𝄞 stardom.

by globalism

Summary:

5+1 rumors about the prodigy, the enigmatic guitarist, Sammie Moore and his 𝙙𝙚𝙚𝙥𝙡𝙮 𝙪𝙣𝙨𝙚𝙩𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙗𝙤𝙙𝙮𝙜𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙙. Plus 1 more that is somewhat addressed.

Notes:

this was in my docs half done for.....4 months...yikes. idek if i love how it came out but...it's out my system ayyyeee hope yall fw it :p

(1)

With notoriety, came stories, and they were always in circulation, in abundance.

“They don’t eat. Them boys don’t eat, for real. They nibble. And they drank, they sure know how to do that. But they don’t eat. Not no full meals, not nothin’ to fill a man. I ain’t seen neither one of ‘em eat right. And the more I think about it, the more it give me the willies!” The words were spoken by a longtime observer, someone who was truly in the loop; the young star’s driver and escort, Ron Wyatt, after he started working for Sammie Moore in Helena, Arkansas, just across the river, quite literally Delta neighbors. Ron had never been one for gossip—he always heard through the grapevine but never whispered back, but this little nugget of knowledge nagged at him for so long he just had to say something—especially when asked. Sammie was a good kid, a talented boy. But him not eating was seriously disturbing, especially when he had good weight on him! Nothing about it matched. Ron couldn’t square it in his mind, and he despised that. Things had to make sense! “Eatin’ like mice! Him and that lily-white bodyguard of his! Swear to God, it’s like Sammie possessed on that stage—but I don’t know if it’s an angel or devil that done took hold of him!”

“But the music’s good, ain’t it?”

“Music’s great. Fantastic, even. That makes it more odd. How he thinkin’ up them lyrics on an empty stomach?”

“Is you gon’ ask him direct?”

“Hell naw. I ain’t that curious,” Ron Wyatt relented with a flippant wave.

When Sammie finishes performing, it’s customary for folks running the juke to offer him a plate. It’s a courtesy thing. He always declines as sweetly as he can. But when it’s those big mamas, the ones who ain’t got no business lingering as close to him as they were, it’s hard to say no to those eyes—affectionate glares that dare him to deny their motherly authority. So, Sammie took bites. If there was meat on the plate, he struggled not to let his fangs drop. The food was good, tasty as it’ll ever be—but it was only that—just taste. It wasn’t doing a damn thing for his belly.

Remmick would watch from a corner, a sly grin playing at his lips. It always took a lot of convincing to get Remmick through the door, and because of that, Sammie often designated him a corner to stand in, so as to not make the other patrons uncomfortable with his presence. A white man in a juke was like an open threat, an accident waiting to happen, even if he wasn’t doing anything. So Sammie could make an obedient dog out of him, and the more people saw it, the more their unease was soaked with bits of amusement. 

Sometimes, though, Remmick would come around, picking off Sammie’s plate like a vulture circling vulnerable prey, on its last leg. It was a shocking sight to see—something hard to swallow, like the food itself—a man of his complexion so friendly and touchy with a boy that has no discernable reason to know him so dearly. 

Sammie would shake his shoulders dramatically to shove him off. Remmick would chuckle. If there were no eyes on them, Remmick would creep ever-closer, grazing his fangs along the curve of Sammie’s ear, whispering about how much he likes his songs, saying all sorts of weird shit to get under his skin—saying he likes the way his sweat smells.

But most of all, people ogled at them because they didn’t eat. Best luck they had seeing their favorite performer eat heartily was if they gave him a bunch of grapes. For Remmick, he only came for seconds if it had to do with whiskey. At first, they were scared of a drunk, angry cracker on the loose—but Remmick was good at being good when he wanted.

“My first and foremost concern is keepin’ our lil Preacherboy safe. I can’t be startin’ trouble; I’m the one supposed to end it,” he’d often say, jubilantly, with his eyes wandering as if to dare anyone to lay a hand on Sammie. He enjoyed the bodyguard role too much—took it as a divine appointment the way he took everything with Sammie. “No one touches the talent.”

