For no reason at all!
Just a short story I dreamed up today. Read it, minions! Read it or suffer the wrath of Sam!
"Okay, so...vampires."
"Real."
Jericho stared at me with open hostility from his position on the couch, notebook opened on his lap. Jericho was stocky, muscular, Jewish, and convinced that just because he was slightly more forward thinking than me, he was goddamned Mahciavelli.
"You're shitting me. Vampires. Vampires are real." he asked, pen hovering over the notebook.
"I'm kind of curious about your credulity gap, Jericho," I replied, rubbing my forhead as I nursed the developing migraine I always got during Planning Sessions.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Well, hello, my dad was an angel," I intoned with my spookiest voice. I debated manifesting my wings just to make a point, but the etheric sonic boom would give every orb-gazing psychic within a hundred miles a migraine and Jericho would dismiss it with an eyeroll and a masturbatory gesutre.
"Fine, vampires. Are they...mopey douchebags, or what?"
"No, they're ravenous killing machines. Human pirahnna. Live about four hundred years, pain in the ass to kill, kind of unbelievably creepy. They act half-rabid most of the time."
"Okay. Fine. So their strategic usefulness..."
"I intend to slaughter them all," I said absently. Jericho stared at me again. Goddamnit, I hate it when he does that.
"What? It's not genocide if they're already dead!"
He continued staring. "I'm not going to help you perform a supernatural ethnic cleansing."
"'Vampire' is not a fucking ethnicity, Jericho!"
He sighed, then crossed something off his list. "Alright. Werewolves."
"Real."
"I fucking hate you."
"Look, I didn't invent them."
"Strategic usefulness," He said, soldiering on.
"Useless. Spend most of their time having puppies and biting college students. Kill them too."
"Ashlan!"
"What!" I protested "they're annoying and they smell."
"We've had this discussion before, you prick. Alright. 'I cannot kill people-'"
"'-simply because they annoy me,'" I finished through grated teeth "look, the world would thank me. When I say smelly, think old, wet shag carpet. Mixed with human blood and ammonia. All the time."
"No, Ashlan."
"Your whole 'morality' thing is nothing but an excuse to harsh my mellow."
"Your murder-mellow, yes. Now let's move on down the list. Demons."
"Oh, come on," I said impatiently "one lives in our guest bedroom."
"Oh. Right. Zaszael. Tell him to copy down everyone's messages, not just his own." Jericho circled something.
"Tell him yourself, I have an underworld to subjegate."
"He listens to you. I think he's a prick."
"Fine, consider it done. Next on the list." I waved my hand.
"Alright, now we're moving on into the realms of impossibility," Jericho said with some relief "alright. Zombies."
"Real."
He made a small noise back in his throat. I turned around and he was staring at the ceiling.
"My world-view is suffering some damage," he said distantly "just give me a second."
"Look, zombies are easy. It takes like, zero magic to galvanize a corpse. Hey, I tell you what. Where's the nearest graveyard, I'll show you-"
"We are not going to the graveyard, and shut up about magic, I'll flip a bitch about it being real another time," He said. Alright. Let's...just continue. Dwarves."
"Not real."
"Thank God. Elves."
"Well, there are the swartelfa, the dark elves of mytho-"
"Moving on. Unicorns."
"Extinct."
He leveled another death-stare at me. I shrugged "what? They were good eatin'."
"Sea monsters."
"Just the one, and you've met him."
"Oh right. Rahab. Okay. Uh...golems."
"Real."
"Kappa."
"Real. I'm killing them too."
"Ashlan, goddamnit."
"Jericho, they kill people by jamming a fist up their ass and ripping out their organs."
"...yeah. Okay. Kill all the kappas."
"Only for the safety of your sphincter, Jericho."
"Stop talking like that, you freaking homo. Alright. Ghosts."
"Real. Real nuisance."
"Alright, ninjas."
It was my turn to stare at him "what?" he said "I like martial arts movies. Are there ninjas still out and about?"
"Not that I know of," I said, wracking my memory "The Black Oni ninja clan died out after their unsuccessful attack on the White House in 1941. I think they were it."
Jericho looked slightly crestfallen.
"But," I replied "there's still a clan of Hashasshin living in a secret compound under Mount Alamut."
"Okay. Cool."
"We'll have to kill them too."
"Ashlan!"
"They're fucking assassins!"
"What part of the supernatural world do you not intend to kill?" he asked, exasperated.
"Just the mermaids."
A moment of silence.
"...there are...?" he seemed unwilling to finish the setence.
"Yup. They have fabulous-"
"I'm going to go get hammered," he said suddenly, standing up and walking purposefully towards the kitchen
"Cooking sherry's in the top shelf."
"Go fuck yourself, nephilim."
"Love you too!" I called back, sitting down on the couch to see what was on TV.
I don't know. Random!