Before the concert, we got treated to limousine rides and some really expensive rosé oddly closer to red than pink. While Carmen and I would normally go for it, she still had to watch her alcohol consumption, and I personally wasn't a fan of sparkling wines. It could be the most expensive bottle in the world and I wouldn't drink it. Instead, we took the offer of regular red wine with me finishing the entire bottle. The weird thing was the label said "produced in Dubai". The bottle of rosé had it too.

Anyway, we arrived at the venue not too long after the doors opened to the public. For us VIP pass holders, we had a section reserved close enough to the stage. We were getting preferential treatment after all we might as well be death row inmates. On second thought, not a good idea to use death row inmates; it's too grim. We were treated like foreign dignitaries who had to be shown the best so we would say, "Wow, this leader is totally not running a dictatorship."

The concert started nearly an hour late. One of the backup dancers possibly had a wardrobe malfunction, but it was more likely the Boys slept in coffins and one of them forgot to set his alarm. I had to read Carmen's cheesy fan fiction before we left.

To be honest, I wasn't that impressed with the show other than they had less gyrating dance moves. They performed a mix of old songs and their new ones, and of course, all their classic number one hits during their encore. Whatever teased the crowd surely didn't tease me, and I wanted out of there. So I hid in the furthest washroom from our seats from intermission until the meet and greet with the rest of the VIPs backstage. Concert was loud enough for me from that far anyway.

An attendant led us to what appeared to be designated as a green room. I think it's called a green room even if it wasn't green. In a corner was a buffet featuring food that none of us could afford like stuff made from wagyu beef and aged ingredients. Hell, some of these aged ingredients might be as old as me if brined in a witch-brewed concoction. I could afford this to a certain extent since I save a lot by not eating solid food often. Eating lavishly would definitely cut into my nest egg. It's not often you find a goose that lays golden ones.

Oh yeah, the band was here too.

"Welcome! Welcome!" Malik greeted us. "Feel free to serve yourselves to the food."

Of course we did. After gathering whatever I could pile onto my plate, I sat next to Carmen who sat next to Donnie. The other girls desired to be next to him, prompting cat fights, leaving the Boys themselves to settle these arguments. Fans desire to be with the bad boy as much as the public despises him.

"Settle down, ladies," Donnie spoke as he appointed himself as mediator. "There's plenty of me and the Boys to go around."

"I got to see him first before y'all, so he literally knows me already," Chelsea boasted, ignoring the whole situation.

"Kirstie and I arrived here first, so we should sit beside him," another girl argued.

"Cool your tits!" Carmen cut into the bitchfest. "He sat down where he wanted to sit and all you care about is who gets to fondle Donnie first."

"What makes you so special?" The girl who brought along her gay but possibly straight best friend snapped at Carmen. "You're just like every other girl here who wants Donnie all to herself."

"Oh come on! We're just gonna bitch here like schoolgirls? Un-fucking-believable."

And that is one reason I don't invest in fandoms. It's as bad as atheists debating theists on who's morally right and which faith is the one true one. Not that they're all bad.

"Enough!" Donnie growled. While it did get the girls and one guy to stop arguing, what bothered me was the growl. It sounded as if he used some sort of mind control, like a hypnotizing technique. Strange that doesn't happen to me when I do it. Anyway, the growl silenced the room, except for a few electrical hums.

"How about we do it this way." Donnie did a semicircle around Carmen and me and stopped behind us. "Each of us, Malik, Jonas, Justin and myself, will spend some one-on-one time. Since, erm, what's your name?"

"Carmen."

"Carmen, Donnie. Since Carmen has some sense in her head, I'll be spending the first thirty minutes with her. The others will take one or two of you for thirty minutes. Once time's up, we can switch our guests."

"That is a great idea," Justin said with an appreciative tone. Somehow I had suspicions this was scripted — the fight between fans, isolating them — it seemed all too familiar of a technique used by vampires, if not really horny boy band members.

