Vampire Vertigo by Melanie Nowak

Author:Melanie Nowak
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2016-05-20T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 3 - Top of the Trop

Elric

On the boardwalk, outside the

Tropicana Hotel, Casino and Resort

Atlantic City New Jersey

Elric stood at the rail of the boardwalk, listening to the waves crash on the beach. The pedestrian traffic was light. Not only was it late, but it was freezing cold and windy out here as well. No one was walking the boardwalk unless they were hurrying from one building to another.

A few grizzled and weather-worn men stood along the railing a few feet away, with their plastic canopied rickshaws, waiting for a fare to exit the casino looking for a ride to the other end of the strip. Elric ignored them and turned back to his newest charge, a recruit named Mick. The man was in his late forties when he’d died, and was not even a decade undead. He was tall, thin, and a little jumpy, but so far he’d managed not to grate too badly on Elric’s nerves. He liked cigarettes though.

Elric hated the smell of smoke; it was nauseating. Such a stupid and human habit; mark of a youngling. A vampire’s body certainly wasn’t prone to being addicted to something as simple as nicotine, but some of the young ones still felt the need psychologically, and sometimes it helped take their minds off their cravings for blood. At least outside in the wind Elric didn’t have to smell it.

By all rights, Elric should never have been stuck with him, but they were on low reserves. Arif had sent Lorelei back to the compound with her entire team, including those from the fiasco of Mattie’s turning three years back. He did not want to chance the boy recognizing any of them hanging around the casino. Elric needed his trusted men to cover other areas, so he’d taken Mick himself. So far, the man seemed fairly level-headed, but you always had to watch the new ones, especially hunting. Sometimes they did the stupidest things.

Mick took a long drag off his cigarette, the end flaring to a bright glowing orange in the dark, drawing Elric’s attention. “We should be heading in soon, it’s almost 2 a.m.,” Elric told him.

Mick was busy watching someone coming down the boardwalk. It was a middle-aged man dressed in many layers of shirts, rather than a coat. He had a heavy beard and seemed to be mumbling to himself as he walked. The man rambled past them to the stairs that led off the boardwalk onto the pathway to the beach.

The vampires watched, as rather than continue on the wooden walkway, the man made his way onto the sand. There was a signpost proclaiming large fines for walking on the dunes, but the man merely used it as an object to help pull himself up over the sandy mound. He then turned and made his way down the other side, back towards the boardwalk, and disappeared into the shadows in the space underneath.

Mick flicked his cigarette over the railing into the sand. “Let me take that one first.

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