Ron wrinkled his nose. Remmick unnerved him endlessly, something dark swirling around his aura that none of those humans could name, but could all feel at different levels. Ron shuddered and found himself unable to clap with the rest of the crowd when the next singer steps on stage.

He noticed Sammie, then, not so much eating as fumbling with a piece of fried catfish in his mouth. Ron grimaced when he caught a glimpse of the young man’s teeth—sharp as a dog’s and moonstone white—if his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him.

 

 𐕣𝄞𝄢

 

(2)

When they asked Cleopatra Redding her thoughts regarding the charming young singer and his peculiar associate—no one could quite decide if the white man tailing him was really an attack dog or a purse puppy—she had simply recalled a moment she witnessed on two separate nights. 

“You see, these lil pop-up jukes are home to many things. You know when the drinks flowin’ and the music’s goin’ so right—people gettin’ all drunk and stupid. Sometimes it’s just an accident here and there, a lil flesh wound ‘cause someone tripped and scraped they leg or a bit of glass nicked they hand. Whatever. Other times it’s fools, who got no business bettin’, bettin’ money and gettin’ mad over it. Then it’s a brawl. Either way, there’s blood. There’s likely to be a moment of bloodshed in a juke, big or small. And what I noticed is that if Sammie notice, he get all jittery ‘bout it. Maybe it’s ‘cause I’m older than him or maybe it’s ‘cause I’m a woman but,” she paused and shrugged here, notably. “It ain’t no reason to be that frightened by blood. Not in those amounts.”

“You don’t think you bein’ a bit insensitive?” There was no malice or accusation in the tone, just a desire to hear a response. A hope for something poignant. “Maybe he just squeamish.”

“Girl, bye,” Cleopatra chuckled, with a hand to her chest, all queenly. Her Memphis, Tennessee accent seemed to strengthen with her amusement. “I’m the one who has to clean it up. They need to be sensitive to me.”

There was a silent, jolly ‘the fuck’ at the end of her statement. The gals laughed.

Sammie froze. When he caught the scent of blood in the air, his back straightened like a hound, and he tracked it. Maybe it was a fledgling’s impulse. Remmick had to remind him to act natural, act like he’s eaten before, act like he’s been somewhere. Remmick would plant a hand on his chest to soothe him, but oftentimes, it made his barely-beating heart jolt as if it were electrocuted.

Sammie would return to his chatter, accepting the praises of clubgoers with a shy, closed-lip smile, heat rising in his cheeks. Women flocked to him. One of them was the one bleeding—she had cut herself on some glass. Her hand was wrapped now but it was like she barely registered the pain; either that, or her pursuit for Sammie’s attention was that much more important to her.

He smiled to himself, trying not to stare at her bandaged hand. It didn’t go unnoticed.

“You scared of blood, baby?” She asked, pulling her hand back and her smile forward. Her eyes were big and light, hazel or green or something else rare. He shifted his own away, worried they might glow. He felt his bones shaking; his muscles quaked under his skin the way they did after running around all day—all night. 

“Terrified,” he lied. “I’m sad you got hurt.”

“Just me bein’ me, is all. I’m a lil accident prone, can’t lie. Why I need a man like you to guide my hand,” she flirted. “When my hand get right, why don’t you teach me some guitar? That’ll be fun!”

“Oh, you shameless!” One of her sisters shouted, gripping Sammie by the arm. It was four of them, all pretty in different ways, all dizzyingly loud. Sammie’s mind drifted away—someone else was bleeding too. A man. He got stole in the mouth, tooth cracked. It made Sammie hungry. His feet staggered as the women tugged at him, like nymphs ready to eat him alive.

Little did they know. 

