"She cancelled again! That's the third time." Nashe said in despair.
"I'm not surprised, you know. When you run a club that warns humans not to enter or else they could be damned forever, well what do you expect?" Erasmus said before he gulped down another pint of Dolphin blood.
"Yes, well she should know by now that only applies to potential patrons. Honestly I couldn't make it any clearer that the musical guests are always safe. So many of the greats have played here for god's sake, what's she worried about?" Nashe replied.
"Well maybe she's just not at the stage of her career where she feels she's famous enough to play a Monster club without getting eaten? Or maybe it was the fact that you had to assure her that no one would eat her that keeps putting her off, we'll probably never know." Erasmus chuckled.
"Well you know what that means. I'll have to try and book a demon act. At this late stage I probably won't get a human one. You can always get demons at short notice. God demon entertainers are so boring and crass." Nashe huffed as he pulled out his little black book of contacts.
"I agree" Erasmus said, not caring at some of the demons at the bar taking offence.
"I find it baffling considering so many demons like vampires were once people. You'd think they'd retain a bit of that creativity." Nashe continued.
"I also get fed up with their whining. 'Oh if it wasn't for the fact that demons existence has to be covered up I'd be the new Jim Hendrix, Amy Winehouse or Van Gogh' I just want to tell every one of the whiney fuckers 'no you grotesque abomination, you're shit no matter what. If anything, being a demon is a plus as most people won't tell you you're crap out of fear of getting their heads torn off!" Nashe moaned, only to be met by scowls from a number of his demon patrons.
"Eh no offence." The werewolf replied meekly to his angry clientele.
"They'll act all proud." Erasmus laughed, "but I bet their collections are nothing but albums by human singers and films by humans."
"Well I do quite like Billie Holiday" The vandal said. "She had so much soul." He joked, with all of the demons at the bar except Erasmus laughing.
"Well anyway" Erasmus said, wanting to take attention away from the vandal. "It's probably not the best idea to insult demons all the time when you run a bar for them. Then again I'm not sure who you could cater to? You hate demons, you hate humans? Maybe pixies, though I hear they can be very stuck up."
"Yes, well werewolves don't tend to be too popular, regardless do we?" Nashe said bitterly.
"True but I'm a vampire and we're even less popular, yet I'm beloved by everybody here." Erasmus joked as the demons, especially the vandal all rolled their eyes, or what passed for eyes and grunted.
Nashe didn't even bother to reply, as he had managed to contact Abaddon through a skull with red glowing eyes (in actual fact the skull of one of Abaddon's previous victims.)
Nashe had never killed anyone. He had always tried to control his lycanthropy (at least that's what he always made out to his patrons.)
The skull had been a gift from one of his contacts, but Nashe always felt sick using it. Still Abaddon was one of the few demon singers whose work Nashe actually appreciated and evil as she was, she was also always reliable.
After Nashe performed a chant, the skull lit up in flames.
"Abbadon, hi sorry to bother you at this hour but." The werewolf said meekly.
The skull started to speak in Abaddon's voice.
"Werewolf, your kind sickens me. I am about to bring forth an age of darkness the likes of which your world has never seen. Fire will fall from the sky, blood shall flow through the streets." As Abaddon ranted, Erasmus mouthed her threats to himself. "Your oceans shall turn into slime, men and women shall become beasts who will devour their own children!"
"Yes well if that doesn't work out for you, I need an act to fill the slot on Saturday night. We have quite a number of important guests coming." The werewolf asked.
"Did you not hear me! I said the age of Demons has begun, this world will tremble before us!" Abaddon insisted.
"Yes, well like I said if you have time, or you have a change of heart, can you do the Saturday slot at 7:pm? I'd love for you to play, "The Apocalypse is a Losing Game."
"Oh why thank you." She said in a softer tone." You know that was one of my most personal songs. It was based on a true story."
"I think a lot of people here will find it relatable." Erasmus interrupted.
"Okay dirty Werewolf if this world does not fall before my infernal might I shall see you there. Can you make sure you have giant Otter hearts? I know they're rare, but god are they just so succulent." Abaddon said.
