Justin was a bit calmer, but immediately threw his hands up in surrender.
"Hey man, calm down."
Alaric turned his head to face this man who inspired so much fear and found what appeared to be a scrawny punk dressed in a black hooded sweatshirt with a skull on the chest.
The hood was drawn up, and a black bandana and sunglasses obscured the details of his face.
At the briefest glance, anyone could assume such a man was up to no good.
He brandished a firearm over his head.
Guns existed in Alaric's time, but the ages had changed them, making them more accurate, more lethal, easier and less frequent to reload, and dangerously compact.
This man had walked into Pump N' Go with the gun in the pocket of his baggy pants or sweatshirt and drawn no suspicion or notice.
Alaric turned around and faced the criminal, unafraid but wary. "I was in the midst of something when you interrupted, villain," he said.
"I lament whatever misfortune brought you to such depths of moral bankruptcy, but
surely there are alternatives?"
"Not easy ones," the young man croaked, his hand shaking as he lowered it from the sky, bringing it to point at Alaric.
The seasoned warrior noted that at the angle the gun was pointing, it would clip him in the shoulder at best.
Such a hit would deal no major damage and signal Vladira, who could be here within seconds in his defense now that the sun
was behind the clouds and fixing to set.
"Why—why do you have a whip?"
Alaric smirked. When on his hip, the Angel's Tear appeared to be a brown leather bullwhip, not unlike any other.
But once he held it in his hand, its indestructible silver chains would appear, and the three prongs of the Holy Trinity would glimmer divinely under the ghastly fluorescent lighting of the gas station interior.
"Call it a family heirloom," he said. "D-drop it."
Alaric snatched the whip in a rapid movement and snapped it into the man's arm, causing a spurt of crimson to streak into the air and paint the potato chip display in the blood of a sinner.
Then, Alaric crouched low, scarcely dodging a bullet from another man he'd pretended not to notice, turning the Angel's Tear on him.
It wrapped around his leg and shredded his ankle as Alaric tugged the chain of his whip with both hands. The secondman let out a cry as he went ankles-over-ass in the air, then a groan of pain after his cranium clunked against the linoleum floor.
Whatever bystanders were left quickly ran out the door—some of them taking their prospective purchases with them.
"Tammy, call the cops!" Justin shouted, perspiration pooling in his armpits as he hopped over the counter and locked the front door, causing a neon sign that read "Open" to suddenly say "Closed".
Tammy fumbled for her cellphone, which Alaric eyed jealously. Getting phones was another thing he needed to accomplish in the next day or so— perhaps using prepaid plans rather than contracts they couldn't yet commit to.
He saw a pair of them in the W-Mart for sale earlier and almost bought them on the spot, but—
"Alaric, what the Hell are you suddenly daydreaming about?" Justin blurted out, apparently noticing the bored look on the monster slayer's face.
"Sorry. Nothing."
The scrawny red-haired girl's hands were shaking as she returned to the conversation.
"Hang on one sec, in all the stress, I forgot my passcode for a minute there. Dialing now!"
Before Tammy could input the 9 in 9-1-1, though, the windows and doors shattered as a veritable torrent of vampire bats screeched shrilly as they invaded the Pump N' Go, descending upon the two men on the ground like piranhas as they ripped their flesh from their bones and caused bubbling puddles of blood to fill the gas station
floor.
When the bats began to coalesce into a womanly shape moments later, only skeletons were left.
Vladira appeared, just after the nick of time, wearing a plain T-Shirt that was just a shade whiter than her ghostly pale skin.
Her eyes had gone to solid red as she flung herself against Alaric's chest and rubbed her face against him and inhaled.
Alaric stood utterly still, making the most awkward eye contact of his life with the man that he had hoped until a moment ago might be his future
employer.
"Alaric, Darling," Dracula sobbed dramatically, "did those bad men try
to hurt you?"
"I had it handled," he said, his body tense as she rubbed herself all over him like a needy kitten. "We were going to report them to the authorities."
"Well don't worry now," she told him, "I'll take care of everything." She turned her monstrous stare on Tammy next.
"What are you looking at, girl?"
"W-what?!" Tammy said, dropping her phone. A terrible shattering sound
indicated that she broke her screen, but no one in the room acted like they noticed.
Vladira turned around with her back to Alaric, but reached back to put her arms around his neck possessively.
She leaned into him, and against his best judgment, he supported her weight with his hands on her waist out of reflex.
"I understand that you are a mortal woman with whom Alaric is to be employed. As his coworker, if you wish to continue to exist, you must abide by the following rules—
Firstly, you're a virgin, I can tell from the smell of you. Therefore, you are my blood bitch from now on. Once a week, I will drink of you, and I will drink enough that you will need to take the next day off of work."
She turned her gaze on Justin. "Mark that down."
"Y-yes, ma'am," Justin grunted, ripping some paper off the receipt roll to jot her comments down with the pen clipped to his breast pocket.
"Good. Now," she looked back at the quivering Tammy. "You must not ever physically make contact with Alaric or I will skin you alive and eat you, piece by piece until only your torso and head are left.
I will keep you alive as I do it for as long as I possibly can, fully conscious so that you may know the truest depths of regret. The same also goes if you make prolonged
eye contact with him."
"I'll just…schedule them at different times," Justin croaked.