Encounter

"Firstly, you are an asshole. A colossal asshole," she said.

"I will not challenge that assessment," I said.

"And secondly... wow... wow," she said looking at the flower.

She laughed a little.

"It's amazing... and so warm," she said.

I smiled.

"Comes with being made of fire," I said.

"But it's so... gentle. It doesn't burn or hurt at all," she said. "I was expecting at least some flesh searing, which would have been quickly followed by me putting my knee through your skull."

I smiled wider.

"While it may look like the flower is made of normal fire, it's actually made of special magic fire that can't hurt you," I said with great theatre.

She raised both brows.

"Special magic fire...?"

"Yes, I specialize in special magic fire," I said.

She laughed and turned her eyes back to the flower, slowly stroking the petals with her thumbs.

"God... this is so unreal. If this is some kind of amazingly realistic dream, I swear I will scalp whatever physical avatar of the sandman that exists," she said.

"... Okay," I said, pleasantly surprised by her sparkle of weirdness.

"So, has the magic boy done enough to impress whiskey maiden?"

She looked up and softly smiled.

"My name is Kara,"

"Oh yeah!!!" I said with a powerful fist pump.

"What... what the hell was that?" Kara asked.

"Oh—umm.... that...it was kind of a mini victory celebration thingy... 'cause I failed to get your name the first time but managed to get it this... time..."

"Wow, that completely sodomized the moment,"

"Wait, wait... we were having like uh, a, proper moment?" I asked.

"You made me a creepy, beautiful fire flower and called me the whiskey maiden, and I gave you my name. Trust me, we were having a moment, and you just soiled it with your mini victory celebration thingy," she said.

"Oh, shit. Can we redo?"

"No,"

"Double shit; not getting blown off is weird."

"So, about the flower..." she said, "how long can it keep, err... living... burning?"

"Thinking of taking it home with you?"

"That's a ridiculous idea," she said.

"It'll keep going for about three days before harmlessly burning out," I said.

"Good, I've got the perfect place for it."

"So, would that be living room or bedroom?" I asked.

"Living room, that way it'll freak out visitors. I hate visitors," she said.

I chuckled.

"I've gotta say, it's a little strange how well this going now," I said.

She looked at me with a raised brow.

"How well this is going? You make it sound like you strike out so often you've never even tasted the celestial nectar of third base."

I laughed at the naughty imagery she had injected into my head.

"I guess you could say my problem is one of frequency." I said. "The few successes I've had in the female department have ended... messily. I swear love is an art of alien colours."

"Wow, we're already dropping the L word, magic boy?" she asked with a smile.

I cringed.

"Oh... oops... ah, I didn't mean anything by it,"

"Really?" she inquired.

I thought about it for a second.

"Well no, I meant something, but I didn't mean that something to mean anything... umm... big."

"Uh-huh," she said slowly.

Yeah, this situation was pretty much hopeless.

"Damn," I said with slumped shoulders. "There's just no way of saving that one, is there?"

"You could keep trying," said Kara with a smile.

"Yeah... probably shouldn't. Guess it was a way too early to drop the L word," I said

"No, not really; I just wanted to give you a hard time about it." She said.

"Wow... you are—?"

"Evil?" she asked.

"Awesome," I said.

"My friends usually say evil."

"They're so wrong." I said.

She laughed sweetly. She was still holding the flame orchid in her hands, though the strangeness of the thing seemed to register less with her.

"Earlier you mentioned wanting to satisfy my curiosities; I think I've got one that's in need of satisfaction," she said.

"Oh, ask away."

"Which online poetry forum do you belong to?" she asked.

Dread tingled in my insides.

"... What? What makes you think I belong to any—"

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," she said. "That response smells of guilt."

"Sometimes I think that's just my general scent."

"Right, spill," she said with a smile.

Kara seemed... jolly. Must have been my magic and epic personality... or the whiskey shots she had had earlier.

"I... I'm on a site called the Poet Haven... it's very user friendly," I said.

"I see, and what's your username?" she asked.

"No, no, no, no way,"

"C'mon," she said.

"I plead which ever amendment governs the disclosure of possibly embarrassing usernames," I said.

"I caught the flower, didn't I? Where's your sense of adventure?"

I sighed and passed my hand through my hair.

"My username is... familiar_stranger," I said with a good degree of shame.

She laughed; loudly and emphatically. Then after she was done, she laughed some more.

"Oh, lord," Kara said as she wiped a few tears from her eyes.

"Okay, okay... why, oh, why did you go with... familiar_stranger?" she asked.

"The vodka and heartache made it sound pretty epic at the time," I said with a smile.

She merely nodded.