Jonas and Malik agreed with Donnie's idea, and each along with Justin took a pair. The woman who brought along a male friend, however, went alone as Jonas specifically just asked for her.

"Hey, you want to join me?" Carmen asked right before she left with Donnie.

"I'll pass. I'm gonna sit here and drink whatever Dubai wine is left and get fat off chocolate mousse."

"Okay. Your loss."

Once the Boys and their security personnel left, it was just me and mystery guy. I grabbed a bottle and was about to pour some in a glass, but I decided it was better to drink it straight from the bottle. I'm not that fancy and neither was the guy as he was doing the same thing.

He approached me and asked, "I've never seen a girl turn down an audience with someone famous as Donnie Knight."

I took a swig of the wine. "I'm not like the girls, you know. What about you? Aren't you concerned for your—"

"For Sheena? She's my stepsister's cousin once removed. Yeah, I'm aware it's a strange relationship. It's because of her I got into the Boys. I'd bring my girl to this concert, but I owed her something so this just me returning the favour."

"And you're not bothered that Jonas didn't invite you for the two-on-one?"

He swirled his bottle. "A bit. Maybe the other guys might be friendlier." He scanned the room and in a corner by the buffet, he spotted something. "What are those?"

We walked to a table with four small idols arranged in a diamond. One of them I immediately recognized was an owl-like creature called the Strix. Growing up, I remember that my vampire lineage stemmed from the Strix or one of her striges, yet sadly, natural selection deemed having wings useless. There were also two more bird-like idols which stood in front. I wasn't familiar with the left one, but had a strong impression it came from Sub-Saharan Africa. The other idol was Osiris. While humans know him for his associations with death, vampires mostly associate him with resurrection. A crucial point in a vampire's life is the transition between a state of "living" to a state "in between". I'll admit an Egyptologist has more expertise on this so I'll leave it up to you to google one.

The fourth idol, which Sheena's tag-along grabbed, was the final nail in the coffin into realizing who and what the Boys actually are.

"Lamashtu," he said after picking her up. "Mesopotamian demon or goddess, depending on how you revere her, who is as ugly as she is deadly. While not someone who was created evil, she chose to act that way. Stealing babies and drinking their blood, for example. Lilith's a better choice for a statue, but she's not as badass as Lamashtu."

"You have an interest in Mesopotamian mythology?"

"Interest? Nah, I just googled all these things while you narrated. This statue is butt ugly. A lion's head on a hairy woman's body, donkey ears and bird feet doesn't scream sexy to me. Now Lilith though, she could have horns and a tail and I'd still fu- I mean worship her."

I gave up time with Donnie Knight to hang out with this whack job. If not for him, I probably wouldn't have noticed the idols. These idols were connected to each band member. From my best guess and totally not racially biased, Malik revered Osiris, Jonas the Strix, Justin the other bird thing, and Donnie tied to Lamashtu. All four members were actually vampires. This was not a fan fiction fantasy but actually happening.

And then I figured out their plan and what they, well three of them, had been doing for decades. They'd lure in women and then promise them eternity because they're obsessed fangirls. You'd think these guys would have a haremtourage with them. I guessed they didn't have much of one, either because they left them, or the Boys didn't bring anyone to keep the illusion they were single. Their main goal was recruitment, and that was when I remembered Dubai wine. I doubt Dubai makes and bottles its own wine, but it had an odd taste. One step in turning a human into a vampire is by giving them some of your blood before their body dies and changes. The wine had samples of the Boys' own blood. While it won't change me if Donnie bled me to death, it's not without side effects and at that moment it was more helpful than hindering.

I darted out of the green room and into the hallway without saying anything to the guy. I walked a bit in a circle and as soon as I felt a pinching sensation, I knew I headed in the right direction. That and the increase in security personnel. Or I could have followed the signs that said 'DRESSING ROOMS'. Anyway, when I entered the dressing room area, security stopped me. "You got to wait your turn before–"

Twak! I uppercut the security person and sent him flying across the hall. I assumed they hired human security personnel and, like all security personnel, they had multiple channel comm devices. If only they didn't have them for plot convenience, that would've made me charging through security much easier. Using my speed to my advantage, I knocked out their comm devices first before disabling them. A bonus if I did both simultaneously.

