Doctor Simeon Van Oslo, Vampire Layer

It was a dark and stormy night, though you couldn’t tell that inside due to all the noise blocking out the ambient sounds of the rainfall. A jukebox was playing Screaming Jay Hawkins and an old TV hanging from the ceiling was playing a game of some obscure, arcane sport that was simply incomprehensible to everyone else in the bar save an overly exited Salamander who was standing on the unused pool-table and waving around a flag, cheering for her chosen team as they did whatever it is that they did. The Salamander had a nice ass on her, noted many a customer as they passed behind her, and as if by some sixth sense she seemed to notice their stare from behind and slap them as if on accident with her tail. The men moved on after this rebuke, each in turn, and returned to their drinks and their terrible sandwiches and stale peanuts and other assorted horrors the bar & grill served.
In a corner opposite the entrance, next to the men’s room, his back against the wall, was seated a man in a heavy coat, the brim of a wide hat hiding his eyes in shade, a scarf covering the lower part of his face, fingerless gloves in his hands that slowly cut pieces of medium steak for him to chew. This man was waiting for a lady who had invited him to this meeting place by letter and he was getting impatient. This was not because there were any prospects of romance with the lady in question, no, it was because she offered employment, and God knows there had been precious little of that in his life in recent times. Well, that was not the way of it to tell the truth, he had found odd-jobs; here and there he’d be, helping out and such. Nothing to match the training, skills and experience he had. For years he’d been a specialist, his very life dedicated to the kind of work that few ever learned well enough to do and live to tell the tale. Van Oslo was his name, Simeon Van Oslo, and for the past twelve years he’d been a vampire hunter. That is to say, for the past eight years he’d been a vampire hunter and for the four since then he’d been an unemployed one. Ever since the world had changed and all manner of unnatural creatures had become more palatable to mankind he’d found that there was no hunting to be done anymore, and so he had fallen on hard times. Used to be a man could enter a fine mansion, kill a blood-sucking fiend and carry off some silverware and jewellery as a bonus on top of whatever bounty had been placed on the creature’s head. Once he even found a genuine Rembrandt that had been specially made for the undead beast in centuries past! That had been a fine time, sadly Wesley had stolen it from him and skipped town. Maybe that had been a sign of things to come Van Oslo thought as he chewed the rubbery steak and sipped a beer. A warm, stale beer that was the only one he felt he could afford for the night. If this job didn’t go through…
The door opened and for a moment the rushing of rain was audible to all. As is always the case when someone new enters a bar such as this, people turned to see the newcomer and appraise a potential victim or potential threat. They found both, for this was the lady that Van Oslo had been expecting. She shut the door behind her, closer her umbrella and removed her hood, revealing a tanned blonde with a pony-tail and a tight-lipped grimace. She stared straight at Van Oslo and walked towards him with confident strides, her boots going clang-clang-clang on the floor, a trail of water falling behind her. Most customers returned to what they’d been up to before she entered, but one kept staring at her as intently as she stared at Van Oslo.
The woman came to Oslo’s table and sat down without a word, looking him up and down. There wasn’t much to see from under the bundle of clothing he was wearing, of course. That was fine by him.
“Remove your hat, I would see your eyes” she commanded with an imperious tone, and Van Oslo obliged. His mess of black hair was revealed. She wrinkled her nose. “You stink” she pointed out.
Van Oslo shrugged. He didn’t care what people thought of his personal hygiene, and it’s not like doing laundry was free. Most of the stench didn’t originate from him anyway, and the garlic was just part of the job now wasn’t it?
“Mr. Van Oslo…” she began, but Van Oslo lifted his hand to stop her. “Doctor, missy. I’m a doctor” he said with a grin that she couldn’t see from behind his scarf. He noticed there was some fresh ketchup from his steak on the scarf and began sucking on it. A shiver went down the woman’s spine as she regarded his behaviour.
“Doctor Van Oslo. Quite. In any case I find myself, as I stated in my letter, in need of someone with your, uhm, expertise?”
Van Oslo stopped sucking on his scarf, pulled it off his face and picked strands of wool from his tongue. She now saw his stubble. He hadn’t shaved in a week or so.
“You need me to kill a Vampire, aye?” he asked, flicking the stray wool away.
“No, that is not quite what I’m after” she said, and now Van Oslo lifted an eyebrow.
“I don’t know much about them other types” he said. “If it’s just Zombies or maybe Ghouls I suppose I can manage, but it doesn’t take someone like me to handle that type of problem, not that I’m saying no, mind you, I do appreciate the work, but if it’s something spectral I’m afraid I’m not exactly an expert in exorcisms…”
“No, no, it is a Vampire we are talking about” the woman hastened to interrupt him and gestured with her hands to get him to lower his voice. He didn’t feel the need to do so.