‘Tighten up, Sammie. You’re tremblin’,’ Remmick whispered in his head, before a wave of exasperation and concern flooded his mental voice. ‘Hey, hey…’

“Hey, now. Okay,” he said smoothly, snaking his way past the young women to hold Sammie steady—if he couldn’t pounce, he was liable to just float away like a feather in the wind. All the folks bleeding were way too close; too much temptation for a newly-reborn vamp; especially one as resistant to his condition as Sammie. The man who got punched in the face was stumbling around, groaning for someone to kick the other guy out—and nobody paid him no mind because he started the incident—nobody except that gal Cleo, who took great pleasure in antagonizing the poor sucker. Remmick wanted to break his jaw open and give Sammie his bleeding tongue, like a pacifier to quell his thirst. The elder vampire held the younger upright and smiled coolly at the ladies. They look affronted by his willingness to interrupt. “Think it’s time for my friend here to retire. He’s got a few other shows comin’ up; it’s good he rest up, give you another show tomorrow night before we hit the road.”

“Aww! Damn, Sammie, you tired already?”

“Sorry to say it, but yeah, I am,” he said with a deep breath. He shakes all of their hands, gives them all a promise with his eyes. He tries not to squeeze when feels the hazel-eyed dame’s bandage against his skin; he tries valiantly not to juice her hand over his. Internally,  he praised his own self-control. Still, he brought her hand up to his lips and kissed her bare knuckles, all knightly. She swooned. “It was nice to meet y’all.”

 

 𐕣𝄞𝄢

 

(3)

In Paducah, Kentucky, a spry young stagehand was eager to divulge everything she witnessed. She, Suzy Parks, promised to travel with them all throughout Sammie Moore’s Kentucky leg of the tour, on account that she knew all the good spots and all the places to dodge. It was true, but she also just wanted to travel with a badass blues man—she thought it’d be adventurous; making some money on the side was a sweet bonus.

She chatted up a storm, saying a ton, but she had the classic southern training of general politeness, so she hid it quite nicely in codes.

“Sammie and that guard of his don’t sleep. I swear to God, it’s both of ‘em. They don’t sleep like normal folks. They can stay up for hours—oh, don’t look at me like that! You know what I mean,” she chided, somehow both a whisper and a screech. “I mean after a long night of clubbin’ and performin’, they still don’t sleep. Like they don’t tire. And they always roomin’ together. You know, the whole crew stayed at the Hotel Metropolitan—and, boy, it was nice! But Sammie made sure we all had separate rooms, as much as he could afford. I roomed with one other female, on account of it just bein’ two of us, but him and his guard always shared a room. Now, girl, I understand a guard bein’ nearby, next door, even visitin’—but overnight? They in there doin’ who-knows-what… I ain’t gon’ throw out no accusations of somethin’ I ain’t seen myself but it look a lil… bizarre. I have seen them bring guests into they room too. Men, women, all lookers, you feel me? Real handsome types.”

“And what does that mean? What could it mean?”

“Golly, I don’t know. But it leaves much to the imagination,” Suzy giggled. From there, her lips were sealed; she had deemed that she said too much already.

One night, before bed, Suzy hovers around her door for longer than necessary. At first, she was basking under the light of the chandelier, watching the team each enter their rooms, waving and wishing each other goodnight. The last to slip away were Sammie and Remmick, his loyal sentinel. Remmick’s feet dragged along the carpets. The singer dragged him by the wrist, as if scared to let him loose. Suzy quirked a brow. Her calloused hands gripped her door-frame harder, even as her roommate begged her to shut the door because she was letting in all the hallway light. She watched, momentarily, as the two men shared whispered words, nearly inaudible and certainly indecipherable—before she finally, couldn’t fight her body any longer and yawned something mighty. Kelsy-Anne, the other woman in the room, chortled and told her to get her ass to bed. Suzy complied, although she was thoroughly dissatisfied—her curiosity left high and dry with no resolution. As she shuts the door, so do they, but she sees Remmick grab Sammie’s arm, just above the elbow.

She doesn’t know what they do in that room.

She doesn’t know that Remmick’s often on his knees, crawling towards the younger vampire like a pathetic dog, begging for a drop of his blood like it’s pure ambrosia.

