Vampires of the Velvet Lounge

Hey, you look nice.

Thanks, so do you.

I'm excited for tomorrow night.

We're finally going to meet.

-Yeah, I know. Well, I'm all packed up.

Gonna leave in the mornin', fly down there

and meet you in that cool-looking little absinthe bar

that you suggested.

There you go, sweetheart.

Thank you, ma'am.

Are you okay, lonely stranger?

You look a little down.

Tell you ladies the truth...

I was supposed to meet a girl named Elizabeth in here,

but looks like she stood me up.

-In my opinion if she's gonna be that flaky

you're better off finding out before you even meet her.

To Elizabeth.

Ah. Woo.

What are you drinkin'?

It's absinthe.

I just like to mix it with other stuff.

Keeps things interesting.

This one's on me.

Hmm.

-Since you're here, you might as well drink absinthe

until you see the Green Fairy.

What Green Fairy?

-In the past, absinthe was outlawed

and blamed for the immoral behavior of society.

It's said that vivid hallucinations of a Green Fairy

would appear to the man drinking it,

and she would seduce him into ungodly mischief.

To ungodly mischief,

and here's to Green Fairies.

To fairies.

Woohoo! To fairies!

You're not real.

Can you see me?

Yeah.

But I drank too much absinthe.

And now I'm hallucinating.

A Green Fairy.

The fairy just looks like you

'cause I've been thinking about you all fucking night.

How I flew all the way across the country just to meet you

and you stood me up.

- No. - Yeah.

No, I didn't stand you up.

Ya did.

I said I would meet you here,

and here I am, here I am, here I am.

-This is a fucking weird hallucination.

- I think this night's gonna get good, baby doll.

-You're inside my brain. You're not real.

-Well, if you want me to prove you're not crazy,

come outside the bar

and meet me across the street in the alley.

And you can do whatever you want to me just like I promised.

At this point...

it seems like I should get back to my hotel.

Perfectly genius.

-Well, I guess this Green Fairy myth is real.

Most myths are real.

Otherwise, why would people keep talking about them?

-No, ladies, myths are allegories.

They're not physical.

This should cover it.

-I should, uh, go home while I still can.

Night, ladies.

- This allegory isn't real... - isn't real...isn't real.

Jesus.

Eric. Eric.

What the fuck.

Eric?

Yeah.

What the fuck?!

See? I told you I'd be here.

No, no.

I wanna see you.

I'm a soldier.

I'm a former killer,

a former mercenary.

Everyone I knew was left in the blood

in the five recent and forgotten wars.

I left the best parts of myself in the ashes.

I'd been recruited by an organization

that fit my skillset.

Now I only hunt the damned, where I forget the faces

of the countless lives I've taken.

Good God.

How does Joan drink this absinthe and blood mix?

Ugh!

- Why are you even trying to drink it?

You know she gets drunk like a human.

You like to bathe in blood

and Joan is down in the catacombs

buried in earth, drunk, sleeping with the spiders

and the snails and the slugs.

I don't do any of that shit.

I drink clean blood,

and I sleep in a clean velvet coffin.

We've been here a 100 years.

So nice.

Are you tracking my location?

- Yes. You're close to the target.

Think of puppy dogs and ice cream,

whatever makes you happy, childhood memories.

We don't want them getting inside your mind.

Got it.

- No more talking till you get back.

Okay, bye for now.

Bye.

- It's time we stop in-person hunting.

The remote online hunting has been going so well.

We can give the locals a break.

- Won't only hunting online and dating apps

be even more trackable?

- Everything is being tracked in this day and age.

But AI doesn't appear to be able to calculate our existence

as a realistic possibility.

The odds of us actually being here

go against the algorithms.

Chuck, what are you waiting for?

Make me feel good!

You're just sitting there like you're waiting for a train.

-Train? No, I never travel by trains.

They're dangerous. They derail--

Get on with it!

Temptation is like the devil.

I like it.

It's okay.

Do it to me.

Hmm.

Bye-bye.

Don't forget about me.

-For you, Elizabeth. For you.

Ugh...

I need a cup of that.

Jesus.

Happy thoughts, happy thoughts.

God, what was love like before the war?

Not helping.

I wanna kiss you.

Elizabeth Bathory, she was a countess

that didn't need to fight at all.

She never went into battle.

She was just draining hundreds of young maidens of their blood

in her castle.

Now other historical figures have been held up

as the inspiration for fictional vampires and witches,

and what have you, but not Elizabeth.

She is thought to have the highest death count

of any serial killer in history.

-And that defines her as a serial killer because...?

- Well, she wasn't going into battle defending her lands

or even going after other royalty.

I mean, her ambition was just to kill

as many young women as possible

and bathe in their blood for no explicable reason.

And if that's not a serial killer,

I don't know what is.

So she was always a vampire?

- She is thought to be one of the oldest

and most cunning of her breed.

Most people think she died back in 1614,

but Cora, you found her.

-I'm supposed to chat with her tomorrow night,

and I'm a little nervous, to be honest.

I'm a soldier, not a spy.

What more information do we need?

I bullseyed her location, recorded her bathing in blood.

- We don't know how many we're dealing with

or the full layout of their lair.

There could be an army of these beasts stretching down

to a palace beneath the earth.

You're gonna have to continue as planned

and make your call with her tomorrow night.

That'll buy us time to figure out

how to destroy these beasts.

This is stupid.

I found Elizabeth and we're not gonna do anything.

We're making a lot of progress.

Fine.

I'll keep flirting with the devil.

Going to bed.

Luke, you've got to stop

bothering Jennifer and the staff

about your damn divorce.

It's been going on for like six months.

I'm not bothering her.

She's my friend.

-Yeah, well, you're bothering me and you're my friend.

It's true, buddy.

Nobody wants to hear about your divorce every day at work.

Maybe it's time for a therapist,

because I'm running out of options here.

You don't know what it's like.

Aretha turned on me.

She took my house, my kids.