Protip for Vampires #111: Just because you're a vampire doesn't mean you can ignore the laws of gravity.

Yeah, yeah. I know you're all wondering what happened after I had my first taste directly from Suicide Blonde's delectable neck. Did I end up having a massive orgy while bathing in gallons of blood and making a complete ass of myself? Maybe I realized my full vampire potential and became best buds with Harry or some shit. Whatever. I promise we're getting to all of that, since it's kind of a big fucking deal and everything.

Right now, I'd like to reflect on a conversation that Claude and I had sometime in the past year.

Don't look at me like that and whine about flashbacks. This is one of those conversations that popped into my head because it seemed way too coincidental to ignore, and besides: I'm the author, so deal with it.

***

"If anybody is trying to throw you off the roof of a building, you need to fight them like crazy. Get thrown down the stairs or better yet, throw someone else down the stairs. You want to fight those fuckers all the way."

(Stop complaining that there's no way this has anything to do with what happens next. Who's omniscient here, me or you? Right, so where were we?)

Yes, this was the actual-factual conversation Claude and I had, because it's the type that tends to verge on philosophical and ends up in reality. These usually happened while we played Ghost Recon Wildlands or Call of Duty or whatever first-person shooter game was popular at the time. Claude didn't usually talk about his jobs, and I made it a point never to ask, but sometimes, he needed to talk about something that was bothering him, just in a very roundabout way.

"Have you ever been thrown off a roof?" I remember asking, more scoffing than anything else. Claude was somewhere in uptown Manhattan at that moment, so we were chatting on the phone while we played. In the game, my avatar moved stealthily through a factory in a fictional version of Bolivia. Claude's avatar was somewhere off screen.

"Came close once," he replied, "but there was something about the gig I didn't like. Russians are always dodgy. I got the hell out of there as quickly and quietly as I could. The guys who had brought me on weren't so lucky."

"Fuck..." It was literally all I could say.

"If you do get thrown off a roof, you need to find something to slow your fall. Branches, plants, window ledges, whatever you can grab. Spread yourself out so you can offer more wind resistance. Just hope they don't throw you ass first, or you're really screwed."

"Couldn't you just do some ninja shit and do a flip or something—"

"Do me a favour: hold up your hand and slap yourself in the face for me, okay?" I didn't do this of course. "You have about one point five three something seconds if you're thrown off a four storey building. That is not a lot of time to do anything in except scream. If your life flashed in front of your eyes, you wouldn't even have time to graduate kindergarten. There will be no dodgy ninja shit. There will barely be enough time to get your feet under you and for you to bend your knees so you can at least lessen the landing. They say that's one of the best ways to survive a fall like that; just expect an ambulance to carry you away since your legs are going to be shattered."

"So no superhero landing?"

"Wanna slap yourself for me again?"

"So is there any other way to actually survive a fall like that and still walk away?"

"Yeah: be a vampire."

***

See what I mean about coincidental? Oh wait, you don't? Here, let me catch you up.

One minute, I was biting the neck of Suicide Blonde and getting as high as fuck, then I blinked... and the ground was rushing at my face at a rate that was definitely scary as fuck, especially considering that I appeared to be falling from about six storeys up and closing in on zero really fast.

I screamed as gravity enforced very solidly that yes, it still worked and it wanted to give me the biggest hug.

I suppose you're wondering why I'm not making a bigger deal that I had blacked the fuck out after drinking blood, but my immediate concern was that I was falling six fucking storeys. Freaking out about blacking out came firmly under the "figure it out later" category.

In the space of a second, I tried to do what Claude had advised and brought my legs under me faster than I thought was possible. There was a rush of adrenaline that surged through my veins as I reflexively triggered my fangs to snap into place, and I tried to aim for the limousine directly below—

One point five something seconds later, I smashed into the roof of the parked limousine, legs first and slightly bent at the knees as instructed. That would have been enough, but I had to get cocky. You know exactly what I did: you would have done it too.