"I'll see what I can do, we just got a new batch of Dolphin blood for the vamps, but I suppose I could let you have some as you are a guest of honour." He replied.
"Thank you, I love Dolphins! I mean they shall be among the first species to burn when this world falls before our might..... I'll see you Saturday."
"That was quite eh, worrying." One of the patrons next to Erasmus said.
"What do you mean? I just booked an act. You know Abaddon calls me a dirty werewolf, but I think she might have a little thing for me. Look at how quickly she accepted my offer. I wonder if dirty has a double meaning. " Nashe said enthusiastically,
Erasmus spat out his blood in response.
"You're not serious. Please tell me you're joking. She keeps human heads as pencil holders, and as toilets. Or so I'm told." Erasmus said in disbelief.
"Oh please, those are just tall tales. I hope? I can't imagine a human head would be very practical as a toilet." Nashe replied
"Yes I thought that too, but with demons you never know." Erasmus said.
"I was talking about the apocalypse she was planning on bringing about." The patron interrupted.
All the other patrons just laughed.
"I take it you're new here." Erasmus said.
"She's always trying to bring down the apocalypse or claiming she is. I reckon she just got a bad review on Askirolios". The vampire continued.
"Askiro what?" The patron asked to Erasmus confusion.
"You've never heard of the Askirolios search engine? Dear god man, how do you keep in touch with everything that's happening in the supernatural world?" One of the demons asked.
"I don't use social media much these days." He said nervously.
"Big mistake. You'll never know what's going on, local gatherings, news about the never ending war between demons and humans, when the next concerts, or demon films are out? How do you live, man?" The demonic patron responded.
"Well I don't go out too much." The new patron said as he moved away from the bar.
At the nearby table were several vandals sitting over glasses filled with what looked like green energy, in reality condensed magic that served as a substitute for the souls they normally fed on.
"You okay pal." One of the larger vandals said as it slowly unsheathed the claws on its hands.
"No no, I'm fine." The patron headed to the dance floor where there were all kinds of creatures, vampires, werewolves, vandals, demons, ghouls and everything in between dancing together to the song "good man in a bad time", though the vampires and the vandals were naturally still keeping their distance somewhat compared to the other creatures.
The patron stared in fascination at all of these strange creatures for a few minutes before he felt a hand slam down on his shoulder.
"Are you alright friend?" It was Erasmus.
"You haven't touched your cow blood. Here let me get you a glass of Dolphin blood." Erasmus continued.
"No, no that's quite alright."
"Please, it'll be my treat. Dolphin blood is so much nicer, though I prefer blue whale blood personally, Nashe hasn't brought that in in a while because of a lot of animal rights activists. Whiners, you'd think they'd be happy that we don't eat humans at this bar."
Erasmus could see the patron wince at what he just said.
"No, no I'm fine." The patron insisted.
"I think we need to talk." Erasmus said.
"I don't know why I don't." The patron protested.
"Trust me it would be better if I spoke to you." Erasmus said as he looked back at some of the vandals, particularly a young female who was looking at the patron in a very threatening way.
"Okay but I should warn you I'm not just any old vampire, I'm." The patron tried to say before Erasmus cut him off and brought the obviously human patron to a small table.
"What are you doing here?" The vampire asked very quietly?
"What, I'm a vampire just like you?"
"What breed?"
"What? Breed, there is more than one type of vampire? I mean I'm a, a."
"An idiot who's going to get eaten or turned if he doesn't watch out?"
After a few seconds the human wisely dropped the pretense and was honest with the Vampire.
"Okay you got me. I'm a horror author. My name is David Pratt."
"Pratt"
"Yes I was going to change it after I got published, but my dad William Henry was so proud of the family name. I reckon he was just trying to overcompensate you know? Still either way I dared not change it."
"Ah I think I see where this is going." Erasmus said as he rubbed his forehead in frustration.
"I have had quite a bit published in actual fact. You may have heard of some of them? The Wolf of Hallet? Lust For Blood? No, well at any rate I always try to include a little bit of authentic mythology in my work and well what do you know when I heard about this town, Wyndam, being a hotspot of paranormal activity, I just had to come here."
