Voice of the Blood

by Jemiah Jefferson

  I sat there stunned for a long time, my cigarette burning away to a long ash between my fingers. "And you did?" I said at last.

  "Damn straight I did. Best fuck I'd ever had too. We got all sticky with the blood and he licked it off me. Then we took a shower, and he left a hundred-dollar tip, and we left." Lovely threw up his hands. "Mental, isn't it?"

  "And you were sixteen years old."

  "Almost."

  "Lovely, you're a cold-blooded motherfucker."

  He smiled modestly. "More or less," he said. "Fuck this, my ass is getting stiff. Let's go get some coffee and pie."

  I was walking around Hollywood at night alone.

  It was a hot night—not temperate but hot—the fire hydrants had been running all day and a sick sweaty heat rose off the streets. I had caught a bus back to Vine, and I could have called Chloe from a pay phone and had her come pick me up, but I just didn't feel like it. After Lovely's and my journey to get coffee and pie, I had left him back at the club again, hustling his lithe young body at the death-rock boys going inside. I was deathly worried about him, but he assured me that everything was all right and that he could defend himself if it came to that.

  The lights of the sex clubs glittered luridly off the black skin of the street. The road was full of taxis and Mercedeses, driving past too fast, with the legs and arms of starlets and debutantes hanging out; it was Saturday night in the first weekend of May. Occasionally a man would say something lewd to me, but catching my blank-eyed stare, he would gather that I was not for hire, and didn't bother me any further.

  I took out my new pocket watch and looked at it. The skull of the rat yawned at me, painted orange and red with the neon brush. It was almost three in the morning. I didn't think I'd ever sleep. And where would I sleep when I did? I found my thoughts straying back to Ricari and the smell of the candles burning in Suite 900, the mellow softness of his mouth brushing against my breasts. I didn't understand how he could profess to love me the way he did, then send me away to an unfamiliar place to a creature who might have killed me as soon as looked at me. My love for him and my hate for him twined around each other like the trunks of braided fig trees, growing together to form a single system.

  A couple of biggish men in badly fitting suits stood in front of me. I tried to get around them, but they blocked my passage, smiling like they were playing a game. I shook my head at them. "I'm trying to get someplace," I informed them impatiently.

  "You can get someplace with me," said one of them. They both laughed.

  "Christ." I turned round to look for someone to distract them with, but there was nobody near enough for me to say anything to. I started walking for the intersection, hoping to get traffic between me and them, but they followed me, muttering to each other. I walked faster, trying to keep myself calm. Finally I reached the curb and stopped there, looking back and forth in panic.

  "Hey, mulatto, get in the car," someone called.

  "Fuck off already," I said over my shoulder, walking faster.

  "Is that any way to talk to a senior citizen?"

  I finally gave it a glance. A Coupe de Ville (Dolores), gleaming in all her seventeen-foot glossy black glory, Daniel grinning fiendishly in sunglasses and fishnet blouse at the wheel.

  I looked back at the suited thugs. They were stopped in the middle of the road, their eyes rolling in confusion as their arms reached out for each other. Groaning with disgust, they squished their sweaty faces together in a deep tongue kiss. Without being able to help myself, I started to laugh. "Don't call me mulatto," I shouted to Daniel in the car. "I'm technically a quadroon, asshole." One of the men gagged, but his hand went down the other's pants anyway. Daniel's eyes gleamed and he smiled a bitchy, satisfied smile.

  "Get in the fucking car. Are you crazy walking around out here dressed like that?"

  I opened the door and got in. In the intersection, the men broke apart and promptly began punching each other and cursing. Whistling, Daniel turned onto Sunset and put his foot to the floor, dodging slower cars, missing by whispers. "Dressed like what?" I managed to mumble.

  "Like Lisa Bonet in Angel Heart. Where did you get that dress? Seems familiar somehow."

  "Chloe's."

  "Ah. Back when she wore something other than black. Long ago."

  We drove through the city sprawl, listening to a mix tape Daniel had found in a bedroom of some young hippie chick upon whom he'd slaked his thirst some ten years ago. There was a lot of the Doors, a lot of Syd Barrett, some Lou Reed, Joni Mitchell. He said that it made him feel like crying, but he simply steered his way through the heat-wave streets, looking straight ahead.

  We went through a typical L.A. fast-food drive-in, got burgers and fries and alien fried-dough desserts, tall skinny plastic cups of Dr Pepper and Mountain Dew mixed together. Daniel parked in the parking lot, and together we unwrapped our treasures and ate them in big, half-disgusted bites.

  "What were you like as a child?" Daniel asked. "Did you eat a lot of fast food?"

  I shook my head and smiled. "Only sometimes. New Orleans wasn't fast-food paradise back then—the worst we ever did was buckets of chicken." I sat still for a second and let him dab mayonnaise off my chin with a stiff napkin. "I mean, why go out when you can get gumbo at home?"

  "I've never had gumbo," he confessed, smiling.