I tried to stick the superhero landing, one knee bent, one fist slamming down and throwing me slightly off balance.

That... did not work out so well. The limo roof crumpled into a crater on impact, the glass windows cracking and then exploding from the force of a 185lb vampire smashing into it. My knees on the other hand, screamed in agony, especially the one that had been introduced to the laws of physics when it impacted the roof of the car. My vision blurred and my ears rang, rendering the world into a distant fog that I didn't want to look too closely at because somewhere in there was a bunch of pain that I wanted no part of, thank you very much.

"You just had to do the superhero landing, didn't you," a woman's voice said dryly. I turned my head to see Pam only feet away on the sidewalk, picking bits of glass out of her magnificent afro.

"Nailed it," I gasped, and slowly toppled over, tears running down my face as my knees screamed agony. There was a weird tingle mixed in with the agony, and I looked down at my leg, half-expecting to see a bone jutting out because it felt like that kind of day. Amazingly enough, nothing appeared to be broken.

"Give it a moment," Pam said too conversationally for someone who had just watched me fall from the rooftop. "It will sting for a bit but the healing should kick in soon. You'll be fine in about thirty minutes."

My knee spasmed, forcing me to stretch it out, and I hissed in pain as things began to move inside my leg in ways that shouldn't be possible.

"You do know you're supposed to leave the building by the front door," Pam asked, and I could tell just from listening to her voice that she had an eyebrow raised and a smirk on her face. "What happened? Did Beatrice get tired of you already?"

"I don't know!" I managed as the muscles or tendons or whatever in my knee stopped doing whatever the hell they were doing. At least my knee wasn't screaming at me anymore. "I don't know what the fuck is happening to me," I admitted.

Hey, maybe now would be a good time to start freaking out about the fact that you can't remember a single thing that happened? Whatcha say pal? That of course was the voice in my head that wanted nothing more than for me to freak the fuck out. I slapped my knee instead as a way to focus and it only twinged at me instead of screaming.

Holy shit, vampire healing was a real thing.

I pulled myself out of the vaguely me-shaped dent and half-fell onto solid ground on legs that definitely had no intention of working for me unless I agreed to some very strict terms of employment. Pam looked up again and so I looked up as well, a distant panic rising and threatening to take over. Sure enough, framed against the night sky was a shock of platinum blonde hair that could only belong to Beatrice. Of course she was looking right at me. A moment passed, and then she disappeared from view.

What the fuck was going on?

"Did Beatrice really throw me off the roof?" I asked Pam. "Why would she do that? I thought we'd really hit it off."

Pam shrugged. "Why does Beatrice do anything?" she scoffed. "Beatrice does what Beatrice wants, even if it means somebody, usually you, is going to get hurt."

BOOM! Beatrice landed on top of the already abused limousine, flattening the car even more than I had already accomplished, and scaring the living shit out of me. I might have yelped with surprise, but don't quote me on that, okay? She landed with both knees bent and pushed herself back in a little hop as if she had just done some tricky bit of gymnastics instead of jumping from the roof of a six-storey building, but still managed to look terrifying at the same time.

"And here she is..." Pam quipped.

Beatrice blurred, moving much faster than I had ever seen her before. She was at my throat in an instant, pushing me back to slam into the nearest wall, fangs bared, her blue eyes intense and full of such rage, the huge fucking knife in her hand coming right at me--

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" That was all I could manage, trying to think of something clever to say, anything that would prevent me from being murdered. Again.

Somehow, against all odds, that worked.

Beatrice paused and cocked her head, knife drawn back, ready to strike like some kind of fucked-up metal snake. "Bobbikins? Is that really you?"

"Who else is it supposed to be?" I gasped, eyes never leaving that knife.

"If it's really you, what's my middle name?" Beatrice snapped, the threat in her voice becoming a promise of pain.

"How the fuck am I supposed to know that?" I yelled, sure that I was about to have my head bisected by Beatrice's overly large knife. And did she even really need a knife that big?