"That was quite the Sherlock-esque deduction," I said. "What gave me away? Was it the colour of my pen, or the somewhat bushy nature of my eyebrows?"

"You describing love as 'art of alien colours.' Had quite the whiff of poetry to it," said Kara.

"Oh, I guess that does have a 'harbours delusions of poetry grandeur' to it," I said.

"No, not really delusions," she said. "More like dreams."

I smiled at her.

"Okay, I get how you found me out as a would-be poet. But how did you know I was on an online—"

The sigil I had placed on the front door when I first entered the bar silently informed me that something very old and inhuman had just entered the Southern Cross. I slowly turned my head so I could see for myself. He stood less than 6 feet tall, his coal black hair was cut short and heavily gelled, his eyes were a very dark shade of brown. He was dressed in a black V-neck shirt and blue jeans with a pair of simple leather shoes; it all added up to make him look decidedly... human. But he wasn't human; he was Vincent Del Valle, second prince of the Old Blood vampires. He made his way to one of the empty tables and sat down. The snap of fingers broke my gaze.

"Hey, are you still with me, or am I losing you to the pretty boy in the blue jeans?" she Kara.

"Ah, no, sorry; thought he looked familiar," I said.

"Anyway, Sherlockian deductions aside, what do you say to another trick, Kara?"

"Well, given that the first left me with a flower made of fire in my hands, I say bring it," she said with eagerness.

"Good."

Jackie boy was still chatting with the shockingly hairy men by the pool tables. I pulled out a red permanent maker from my pocket and got to work. On top of the bar counter, I drew a parallelogram and encased it within a hex-decagon. I then drew a cross that split the parallelogram and hex-decagon into four parts. I added a wing to each point of the cross.

"Okay, this one looks... weirder. What's it do?" she asked.

I raised my head and met her eyes.

"... It makes goodbyes."

Kara's eyelids involuntarily bowed to the blinding light that erupted out of the sigil I had drawn on the counter. After the outpouring of light had subsided, chains of crimson and gold phoenix feathers flew out of the sigil and tightly hugged the legs and torsos of every person in the bar. Before fear could be properly birthed from the hearts of the shackled people, the phoenix feathers ignited with brilliant golden flame, burning everyone in the Southern Cross to ash nearly instantly; everyone except the vampire prince. Vampires are durable, and they like to struggle.

Vincent violently screamed as the feathers tightened around him, using the embers of his soul as the fuel for their fire. His dark gaze found me as the bar filled with death. He bared his white fangs at me, his screams turning into bestial roars that filled the bar and made the windows shiver. But it was nothing more than the life in him playing its final note; there was no escape, no hope. His body crumbled to the ground as flesh gave way to bone, and bone gave way to ash. The chains of phoenix features dissipated, leaving no trace.

I reached into my right trouser pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a match box. I took out a cigarette and put it to my lips as my eyes moved around the bar checking for any abnormalities. When I was satisfied that all was as dead as should be, I took a match stick and struck it against the side of the box. I lit up my cigarette, extinguished the match, and took in a long pull of grey smoke that went dancing into the meadows of lungs. I had completed my assignment in accordance to the parameters given by the client, though I had taken the liberty of using phoenix feather instead of dragon's kiss—the client was pretty keen on dragon's kiss. Both spells gave essentially the same end-result, but phoenix feather was faster, and as close to painless as a flame spell could get. It was important to me that humans in the bar not suffer... much.

I turned to the bar stool Kara had been sitting on. She was now a pile ashes nesting atop the bar stool adorned with a blue flame orchid. A lot of her had spilled onto the barroom floor. Her empty whiskey rested solemnly on the bar counter top; the sight of it roused a young memory: "Is there anything more tragic than an empty whiskey glass?"... Good question. Parts of the bar had caught fire, and pretty soon the entire place would be ablaze. But I was behind schedule, so I got another match out of the matchbox and lit it.

"Tekana," I said, tossing the match to the floor.

The match stick hit the bar floor and sent massive ripples of flame speeding over the floor and up the walls, turning the Southern Cross into a gallery of fire. I got up from my bar stool and made my way across the flame wreathed floor to the front door. Once outside the burning bar, I walked across the street to my yellow Mini Cooper and got inside. First thing I did was switch on the radio—always liked to listen to a little music after a job. Second thing I did was roll down my window. I exhaled a puff of smoke as I looked back at the bar, wondering whether it had been cruel or kind of me to have talked to Kara knowing I would have to kill her. After another pull, I decided it was pretty fucking cruel. The bar was vomiting a steady stream of smoke into the night sky as tossed my cigarette out the window and started the car. I took a last look at the bar and drove away.

THE END...