  "Oh, Daniel, you've never lived." The whole night was still now, as if Daniel had stopped Los Angeles in its tracks; perhaps he had. I figured he was capable of just about anything. "It's an interesting place to grow up."

  "Is it really filled with dead things?" he asked naively.

  I laughed. "No more than Berlin, no doubt. Unless you count the rotting kudzu. I mean, it is ancient, comparatively; there's lots of places, old churches and orphanages and houses, that are just empty, just waiting to be squatted in. I think Louisiana is allergic to tearing anything down."

  "Let's go," he decided.

  "Huh?"

  "Why don't we get out of this suntanned hell and go to New Orleans? Stay there for a hundred, two hundred years? D'you think anyone would notice?"

  I didn't reply. I wasn't quite sure what he was getting at, and my brain was only just starting to work itself out of the smoky knots of the early part of the evening. I didn't want to talk about it if I couldn't trust what I heard or said.

  "Tell me," Daniel said, taking me into his arms and resting my back against his chest, "what do you want more than anything else in the whole world?"

  Again I didn't reply. I just shook my head and smiled. He could see into my head anytime he wanted to, gather up the secrets like ripe berries. I just wanted to be close to him and feel the half-warm half-cool weight of his body. He turned my face gently towards his. "Ariane," he said insistently. "Tell the truth. You're not dealing with Ricari anymore. I'm not going to get mad if you tell me what's real."

  "I want to understand him," I said.

  "From within."

  "I… want to know…"

  "What it's like to be like me or he? To live for a very long time, see everything change, fall in love again and again, forgive yourself every sin?"

  "A little," I admitted.

  "I will make it happen," he said. When he felt me tense, just slightly, he added, "When you're ready. If you're ready." He broke away from me, lighthearted, and started the car again. "But first I want you to become yourself again. A scientist."

  The caffeine was sobering me up. "I am a scientist," I said reflexively.

  "What makes you a scientist?"

  "I observe, identify, describe, experiment, investigate, and theorize."

  "Your junior high school science club motto." He was right. "Yeah, whatever. But what does science mean to you? What do you study? What makes you a born scientist, the way that, say, I am a true artist?" He tossed his hair and examined himself in the rearview mirror, straightening his smeared red lipstick.

  "I don't know," I said irritably.

  "Exactly. Exactly the answer I was lookin
g for. If you spouted any more dictionary definitions, I was gonna smack you. You don't even know what it is that draws you to the sciences. It's a part of you. Something you can't escape. That will be instrumental in preparing you for your life as a vampire."

  "I never said I wanted to be—"

  "You don't have to say it," he said, cutting me off. He turned the key in the ignition. He drove in silence for a while, then eased the stereo back on and Tim Buckley's voice rose up ghostlike from the speakers on the doors.

  I've got this strange feelin' deep down in my heart;

  I can't tell what it is, but it won't let go;

  It happens every time I give you more than what I have.

  "You're breathing and walking and dancing and talking desire. You're like a horny twelve-year-old girl. You're not fooling anybody."

  "It's just because you have it all," I sighed.

  "We do have it all. We're angels without morals. Isn't that great?"

  I kissed his ear. "What did I do to deserve you? You're like Charlie Manson with looks and charm."

  "That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me," he said.

  Daniel put me to bed in the alcove of the Hall with great tenderness, unhooking the difficult fastenings of my dress, massaging my feet, and pulling a light blanket over me. He kissed my forehead, leaving faint smears of fast-food residue on my skin. I reached up and embraced him tightly before I would let him leave, and he stood in the doorway and blew me a kiss before he was gone.

  In the early morning Lovely slid into bed beside me, put his arms around me, and kissed the back of my neck. "I had such a good fuck tonight," he whispered. I smiled against the pillow. Together we resettled, and I went back to sleep.

  * * *

  Chapter Nine

  Some mornings I just couldn't sleep.

  I found some lined loose-leaf paper on a table in Daniel's office and scribbled on it with a bright pink ballpoint pen, chewing off bloody hangnails.

  performed microhematocrit on D. B.'s left thumb, it was difficult to employ the capillary tube—though skin is soft and easily penetrated, blood does not readily flow blood is deep red in color—hypoxic almost really thick buffy coat, plasma transparent, colorless RBC infinitesimally small—platelet size, impossible to tell configuration of RBCs without stronger microscope, shitty Radio Shack product, best Lovely could get without having to raid supply stores—might send him to one anyway. RBC count abnormally high, crowding into a solid layer with barely any plasma trace after centrifuge at 1500g—may try again at l000g or even less, much fibrinogen/prothrombin? might have some relation to healing ability insane hematocrit—just insane—it hardly makes any sense.

  Basically it looks like vampire blood isn't really "super" natural, it's "un" natural. Many of its properties are beyond my ability to study given the limitations of the research materials. Need scanning microscope, MRI, lumbar puncture, marrow biopsy, more human blood to study effects.

  I'm turning into Dr. Moreau.

