by Bob Gansler
# 13 - Oct 2001	The Show Must End

HOLLYWOOD

After parking the rental car (paid with the credit card that Bible John had supplied), Blade walked the few blocks to the address that Bible John had uncovered. "Glorious Productions" was the name of the company that made the Bloodshadow film, the motion picture which was filled with vaguely cloaked references to Blade's life. At the high-rise office building's entrance, Blade checked the listing of occupants. Glorious Productions was on the top floor.

"Figures," Blade muttered. "Makes it easy for a vamp to go batty and fly in and out."

As Blade entered the building, his attire of his typical long black leather jacket and slick black sunglasses garnered the attention of some locals milling about inside.

"Cool shades, man," one mentioned.

"Smoking duds!" another added.

Blade paid no attention to them. He had more important things on his mind. Dusk had already fallen. He figured he had a good chance of meeting up with this Gloria Swanderson. He spied the elevator, but decided to take the stairs instead. "Not gonna get caught in one of them, especially if there's bloodsuckers around."

It did not take him much time to ascend the multiple flights of stairs. He arrived on the top floor and exited the stairwell. There were a few people dressed in business attire who were surprised to see someone coming out of the stairwell. Blade walked straight by them in search of the office number of Glorious Productions.

He walked in the open doorway and was confronted by a young blonde secretary sitting behind her desk while filing her nails. The secretary looked Blade up and down.

"You're pretty handsome. Are you an actor? You look kind of like Weston Fyfe in our Bloodshadow film."

"No, I'm not him," Blade replied. "I'm here to see Gloria Swanderson ..." He looked down at the nameplate on the desk. "... Sandy."

"Do you have an appointment?" Sandy asked.

"No," Blade responded. "Me and Gloria go way back."

"Well, I'm sorry but Ms. Swanderson just got in and she has a very busy schedule. If I could have your name, I could maybe, just maybe, fit you in tomorrow."

Blade shook his head. "The name's Blade, and tomorrow's no good."

Sandy rummaged through the acting trade magazines that were scattered on her desk. Finally, she dug out the daily planner. "Well, let's see about the day after tomorrow. Now is that Mr. Blade Something or Mr. Something Blade?"

Blade smiled. "It's just Blade, and I'll see her now."

The intercom on Sandy's desk buzzed and a female voice came across it. "Sandy, I need those storyboards for the Bloodshadow sequel. Can you bring them back to me?"

Blade's eyes widened at the sound of the voice. It was unmistakable to his ears. He had only loved two women in his life - Glory and Safron. The voice was without a doubt Glory's.

Sandy pressed down a button on the intercom. "Um, sure, Ms. Swanderson. I have a gentleman here who's very insistent on seeing you."

"Make an appointment for him if he's somebody. If not, just send him away," came the reply. "And bring me those storyboards."

Sandy began looking over the daily planner again. "Let's see. Monday morning's booked up, but Tuesday has some openings ..."

Blade reached over the desk and pressed the 'talk' button. "He is somebody and he will see you."

"Blade?" the voice responded.

"You got that right, Glory. We got some catching up to do."

"Sandy, take the night off, with pay."

Sandy bounced out of her chair. "Whatever you say, Ms. Swanderson." She gave Blade a coy look. "Have fun."

Blade walked past her towards Glory's office. "Make sure your résumé's up-to-date." He flung open the door to the office.

Glory, in all her long, blonde-haired beauty, was sitting behind a large dark oak desk. She was dressed in a lacy white blouse and a tight black mini-skirt. She smiled as Blade entered. "I guess the thing to say is 'Enter freely and of your own will'." She motioned towards one of the chairs arranged in front of the desk.

Blade crossed his arms. "Cut the crap, Glory. What's the deal with you making a movie about my life?"

A pouty look came over Glory's face. "What? No 'Nice to see you again, Glory'? No 'You look great, Glory'? No 'How's it going Glory?'?"

"Howzabout 'Hey, I'm surprised to see you're back after the vamps got wiped out, Glory'?" Blade sneered.

"Very droll." Glory played with her hair absent-mindedly. "I'm glad I made it back. I have so many things that I want to do, and immortality as a vampire just doesn't give me enough time to do it all."

"Immortality's not all it's cracked up to be, especially when I'm around," Blade replied sharply.

"Are you really going to kill me Blade?" Glory objected. "I knew you when."

"You knew me when I was the leader of a bunch of street punks in Soho," Blade replied angrily. "You knew me when I was trying to escape the rotten life that fate laid on me. I'm a vampire slayer, that's who I am."

Glory sighed. "I'm not the kind of vampire you hunt. I'm not Dracula or Deacon Frost. I'm not terrorizing the populace."

Frost. Blade sneeered at the mention of that vampire's name. The revenant who was responsible for turning Blade into what he was no longer counted as one of the undead.

"You gotta have blood. Living in the lap of luxury like you are, I don't see you being the type that drinks from animals or steals from hospitals."

