Chapter 15: Chapter 15: Nom de l’Art

I sat still in front of my briefcase full of money for a good while, just staring at the packs of bills, occasionally taking one in my hand and slowly putting it back again.

Even Shima came to inspect the weird briefcase, jumping on the table to sniff the contents.

“We can buy you a lot of food with that Shima, A LOT.”

She meows at me and I pet her head. Shima puts her little paws around my hand and starts play-biting.

“Oh, in a playful mood I see.” I smile while I tickle her tummy. “Maybe we should buy you some more toys too.” I look around me to look for her favourite toy, a plushie fish connected by a sturdy string to a stick. It’s one of the toys Ria-chan bought for her, it has been her favourite ever since. I look around the living room and finally find it underneath one of the cabinets.

“Aha, there it is.”

While laying on my belly trying to fish it from underneath the cabinet Shima starts play-biting my other hand.
“Aaah, Shima, wait.” After I finally managed to get the toy from underneath the cabinet I quickly distracted her with the fishy, but not before she got a couple of good bites in, but they didn't really hurt me at all..

“Cats be cats.” I inspected my hand, she hadn't displaced a single hair on my arm where, before I became a vampire, I'd at least have a couple of scratches and bitemarks. “Hmm, that's pretty neat. But let’s just hope you don’t turn into a vampire kitty too, you’re already one mighty landshark without powers.” I laughed while Shima kept chasing the fish around.

Shima the magnificent kitten kept chasing her nemesis for quite a long time before she finally tired herself out.

“Better luck next time, Shima.” I petted her on her head and lifted her up in my arms, carrying her towards her cat tower, next to her favourite cuddle toy, a little teddy bear me and Ria bought for her together.

 

I scratched behind her ear and went back towards the money when I heard the familiar buzzing of my phone.

It was a call from Ria-chan. “Hey Rora! I just got home and wanted to ask if you had fun with Emma?”   

My daydream of Emma was still making me blush quite a bit
“Uh, y-yeah, it was pretty okay. And you?” I stuttered.

“Mhmm! I got to read the book she was reading earlier today.”

-That was the vampire romance wasn’t it?- I gulped but decided to show some interest anyway. “Did you like it?”

“Yes! It’s about a cute lesbian couple that faces hardship after one of them becomes a vampire.”

-Oh, C’mon!!-

“Rora?”

“Ah yeah, I’m still here, it sounds... interesting.”

“I know right, I wonder what it would be like to be a vampire, but all the blood drinking sounds a bit scary…”

“Uuuuh, yeah, that’s true… I guess…” I rubbed the back of my head and looked at my living room table, the glass still half filled with blood.
-Mental note to also hide the blood from Ria-chan.-

“Mhmm! But if you want to lend the book too I could ask Karin about it.”

“Ah, no, I’m fine… but uhm… about the lesbian thing though… are you...” My mind started to panic. -I can’t just ask her that directly, can I?-

“Sorry, what was that Rora? I thought I heard my mom calling so I didn’t hear what you said.”

“No-nothing, nothing, I was just saying that Shima really misses you.” I chickened out.

“Awwhh!” I could hear her squeal over the phone. “Tell her I will visit soon!”

“Mhmm, I will… You wanted to come over tomorrow after school, right?”

“Yes! If you allow me to.”

“Of course you are!”

She giggled cutely over the phone. “It’s a date then!”

I blushed at her choice of words. “Y-yeah.”

“Will you come pick me up tomorrow at my house?”

“Yep, will be there.”

“Yay! Good night Rora! See you tomorrow.”

“Good night Ria-chan.”

She hung up the phone, leaving me with a big sense of dread when I looked around, especially the blood was going to be an issue.
-Okay, Rora, calm down, one step at a time. Let’s start with hiding the money first- 

 

I closed the briefcase and looked around the room for a good hiding spot, however after a couple of minutes it was clear that the living room was probably not that best place for that. Under the cabinets or sofas would definitely be a no-go, if Shima knocked one of her toys under them it’d only be a matter of time before Ria would look under one of them.

My bedroom was the next possible option but that proved difficult as well. From the reading chairs you’d get a clear view under my bed so that wasn’t an option. I debated putting it under my mattress but the briefcase clearly was a bit too big for my mattress to look naturally flat.

“And if for some reason we’d end up on the bed, Ria-chan would immediately feel something is wrong…” I blushed at the thought of sharing the bed with her. After a minute or two I sighed and continued on my search, finally arriving at the last possible destination.

“So it has to be in this room, huh?” I reluctantly put the key in the lock of the closed off room and turned it. The opening of the door made some dust float up which almost immediately made me sneeze. Apart from all the dust, the room and its contents still looked exactly like the last time I saw it years ago, like a frozen moment in time. Some clothes folded neatly on the bed, one of the closet doors swung half open, broken glass scattered around a broken picture frame that was face down, thrown against the wall in anger and frustration. I quickly hurried over to the closet to stash the briefcase underneath some clothes and exited the room as fast as I could before it could bring up some memories I’d rather forget.