Beatrice relaxed and pushed away, lowering the knife but keeping a suspicious eye on me. Her hair was as wild as her eyes and she looked like an insane person in that moment, the type of insane person who had already committed murder and wanted more.

"Stay right here," Beatrice insisted.

"What the hell is going on?" I asked. "Why did you throw me off the roof?"

Beatrice turned back to me. "Stay. Right. Here. Or I'll kill you. Permanently."

There was no fucking way I was staying anywhere. The instant Beatrice vanished inside the club, I tipped a salute to Pam and hobbled off down the street, my knee still stiff and complaining with every step. I was more than a little freaked out and my confusion was only intensifying. I tried to think back to what had happened earlier at the club, but there was only the memory of the blood flooding into my mouth and then... nothing. I had gotten blackout drunk a couple of times, after which I couldn't stand to look at a bottle of tequila for months, but even then there was always some sliver of memory, some sense of the passage of time. The lack of people on the street meant that several hours had passed, and that was low-key freaking me out as well.

I stumbled down the sidewalk, leaving Pam and my mess behind, and fumbled my phone out of my front pocket, glad that it had survived the fall.

"I'm freaking the fuck out right now," I said as soon as Claude answered. Then something occurred to me. "Why are you answering your phone? You never answer your phone."

"I'm driving downtown right now, coming for you," Claude replied. "I'm on Spadina, so I should be there any second."

"I'm not at the club anymore," I said quickly, glancing behind just in case Beatrice was sneaking up on me, pissed at me for trying to escape. Thankfully there was no one there. "I left." I paused, then blurted out the rest of the story. "Okay, Beatrice threw me off the roof, and I'm trying to avoid a repeat performance, so I'm walking. Quickly."

"Beatrice from the house? That Beatrice? I thought she liked you."

"Yeah, that one," I sighed, and glanced back again as I crossed the street against the light. Still no Beatrice, but that made me more nervous than relieved.

"Wait, dude: if she threw you off a roof, how are you even talking to me right now?" Claude said. "Was it even a high roof?"

"About six storeys."

"So she does like you!"

"You fall six storeys, and we'll compare."

"Difference is you're a vampire. You survived."

"Mostly, yeah. I kinda sorta wrecked the shit out of a limo though."

"You mean the one I just drove by with the roof all caved in?"

"Unless there are two smashed limos out here tonight, that's gotta be the one. Should I turn around now?"

"It's either that or start running. Moving targets are always worth more points."

"You're not even close to being funny," I said, turning around to see if I could see Claude's SUV. It was easy to spot, since it was one of the few cars in motion on this cold winter night, a large black Cadillac Escalade heading my way.

You know what else was easy to spot?

Down the block, Beatrice had run out into the middle of the street, ostensibly looking for me. We made eye contact , and my blood ran cold.

I ended the call as the SUV screeched to a halt beside me. The passenger door was almost perfectly lined up for me to enter, so of course I did just that, trying hard not to let Claude see how glad I was to see him or how panicked I was.

"Drive!" I yelled as I jumped in and fumbled the door.

Claude didn't need to be told twice. He floored the accelerator and the SUV tore out into traffic, the engine roaring as it was given full power. I glanced out of the back window and was glad to see Beatrice dwindling in the distance.

"Why are you limping?' Claude asked, then it occurred to him. "You did the superhero landing didn't you?"

"No... maybe? Yes, and god it hurt so much!"

"Dude, you have no idea how good it is to see you," Claude exclaimed, and his grin was infectious. I allowed myself to crack a smile as I buckled in.

"Emote while driving," I said. "I'll feel better the more distance we can put between me and Beatrice."

Claude drove but I couldn't help but look back even though I could no longer see Beatrice in the street. She hadn't even tried to run after us like some bad villain in a cheesy movie and somehow that made it scarier.

Beatrice knew how to hunt and right now, I was her prey.

Now if only I knew what the fuck was going on.

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