  In between having his thumbs stuck, Daniel did a lot of interviews, phone calls, schmoozing. Nora was almost always at his side during these, trying to give instructions to Daniel as to what he should and shouldn't say. Sometimes he said what she wanted, and other times he said whatever he felt like, no matter if it was foolhardy, obscene, or just plain incomprehensible. During one of the last of these, Nora threw up her hands and started yelling at Daniel, cursing him for being so difficult and for ruining so many things for her. Daniel watched her rail calmly, then stood up and held out his hand to the woman doing the interview. "Thanks, that'll be all," he said to her. "Just make up stuff you didn't get. OK? See you at Billy's on Tuesday, my love to Eileen." He gently nudged her toward the door of his apartment, closing the door behind him.

  Nora had picked up a cheap brass figurine of a Venus and thrown it onto the bed petulantly; and Daniel turned from the door and had her underneath him faster than she could react. He closed his hand around her throat. "Remember what I am?" he hissed into her face. "Remember what I can do to you? You're not my zoo-keeper. I'm not a trick pony you can ride onto the society pages. Fuck society and fuck your conventions."

  "I'm sorry," Nora panted. I sat frozen on the floor next to the television, Lovely stretched out asleep on the Moroccan rug.

  "Our professional relationship is at an end," said Daniel.

  "I'm sorry—I won't do it anymore—"

  "I'm so bored with you," said Daniel, and let her go. He walked into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of bright blue soda nonchalantly, standing at the window drinking it and humming. Nora picked herself up, her eyes brimming with tears, and stared at me, horrified that I'd seen what happened.

  "You're next, you know," she whispered, her breath coming in shudders. She let the tears fall, streaking her white face powder, and shakily gathered her things together in her black alligator briefcase. She closed the door behind her without a sound.

  I got up and sat on the bed, pushing my hair from my face.

  "Don't listen to what she says," came Daniel's drawl from the kitchen. "You're not next for anything. She's the one who's next. We'll see how she enjoys being used for a little while."

  Lovely and Mimsy and I lay around on the cushions smoking pot.

  It was a typical day—or should I say night—at the Rotting Hall; Daniel had ordered Indian take out for us, and we made short work of the tandoori and hot, fresh nan. Lovely and I watched The Bride of Dracula on the snowy black-and-white TV set. Mimsy and Daniel had previously been sitting in chairs, playing David Bowie songs on two fine old classical guitars. Daniel was an excellent guitarist, blinding in his speed and skill, but he broke strings. At last he gave up, laughing, shook Mimsy's hand, and kissed Lovely and me. "I must run. Night's falling… I have things to do."

  Slowly, with clumsy fingers, I began to roll a cigarette. Lovely had stolen me a black leather tobacco pouch, half full of expensive Virginia shred, bright gold in color and smooth on the lungs. "What's your real name, Mimsy?" I asked. "Lovely won't tell me his."

  "I don't even know Lovely's name," Mimsy replied, stretching all six feet and four inches across the cushions. The younger, more disrespectful kids called him "Plastic Man." "My name's Jason Thomas. Thrilling, isn't it?"

  "Did you come out of the boonies too?"

  "Naw, man, I'm from San Diego." Since he had come for his visit straight out of bed, his hair wasn't spiked today, and it flopped around his ears in black wings. His face was as sharp and animated as a bird's—not the bitterness of a crow, but the common prettiness of a blackbird or a starling. I had grown to adore his face. "I came up here to play in an industrial band one summer while I was in college. By the time I got up here, the band had broken up, but I met Chloe and Daniel, and I just said, 'Fuck that, I'm staying here.' " He rubbed my shoulder gently. "What did you do before you met Ricari?"

  "Who, me? Well, I was a scientist. I went to NCIT and was a teaching assistant there. I was trying to get my doctorate." I shrugged. "Pretty fuckin' boring."

  "Did you have a boyfriend before that?" Lovely asked.

  I glanced at him, but he was blissfully zoning out, staring at the snow on the TV. "I did," I said.

  "Did you break up?"

  "Well… not exactly… I guess you could say I left him for Orfeo… or he left me… or something. It's kind of complicated."

  "I understand," Mimsy said. "We all gave something up for this. I gave up school, I gave up my band back home. Chloe gave up nursing school. I just think it's worth it. This to me is like a religion—this is my cloister, or whatever. But this is what I believe in, more than anything else. I never thought I could be so happy in my life."

  It was many hours since Daniel had left. Eventually we three went up onto the roof of the Hall, along with some of the other kids, and brought Daniel's boom box along so that we could listen to music. The sky was a dark stain, with no stars visible behind the smog and the glare of the Hollywood streetlights; the moon was a wan blob,
almost ashamed to show its homespun face to the city of angels. We listened to Galaxie 500, long, looping songs of painful addiction, desire, regret. I cuddled up in Lovely's arms as tightly as I could, trying to drive away the chill from the desert air, from being high.

  The moon touched the edge of the apartment building across the way, where Chloe and Mimsy lived; and Chloe came up onto the surface of our roof and sat down with us, drawing her skirted knees up to her chin. She was pale, and when I touched her shoulder to offer her a pipe hit, I could feel that she was shaking.