"Throw this fucker overboard," said the boss goon, and the henchmen immediately did as they were told. Grabbing all six feet three inches and two hundred and forty five pounds of Slater Jones, they tossed him into the nighttime sea. The big man sank like a rock. Prior to tossing him into the dark waters, the henchmen shot him three times. As soon as Slater fell beneath the waves, he freed himself from his restraints. He wasn't afraid of drowning or bullets, since he wasn't alive to begin with. The living are so easy to fool these days...
"Bastards," Slater said to himself as he emerged from the water, about a mile from the boat. The goon squad was heading back to the shores of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Slater began threading toward the shore, and made it forty five minutes later. Dawn wouldn't come for another hour, which gave Slater plenty of time to make a quick getaway. He didn't go back to his hotel room, that would be too obvious. Slater ended up sneaking into the basement of an abandoned warehouse located in Cape Cod's fisheries district.
Walking through the nighttime streets of Cape Cod while drenched was not exactly a pleasant affair, but at this hour, most mortals were in bed. Slater, in his business suit and tie, would look like a tall, handsome black businessman having something of a rough night. Slater bristled at the memory of what the goons did to him, and put aside his intense anger. One of the perks of living forever was having plenty of time for revenge. Slater vowed to hunt down his enemies and make them pay, but not tonight...
After propping up some cardboard boxes against the windows to block the sunlight, Slade hunkered down underneath some tarp and closed his eyes. As the sun rose in the sky, the Vampire slept. Slater has been through some tough spots in his century-plus existence, but the African American Vampire, originally from Saint Louis, Missouri, has always had bad luck. The Irish Mob has a stranglehold on the City of Boston and the rest of the State of Massachusetts. Politicians, businesspeople, religious leaders, the Mob controls them all.
Not for the first time, Slater wondered what could have possessed him to get involved with Stephanie MacLeod and her husband Daryl Smith. Get-rich-quick schemes seldom work and a being of his age and status ought to know better. Slater, sadly, can be tempted just like anyone else. Stephanie MacLeod played him like a fiddle. The tall, sexy blonde gal and her hubby are knee-deep with the Mob, and such associations are ill-advised, even for the Undead. Slater could hear his old mentor and former master Leroy Tibbs lecturing him, as he'd often done in the past. The old black Vampire is always full of wisdom and unsolicited advice...
"Even for us Vampires, some places and certain people should be avoided, we are not invincible," Leroy told Slater, as they hung out in New Orleans, Louisiana. It was the torrid summer of 1972, and Slater had only been a Vampire for eighty years. Leroy on the other hand became a Vampire in 1799, or so he told Slater. Master and apprentice strode through the streets of New Orleans in fine business suits, looking like two gentlemen out for a night on the town.
"Come on, Leroy, you worry too much, we're almost unkillable," Slater replied, and Leroy grinned, then shook his head. The short, slender and dark-skinned, silver-haired African American Vampire patriarch looked at Slater in a downright patronizing way. Slater rolled his eyes, knowing that Leroy was conjuring another lecture. The old buzzard had been around since the eighteenth century and considered himself a veritable know-it-all. Sure enough, just as Slater predicted, Leroy quite simply couldn't resist the occasion...