"Yes, well now you know the truth. Since the days of the British Empire, Wyndam has prized itself on being about the only place where vandals and vampires can share a drink." Erasmus said
"Yes well unfortunately I couldn't find anything online." David explained.
"No you won't, other than vague urban stories, most of which are bastardized. All real stories and pictures on the internet about demons, vampires, and the supernatural automatically go on the search engine, Askirolios thanks to a spell. It's how we cover our tracks in the modern age of smartphones and social media. You can only access it if you are a demon or use a very specific spell. It's kind of like a demonic google. You'll find news articles about what's happening in the demon world, a video service like Youtube exclusively for demons, sites where you can buy demon artifacts, even dating sites, everything."
"Fascinating." David said.
"Not really. Like I said to Nashe, demon entertainment is really boring, or disgusting. Some of the things on the Demon video sites will make you vomit." Erasmus replied.
"Well you could say the same thing about the human internet. I've always had an interest in the paranormal. I didn't just come here for inspiration, you know. I wanted to learn about what's really out there. There is another world that exists under our own. It's incredible." David insisted.
"No it isn't. It's horrible, nasty and disgusting. Just like the world you already live in. Trust me you have enough to worry about in that world, without vampires, Demons and Werewolves."
"Well it can't hurt to know just to keep safe." David replied meekly
"I suppose, but then again I'd hardly call wandering into a bar filled with monsters keeping safe." Erasmus responded.
"From what I'd heard this was a place for reformed monsters?" David asked?
"If you really think that's the case, why did you bother pretending to be one of us?"
"I thought this was just an exclusive club for supernatural creatures. It seemed like the best place to learn your history. Like that monster geneology chart at the back for instance. Just what is a Shaddy." David asked.
Erasmus rolled his eyes.
"First of all this isn't just a place for supernaturals. It's non-humans. We have aliens in here too you know, though they have their own search engine separate from demons, whilst witches and warlocks also have their own. Fortunately I know the password, spell for all three, but still. Look at that guy dancing with the vandal in the black dress up there. He's from the Andromeda galaxy over 2 million light years away."
"Seems an awful long distance to travel just to get a pint." David joked.
Erasmus wasn't amused.
"He's here because his people were slaughtered in an intergalactic war. He and the few other surviving members of his kind have helped build up and defend our planet in ways you can't imagine. There's actually a network of aliens living in secret on earth who meet up here every few months. There they are at that table, up at the back. This is a place for all the creatures who are shunned by humanity to gather and relax. In all fairness some of us are shunned because we, you know, eat people. Still naturally we don't let humans in, unless we know we can trust them."
"So you're scared of us? That's ironic." David said.
"Well not you personally. We used to let humans in here. Originally this was a club for everyone, but over the years, hunters started to attack the place and many good monsters were slaughtered. Also not all of the monsters who come here are reformed. We try to make sure they are, no human blood or organs are served, just animals. Everything from Dolphin to Alligator, to Rhino, but no humans. Sadly however that doesn't mean we still don't get a lot of human killers in here. For instance, look at the vampires. I'm probably the only vampire in this city that doesn't feed on people. The vandals aren't much better, neither are the ghouls. Most of the demons we get in here are not a bad lot, well not an evil lot at least, but it's still easier to keep the peace all around however if we're not fighting over food which a human would be."
Erasmus stopped to take a drink of his Dolphin blood much to David's disgust.
"God, that really is brilliant. I find the more intelligent the animal, the more delicious its blood tastes. I probably shouldn't be thanking god mind you, but anyway your little disguise won't have fooled anyone. Vampires and vandals for one can sense one another. I reckon that those who noticed you will be waiting to jump you outside, either to eat you, or torture you for information if there are any hunters planning an attack, or just for the fun of it, or all of the above."
"You're not serious are you." David asked, visibly terrified.
Erasmus didn't say anything. He didn't have to as David noticed one of the vandals at the table still looking at him.