After taking care of security, it was onward to Donnie's dressing room. I walked up to the door and, without hesitation, I knocked it in. For dramatic effect, you'd expect I'd catch them in the middle of the action with Donnie about to bite Carmen or Carmen bleeding on the floor. To my surprise, they were sitting on a couch and chatting normally.

" . . . and then she realized she was drinking hot sauce," Carmen was saying. Both she and Donnie were laughing, but that laughter stopped the moment I barged in. "Oh, hey Lena. You finally changed your mind?"

"Not exactly! I'm breaking you out of here!"

Carmen scrunched her face and raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean? Do you have extrasensory perv senses I don't know about?"

"This whole thing — the concert, VIP access to spend time with the band, the separation — it's a vampire tactic to recruit new blood!"

Carmen became even more confused after that revelation. "Okay, are you sure you're not drunk or anything?"

"Is she normally this loud?" Donnie asked her in a hushed tone.

"No, I'm usually the loud one," she answered.

"I'm not drunk, Carmen! The wine we were given, the bottle I drank, is not wine. Alcoholic beverage? Yes, but not wine!"

Then things made sense to her as she scrunched her face in disgust. As for Donnie, he wasn't amused.

"You should leave, now," he said while standing up. He also glared at me and I wasn't going to take it. That and the lingering pinching feeling.

"Think about it, Carmen! When was the last time, or if ever, the Emirates produced their own wine? Ow!"

"No seriously," his voice began to change to that growl, "you should leave."

I chuckled. "Think you can scare me with your voice? I'm not afraid of you — Ow! Pinching."

Donnie clenched his fist and bared his teeth. He figured I had some of the so-called wine. His eyes widened the same way Carmen's does when she hears me mindfucking people. He lunged at me, but I parried his arms. I moved to punch him but he sidestepped and I landed on the floor. Fucking ow! The instant I rolled onto my back, he had time to grab a straight razor. Nothing a quick roll out of the way could stop me so I rolled away as he made a swing at me. I was within a leg's reach of him, so I kicked him in the Achilles' tendon and knocked him down. That bought me seconds enough to get up, crawl over, and knock away the straight razor from his reach. Just when I thought I pinned him, he flipped me over to my backside. We rolled around the floor, bumping into furniture and fighting the pain caused from it. When the opportunity hit for him to pin me, he did.

"I don't know who you are, other than what your friend told you, but she's mine! I lured her here, therefore I get to do whatever I want!"

That's where he was wrong. I wriggled my left arm free and punched him in the side of the head. I rolled over so that I was on top and pinned him to the floor. "That's not cool, you know!" I said, bearing my fangs. "She's my familiar! She's mine!" I turned to Carmen for a few seconds and said, "Sorry, vampire habits."

Carmen shrugged. "Whatevs. I just give you a place to crash and internet."

"You're lying," Donnie croaked. "You don't have her marked in some form, do you?"

I punched him again in the head. "Doesn't matter! She's too important to me for you to claim!"

I was about to punchhim one more time, but the moment I raised my hand, a large one grabbed mineand next thing that happened I was in handcuffs.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And that's how Lena ends up in jail. This episode is not over yet! Anyway, not sure how this fight scene is perceived by you. It is Lena recalling events that happened in the past so it may not turn out as well as I have thought? Needs more of an action structure? Let me know if it can be improved.

Of course if you like what you've been reading hit that star, and also let me know in the comments.

Song featured: "Big Bad Wolf" by Aesthetic Perfection (song content may be nsfw not in terms of swears, but if you google the lyrics you'll realize how creepy it is)

Edited: 07/23/2021