Three of the four words were true, but Vicky didn’t care. She hated that she-devil.

The leader of Charlotte’s Soulless whipped out her phone as she rode the elevator down to the lobby. She hit speed dial and waited.

“This is Elisa. How can I make your dreams come true tonight?”

Vicky loved her escort service’s catchphrase.

“It’s me.” If someone didn’t know it was her on the line then they got fired. “Is Caroline free?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Elisa had a bit of a southern drawl when she got nervous. “Caroline doesn’t have anything scheduled.”

“Good. I need someone who can go all night and is down for some possibly freaky shit.”

“I’ll call her and inform her that she’s needed.”

“Good, I’ll text you the address.”

Despite that truth, Vicky had only slightly fucked up her meeting with the Dux.

The “this is my turf, new guy” play hadn’t worked at all. The Dux had nearly ripped her head off. But the “I want to prove myself and my coven’s usefulness” angle had worked a lot better. At this time forty years ago, when the old Dux had arrived, Vicky had been deep throating him within the hour. The “I’ll be your mistress and learn all of your secrets” plan had sucked…literally.

Now, the vampire queen of Charlotte was a trusted lieutenant with valuable contacts and resources her new boss could use. Now, she had other people to suck dick for her.

“Victoria.” Albert opened the door for her as she exited the car into the nighttime haze. “Where to?”

“The club.” She immediately went for the car’s hidden wet bar and grabbed a crystal decanter filled with thick, chilled, red liquid. “And text Elisa this address.”

Her chauffer and leadership beard hoped into the front seat and calmly drove away from the demon lord’s hotel. The powerful wards surrounding the apex of infernal power in the city always made her feel weighted down and tired, like something was constantly trying to crush her. Once they were a block away the feeling was completely gone and she felt ready to conquer the world again.

“Anything I need to know about?” she asked as she lounged in the back and sipped her chilled O-negative.

“There has been a slight issue.” Alfred hesitated. “It requires your attention when we return.”

Vicky had been doing it for decades, but that didn’t stop her from wanting a vacation every now and again.

For now, she’d just have to be content with reclining in the back of an armored town car sipping blood from a thousand dollar crystal glass.

Alfred snaked through the city’s nonexistent traffic toward the party district. Unlike the rest of the metropolis, this area was alive and kicking. Vicky watched through the tinted windows of the car as they passed drunken college kids, drunken high schoolers with fake IDs, thirty-somethings who were trying desperately to hold onto their twenties, and the creepy pervs over forty who were out to score pussy half their age. That was the group Vicky needed to watch. She supplied the drugs in her clubs and no one got to fuck unless they wanted to. Rape in her little fiefdom had dropped to nearly zero over the past decade. People knew bad thigs happened to bad people if they broke her rules.

So basically, it was your normal Tuesday night.

A slight ember of jealousy sparked in her mind as she watched the adults stumble down the dirty sidewalks laughing and joking about pointless human shit. She’d never be seen as anything more than a young girl.

she snapped at herself.

She had the body of a porn star. Every boy within a hundred miles jerked off to her yearbook picture, and she could pick up and throw a car if she got pissed. Her opportunities in life were only limited by the sunlight and her imagination. This had been her town for over a century, and it didn’t matter what she looked like.

Alfred pulled to a stop in the alley of her most successful club, Club Desire. It was a cheesy name, but the booze flowed, the drugs were quality, and there was no fear of getting roofied. All of that meant that girls flocked to it, and where the girls went the boys followed.

Alfred held an access card to the electronic reader beside the heavy exterior door. She could have walked in the front if she wanted, but she liked to keep a low profile. The local, state, and federal government didn’t take kindly to young girls running nightclub empires.

The door clicked open and she was met by Elisa.

Elisa was a pretty thing, which was why Vicky had turned her in the first place. Her skin was pitch black, but death made it look chalky. Her assets were perky and respectable, her dark hair silky and smooth, complete with a heart-shaped face you just couldn’t help but want to kiss. Unfortunately, she was as prude as an unmarried woman on the Mayflower, so Vicky had slotted her into an administrative position. Elisa’s attention to detail, near OCD attitude, and accounting degree from Duke made the young whore manager indispensable.

“Ms. Vicky.” It always looked weird when Elisa addressed her like that because Elisa was at least physically five years older.

“We have a problem. I know.” Vicky cut to the chase. “Take me to him.”

She let her anger fester. It always looked better when the high school cheerleader started whooping a grown man’s ass.

That thought made her smile as Elisa led the way through the club. Even through the soundproofing she could still feel the pulse of the music, the clatter of feet dancing, and the pulsing of blood through hundreds of people’s bodies. The sensation was intoxicating, but she’d spend a lifetime beating back the desire to open up a human’s jugular on a whim. Killing indiscriminately was a good way to get caught and killed.

But unlike the movies it wasn’t easy to kill a vampire. A stake through the heart or beheading worked, but at night their skin was as strong as granite. They were only vulnerable during the day, but where sunlight weakened them it also gave them camouflage. You wouldn’t be able to tell a normal human from a vampire on a balmy Carolina summer day, which was half the reason she’d stayed in Charlotte to begin with.

Wannabee hunters didn’t think to look for her kind in a place like Charlotte.

she grinned to herself as Elisa pushed through a second reinforced door and into the “Staff Only” section of the club.

Back here about a half dozen people lounged. A young woman sat in the corner with an IV in one arm with a tube in the other dribbled blood into a golden chalice. When the chalice was filled it was passed around the room like a bong in a college dorm room.

The human’s head was resting on the headrest and her eyes were rolled up into her head. The IV was a potent combination of drugs and fluids designed to keep her alive while they drained blood from her. Vicky recognized the woman as a regular donor, and she also recognized that she’d was nearly tapped out.

