried by his ghoul's enhanced arms.

"Oh yes—" The retainer answered with a shit-eating grin, "—and it's all due for tomorrow morning."

The retainer brought the cursed thing right up to his desk, before bringing it down with a resounding *thud*

Though it sounded more like a crack to John's ears, then again, it was hard to tell with the sound of his unbeating heart breaking.

"You was the one who wanted to go all entrepreneurial and shit." Reginald however, seemed to be having a lot of fun.

Too much fun.

"Remind me to give you a promotion," John said, and in his mind it sounded more intimidating than any speech he gave to a scared shitless drug dealer.

However, dopefiends had the tendency to be a bit hardier than those who fed their addiction, given that they're the ones poking their veins with shared needles and getting beat up every once in a while when somebody was having a bad day.

And quitting the junk did nothing to quell Reginald Cousin's indomitable crackhead spirit.

"Alright, whose shit do I have to eat next?" John said, playing with his pen, not quite daring to start reading that utter mess on his desk.

That was the gist of his life as a businessperson, sitting his fancy arse on a fancy desk and being served plate after plate of shit from various sources, shit he needed to deal with urgently, shit that demanded so much attention, money and energy that he started contemplating whether or not he should just go full blood-thirsty murder-hobo.

Reginald laughed, and it meant nothing good.

"Oh boss, today's a big bowl," The ghoul grinned, reading a carefully prepared overview he made during the day, "Helena, the grandma from the Thomas and Martha Wayne Rehab Center, got a problem from the bank blocking the donations for that third group you guys wanted to open by Park Row, a piece of shit idea if I might say, those folks are more about gouging someone's eyes out than caring about dope."

"Mind your language," John rolled his eyes, "But that's true, they have so many problems over there that drugs seem more like an afterthought, see if we can put it down in Heights instead, or at least keep it in Brideshead."

"What else?" John continued, leaning on his seat and looking at the ceiling, a much more pleasant sight than the pile of brain-poison on his desk.

"The Drug Users Counting Initiative is over, but the results are even more troublesome than we thought." He said, and went on to explain how they sent four men all around Brideshead to count heads of active users, recovering addicts and former addicts who still need help.

Said men were weaned off drugs and subjected to a healthy amount of presence-based therapy to ensure their reliability, but it didn't seem to work that well.

"Well, the good news is that you were completely right..." Reginald said, scratching his well-groomed beard.

"I usually am." John smirked.

"Yeah, the official stats are complete bogus, but that's to be expected from the government," He continued without paying any regard to his vampire liege's obvious narcissism, "The non-profits aren't much better, they all juke the stats so much it's not even funny."

That was the whole reason for their little operation, if John wanted a drug-free area, then it would not only require knowing who's selling drugs, but also who's buying it, how often, since when and for which reason.

It had nothing to do with the enticing prospect of getting more of that readily available, often skilled but always determined and appreciative labor force.

"So what's the problem?" He asked.

"Yeah, our guys did a great job going around the neighborhood making lists, but the problem is that they all got different numbers." Reginald explained, "And since pretty much everyone is known by a street name, getting them to give up their real one can be a pain, so we get about four dozen Big Ricks, eighty-six Fat Jims, and a whopping two hundred fiends called Baby."

"…"

"Also, there's a beat cop making one of the driver's life difficult, keeps stopping him and doing strip searches each time he sees his arse on the wheel." Reginald went, not leaving much time for the younger man to think.

"And if you want to use your bullshit Jedi Powers to get every fiend in the district clean before Bruce Wayne's illegitimate children start showing up, then you'll also have to find the time to move your white ass and go Anne Rice at least eighty people this very night."

John could do nothing but groan, and mumble something about going out to bust some kingpin's head like a watermelon for making this mess in the first place.

"Is there anything even remotely interesting in this mess?" He couldn't help but ask.

"Nope," Reginald answered without popping the p, because he's a thirty-something grown man and that would just be weird.

John groans again.

"This ain't very Dracula of you boss." Reginald shook his head.

"Vampires aren't known for their work ethics." John shot back.

Or any set of ethics for that matter, hard to keep with the whole sexual harassment/cannibalism thing they gotta pull to survive.

Reginald checks up his paper one last time, hoping to at least raise his liege's morale.

Failing that, he'll just order him some models.

"Wait, there is something!" Reginald said, and John perked up directly looking at him like one would a saviour.

Reginald Cousins, bane of the vampire's boredom.

"One of our guys in the street, Frankie the ex-convict, he started helping out with the needle exchange when he ain't busy working with the car repairs crew."

"Frankie who went to jail for fucking a goat?" John asked for clarification sake.

"Allegedly." Reginald counters.

"Twice." John insisted.

"You want to hear it or not?" Reginald raised a brow.

"Nah, I'll take the goat-fucker over the paperwork, thank you very much," John shook his head, "Please, do go on."

Reginald chuckled at his master's antics.

"Yeah, he's come back this morning and reported that word's on the street 'bout Hungry and other big names in these corners getting their shit back together and coming back with the greatest bomb to have graced these streets in years."

"Oh, do tell." John smiled, that was promising.

Hungry had been a great punching bag the last time they met.

"They've got a shipment of coke straight outa of some Latino hell hole, real blast, best of the best. Big shots in all of East End bought their package at wholesale price, and they're about to use it all to buy even more of that good shit, all the action is supposed to be somewhere in Red Hook." Reginald said with a mix of respect and distaste only a former fiend could muster.

Even when you no longer cared for the needle, good blast was praiseworthy.

"The one with all the warehouses?" John asked, raking his brain for that specific part of the city.

"Yep, the very same."

Red Hook Industrial Storage Zone, huh.

"That's a trap." John concluded.

"Obviously," Reginald nodded wisely, a knowing smile on his face, "But it also means that most if not all the manpower of Brideshead Organized Drug Enterprises will be focused on a single spot, and there's no way in hell you'd pass up so much fun."

John's smiled in return, his fangs showing.

"Oh, you know me too well, my friend."