Life On Mars
24 January 2007
The back room of Suckles once held the management office, it wasn't the most exciting room in the building, once a week, Sir Bert - the owner of Suckles for the last two hundred years would go in and do the payroll, which often consisted of about four people. (It did peak at twelve back in the golden lentil days of 1873). He'll also complete all the other requirements that as a small business owner he was legally obliged to comply with.
But Lady Anika and her cronies had pushed him out, they needed the office in order to launch a full out assault on the human race... or something like that. Unfortunately for the vampire rebellion, government regulation was turning out to be a bit of a bitch. So Lady Anika had been forced into her office working tirelessly night and day to get through the paperwork. Luckily, vampires do not require sleep. Most efficient.
What vampires do require though is a little relaxation. Lady Anika had studied the past attempts at vampire revolutions, there had been several in the last thirty years alone. All of which ended in disaster. Lady Anika's theory was that they had just tried too hard. The leaders had just stressed out too much, vampire revolutions are hardly like preparing apples for that peaceful picnic by that oddly strong river where you intend to slit the throat of your cheating bastard boyfriend before throwing him to be mulched up by the killer currents. No... It's stressful. Many of the greatest vampires have started to believe that their best friend is made of cheese started to drink green tea. In other words: they've gone completely mad. And contrary to popular opinion, crazy people don't make the greatest leaders. Hence, in an effort to avoid going round the bend, Lady Anika followed a strict schedule that would give her sufficient time to unwind and relax. She didn't want to end up like Sir George, who thought he was the reincarnation of Judas.
So, at this is particular point in time - Lady Anika was playing a game of pool with some of her minions. It was funny, all of her life - Lady Anika had sucked at pool, now she was awesome. It was like these balls were possessed. She hit them and they went into the holes, everyone else sucked. She guessed that the minions were unwilling to beat her for fear of being ostracised from the vampire community. Lady Anika wasn't petty enough to do such a thing, but now that she had gotten a few wins under her belt... maybe she might change her policy.
"Wow Lady Anika, you're really good..."
She gave the talking minion a quick stare and put down her pool cue. She went to the bar and ordered a Russian caravan tea. She had a lot on her mind - killing off that Zeverin fellow had put her behind on the paperwork. But it was worth it, drama was everything in revolutions.
"Sorry for the mouse problem Lady."
The barman was referring to the sudden increase of mice that had infested Suckles recently. He had no idea why it had happened. Nor was he doing anything about it. These vampires spent most of their time in a dingy dark bar anyway, they were barely going to notice the mice swimming around their ankles. He just wanted to minimise the chance of Lady Anika doing some serious evil on him, while at the same time - minimising the amount of work he had to do.
"It's alright. You are going to get rid of them right?"
"Yeah"
He was lying. Lady Anika gulped down her boiling hot cup of tea and signaled for more. She had lost her glamour since the opening night of the revolution, the fire that was drilled into her eyes was gone, but she didn't need it now. Not until the paperwork part of the revolution was over. It was at the moment, as her second cup of tea was still infusing that in walked two new people. She had certainly never seen these two before in Suckles, they sat down at the bar and asked for a beer. The barman gave them a deathly stare.
"Fuck off"
The two newbies were taken slightly aback, they were just told that this was a vampire bar, but that humans were welcome as long as they exhibited sympathies for the vampire cause. They didn't think that it was that obvious they were fakers. Undercover was clearly harder than it looks. Pete and Ian couldn't fail though, failure would involve portable deep fryers. Luckily for them, the situation wasn't as dire as they assumed it was.
"We only serve tea. You want beer - go to your fancy human bars."
At that point, the most recent singer-songwriter in the background suddenly had their microphone die.
"Fucking mice!"
The mice had managed to eat through the wiring. No one really cared.
"What kind of establishment is this, only tea?"
Ian was shocked. Pete hit him.
"Tea's great. Earl Grey?"
"Fuck off"
Pete and Ian weren't too happy with how things were going. Typically the first few minutes of going undercover were not supposed to involve "fuck offs", especially two of them. It was kind of a general rule. The barman paused and did another deathly stare.
"Russian Caravan tea only."
"Two of those please."
The barman infused the teas and decided to engage in conversation.
"You're not too familiar with vampire bars are you?"
There was a quick pause from Pete and Ian until Pete finally said something.
"Not really. But we sure do love you guys. We wanted to get more infused into the whole vampire culture."
Ian piped in with "Yeah. You guys are fucking awesome."
The barman gave them their tea and the duo tried them. Ian gaged.
"Fucking Beans! This is disgusting!"
The barman just continued his stare. Lady Anika who was watching the entire scene got up and walked over to her second in command at the pool table, Sir Ham.
"Those two new guys at the bar are mafia spies."
"Interesting. We normally just leave those guys alone. No need to turn the mafia into an enemy."
"No, I want them dead."
"But, but, that's silly."
"That's some stunning reasoning there Sir Ham. Kill the fuckers. And do it quickly."
Back at the bar, Pete and Ian were discussing what to do.
"Look here Petey Boy."
"Petey Boy? Are you kidding?"
"No. Petey Boy. We can't fuck this up. I can't drink this shit."
"You have to."
"No, look, there are certain limits that I can withstand as a reasonable human being. This isn't one of them."
"How about that portable deep fryer?"
"I'm sure we can do this in a way that doesn't require me to actually drink the tea."
"What's so wrong with it?"
"It tastes like someone puked AND excreted on some smoked salami and then poured boiling water over it."
"I quite like it."
"Well! Aren't we all cultured? Look at me! I'm Pete! I'm cultured! I can drink Russian Caravan tea! I enjoy David Lynch films! I know that Socrates wasn't a drunk hillbilly from Kentucky!"
"I still can't believe you thought that."
"Shut up. We do this without drinking the tea."
In order to make a dramatic statement with his physical actions, Ian swirled around on his bar stool to face the other way. Only to find seven vampires giving them the two of them the deathly stare.
"Oh fuck. They look pissed. I... like... the... tea... really... look... I'm drinking..."
Posted byBren at 8:01 pm
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