Skovajsa, after a quick bite to eat to settle his nerves and improve his color, arrived at the Hyatt crisp and fresh from a quick toilet. He made his way calmly through the Wintergarden, perfectly tailored in a charcoal suit with maroon silk shirt and matching silk tie. He carried the bouquet of flowers under his arm and a very ancient looking wine bottle in the other, shifting the bottle under his arm as he pushed the elevator call button around four AM.
He stifled a smile as he shifted his weight. He was actually a little nervous, his feet tapping in anticipation as he balanced from side to side waiting. It had been a very long time since he’d been this close to such a boon and he’d never paid this much care to his approach. Sheer strength and ferocity usually got him exactly what he wanted. This wine and dining approach was all new to him.
He pushed the button again, tossing a casual, caustic glance at a maintenance man on a ladder just opposite him. Those beneath him didn’t deserve much more notice than that. He jumped slightly when moments later, the maintenance man as at his shoulder, his music blaring from his headphones.
“That one’s not working.”
Skovajsa recoiled, shifting the wine bottle away from the man. He wore just a non-descript gray one piece with a belt full of tools dragging him down into a stoop. His short cropped hair was mussed, and stood up on a side.
“That elevator?” The man pointed. He waited as if Skovajsa would address him. “Isn’t working.”
“Oh.” Skovajsa quickly moved around the little maintenance man to another set of elevators, pushing the button with haste.
“Um, don’t know if you want those either.” The man called to him.
“Why? It works, doesn’t it?” Skovajsa fired back, stepping inside quickly as the doors opened. The man waved as if to say more but it was lost to Skovajsa as the doors slide shut.
The maintenance man put hands on his hips, as his headphones blared R.E.M.’s “End of the World.” He looked at the elevator labels to read “15 – 21 Floors.” It wasn’t a music player connected to his headphones that he lifted up, but a cell phone. He punched a few keys.
“Yeah, he’s on his way up. Oh, it’ll take him a bit; I rigged it to go straight up to the top floor no matter what button he pushes. You still babysitting?”
On the other end of the line, a young man with silvered temples and wire framed glasses looked down the length of the bar at the blond man in the sunglasses who sat nervously waiting, listening intently to his ear bud although not having spoken a word into it. “Yeah, I’ll try to keep him distracted but he sure looks like he’s about ready to jump through that phone.”
“Whatever, Mordecai. Ritterreiter was clear. We leave that one alone.”
“Awrighty, Chain. I’ll do a smoke screen. Should confuse the other one to avoid any random encounters.” With that the bartender hung up the phone, pulled a box out from under the bar, and walked over to one of his regulars, sitting right next to the blond Viking. “Hey, Billy, have you tried these new White Star cigars?”
After which point, Billy took the proffered cigar and lit up, after being assured that he wouldn’t get in trouble for lighting up. The Blond man didn’t seem to notice anything around him, just gripped the phone he had sitting on the bar lightly. It was hard to tell with those sunglasses. After a few moments of smoking up the bar, the bartender wandered over to Sunglasses.
“You know, the bar officially closed a few hours ago. But I took pity on you; you looked like you had woman trouble.”
Jesper didn’t even turn his head to acknowledge the voice speaking to him. He wasn’t actually sitting there listening to the bartender, who decided to pour himself a tall glass of water and begin to spin some tale of marital woe.
Jesper’s consciousness was sitting in a chair across from Sophie’s bed, listening to her breathing, training his senses on anything nearby that felt or smelled or sounded Vampire. Which was why he smelled the twinge of bloody decay mixed with some musky cologne and the fragrance of lilies and roses before the elevator door alarm went off. He stood up walking towards the door to the hotel room.
Back at the bar, the bartender paused his story when he heard the cell phone in Sunglasses’ hand chirp.
“Hey, buddy, think your phone battery is going dead.”
His warning fell on deaf ears.
“Jesper?”
Jesper’s head swiveled to the bed. Sophie was still asleep, under the covers, but her sleep became troubled. She shifted, her arms stretching out, reaching around a pillow. He paused but the smell would not be denied. His sense of smell was the worst of all his sense when he projected which meant the Carpathian had to be close.
When the elevator alarm sounded, he sped to the door, but paused before going out. He turned back to the bed. He could take her, now, run. Get her to safety. Fly her away from here, to Morena. Why had he not enlisted help from Valerian? He felt the nerves knot together his stomach as he put his hand on the door knob.
Even without the smell and the elevator alarm, he could sense the Carpathian approaching. It was time.
Except, his hand suddenly wasn’t on the doorknob anymore; it was around his cell phone. He started.
“Hey, take it easy, fella. I tried to warn you.”
Jesper stood, feeling suddenly ill. The call had been disconnected and he had been snapped back into his skin. Without forethought, the transition produced ill effects that he termed Projection Sickness: dizziness, weakness, in some cases vomiting…fainting.
He reached a hand across the bar and grabbed the bartender in a panicked grip. “What happened?”
“Erk, I tried to tell you. Your phone died.”
Jesper swayed against the bar, the edges of his awareness blurring, fraying. “No,” he mouthed, hand still around the bartender’s neck but now slackening.
“Say, you wanna call her back, you can use my phone,” the bartender added. He dragged a desk phone over and dialed, without asking for the number. “I’m getting a busy signal.”
Jesper slid along the railing of the bar, and then toppled over, hitting the floor taking a stool with him. His face smacked hard into the wood but the pain helped him cling to awareness. No, he couldn’t abandon her to her fate again .
“Sophie,” he moaned.
The bartender came around the bar and looked down at the vampire at his feet. Then he used his own cell phone only to have it go directly to voice mail. “Come on, Greg, get off the phone!”
Vampirony 