NOSGOTH NOIR

Author's Note: A twenties-style Dick Tracey Nosgothian vampire? Yes, I am aware that this concept is insane. ;) Please let me know what you think, and be kind if you can. I haven't written a fanfic in a while.

"They tell me you're the best."

The Clan Lord's chief stooge opposite me leans across my desk and eyes me like I'm dirt under his boots. Somehow, I ain't comforted by the pretty words. This fella's big, twice as wide as my door across his shoulders and uglier than the back end of a horse. Hell, he's Dumahim, he's probably the gang's pretty boy. They're all built like boulders and have rocks between their ears.

"Okay, Arcturos," he growls, "the Lord Dumah wants to know what's happened to his brother. Aquile says he heard you…have a way of knowing things."

Ah, jeez. Aquile. I knew I shoulda beat the little weasel in when I had the chance ten years ago.

"I ain't a Seer, if that's what you heard," I say, opening a drawer and starting to fish about among the junk. Not that I'd admit it if I was, you know? Seers have this habit of not living long. The Emperor seems to have this edgy dislike of them, and who's to blame him? We're vampires. The only thing we need to know about the future is where the next human slave's coming from.

"No, that's not what I heard," Ugly says, rolling his eyes. Outside my door, I can hear the Dumahim drones he brought as insurance shuffling their feet. It's raining out in Nosgoth tonight, a hard unforgiving rain, and the boys are restless. They don't wanna get caught in it on the way back to their clan ground. It's a killer.

"I heard you're a detective," Ugly continues, and he sounds bored, then in typical Dumahim style he repeats himself. "They tell me you're the best."

Fact is, I ain't just the best. I'm the only one. It's a dirty job, and I'm not gong to pretend I have to do it. Again, if we're talking facts, I gotta admit, I love it. It's a hobby. Everyone's got to have a hobby, right? Except that a lot of the time, we don't. Vampires don't have hobbies, humans have hobbies. I keep my nose clean in the eyes of the Clans by not telling anyone. You need to know why? Just take a look at Lord Rahab. Rumour has it he likes to keep goldfish in a tank and reads them poetry every morning when he goes to bed. It's now getting to the point where a Rahabim will be beaten up in his own territory for having a sire who's too human. I wouldn't be a Rahabim if you paid me.

So I never told anyone: except godsdamn Aquile, the squealer who's got it coming to him as soon as I get shot of Ugly and his goons.

"I may be in the business of finding out facts from time to time," I say, leaning back in my chair and biting off the dead-ash end of my cigarette. Yeah, I smoke. But never in public, and only when I need to. I get a little nervous sometimes. To hide it, I put my feet up on my desk, tilt my chair, and look Ugly right in his face, which is no picnic, let me tell you. "What's it to you?"

"To me? Nothing. To my Lord? Plenty." He stares at me, curling his lip in distaste at my cloud of cigarette smoke. "He needs to know what had become of his brother, your lord, Raziel. Do you think you can do that?"

"Yes, sir, I think I can do that."

He nods, smugly. Like I could refuse, right? I'm not even twenty years dead.

"The Emperor doesn't need to know about this. In fact, if he does hear about it, it'll be your head."

Ugly pushes back his chair and pauses in my doorway.

"And stop polluting your body with burning that human weed." With that, he's gone, slamming the door almost hard enough to break the stained glass panel.

"Hey, watch it," I call after him, "those things cost two or three human slaves to make!"

Silence. Just the hammering of the rain. What a sour puss. Would it kill the clan soldiers to crack a smile once in a while?

I stub out my cigarette and sit back down. My first really big case, and for once I don't have to do any ground work, not counting a deep and meaningful with my good buddy Aquile.

After all, every Razielim knows Lord Raziel's missing. He's been missing for weeks.

The stained glass nameplate in my door reads Helios Arcturos in dark red letters. I wasn't kidding to that Ugly cat - it's a tough skill, setting blood into cooling glass, so I couldn't afford to have the words "Private Detective" underneath. I will one day, when my genius is recognised and I don't have to hide no more.

I'm waiting for the rain to stop so I can go out on the track of Aquile. He may have an almost fatal habit of singing like a canary to anyone with bigger fangs than him, but he's the closest thing I've got to a friend and if I'm going out investigating I need to know someone's got my back.

I take a turn in front of the mirror. The humans think we don't cast reflections, but I'm happy to say they're wrong. Not bad. Not bad at all, even if I do say so myself. There's a dozen places on my body I'm packing heat, but you wouldn't know it to look at me, and you can't smell the oiled blades either. I got this thing I can do with oilcloth and cloves - but that's a secret and if I told you, I'd have to kill you. And my special favourite piece, the throwing knife I've had since I was reborn, tucked into my shoulder armour.

Sure. I wear the armour, but I'm not a soldier. Not strong enough. Too many smarts, I like to say. I use my brain, not my teeth. It doesn't make me popular, but I wasn't put on Nosgoth to be popular. I was put here to be useful to my lord.

Trouble is, my lord ain't here.

If I'm such hot shakes as a private dick, why didn't I go looking for him myself, you ask? Well, here's the skinny. Lord Raziel's not the only big noise in the Razielim these days, and I got bigger problems to deal with than him being away.

I - we, the Razielim - we got Lord Escobar, and he's such bad news the papers couldn't make headlines big enough for him.

I turn up the collar on my clan cloak, specially made for me in secret in the pits of the capital, tie up my hair in a high plait, and step out into the fresh air of the Nosgoth night.