“Enough! “Her voice cut through the small group’s laughter like a fart at a funeral. “Cut her off, get her hydrated, and send her home.”

The group looked at her like she was a party pooper, which she was, but she held their gaze and raised her hackles. This group from her coven was all young rebels with a leather fetish. If they pushed, she’d show them real bondage. She’d done it before.

Reluctantly, they expertly removed the needles from the woman’s arm and started to nurse her back to health. It would be days before the young lady was good to go again, and she wouldn’t be allowed back into the club until she had a clean bill of health from a vampire approved doctor, who just happened to be Alfred.

With a tilt of her head Alfred got the message and stayed to oversee the rest of the woman’s treatment while Elisa and Vicky continued on.

This back section of the club held a few rooms like the one occupied by the BDSM gang. This club was one of the safe spaces set aside for her coven to come, feed, and let their vamp flag fly. But it was also a place where she held court and ran shit like a boss. For that she needed dedicated places to politely question certain individuals about their wrongdoings.

One such place sat next to her usual office for ease of access. Elisa opened the door and stepped back so Vicky could enter first. The second she stepped into the light of the room’s single hanging bulb the room was filled with laughter.

Even though the sound made her bristle, she was used to it by now.

“Oh baby, you had me worried there for a minute.” The man zip-tied to the chair looked like a child rapist and a used car salesman got together and did the nasty. She could smell from here that the guy was about five years from needed his arteries unclogged.

“Mr. Smith,” she looked down at the name on his driver’s liscense and raised an eyebrow. “If that’s not a fake name then I’m a virgin,” she laughed.

“Honey, baby, we don’t need this to get ugly. My employer will look the other way for a sweet thing like you. So untie me and show me to your boss.” The guy smiled, and didn’t expect the slap that caught him across the face.

She’d found getting slapped in the face had a primal reaction for humans, especially if it was done by a woman. It was an act that took them back to their childhood, to their momma smacking them for being stupid, or teaching them to not touch the hot stove. The act of slapping registered deep in a human’s psyche, and it told her a lot about the person’s inner fortitude.

The way Mr. Smith reacted told Vicky that he was a low level worthless sack of shit.

“I’m going to ask you again, Mr. Smith. Is that a fake name?” Influence and power leaked through her voice and into the man’s mind.

It was a trick that Vicky hadn’t figured out how to utilize until after her hundredth birthday, and one of the few things pop culture got right about her kind. As a Soulless vampire she could compel people to do what she wanted or answer her questions. They had to be weak of mind and spirit, but even if they weren’t, a little T&A helped push them along to do her bidding.

She didn’t even have to show a little leg to get Mr. Smith talking.

“It is a fake name.” The shit eating grin the greasy man had been wearing a second before turned into confusion.

“No shit.” She backhanded him back across the face just to see his eyes water. “This will be a lot easier if you just tell me the truth.”

“Kid, I don’t think you know who you’re messing with. Just…”

She interrupted him by placing the heel of her stiletto against his nuts. Mr. Smith squealed like a little piggy, and it was her turn to laugh.

“Answer my questions and I won’t turn you into half a man. Understood? Don’t speak just nod.”

The man nodded.

“Good boy.” She patted him on the head like a dog. “Who do you work for?”

“Come on lady, you know I…”

She lowered the heel a fraction of an inch and the man jerked violently, which only brought his nut further into contact with her heel.

“Who do you work for?” Compelling people was exhausting, and she didn’t want to do it unless she had to.

“Juarez sent me. For fucks sake the Cartel. They wanted me to scope out the area for possible expansion.” The man practically cried.

“See, that wasn’t so hard.” She removed her heel from his groin and then straddled him to sit on his lap.

“What’s your name?”

“Mikey, but they call me Big Mike.”

She laughed at the statement. It was such a bad line. She could feel him getting aroused at her proximity and there was nothing big about him.

“I’ll tell you what Big Mike.” She looked him in the eye while she grabbed a fistful of his unwashed hair. “I want you to send a message back to the cartels.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever you want.”

She yanked his head hard to the side and sunk her teeth deep into his jugular.

The man screamed and struggled but it was useless. She sucked at the wound and the blood shot into her mouth from the arterial spray, but it wasn’t the blood that was important. It was the life in the blood, the very essence of humanity that a Soulless vampire couldn’t naturally produce. She sucked the life out of the cartel’s errand boy one gulp at a time.

“Get a bowl or something. We can’t let this go to waste.” She pulled her bloodstained face away from the man’s neck and blood sprayed onto the floor. His struggles were growing feebler as he bled out.

Elisa appeared next to her, her fangs fully extended, and held a container to the wound.

“Why did we bring this guy in again?” Vicky hadn’t gotten that far into the conversation before ripping the assholes throat out.

“He was selling substandard product in the club.” Elisa was practically drooling over the liquid sloshing into the container, but she was restraining herself.

“Hmm, then this is fitting punishment.” Vicky hopped off his lap and started to wipe her face clean. “Go ahead and have some.”

Elisa face was in the man’s throat before Vicky finished speaking. The man gave a weak mumbled of resistance before going limp. The aroma of freshly shit pants started to fill the room.

“Elisa…Elisa…ELISA!” Vicky grabbed her whore manager by the hair and pulled her back.

A century of practice made Vicky’s feeding relatively clean. Elisa was the opposite. Blood coated her face, shirt, and was even in her hair.

“Get a hold of yourself.” She pulled Elisa away from the dearly departed Mr. Smith. “Skin this fuckface and then dump his body near the border. Hopefully the cartel will get the message and stay out of Charlotte. We might even be able to pin another murder on the pack of mutts roaming around out there.”

She smiled to herself.

“I’m going to shower and get ready for school tomorrow. Homecoming is coming up and I’m going to be queen…again.”