"Don't worry about it though. I'll help you. I'm not so popular around these parts myself. I've helped close down several demonic and vampiric operations. They see me as a traitor and I am, but a traitor isn't always a bad thing. For instance, would you think being a traitor to the Nazi party was a bad thing?" Erasmus explained.
"Why are you a traitor though? I mean I'm sure I'll appreciate it tonight, if what you're saying is true, but."
"It's a long story, and not one that I want to see in print so let's just leave it at that. Let's just say there was someone I knew. Years ago. A good woman who helped me see there was more to life or unlife in my case, but I." Erasmus had to stop for a moment.
"I'm sorry I didn't mean to." David said.
"No, no it's fine. They say true love never dies after all, but still whilst I understand that you don't have any reason to trust me, I think at the very least you can see that vandal has an interest in you, and trust me you're not her type. I'm your best bet of getting out of here in one piece. You got that." Erasmus explained
"Yes I understand, but if you'll just tell me the spell to unlock that eh Demon web browser."
"No! After tonight you steer clear of the supernatural. In my 200 or so years on this planet I've known two kinds of people who know about the Supernatural. People who go on to be great heroes, battling the forces of darkness and saving the world, and idiots who get themselves killed because they don't know when to pull back. I don't know you, but the fact that you'd already come here when you don't even know there are different types of vampires tells me you're the latter. I might add not even the former always makes it out in one piece. I've seen good people, people I've loved have their hearts torn out by the forces of darkness you understand?" Erasmus insisted.
The demons at the bar were getting restless. They had clearly also rumbled David's not so clever little ruse.
"Come on, I can't stop you getting killed another night, but I can get you out of here now" Erasmus said as he dragged David away.
Unfortunately as they reached the door, a large creature stopped them. It was a Shaddy, a hybrid of vampire, werewolf and ghoul. It looked like a grotesque, misshapen mass of flesh and bones, vaguely crushed into a humanoid shape. Its six foot long tongue writhed around its grotesque head, that was so misshapen, one of its eyes was on its chin, and another atop its head, with its nose split into two parts down the middle.
"David Pratt?" It said.
"Eh, yes," David replied awkwardly.
"Huge fan. I loved the Wolf of Hallet." The Shaddy responded as it got him in a bear hug.
"I told you it was him." The Shaddy said to its wife, the female vandal that had been looking at David earlier, and who now got up to shake his hand.
"Great honour to meet you sir! Honestly Nashe, why didn't you tell us you'd booked him?" The female vandal said to Nashe.
"Who?" Nashe asked.
"He didn't book me, I just, well I came in here because I thought it might be interesting." David said.
"Oh very dangerous business." The female vandal replied.
"Yeah I know this guy was going to help me out." David said, only for the female vandal to give a scowl to Erasmus, with the vampire barely being able to contain his laughter.
"Okay you got me." Erasmus said much to David's horror.
"If you'd gone with him, your entrails would have been used to decorate his moldy old crypt." The female vandal said.
"He told me he was reformed." David insisted.
All of the vandals, demons, and monsters nearby, including Nashe burst into fits of laughter, which soon spread to other parts of the club when they heard. Even Erasmus was laughing his arse off.
"Honestly the idea of Erasmus as some dashing, brooding, Angel type champion for justice." The Shaddy said.
"I know right? Talk about a lamb to the slaughter. This guy's supposed to be a horror writer and he fell for the biggest cliche in the book. I even told him I had a dead lover who made me see my evil ways. God, I hope his stories are better than that." Erasmus said as he walked away.
"Well better luck next time." The Shaddy said back to Erasmus, as the hybrid and the others gathered around David who was completely terrified.
"Honestly I can't tell you how wonderful it is to see a writer who really gets us." One of the demons said.
The reason Pratt was so popular among the regulars was because his stories were notorious for always allowing the supernatural creatures to win. Of course he only did so to help his stories stand out. It did at first, but by now it had become such a cliche in his work that even most die hard fans were tired of it. That is except for his demonic readers.