“I ain’t kill nobody today; wasn’t no klan to munch on,” he said, claws poking through Sammie’s clothes as he gripped him. Sammie unbuttoned the first seal of his shirt and Remmick, irritatingly, tore the rest away. “I been good, ain’t I?”

“A good dog,” Sammie grunted, shoving the man back with his foot. Remmick stumbled and landed on his rear. He was, too, embarrassingly hard. Sammie rolled his eyes. “A nasty one, too. You supposed to be a guard; I ain’t gon’ reward you for doin’ what you supposed to be doin’.”

“You ain’t been rewardin’ me, period,” Remmick groaned. “And I’m the one feedin’ you ‘cause you too good to hunt.”

“I am too good to hunt,” Sammie agreed, twisting the dig into a badge of honor. Remmick swore that he saw a regal glow around him every time he said it, like Sammie becoming a vamp was a gift that Remmick ought not forget. “I’m the music-man, remember? I play, you hunt.”

“That girl we had in here yesterday was cute and all but she had anemic blood. It was practically empty. Nothin’ in there for me,” the elder frowned. “Nothin’ red.”

“I ate just fine,” Sammie shrugged.

Remmick sighed. “You young. You don’t know the good stuff.”

“You wanna drink from me, does that make me good stuff?”

“Aw,” Remmick’s eyes flashed a hellish red, affectionately. “The best. Taste like benediction, like how communion’s supposed to feel.”

He yanked harder at Sammie’s trousers. He panted. Sammie grimaced in response, but something in his nervous system stuttered with intrigue. Something hot, something that should’ve been dead.

Sammie killed the thoughts in his head and silenced Remmick’s desires, loud in his brain.

“It ain’t never enough for you,” the musician scowled, hiking up his sleeve, baring his veiny wrist. Remmick salivated. With a single word, and an exasperated huff, Sammie spoke. “Eat.”

Eagerly, the elder complied, holding Sammie’s warm palm up to his face, before sinking his fangs into his wrist, teeth slotted in the soft meat between his radius and ulna.

Remmick indulged greedily, as he always did, since his chances were so few. Sammie hummed the whole way through, until he grew bored of fattening the elder up on treats he definitely didn’t deserve. 

He should’ve seen it coming by now, but Remmick never does. Always too lost in the sauce. 

When Sammie got tired of Remmick sucking his jelly-soft, dead blood, he kicked him off, sat atop him and hissed at the gore-covered, sniveling, teary-eyed bastard. They spoke in a vampiric language entirely composed of eye movements and the elder’s pathetic whimpering. Remmick’s face had an unnatural flush. Sammie found himself irritated at how blissful he looked, how Remmick’s physical and mental arousal swirled in his mind, wriggling its way into his songs, his strums, and his notebooks. 

When Sammie got mad, thinking too long about everything that brought him to this point, he mauls Remmick, brutally and mirthfully—so unlike the gentle son he was just a year ago. He justifies himself, saying, “I’mma do this in remembrance of me.”

He rips through Remmick on behalf of the boy he killed. It’s guiltless—joyful, even—because Remmick doesn’t die.

Remmick, on the contrary, sneers. “I know you feel it when you hurt me.”

“Don’t care. Feels good.”

The elder makes a shocked, small noise, feeling the wind punted out of him. Sammie showed his fangs and his awesome green eyes and it had the man shuddering beneath him. He grinned, wide and accepting, as Sammie, his singing jaybird, pierced him, sinking his teeth with a ruthlessness only reserved for him; taking grisly bites, feeling the thick blood thump through Remmick’s veins to rest upon his tongue. Vengeance, for a single nanosecond, was even sweeter than limelight.

 

 𐕣𝄞𝄢

 

(4)

“No one knows how they met, they just always seemed so close, like they been a pair for the longest time,” said Steve Brown, a humble, burly bouncer from Taylorsville, Kentucky. He was one of those guys that was big for nothing, so he always ended up in security roles, relying on his size and deep voice to control a room, and it worked, for the most part. But even he couldn’t deny feeling a bit intimidated—and all-around perturbed—by the oddity that was Remmick. Steve tilted his head as he pondered it, chewing his words like sugarcane, eager to spit them back out. “I find it odd; I do. I mean, it don’t make no sense. Sammie’s a youngster, Remmick’s older. He seem the type to know much, while Sammie—though he ain’t no knucklehead or anythin’—he still a lil green. I don’t know how they crossed paths, and they ain’t care to tell nann one of us yet, but they attached somethin’ serious. You’d almost think they kin, if your eyes ain’t work!”