Some dust had followed me back out of the room which I swiftly sweeped up before locking the door again behind me. Ria knew I’d rather not talk about that room, but I didn’t want to leave any evidence I had entered it either.

 

-Now, onto the next issue… the blood.-

Back in the living room I stared at the fridge. “That stuff needs to be refrigerated doesn’t it?”

I picked up the note with Viktor’s telephone number and decided to send him a message, asking if he could call me back. A couple of minutes went by before my phone finally started buzzing.

“Aurora? That was faster than I expected. Is something wrong?”

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“Uhm, hey Viktor. I have a question about the blood.”

“Ah, wass is it?”

“Does blood need to be cooled? I have a friend coming over and I’d prefer it to not be in the fridge…”

“Ah…it is best to keep it in your refrigerator, ja. Can you just not give her drinks yourself?”

“That’d be weird, usually she acts like this is her own house, so it’d be pretty suspicious…”

“I see, that is a problem then.” He paused for a second, quite possibly thinking about a solution. “I think I have an idea. I'll come drop something off in an hour or two, ok?”

“Uh, sure? What is the plan?”

“You’ll see.”

“I’d very much prefer it if you’d be less mysterious about things, you know?”

He laughed out loud through the phone. “But where would be the fun in that?”

“Hey, you blood sucking bastard, want me to get my baseball bat again?”

Viktor laughed again. “See you later, Aurora.” he hung up.

“Viktor!!!” I yelled back on the phone but it was already too late. “God damn bloody vampires.”

 

I patiently waited for Viktor to appear at my door, but the two hours he set as an ETA had passed so I had to continue twiddling with my thumbs and watch some stupid drama show on the tv to kill the time. There used to be a TV channel called ‘History TV’ which I quite liked, especially their documentaries, but for some depressing reason they had started to air stupid reality shows instead over the last couple of years. While I could go and play with Shima, she was peacefully taking a nap on her cat tower so I didn’t want to interrupt her cute little snores. It was only around midnight when Viktor finally showed up.

“You’re late.” I opened the door for him.

“Ja, sorry for that, took a bit longer to prepare everything.” Viktor was holding a wooden crate.

“Well, come in, I guess.”

“Thank you.” He followed me to the living room and put the wooden crate on my living room table.

“So what did you bring?”

“See for yourself.” He smiled and lifted the lid, revealing a dozen of green bottles inside of it.

“Are these…” I took one of the bottles out, inspecting it closely, the label printed on it read ‘Vintage Red.’. “Wine bottles?” My gaze turned to Viktor who was happily nodding.

“Yes! First I was thinking about thermos flasks, but that’d look suspicious so I opted for wine bottles instead.”

“And wine bottles won’t? I don’t even drink wine.”

“You can pass it off as grape juice too.”

I groaned. “I don’t know this sounds like a bad idea… what if she wants to taste.”

Viktor smirked and lifted his finger. “That’s also why I brought this.” He lifted a couple of the empty bottles out of the crate and ultimately lifted a couple of filled ones from it too.

“So, this is wine then?”

“This one is.” He put his finger on the label, putting my attention to a very small ‘W’ printed in the bottom left corner. “But this one is just grape juice.” That one had the letter ‘G’. “And these ones…” Viktor handed me one of the empty bottles again. They were printed with the letter ‘B’.

“Wow. You did come prepared didn’t you?”

“Always plan for the unexpected… Even though I did have my suspicions you didn’t drink alcohol due to the lack of it in your fridge.”

“Mhmm.” I nodded. “So when Ria-chan asks to taste…”

“You just need to make sure to serve her this bottle. And if you ever need to refill it, just take that supermarket brand which has the rainbow grapes  as a logo.”

“Ah, right, I think I know that one.” -If I remember correctly I passed a couple of those bottles when I was looking for that milk earlier today-

“Gut, so how about we start filling up some bottles?” Viktor pulled a funnel out of the crate too.

“Sounds good to me, but one last thing before we begin, what the fuck is up with all that money?”

“Ah. I guess it does look like a lot of money to you.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Well, Ja, it is tradition for the liege to provide for their vassals. Being a vampire isn’t the cheapest lifestyle around, blood prices aren’t going down, and because of our practical immortality your money has to go a long way too. Generally making money isn’t much of an issue, because of our long lives and connections, but getting a little push at the start doesn’t hurt. Not to mention that having vampires be in debt creates way too much of a paper trail - if banks like doing one thing, it’s keeping track of who owes them money.”

“Oh, I hadn’t looked at it that way…”

Viktor nodded wisely. “We will talk about this more at a later date, but for now let’s start transferring some blood.”

“Ok, still not your vassal though.”

“Ja, ja, I know…” 

 

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