Whilst David was flattered by all the attention (indeed this was the most attention he'd ever received as his books weren't exactly best sellers.) He soon became uncomfortable when the Shaddy, who was a genuine fan, started to share some of the ways David's books had inspired him. He told David of how he used to read his stories to his little girl to comfort her, and how reading about how a demon overtook a town in his adventure, "Village of Fear" inspired her to do the same thing.
He even showed David pictures from his social media of his demonic daughter and her friends, dancing around the village and claiming it as their own, as well of the survivors in cages afterwards. David never forgot the horrifying image of a young girl being kept in a cage, with two hideous ghouls staring down at her, who according to the Shaddy ate her alive!
The Shaddy also told him how he dealt with David's harshest critic. The blogger Marshall Michaels who frequently attacked David's work as lazy, derivative, and "thoroughly offensive" to the genre, who had mysteriously gone missing a few weeks ago, David learned he had been killed by the Shaddy that ate his skin!
This was how these monsters always ate their victims. Their long tongues were covered in teeth that allowed them to literally strip the skin from the body. The Shaddy kept asking if it could take a strip of David's skin. At first he politely declined, but later when the creature appeared to get angry he finally agreed. David described the ordeal as being the worst pain he ever felt in his life. Pain he didn't think was possible! It was like a thousand knives made of fire stabbing him at once and even though it only lasted seconds, it felt like years!
Unfortunately the Shaddy had to do it twice as the first time it instinctively ate his skin, and so had to take a second strip to keep as part of its….. collection.
Things only got worse for David during the evening. Every second was torture. Even just being near the Shaddy that stunk, and that's blood, mixed in with slime dripped all over him was disgusting.
The Shaddy also showed him some videos from the demonic search engine. It appeared Erasmus hadn't lied about that at least. Like all great liars, Erasmus often mixed his in with the truth to help him believe it more.
One video was of a witch named Barbara Price who had seduced and married a wealthy man only to kill him in order to gain access to his wealth. She was proudly showing her accomplishment off in a video on youtube, or the demonic version, only for her husband's zombified corpse that she had turned into a servant, to break free from her control. He chased her around the house chanting "YOU WILL DIE IN AGONY MURDERESS! DIEEEE!" Before escaping into the countryside. He reportedly ate a further 12 people, with Barbara being forced to flee the city. Even she wasn't aware of what she had unleashed. Needless to say she had become something of a laughing stock, with this video going viral on all supernatural search engines.
Perhaps the worst part of the night was when a young demon fan made David listen to a screenplay it had written for feedback. It was less a story and more a gruesome description of tortures he had put his victims through, including making a man eat his own nose! David couldn't bear to hear another second, but again had to pretend he was enthralled as said demon had the power to pull its victims' skeletons out of their mouths!
To David's surprise years later he would discover the demon's screenplay did attract some attention in the industry, with Robert Rodriguez directing a big screen adaptation.
At one point a couple of vampires and demons started to pick a fight with the vandals. David did his best to try and break it up, but they ignored him and he became so scared he even offered them all money.
The leader of the vampires spoke in a loud, booming voice. "What makes you think we want money."
It continued. "We want to tear this world apart, we want to devour the puny souls of man, we want to unleash agonies you can't even begin to comprehend, we want."
The female vandal soon interrupted.
"Actually I wouldn't mind a new tv in our crypt Brian." She said to the Shaddy. "I could always steal one, but it might be nice not to have to go through with that agro for once."
"No wonder you vandals are such a feared race." The leader of the vampires mocked which drew laughter from the others. He said in a high pitched voice. "Oooooooooh I don't want to go through with the bother of having to rob a little tv shop ooooooooh. Yeah, really scary."
"Yes, well maybe I'll use the money to move out." She said over the laughter. "Having you as a neighbour has aged me by about 100 years, even though I'm immortal."
"I wanted to make your life miserable, you idiot. Why else do you think I set your crypt on fire and ate all your pets when I wasn't even hungry? Why do you think I told the local Grand High Witch you killed that lawyer who was going to help her get a lease on that mansion? Or why do you think I painted that symbol on your door to summon Askela to damn you?" The leader of the vampires replied.
"Yeah well the jokes on you Askela became my good friend, in fact me and Brian are supposed to be meeting him and his wife here tonight for drinks." The vandal said smugly.