"I don't kill, at least not usually," Glory responded. "I just take a little bit to make people a bit more ... cooperative to my way of thinking."

"You mean you take some of their blood and turn them into your thralls." Blade unbuttoned his jacket.

Glory threw her head back and laughed. "Not thralls. I don't need mindless zombies. How do you think a newcomer like me got a big budget picture for her first film? A little nip here and there on some of the big players in town brought them around to see my point of view."

"Don't try to lay your jive on me. Maybe you do that with the Hollywood muckety-mucks, but I saw you when you first got turned. Maybe you got a liking for the green more than other vamps, but there ain't no denying you dig the red. I know you're out there hunting fresh blood, and you're making lives miserable."

Glory rose slowly from the table. "I'm a businesswoman now, Blade. Let me make you a deal."

"The deal is you're a vampire, I'm a vampire slayer. Case closed."

"Let's talk debts, then." Glory said. "I let you live. I could have taken you, I could have turned you, but I didn't. You owe me."

"I owe you?" Blade shook his head at Glory's gall. "I saved you from that meathead Cutter who was leading the Bloodshadows. Besides, you couldn't turn me. No bloodsucker can."

"Perhaps we can come to some arrangement? Have you seen the profits that Bloodshadow is posting? Then think of the home video, the tie-ins, the multiple sequels? That's a lot of money, and last time I checked, the vampire hunting gig didn't come with a good benefits package."

"I got no need for your cash," Blade replied grimly.

"Fine, just give me my unlife. I'll disappear, with the money of course. But there'll be no sequel. In a year, nobody will remember Bloodshadow. I'll be out of your life." Glory reached out her hand.

"If you're a vamp, by definition, you're in my life. And if you disappear into the streets, you're gonna be killing all the time. I'm sorry Glory, but I gotta put you down."

Glory pulled her hand back and snarled. "Forgive me if don't go willingly."

Blade withdrew a pair of daggers from his bandolier. "Ain't no problem, willing or no." He tossed one of the weapons but Glory dodged to the side. The dagger smashed into the window behind her and small cracks formed at the impact site.

"Maybe you're overrated Blade." Glory grabbed the desk and flung it over at Blade. The vampire slayer dove to the side to avoid being steamrolled by it.

Glory leapt over the desk, her vampiric canines fully extended. She raked at him with her claw-like fingers, but Blade rolled away from her. Springing to his feet, he withdrew another dagger.

"You ain't got the moves, girl," Blade taunted. "You never did."

Blades' words enraged Glory. She snarled as she rushed at him. Blade drove one dagger into her stomach and the other into her heart. Glory's body stiffened as the teak pierced her heart. She began to slump backwards. Blade kept a firm grip on the daggers and leaned forward to make sure they did not come free.

With a loud slurping sound, he then withdrew the dagger from her belly. He knelt down next to her and put the dagger to her throat. "It's over, Glory."

"Blade, don't kill me," Glory gasped.

"Ain't no other way."

"There is." The pain in her heart made speaking almost impossible. "Just let me see the sun one last time. Let the sun burn me."

"It's a long time til sunrise. I don't know if you can stay conscious all that time with a dagger in your heart," Blade noted.

"Then take it out," Glory's hands clutched at the dagger's hilt and wrapped her hands around Blade's hand that was already there. Her eyes looked deeply into his.

"I take this stake out, and you'll heal, and you'll be at me again," Blade responded angrily. "Don't be trying to hypnotize me, girl. That vamp trick don't work on me."

"I won't fight you again, Blade. I can't defeat you," Glory said with halting words. "Even if I did manage to get away, I know you'd make it your business to hunt me down, and then you'd show me no mercy then. But please," she begged. "Please show me some mercy now."

Blade peeled her fingers off of the dagger and he then pulled it out. "There."

Glory closed her eyes as the pain began to diminish. "Thank you." She looked over at the grandfather clock against the wall. "We have hours until daybreak. Talk to me, Blade. Talk to me about the good old days."

Reluctantly, Blade began to talk with Glory about their days back in Soho, back when they were a couple of young adults who slipped through the cracks of London's social services. They talked of the fun they had, though not all of it legal. They talked of their old friends, Hector and Chen and Carla, who had been killed by Lamia. They did not say another word about Cutter. Time seemed to flow quickly, and the horizon began to glow with a reddish color for the impending dawn.

Glory sat down in her chair and turned it towards the east-facing glass window. "It won't be long now, Blade."

"Yeah."

"Remember me how I was, not what I became," Glory pleaded. The first rays of the sun slipped over the horizon. Almost immediately, Glory's body began to smoke. In another few seconds, she was consumed with flame. It would not take long for her to be reduced to ash.

Blade turned around and headed out the door. "Bye Glory."

NEXT ISSUE: The destruction of Gloria doesn't mean the end of Bloodshadow. But isn't he just a character in a motion picture?