“Fascinatin’!”

“Sure is!” Steve rumbled. “I like Lil Samuel, I do. But them two together creep me out. I seen Sammie mad once—he always seem a lil mad at Remmick in particular, but he keep him around so it can’t be that bad. But that day, things just wasn’t goin’ right and he was irate. He cussed Remmick out so good, he closed his mouth and just stared at him, and it was like he was still goin’! Remmick was flinchin’ and all, like they could hear each other thoughts. That’s how close they is! Crazy, I tell you!”

As Sammie sat at a table, chatting up some friendly, dapper patrons—well-suited men, an older, fine lady with a feather in her hair—Remmick stood near, at his shoulder like a loyal avian companion, eyes sharp as a hawk and charm turned up to the max. For a lot of them in this club, he was their first positive white interaction; so he thought he ought to make it last, especially if it got him in Sammie’s good graces, buttered him up nice. 

Sammie rolled his eyes subtly, hearing the thought amplified in his head. He shoots Remmick a look as if to remind him he’s not as slick as he thinks. Sammie’s learned Remmick isn’t the Devil—not the capital one at least—he’s not cunning enough. Just persistent and irritating, like a gnat, always bugging, biting, nipping.

Remmick cracks a joke. The lady finds it hilarious. Sammie’s just sure they think Remmick’s accent is funny. When the atmosphere is light, some of his true tone comes out. The musician in Sammie swims in his inflections and the bouncy lilt of his words. Even when he was saying absolute bullshit, he managed to make it sound good to the ears at least.

When the men at the table praise Sammie with a bit too much vigor, with one of them giving him a thirsty once-over, wrapping plump lips around a fat cigar all-too-appetizingly, Sammie swallows and fights a smirk off his face. Remmick’s hand is on his shoulder first.

Sammie’s eyes flash with a pang of panic. Then he cools. Remmick was dramatic; he’d live.

Sammie keeps talking, managing to call Remmick a clingy freak in his mind, loud and unobstructed, even as his mouth mutters lyrics from an unreleased song, drawing the intrigue of the guests at the table. “Been workin’ on it,” he says, “still tryna figure out where it goes from there though.”

“You always writin’ somethin’ deep, I see,” one says.

“Sammie’s the thinkin’ type,” Remmick smiles, dipping low to wrap Sammie in a friendly, tight hug that he can’t escape while seated. “Philosophical. Like Plato and the like. Ain’t that right, Sammie?”

“I guess. I don’t know too much about them,” Sammie replied in a shy mumble, overwhelmed by Remmick’s physical weight on his back. At a moment’s notice, he remembers the other three people, and snaps his eyes up towards them, shaking off that timidness, although he couldn’t shake off Remmick and his demonic affection. “I mean, I just write out what I feel.”

“Makes sense,” one says slowly, eyes dragging along Remmick’s arms, his pale hands pressed into Sammie’s torso.

In his mind, Sammie threatens to kill Remmick slowly, starting by plucking off each of those banjo-strumming fingers.

A piece of him recoils at how easily his thoughts darken because of Remmick’s influence. Another part delights in the release he knows Remmick will give him.

“Swear, couldn’t find another talent like him,” Remmick snuggles. He grins, flashing a snaggle fang. He kisses Sammie’s ear, pressing against the soft flesh of his lobe and the sensitive skin of his neck. He still smells alive, just a bit. It was heavenly. Remmick looks back to the three little socialites, trying to appear cultured and talented, trying to relate to Sammie anyhow they could—not knowing Sammie was so far above the average human experience, even before he lost his humanity that it was a moot effort. It brings Remmick a deep joy, and knowing that it irks Sammie—makes him react—only brings him more pleasure. “He’s the best there is. Baddest man holdin’ a guitar for sure!”

