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Slayers Second Genesis:
Heavenly Bodies
Byron Lin
Chapter One
Holly Sellas approached the new nightspot in town, Heavenly Bodies. It was Friday night; a sultry kind of evening, with a breeze ruffling her sleek dark hair, which cascaded around her shoulders in a shimmering flow. She checked her watch, seven-thirty. Only an hour after sundown. She steadied herself and proceeded on her way. Heavenly Bodies was open from dusk to dawn, and only between those hours. While the sun shone overhead, Heavenly Bodies stood lifeless and empty, so unlike the breathless, searing pace that packed it to the point of fire code violations after dark, as it was now.
Ever since this assignment landed on her desk two weeks ago, she had been looking forward to it. With any luck, the Oakhaven Arcane’s hotshot junior reporter could land a cushy promotion with a juicy enough article. Plus at twenty-one, she fit right in without having to sweet talk her way past the bouncers. Not that she would have to – it was a place for the eighteen to twenty-five set to have some wild fun on a weekend.
Holly had been minding her own business at her small, cramped desk. Once she got promoted, she’d have new digs at the office – more comfortable ones at that. Until then, she was still a “staff writer”, somewhere above “intern” on the journalistic totem pole, which was in turn, tantamount to “office coffee gopher”, to put it politely.
Along came a spider – her direct superior, the associate editor. Peter Webber always did have a somewhat creepy air about him. Holly often assumed it came from working at the town’s only supernatural-focused paper, mocked by their more legitimate peers as “tabloid material.” At the same time though, she was repulsed by his constant, not-so-subtle attempts to hit on her, and unsettled by his uncanny ability to make his underlings do whatever he wanted to. Despite his position however, he preferred to work in a dark, dusty corner office often covered in cobwebs. No surprises there – The Arcane was located in a rather old building, and Webber rarely let the custodian in his own private domain to clean it up a bit.
“Holly,” Webber rasped, taking a gulp from his chipped old coffee mug, with a web of spidery cracks running all along its white billiard ball surface. “I’ve reviewed your latest article. Good stuff, kid. Keep this up and you’ll be promoted and winning Pulitzers.”
“Thank you, sir,” Holly said a bit evasively. Webber was also known to ramble, not really getting to the point of what he wanted to say in so many words. Plus, he was easily offended as well, often taking people’s meanings the wrong way.
“So then, I have a new assignment. This one should be right up your alley. A brand new nightclub is opening up in two weeks. You should be able to fit right in.” He set a manila folder down on her desk. Holly thought this sounded a little out of their element. “But sir, what does that have to do with our subject matter?”
Webber let out a hoarse cough of a laugh. “Who cares, kid? Besides, the owner, some rich guy named Valentino or something, he’s hardly ever seen during the daytime, and you know what that means.”
“That he’s a vampire? Come on, sir.” Holly had always been somewhat of a skeptic, despite her job description. Nevertheless, she was interested in the subject. Either way, a job was a job, she thought. It pays the bills after all.
“Still, kid, you should check it out. Have some fun, mix business with your pleasure.” He winked at her, laughed again, (which quickly turned into a harsh cough bordering on a death rattle), drank deeply from his coffee mug, and moved away to chat with some other unfortunate soul who caught his eye.
Holly snapped out of her reverie just as she realized she was closing in on the nightclub’s entrance. She bit her lip as she searched her purse for her wallet, with her ID inside. Having proof of age would allow her to get a nifty stamp on her hand permitting her alcohol. Of course, that was after a second ID check by the bartender. But she wasn’t there to drink.
Luckily for her, it wasn’t opening night, so it wasn’t absolutely swamped, but even still, plenty of patrons had already made their way inside. When the bouncer, an intimidating man the size of a biker clad in dark shades and a plain black t-shirt and slacks grunted for her ID, she flashed it like an FBI agent’s badge. He made an indistinct noise of assent and stamped her hand quickly before pulling back the velvet rope and motioning her inside. She stowed her wallet and her ID back in her purse and hurried inside.
*
Brandon Nguyen sat at a distant corner of the bar, drinking various nonalcoholic beverages. Namely, a virgin pina colada here, a Sprite there, and a Shirley Temple in between. It wasn’t his fault he wasn’t of drinking age yet – after all, he hadn’t even started college yet. He had come here looking to pass the time. Sure, he had work the next day, but he was doing fine, not even a bit tipsy. He had a feeling he should be on top of his game tonight. Needing to keep his wits about him, he decided not to wear himself out dancing like a fool. Besides, he thought to himself, he wasn’t even that good a dancer.
He saw a latecomer to the party walk in, and his jaw dropped. He quickly lifted his fresh drink to his mouth so as to hide his surprise. Who was she? Whoever she was, she was hot. He also thought she looked vaguely familiar, but couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
Incidentally, at that exact moment, “Paralyzer” by Finger Eleven started, and it basically summed up how he felt at the point. Getting a fresh drink, he decided to sit back and watch to see how things would turn out. Here was another justification, he mentally noted, for not getting piss drunk on this night, of all nights.
In all honesty, he wasn’t even sure if he was going to do anything. What did surprise him, however, about his current quandary, more than this unnamable young woman’s mere presence (which alone was quite enough to make him feel a little more excited about his prospects at this overblown watering hole/rave, the clientele of which apparently was nothing more than the glittering illusion of fool’s gold – pleasant to look at, but amounting to not that much) was that she approached the bar only a few moments after entering. Surely, her intentions were not to get smashed? No, that didn’t quite compute.
Although not totally wholesome, she had a kind of winsome air, a charisma of self-confidence about her, one that could only come from her conscious awareness, on some level, of her inherent sexual pull. It was enough to make him, mostly ordered and rational, cognitively speaking, to disrupt his syntax and cause him to contemplate her in a
glorified run-on sentence full of colloquialism and the like. (At least, in the stream of consciousness by which it occurred to him).
He just so happened to be within earshot, so that he could hear her ordering a cranberry juice from the bartender, who, with a sullen mutter of something about “periods”, turned to prepare it. Still ruminating and with his interest in her expanded several times-fold, Brandon leaned in closer, as if he were a competitive swimmer readying himself to take the plunge. To his relative disappointment however, he glimpsed another thirsty passerby decide to stop and chat.
Over the rim of an orange juice, (no vodka, obviously) Brandon spied the features of this would-be Casanova. Three words would describe him: tall, dark, handsome. The stereotypical girl’s dream. Physically, at least. By contrast, Brandon couldn’t hope to match those same attributes. Not that he cared that much, he had it where it counted – somewhere beyond such shallow, fleeting criteria. Nevertheless, Brandon grudgingly gave this Don Juan–abe his due, since if Brandon tried his hand after this guy, it would indeed be a tough act to follow. Accordingly, this stirred within Brandon an instant dislike of the Romeo imitator. A feeling of the type was no stranger to him, for he had experienced it too often during his adolescence.
Much to his dismay, at that moment, the call of nature happened to intervene. Before an embarrassing situation of thermonuclear levels could erupt, Brandon quickly slid off his barstool and rushed off to find the nearest men’s room. Quite a dignified exit, indeed.
*
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