THE EL DORADO HUSTLE (PART ONE)

PSY PUBLISHING

&

MATTHEW LOVECRAFT

PRESENT

A PARANORMAL CRIME CAPER

BY

K.D. KILGORE

THE EL DORADO HUSTLE

PART ONE

____________________________

ADAPTED FROM

THE JOURNALS

MARCUS AMBROSIUS Phd. M.D.

PART ONE

How do I define a town, a place, a particular moment in time? I’ve lived a thousand years in one hundred places and more. Each one haunting; familiar.

I always felt that there was an air of refinery to the Roaring 20’s. Everything was filthy yet managed to gleam. It was fantastic to see and hear. You wouldn’t want to taste it or smell it, though.

When you’re a vampire, your senses are heightened. I can describe sights and sounds with words. How the sunlight looks as it touches human skin or how the full moon lies fat and bright on a dark cold winter horizon, but I cannot feel it; and I cannot make you feel it.

I have a memory to be marveled at. I can tell you what scent the woman next me in a crowd in 1534 was wearing, but I cannot describe the sensory overload of what it is like for me other than to say that if you imagined life being 1000 more times intense and beautiful and scary all at the same time I would be underselling the experience.

The scuffling of feet shuffling and kicking up dust on a bustling Chicago street - that is something you must experience for yourself. The smell of oranges, almonds and vanilla wafting up from the woman next to me – I can use the right words and with our collective imaginations we can communicate...

I was human once. I was a Wizard, but I was a human Wizard – a descendent of Merlyn Ambrosias and for almost 500 years went by the name Prof. Marcus Ambrosias, Phd. Md. – that was before I was turned into a vampire. Now I live in the shadows and feed off the underbelly of the crime world.

I’ve lived with this curse for a quarter century and at times it’s served me well, but I would give anything, even my life, to be rid of this thirst for blood. It has led me to dark places and as my Witch of an ex-girlfriend, Vivian, always likes to remind me - it turned me into a real asshole. She still loves me though. She doesn’t like me much anymore – but love and people who love you are a hard commodity to come by. People who like me are easy to come by. I’m naturally charming. People who love me are not so easy to come by for the charm comes with a price.

Of course Frankie likes to remind both of us that I was still an asshole before I was turned into a vampire. I like to remind him that if it wasn’t for his wild schemes I would be holed up in a dark loft sleeping the day away like normal vampires do, instead of running lookout for street games and setting up two-bit-back alley hustles.

TO BE CONTINUED...