Then he pulls back, hands resting on Sammie’s shoulders, and part of Remmick feels like a gargoyle, firmly at a post, protecting a sacred building, a temple—and Sammie was his holy grounds.

Sammie shot him an embarrassed look at the quiet that seemed to befall the table. It was halfway between bashfulness and homicide. Not even the drinks stirred any longer. 

From the other side of the room, Steve watched, and shuddered. What an odd duo they were. Despite all that clear tension between them, they never let each other go. Not really. Not far.

 

 𐕣𝄞𝄢

 

(5)

“He skittish as a deer when it come to interviews! Been chasin’ him ‘round for a minute!” Wannabe writer, Marielle Duke, lamented. She puffed air out of her cheeks, exhausted as she recounted her memories, tailing the artist from venue to venue, as much as she could afford. “Most things we know ‘bout him come from what he say onstage. He like the limelight, I’m sure, but when it’s time to get up close and personal, he steady declinin’. He polite about it, I guess, but it’s always some flimsy excuse. Sometime the guard not too far off, too. Me, personally, I think that white man’s got his tongue. I know I shouldn’t be, but I’m overly curious—and they always warned against playin’ with white men but, shit, why’s he?” 

Somehow, she managed to make it with them all the way to Vincennes, Indiana. That northern air felt different. Though it was more industrial, bathed in smog, stink, and endless unflowered dreams, the air somehow felt cleaner, more welcoming. She could see why someone like him would risk it all to come up here. Still, she needed more concrete answers; and curiosity was sure to kill this cat.

“Sammie Moore!” Marielle shouted as soon as he concluded his set. He flinched a tad before turning towards her. His guard straightened and gave her a hard look, not quite threatening, but toeing the line. She gulped. “Been wantin’ to interview you. Are you free to talk? Please? I’ll buy you a drink!”

Sammie grinned, something modest and wholesome. “That’s kind, it is. But I think I’m ‘bout ready to call it a night.”

“That’s right. We travelin’ first thing in the mornin’,” Remmick said, a lie so obvious even Marielle could tell, knowledge of the supernatural be damned! He sneered a bit when he said it. Jokingly, he remarked, “You a professional in bein’ all up in people’s business?”

Marielle was hit with a wave of offense but stood her ground, sighing a bit as Sammie packed his guitar back into its case. Somehow that felt like a sign that she wasn’t going to get what she wanted… for the umpteenth time! 

“I may be. But I’m what you call a truth-seeker! I think Mr. Moore got a story to be told and I got the tools to tell it.”

“You don’t know how right you are,” the Irishman agreed with a chuckle. The young lady hated to admit that she felt validated with his words, perhaps more than she should’ve. 

“I reckon I can tell my own story just fine.”

“Nuh-uh, Mr. Moore—that’s where you wrong!” She grinned, clutching her notebook tight as she sashayed up to him with undue confidence and a level of audacity Remmick had no choice but to respect. “Biographies way more popular than autobiographies because they better, they can go even deeper. I can ask you questions about you that you ain’t never even thought of—stuff you thought was little—stuff that’s really big, really sacred to who you are!”

“Sacred and big?” He echoed, frozen.

“Mm-hmm!” She insisted. “At least let me get a question off! I been on you forever!”

“Like a hound dog,” Remmick chortled.

Sammie glares at him, unamused. Then he looks back at the light-skinned gal and softens his gaze. Still, he gives her what she doesn’t want to hear… as gently as he can.

“I’mma think about it. But I’m really tired. You seen it, I was up on that stage damn near till I couldn’t breathe. And travelin’ across the country ain’t easy now.”

“Yup. You heard him, miss. Try again some other time. He won’t be able to give you a sensible answer if his brain’s runnin’ on E,” Remmick steps in, and the young lady looks a few steps away from crying in shame.

