Day Four:

I hadn't expected any of this, whatever this was.

It was an office like all of the other offices in the downtown core, except this office was populated with a variety of what I assumed were vampires. Everywhere I looked on this floor, I saw the same familiar blue eyes in the faces of perfectly normal and to be honest, perfectly attractive people, who all looked moderately wealthy, even the interns.

The building was two blocks down from where I used to work, and it was one of those buildings that didn't have a name. It was simply 55 Queen Street West, the name and address, the one and the same. The kind of mystery that you never think of as a mystery until you have to wonder exactly who had their businesses in the building. I hadn't even been sure where to go when I entered, there being three banks of elevators to choose from. The concierge had pointed me to the third bank and I'd had time to wonder if I was even in the right place since all I saw were perfectly ordinary people. Even the armed security guards were perfectly normal, if not looking for a reason to make my day less pleasant since I looked like the type they usually kicked out with extreme prejudice.

Entering the elevator I began to feel extremely self-conscious and had the thought that maybe I should have at least shaved. Guys like me is probably the reason they put full-length mirrors into elevators like the one I entered. Everything about the elevator said that I was about to enter into a world of corporate business and expensive suits, and you'd better not be wearing jeans and Doc Martens unless you're the delivery boy.

Yeah... I was wearing jeans and Doc Martens. I could feel the tightness of the cheap jacket I was wearing that was honestly the nicest thing that I owned. Unfortunately the nicest shirt I owned was a red Hawaiian type shirt covered with skulls instead of leaves or flowers and the combination was hardly flattering, especially with the stained blue-jeans and aforementioned Doc Martens. Most of my nice clothes had been stuck in my storage locker ever since I defaulted on the monthly payments, so there was no getting those back in a hurry.

There were no buttons in the elevator, just a flatscreen on the panel which lit up as soon as the doors closed. There wasn't even a door-open button or a call button, which I'm sure was extremely illegal, but I was getting the idea that whoever ran this operation was far beyond giving any fucks whatsoever. I was essentially trapped in the elevator that now seemed to thrum with a waiting energy, almost like a lurking beast itself.

I noticed the tiny camera above the screen and leaned over, sure that I was about to completely fuck this up for myself.

"Um, hello?"

The screen lit up and the extremely attractive receptionist stared out of the screen at me. She was black, young looking and her piercing blue eyes told me everything I needed to know.

"Do you have a card?"

I froze, my hands automatically going to pat every single pocket that I knew didn't have the card before my brain kicked in and reminded me to stop looking stupid and just get my wallet out.

"Card?" I asked stupidly. "I have a business card that the gentleman gave me. Tall, skinny, scary British guy."

"Please hold the card up to the camera."

I dug the card out of my wallet and tried a smile, seeing if I could lighten the mood a little.

"Yeah, I got it here. Lucky I brought it with me too—"

"Just hold the card up sir."

Right then. Message received loud and clear. I shut the fuck up and held the card up to the camera. Something went beep, the elevator clicked and thrummed, and I was suddenly being propelled upward in the smoothest and scariest elevator I had ever ridden in.

The receptionist smiled from the screen.

"Take a right as you exit the elevator and I will see you there Mister Diego." The screen went black and I was alone for the rest of the extremely fast and extremely short ride, completely aware of the growing distance between myself and the ground. This distance was something I was acutely aware of, especially as my ears popped from the pressure change that's your body's built-in sensor, specifically designed to signal you when you're too damn high.

Floor forty-four was too damn high.

I exited the elevator and turned right as instructed, walking past a pair of women in tailored grey suits, neither of them with a hair out of place, their blue vampire eyes flicking over at me, examining and then looking away as if I was of little interest. They headed through a glass door that opened soundlessly and for a brief second I caught a glimpse of cubicles and offices beyond the door. It was just an ordinary office to all appearances, just very expensive looking.

The hallways were a shiny brown wood-grain, accented by steel or aluminium fluting with the baseboards and the ceilings lit with warm lights that made the black granite floors feel slightly more welcoming. The receptionist waited for me at the end of the short corridor, the wall behind her desk dominated by gigantic aluminium letters that spelt out The de Biers Company.

All in all it was very impressive and looked extremely legit.

Whatever the vampires of the company were doing for work paid very well. I had a fleeting hope that maybe I would be offered a job there, maybe in the mailroom or something, and approached the receptionist a little more timidly than I had been intending.

She just smiled and waved me over to a comfortable looking waiting area that looked out over the city.

"Harry will be with you momentarily," she said and then she was gone, finger to her ear as she answered a call. "The de Biers Company. How may I direct your call?"

That had been fifteen minutes before Beatrice had shown up. I had enough time to appreciate the view from forty-four stories up, a view that very few in the city ever got to see, but I was growing more hopeful that it was a view I would be seeing more often.

If this was the way they lived, being a vampire might not be such a bad thing after all.

******** AUTHOR'S NOTE **********

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