George Clooney (June 2019)

Tom and Tucker were en route to a seating area, coffees in hand, conversation already in progress.

"Wait... George Clooney? Horseshit. How many of these are just made up?"

Tom put his hands up defensively, but rolled his eyes.

"Okay, yeah, obviously it wasn't actual George Clooney. But he kind of looked like him. Old white dude. Like... sixty percent chin. Look, man, do I pipe up in the middle of your stories and fuck 'em up?"

Tucker sighed.

"Fine. Continue..."

"Okay. So, it wasn't really George Clooney, but basically it was. You had to be there. So I saw him snooping around that fucked up old mall..."

*****

Several thoughts occurred to Dagon at once when the trespasser first came into view, thoughts such as "this guy looks a little old for this Scooby Doo shit", and "this guy's too photogenic to be homeless", and "holy shit, this guy looks just like George Clooney". Dagon had itself been snooping around the old mall, trying to reassure itself that no more demonic bullshit was going to come through, and here was this random guy. Dagon threw up its psychic mojo that made people look the other way, and spent several minutes following the hapless bastard as he crept around the property. Right away, Dagon didn't like the smell of him, though it was difficult to say in the moment whether it was the guy's copious cologne or underlying musk that rubbed Dagon the wrong way. Regardless, when the guy - fairly deftly, Dagon had to admit - picked a lock and let himself into the building, Dagon followed him in.

After the je ne sais quois of the guy's stink, the second red flag was when the guy made a beeline for the food court, which had for Dagon been the site of a uniquely humbling encounter with a squatting lupine. "George Clooney" poked around a little, but clearly knew to check out the old Panda Express - red flag number three. It was then that Dagon - or, rather, Tom Van - decided to confront the guy. Clearly ready for at least a little trouble, the guy rounded immediately, producing a pistol. This gave Dagon an amusing idea, so he lunged at the guy as if making to grab the gun. The guy fired, though Dagon could scarcely tell if it had been reflex or panic, and Dagon did its best impersonation of a guy who'd just been shot. To no one's surprise, the guy bolted.

*****

"Okay..." Tucker said, drawing it out to denote only partial comprehension. "So that explains the blackmail. Good show, well done, et cetera. But why the thing with the body? That seems... unnecessary."

Tom made a screwed-up face, clearly annoyed.

"Fucker turned himself in. I'm telling ya, those attacks of conscience are my fucking Kryptonite. Nothing monkey wrenches my shit like one of these bozos suddenly deciding to do the right thing... So, just like that, I now need an actual murder."

*****

Dagon cursed its luck as it yanked the line out of the wall. Sparks flew, and all around it the vampire heard things switching off. The darkness was almost total, and even Dagon had to squint as it made its way further inside. It had attempted to call in a favor and been gently rebuffed - which hadn't surprised it too much, as it had asked a good bit of its benefactors of late, but it was still annoying having to fetch a cadaver itself, especially since not just any corpse would do. Dagon needed a corpse that would not be reported missing, which meant Dagon needed someone either undocumented or already legally dead. Thankfully, all that was required was a little detective work. It was just irksome to have to do the tedious shit itself.

Mateo Ortiz had never hurt anyone, and certainly didn't deserve to vanish and/or be murdered, but Dagon, it turns out, is kind of a prick, so when Dagon found Mateo on the job, doing laundry at a little motel just outside of town, it wound up being Mateo's last night alive. From there, a convoluted chain of events ensured that Mr. Clooney - whose real name, it turned out, was Arthur Koenig - would, in fact, stand trial for second degree murder.

It was, for Dagon, an enormous pain in the ass, which involved planting the body somewhere picturesque, fabricating the involvement of a wider criminal element which had disposed of the body for Koenig's benefit (but which, of course, were now motivated to throw him under the proverbial bus), falsifying documentation of the corpse's cause and time of death, and ensuring the correct palms were greased to guarantee that the trial would go forward - without guaranteeing its result. Needless to say, after a string of largely unqualified successes, the effort left Dagon drained and annoyed.

*****

"Wow," Tucker deadpanned, smirking like an asshole. "That's way too much effort. You could've come up with a whole new plan for less time and expense than that. Why'd you do it?" There followed a long, tense pause.

"Principle of the thing," was all Tom would say.

Both men nodded and, in grim unison, sipped their coffee.