Neither of the men can focus on that, instead worrying about how she’s been keeping up with their travels so consistently. She was at the last three venues at least! They only ever traveled at night, obviously, so it wasn’t like they were spotted. She must’ve been extremely committed. A super fan.

‘A lil early in your career to already have one of those,’ Remmick remarks mentally. ‘Dedication is one thing, but damn.’

‘Shut up,’ Sammie retorts, though his laugh echoes. ‘You can’t talk!’

Then, as politely as a philandering, blood-drinking spirit-conjurist could, Sammie wishes her a goodnight and sends her on her not-so-merry way.

“I’m flattered by your interest and… humbled,” he says sincerely, “And I think one day I’ll indulge you. I just don’t have the time now.”

Marielle walks out the club and kicks rocks along the dirt path, upset. She knew she was being lied to, something in her gut just told her, but she didn’t know how or about what. What pissed her off more was the genuine sweetness pouring off the musician as he rejected her; undoubtedly, this rejection felt infinitely worse than any romantic rejection she’d ever faced in her life. She pouts. Then she thinks of Remmick, delighting in her annoyance, and she finds herself becoming incensed. She was determined to figure out Sammie Moore. There was a lot to learn about the preacher’s boy.

 

 𐕣𝄞𝄢

 

(+1)

“I heard you was deathly allergic to garlic. That true? It’d be a real shame.” Jeannie Watson once spoke, in a recently reanimated club one night, slamming a cold drink down and offering it to the young man.

“Unfortunately true, yeah,” Sammie chuckled, bringing the glass to his lips, downing the liquor with too much ease.

“Dang! And here I was thinkin’ I could give you a home-cooked meal one day! You ain’t gon’ get the full flavor!” She flirted, flitting her eyelashes, all doll-like.

Confident, Sammie laughed again. It was the laugh of a free man, a bird finally in flight, underneath breezy Chicago skies. “You can still cook for me, baby. Just don’t put no murder in that pot.”

“Just as long as you keep killin’ ‘em on that stage.” Jeannie gushed.

Sammie grinned, his ego well-fed. “Mmhm. You already know.” 

He rapped against the table with his fists a few times, creating a nervous beat with all the excess energy he had. Despite having done this dozens of times before by now, he still got so anxious—but maybe the stage fright was just God’s way of keeping him humble.

In a few seconds’ time, he shot up right as the host announced him, dashing toward the stage, taking his rightful place upon the platform, swinging his guitar strap over his shoulder with a winsome expression.

He smiles at the crowd and gives pretty Jeannie a calculated wink. At the barstools, Remmick downs the rest of his drink, watered down by the ice, and refills in the same glass, gently, quietly licking around the rim between sips, like he’s determined to collect all of the younger’s saliva.

With a certain smugness about his voice, curling in the back of Sammie’s mind like a crafty, wicked rattlesnake, Remmick sighs, ‘You ain’t gon’ eat it anyway.’ In reference to Jeannie’s cooking, which was, frankly, none of Remmick’s business.

Sammie sneers, and the crowd erupts at the sight of him, figuring he’s just feeling the atmosphere, completely unaware of the ever-present undercurrent of anger and upset within him, freshly made anew each night, baked sweet and large like a loaf of bread—all for Remmick to gnaw at, for his viewing and chewing pleasure. Sammie’s anger looked like confidence, like passion, like musicality and love, because in a way, it was all those things, soaked in his own blood, wrapped up in frayed rags that once represented his innocence. He hoots into the mic. The entire premise pulses, a wave of unseen energy coursing through the warm bodies. They shout in response; something instinctive, deeply spiritual, and deeply African, without any of them consciously knowing it.

‘Keep whisperin’ in my head and I’m likely to eat you. Tear you to pieces. Again,’ Sammie warns mentally, eyes trailing him once, too gently, before peering out into the audience, looking into sparkling, admiring eyes, wondering which young lady he’d distract himself with tonight. Sammie sings. His voice, much like wind, makes the people sway. When he strikes a chord of his guitar, his perfect accompaniment, a collective chill runs through every spine in the room. Something innate charges the people from the inside out, telling them to move and dance! A voice older than Sammie’s own echoes in everyone’s ears, all familiar to each person—all different—memories of old friends long gone, brothers, sisters, cousins, people dearly beloved—departed from the physical world but never really gone.