“Then what is it that you want if you don’t want me to kill it?” he asked.
“This matter is very delicate and concerns my family history…” she began, playing with her pony-tail nervously.
Aha, thought Van Oslo. A classic tale of a corrupt ancestor come back to haunt the innocent, unsuspecting descendants, but here this fair-skinned young lady was, uncertain if it really was right to put an end to such an abomination or not.
“Don’t you worry, miss. That thing, whoever it was in life, is no longer a person. Vampires are creatures of instinct and wickedness, and to kill it is to set free the soul and body of whomever once was bitten. You’ve no need to feel guilty over it. And this is something that is asked of me quite often, but no, no there is NO, absolutely NO cure to the Vampire’s curse, so it’s just better to pierce the heart, chop off the head and get it all bloody-well over with, no pun intended, hehee…” Van Oslo was starting to get fired up. He had once done lectures on this topic at university, by God, and one day he may yet do so again! Of course today’s foremost expert on Vampirism was Anne Barley who just yammered on and on about how the sucking of blood was an act of sex rather than violence on their part but that kind of revisionism wasn’t going to fly with…
“You are a terrifying person, Mr. Van Oslo” the woman said, pushing her chair away. “I begin to think that perhaps you are not the man I need” she added and turned to leave. Van Oslo stood up himself and rushed to catch up to her.
“Hold on now, no offence to your departed ancestor but the facts of what Vampires are are what they are, you hear me? Are you listening to me you…” he grabbed her arm to stop her but she stepped aside and pushed him on ahead with greater force than he had expected her capable of, and a well-placed foot knocked him off balance, sending Van Oslo on the ground to the laughter of many patrons.
His face flushed red with anger Van Oslo stood up and faced the woman with a new look in his eyes. He noticed the smallest hint of pointiness in her ears. Oh, that was what it was about. She was one, no doubt about it…
Van Oslo’s eyes darted to the mirror behind the bartender and to his disappointment the woman was quite visible there. Damn. A Dhampir then? That was still a possibility. Van Oslo put up his fists and widened his stance.
“You surrender now, missy, and maybe I’ll go easy on you” he said.
Before she could respond to him the bar-patron who had been eyeing her up since she entered got up and walked up to the duo, a pint in hand. All his clothes were ill-fitting due to his spindly limbs and fat belly, the very image of a man with a mid-life crisis who had decided to get a bike to feel free and wild. Van Oslo could tear ten of his kind apart with his eyes closed.
“This guy bothering you?” he asked the woman, who smiled rather warmly to him.
“He is insisting despite being told no” she said, her teeth visible in her smile. No fangs. Damn.
“You heard the lady, take a hike buddy” the fat man said, sipping his beer. Van Oslo took a step closer, intending to use his cat-like agility to punch the bottom of the pint and give the man’s teeth a good rattling, but before he could the woman opened her umbrella, which confused him so that he took a step backwards. What the hell was she up to?
She closed the umbrella again, winking at him and showing him an empty pint. That didn’t make any sense, why would she…?
And then the beer that the fat man had been drinking spurted on his face. The pint had been emptied into his bulging cheeks while Van Oslo was distracted by the umbrella. He was now wet with beer that had been in some disgusting slob’s mouth. Van Oslo was enraged, and the general laughter of the bar patrons didn’t help. The woman took the pint to the bartended and sat on the stool that the fat man had vacated. The fat man was grinning at him smugly. The Salamander, her game now on a break, turned to look at the two men and began to chant “Fight, fight, fight” which was joined by many patrons. The bartender shook his head with a smile and began to place the more expensive bottles under lock and key. This wretched hive of scum and villainy seemed accustomed to such events, which was also fine by Van Oslo. He was the very peak of the human condition; nobody could beat him in a brawl if it was mano-e-mano like this one was. He lunged and gave the fat man’s gut a liver-punch, then an uppercut to the jaw and finally a knee to the solar plexus. The fat man was downed easily.
Sparing him no thought Van Oslo stepped towards the woman who was looking disappointed.
“Your knight in shining armour didn’t do much for you, demon-spawn” he said to her, opening his coat and revealing the hammer and stake that always accompanied him. On his left side however was a kukri-knife, and this he now took out to the horror of the patronage. The woman sighed and twisted her umbrella, pulling out from inside it a floret. She set the umbrella aside and removed her coat, revealing a black college sweater and a pair of black jeans tight over a shapely, athletic body. She held her sword in one hand and pointed it at him.
