“You even think about making a break for it, I’ll nail you with this so hard you’ll think I was on the Olympic discus team. And we both know how that’ll go.”
The shadows melted away, and the troll the color of those whitish pumpkins pouted and lowered his head. “I Don’t Care” segued into “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker.”
“Don’t think I won’t use it,” I warned him.
And then a burlap sack appeared at my feet. I reached down and opened it; there was porn inside, and half a quart of ginger brandy, several mouthfuls of human molars, an assortment of chess pieces, bottle caps, a dead, desiccated crow, and a cell phone.
“This isn’t going to turn into a handful of gravel or a rotten mouse as soon as you leave?”
“No,” he said sullenly.
I had no reason on earth to believe him, but, still, I said, “Fine. Now get the hell out of my face. I’m tired of looking at you.” No, I didn’t have to be such an asshole. But I was tired, and the vamp hunger was taking hold, and I was pissed as pissed could be. But still, I felt like a jerk, pulling the iron trump card on him like that.
“Hey, wait,” I shouted as the shadows began to wrap themselves about him. “You smoke?”
“Time and again,” he mumbled.
I reached into my jeans pocket and pulled out a crumpled half-full pack of Camel Wides and tossed them to him. He caught them in an enormous paw and stared at the cigarettes a moment.
“No hard feelings, okay?”
But then he was gone, and I was left alone below the underpass, the morning sun making my exhausted eyes ache. I dropped the hubcap back into the dust and stomped through the weeds to my Honda, Aloysius’ sad bag of goodies in my hand.
* * *
Of course, I didn’t for an instant believe that it was going to be so simple a matter as me picking up Aloysius’ phone and speed-dialing Mean Mr. B. But I could be a resourceful beast when the situation demanded that I be (nothing’s changed in the last two years, not in that respect). I knew the names of a few of his boys. Not their various aliases and drag-queen names. I had two or three of their actual names, and Nancy boys are susceptible to threats, couched just so. I’d not done this sooner because I hadn’t wanted things to come to that. It would only piss B off that much more, and, besides, none of this mess was their fault. They’re just a bunch of kids B drags into his various dramas, not so different from me (except, I’ve never had to take it up the ass so he can get his ya-ya’s off). But here I was, freshly returned from Evangelista’s inferno, this locket about my neck, this dagger in my hand, and my head full of stuff I could not consciously recall.
I phoned the kid named West, B’s most recent acquisition and his current favorite. West almost hung up on me, before I began describing in detail the many means of castration I could devise using nothing more elaborate than a Taco Bell spork.
“I don’t know where he is,” West said, the tone of his voice filled to overflowing with a curious mixture of nervousness and “Oh, I am so put upon.”
“Then you’d better find out,” I replied, “because I know how to find you.” (That part was sort of a lie. I didn’t know, not right off. But I’m fairly sure it wouldn’t have been too hard, here in the age of the internet.)
“You’re not going to hurt me,” West said, attempting to come across all defiant and shit. “You harm one hair on my head, he’ll make you wish you were never born.”
“Too late for that, Sunshine. Someone already beat him to the punch. Just make sure he calls me before lunch.”
“Or?”
“The spork,” I reminded him, and then he did hang up.
I was sitting in my only kitchen chair, listening to the married couple upstairs fight. The guy, he was a drunk, and sometimes he showed up, any hour of the day or night, and they went at it like cats and dogs. I knew he hit her. I’d seen the bruises on her face to prove it. So, I was sitting there, listening, and beginning to feel the starvation, the hunger pangs, emptiness, the ache, that overwhelming ravenousness—call it what you will. I hadn’t had anything since Doyle, and I was thinking on that when I heard two dull smacks overhead. I might have missed it, if not for my fancy new vamp ears that made everything so LOUD. One was that drunken fuck hitting his wife. The other, I knew, was her colliding with a wall or a piece of furniture. Sappy as it might sound, I thought of dear old Mom and Dad. I thought about her, the stink of rye on his breath, him beating her with a bar of soap wrapped in a dish towel. I thought of me hiding until the ambulance came, then running away. Maybe it was just some fucked-up PTSD kicking in, but I dislike all those psychobabble acronyms. Let’s just say I was starving, and he was a convenient asshole that the world could do without. Yeah, that works for me.
I took the stairs two at a time and had to bang on the door repeatedly before anyone came. It was her, trying to hide a bloody nose with that dish towel all spattered red.
“You’ll want to step aside,” I said.
“Did you call the cops?” she asked. “It’s nothing. I bumped into a doorframe, that’s all.”
“You’ll want to step aside now,” I said, lowering my voice, almost growling the words, becoming that avenging bullshit bloodsucker so popular with the women who read the silly ParaRom pulp I mentioned earlier. The woman with the busted nose promptly stepped aside.
“Now, go downstairs,” I said, and she did that, too.
The husband was standing on the other side of the room. He was three sheets to the wind, and put me in mind of a mentally deficient gorilla.
“What the fuck you want, bitch?” he sneered. “This ain’t your business.”