"Damn it." The vampire replied.
"Besides, if you'd wanted me to move, your stench from next door was enough. Mind you I'd probably have to travel to another universe not to smell you and considering my husband, no offense Brian love, isn't exactly smelling of Roses that's really saying something?." She said.
"Yes well" the vampire was eager to get off the subject of his unearthly stench which he had tried to blame on the zombies earlier. "Now that you mention it, I personally am fed up with living in a crypt. I've always wanted to live in a big castle, like in the movies."
"Yeah well we all know that the movie's portrayal of vampires is a little bit off." The vandal sneered. "Like the idea of vampires being sex gods for one."
The rest of the monsters sniggered.
"Yes, well at least people have made movies about us. I don't recall any show called Scruffy the Vandal Slayer changing the face of tv do you!" The vampire king said angrily.
"It doesn't surprise me that lots of people loved a show about someone who kills vampires. Besides maybe that can change with our friend here eh? Maybe he can write a classic story about soul devouring demons." She said as she put her clawed hand around David who was too scared to even speak at this stage's shoulder.
Thankfully the demons were soon distracted from David and tearing each other apart by a special feature, a film made by a rare vampire/vandal hybrid about his parents' tragic romance. This movie had been banned in most areas due to its controversial subject of a vampire/vandal love story, but as this was a more neutral ground, then this marked one of its few public showings. Again Erasmus was right at least that this place did represent one of the few areas where most monsters and creatures could meet despite their centuries long rivalry. The actual reason it didn't serve humans was because there would have been too many people going missing in that area if it did than any kind of morality.
The monsters booed the movie when it went up, but as time went on some of them became fascinated and even perhaps somewhat moved by it. David wisely attempted to sneak out whilst they were distracted, vowing to himself that after he left Wyndam he was going to write cheesy romance novels for the rest of his life!
He managed to barely sneak his way into the alley, only to be pounced on by a gigantic demon that pinned him against a wall. David tried screaming for help but the demon placed its hand over his mouth.
"Relax, I'm not going to hurt you." It said.
"Not as long as you do what I want."
"Whatever, just please let me get the hell out of here." David said at the very end of his tether.
"That pompous vampire, Erasmus was onto something in there. Pretending to be the hero to lure idiots in. I want you to do the same for me." The beast spoke.
"What do you mean?" David asked.
"You're a horror author aren't you? Write some stories about me as a kind of reformed demon superhero. Like Angel or Blade or something. That way it'll be easier for me to lure in prey. Particularly young prey." The demon said.
David wanted to protest but he knew he had no choice and agreed, hoping to get the hell out of the city before he'd have to honor the deal. The demon however was aware of that, and it bound itself to him through its blood. It explained that if David didn't write a series of novels about him as the hero, then his soul would be banished to this demon's hell dimension, and given the demon came from the Quortoth, the darkest of the dark worlds that was no idle threat.
The demon would keep in touch with David to provide him the necessary information about its life. Its name was Eschantos. It had been a small fish back in its own dimension and hoped to make a difference here, with David obviously lying in his books that the demon found it could make more of a difference helping people, and that was why it had never really fitted in. Eschantos also made sure that the books were a big success through his connections.
Ironically David finally achieved what he had always wanted. He finally "created" that iconic character through the heroic version of this monster, who was so popular it went on to star in not only in numerous books, but a television and film series. (On the big screen he was played by none other than Bradley Cooper, Eshcantos number one choice, after the demon cried watching A Star Is Born.)
Erasmus was admittedly furious that Eschantos had stolen his idea, even more so when Eschantos made David include Erasmus in the novels as his giggling, campy archenemy.
Every moment of fame the books brought David however was agony. Eschantos used the book's fame to prey on many people. Appearing to his potential victims in secret and promising that he would take them on adventures like those they had read about, or watched. The demon damned potentially thousands of people over decades this way.
David's last words reportedly were "may god have mercy on my soul." Sadly it seemed he was damned no matter what, all because of that one night where his curiosity got the better of him and he decided to visit the Monster Club.