“I recommend you cease, Doctor Van Oslo” she warned him, and he smiled to hear her call him doctor. He waved his kukri around and kept his eyes trained on her. Everyone had gone silent. In the mirror behind her he could see the two men who had been playing darts aiming at him. He waited until they gathered the courage to throw and then spun around, expertly blocking the two darts with his blade. The looks on their faces were priceless! Van Oslo felt like he was back in the game now! This was the life!
He turned back to face the Dhampir and found the floret’s point sticking to his throat. It felt very sharp.
“Drop your weapon” she commanded. He did so and lifted both his hands up, fingers spread out. He feigned a look of worry and alarm on his face. This one was quick to be certain, but she wasn’t smarter than he was, oh not by a long shot. He slowly brought his hands to behind his head and gently let his finger reach into the wrists of his coat sleeves on the opposite hand. Then he waited for his opportunity, which came when the Dhampir turned to look at the fat man groaning on the ground. He’d gotten his breathe back and wasn’t seriously injured. In that moment of distraction she didn’t notice him draw out the kunai from his sleeves. He fell on his back on the ground, rolled over himself to crouch up again facing her, and let loose. Each throwing knife was sent to the left or right from where she had been when he moved, anticipating where she would move to dodge potential attacks. To his disappointment the kunai hit the floor, meeting no target in either direction, as the Dhampir had moved forwards instead and kicked his head with a heavy boot, sending him reeling, his head ringing.
Van Oslo found himself on the floor again. So maybe his reflexes weren’t what they used to be, so what? He wasn’t beaten yet! He still had…
Before he could reach for the smoke bomb in his pocket the floret pierced his pocket and the damn thing fizzled uselessly. With the agility of an oiled Unagi-Joro he slipped out of his coat and rolled on the floor again, thinking about his next move. He was at least thirty pounds lighter without his coat he thought and tried to jump on to the pool table to get the advantage of high ground. In the middle of his jump he was kicked in the stomach by the Salamander who seemed to want to keep the high ground to herself. Fair enough.
For the fourth time that day Van Oslo fell on the ground. He felt dizzy from all the rolling around he’d been doing and had now lost sight of the Dhampir. Where…?
“ARHGH!” he cried out as a twinge of pain ran along the right side of his face. The Dhampir had used her floret to hit him instead of stabbing him. He pivoted to the left to catch her with a punch but before he connected she had ducked away and kicked his crotch before slipping behind him and hitting the left side of his face with her floret.

It took a while for Van Oslo to force himself to stand up again, and when he did he dug out his silver-laced brass-knuckles from his pockets. He took a more serious stance and began to pay attention to his breathing. He needed to focus, to get his head in the game. This day couldn’t end in his defeat. No way. He had to win and show all the people mocking him he was still the greatest, the one they all would’ve shat themselves meeting. He was the great Doctor Simeon Van Oslo, bane of the undead, slayer of vampires!
To his chagrin the Dhampir was enjoying a cocktail, her sword resting on the table next to her. Paying no heed to the fact that he was quite visible in the mirror – he was too angry to thing about it – Van Oslo rushed her, thinking his opportunity had come to hit her from behind. A vampire hunter didn’t care about honour! Vampires didn’t play fair so why would he? Hah!
His world went dark when his own coat fell over his head and someone tackled him to the ground. He heard grunting and blows began to fall on his body and head through the coat. The fat man he’d downed was up again, dammit! Looking for payback, too! He tried to desperately block the blows and guard his head but his circumstances weren’t too good. He tried to kick put hit nothing. The man was holding him down with all his considerable weight, his knees on his belly. There seemed to be no wiggling out of it. But Van Oslo had not slain all those vampires with luck alone! He was practically superhuman! He could break free!
The fat man’s blows paused while he tried to catch his breath and Van Oslo did a crunch to sit up, then let loose through his own coat. His arms could barely move but with a twist of his torso and shoulder his fists got plenty of force behind them, enough to knock the fat man off of him and Van Oslo stood up, letting his coat fall on his opponent. Before he could fall on him and finish this the floret reached the skin of his throat again. How did that bitch move so fast?
“Enough of that, you’re taking out your frustration on an innocent man” she said with an icy tone.
Van Oslo spat on the ground, the movement of his head causing the point of the sword to scratch his neck unpleasantly. He put up his fists, the silver glittering. He wasn’t going to stop now.
“Mr. Van Oslo, please”
“DOCTOR Van Oslo. Doctor Simeon Van Oslo, vampire…”
THUNK
“…layer…”
Van Oslo mumbled as he fell down on the ground after the Salamander knocked him out with her flagpole. The last thing he heard was her complaining about excessive noise during her game. His last conscious thoughts were wondering about what the game even was…