Remmick smiles, still seated at the bar, still swirling his finger around Sammie’s glass as if there was some sort of binding spell on it. His finger moves in time with the swell and dip of Sammie’s honeyed, sonorous tune. He marvels at how the light refracts through the glass and against the wood in bright, angular lines. ‘Don’t threaten me with a good time, now.’

Sammie, despite his very short lifetime as a vampire, has already mastered the art of doublespeak. He was ever the prodigy, truly a savant, both in his mortal and undead forms. If he ever planned to withstand his arrangement with Remmick, he had to be exceptional. He had to perform. Though his mouth sang songs of unity, pain, and desire, his mind spits out a thousand different ways to tell Remmick to fuck off, suck his dick, kick rocks, and die.

And maybe Sammie is magical—really, truly something out of this world—because he does both at the same time, and pulls ecstasy out of his brightest and darkest parts, funneling it into the club’s dancefloor, making something marvelous, soulful, loud, and divine!

Bodies jump, split, sway, rock, and toss in the most beautiful organized chaos. Jeannie, posted at her station, can’t help but sway, stuck by each wailing note of his guitar, feet moved by each vibration of the resonator. She pours Remmick and a few other patrons a refill with the widest grin on her face and a rosiness in her cheeks that shines through her brown skin.

The building was so unbelievably elated. Sammie felt like sustaining this moment was equivalent to sustaining his own existence. This was him. He was this.

‘Attaboy,’ Remmick murmured darkly in his head, quiet in the background like a lurking gator. ‘Álainn, mo filí. Ár filí. Foirfe.’ 

Wonderful, my filí. Our filí. Perfect. 

Sammie trembled on that stage. He felt a surge of presence, jamming with him, beyond the souls in this room.

 

 𐕣𝄞𝄢

 

(+1 more, for the record)

“Me?” The man laughed, caught by surprise. “You wanna ask me what I think about Sammie Moore? Oh, right, of course, bein’ the closest to him and all—well. Hmm, how can I put it?” Remmick wonders aloud before snapping his fingers. An epiphany struck him, one that said he didn’t have to mince his words or sugarcoat, whether the listener understood his seriousness or not. “I didn’t think you’d ever ask me. Well, in the most honest terms, ma’am, I think he’s a god.”

Puzzled, unable to fathom his bold words, the woman sputtered, asking him to repeat himself. It was downright sacrilegious;  no way he meant to say that—and intended to be recorded saying that! “Pardon me, sir?”

“Said what I said,” Remmick says, as if his claims were as true as stars decorating the night sky. In his mind, they were. Sammie was his Aengus—not bonafide, fully realized. “He’s a god made flesh. I swear it.”

And suddenly, Marielle was talking to him for what felt like years, urging the eccentric guard to divulge all that he could, and scribbling it all onto her notepad in haphazard strokes, thirstily drinking in the information. Remmick described beautiful, powerful scenes of people feeling Sammie’s music, as forceful as a hurricane, pulling him out of dark times and unending grief, into a light so bright it was loud and joyous. He described Sammie’s resilience, toughness, and gentleness all at once. How deeply he loved his family. He said much—though when she looks back on her notes, she finds that he never quite answered any of the questions she wrote down, he just spoke on what he wanted—able to amplify Sammie’s mystery while giving her even more than the singer himself was willing to give… Directly, at least.

Still, she took that as a success. And Remmick did too. Sammie’s story deserved to be heard by the masses, even if the vampiric aspects were scrubbed out. Sure, they could hear the finely-crafted melodies he sang on stage, but they could also hear about the strife and glory that made those songs possible. Sammie as told by Sammie, and told by those who admired him too.

Chicago would continue to be good to Sammie Moore, especially if Remmick had any say in it. 

He downs his glass. Cheers.