“No, it’s not,” I agreed. “But I’m hungry, and here you are. You need a punching bag, have a go at me before you die. I won’t hold it against you.” I showed him the mouthful of piranha teeth and—I swear to dog—the son of a bitch pissed himself. But not even that dark stain spreading across the crotch of his knee-length camo cargo shorts made him look any less tasty.
He had just enough time to mumble, “What in hell—” before I was on him. I admit that I was deeply gratified at the way he screamed. My teeth parted skin, fascia, muscle, and sliced through his carotid. Some of those fictions, they make it sound pleasurable for the victim. Feeding, I mean. Right. Well, it ain’t. Trust me. He made a lot of noise, and none of it was the sort people make when people feel good. How you think it would feel, having your throat chewed, then the better measure of your blood slowly sipped out through a loop-the-loop crazy straw? Really romantic, yeah. Gets me wet, just thinking about it.
Anyway, when it was finally over, I left him crumpled in a corner, and went back downstairs to wash up. The wife was standing outside talking to Hector and the gang.
I rinsed my mouth from the tap, watching the reddish water swirl down the bathroom sink. I put on a not-clean T-shirt (but at least there were no bloodstains). My cell rang—the one I’d bought for Aloysius—and I answered it. It was B. The squeaky, scary wheel, grease, and all that happy crappy, right?
“Siobhan, love,” he purred.
“You,” I said.
“Not very nice of you, threatening poor West like that. He was all but hysterical.”
“And I care why?”
There was a moment’s silence before he asked, “So, you’ve been to Brooklyn, I trust? You’ve had your tête-à-tête with the hellion?”
“Yeah, I did that. And I have the scars to show for my trouble. And a few other trinkets. Not that I know what to do with any of this junk.”
“Oh, you know, my precious. You just don’t remember you know you know.”
“And you’re not about to meet with me, you being on the Bride’s hit list and all.”
“Actually,” he said, and I could hear his smirk through the phone, “the situation has changed, thanks to Lady Penderghast’s generosity. I trus
t she gave you the locket, the one on the brass chain.”
“Yeah, she did.”
“It cancels out the effects of the Bride’s collar. Now you’re just a regular old wolfy. Well, except for the also being a vampire part.”
My fingers went to the locket. I hadn’t yet tried to open it, and had a feeling it was best I didn’t.
“Oh, by the way, don’t open the locket,” he said, and I almost laughed. “That would break the charm.”
“She could have told me that.”
“That’s not her way.”
“And the dagger? You gonna bother telling me exactly what sorta voodoo it do?”
“It’ll put down Miss Mercy Brown like the rabid dog she is,” he replied, “thus ending this whole absurd affair.”
“Not for me. Would it work on me?”
“Love, plain old wood would work on you. But I don’t think that’s what you really want.”
I stared up at the ceiling. I could still taste the drunken bastard.
“You might be interested to know I just ate my upstairs neighbor. But don’t worry, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”
“That’s not very discreet.”
“You got a cleanup crew on hand,” I said, “You might want to send it over, on the quick.”
He didn’t say anything else for a moment. Then he sighed and said, “Consider it done, love. Only for you.”
“What next?”
“Well, don’t hang around your apartment, if, indeed, that’s where you’re calling from. Leaving the scene of the crime, that’s a good place to start. You want my advice.”
“Where to?” I asked. “I mean, how’s this all supposed to play out?”
“The knife is also a compass needle. Isn’t that clever? Lay it on consecrated ground. Any church, synagogue, mosque, or cemetery will do. Set it down, it’ll point straight towards the Bride, be she east, west, north, or south.”
“That’s pretty fucking vague,” I said.
“Don’t worry. Once the knife spins, once you see, you’ll know exactly where to find her.”
“Jesus, why didn’t she just tell me? Oh, let me hazard a guess. It’s not her way.”
“You’re no prat. I’ll give you that. But I do wish you’d quit leaving these discommodious messes.”
“I don’t even know what that means, discommodious.”
“Buy a dictionary, treacle-tart.”
I hate it when B starts in with the Cockney rhyming slang. I don’t get half of it, and he’s not even Cockney.
“Whatever. There’s a wife. He beat her. Don’t you dare lay a goddamn finger on her, hear me.”
“Loud and clear. And my, oh my, haven’t we grown all chivalrous.” I ignored the jibe.
“So, simple as that? I go forth and slay the nasty who made me a nasty, and who has it out for us all?”
“Simple as that.”
I pushed back the drapes, glancing out at the sidewalk. It was a scalding day out there, and none of the domino boys were wearing shirts. The woman was talking to them, and now and then she’d look up, towards her apartment.
“Nothing is ever simple as that,” I told B.
“Just do as I say. Then we’ll have a long sit-down at Babe’s, just like old times. You have a very bright and profitable future ahead of you.”
The wife saw me watching her, and I let the drapes swing shut again.
“You set me up,” I said.
“We’ve been over that, love. I did what I had to do. The greater good and all.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“That I am. Now, run along before someone calls the coppers, and you have to try to explain things that can’t be explained without recourse to fairy tales.”
He hung up. I hadn’t even gotten around to telling him about the three vamps buried beneath the kitchen.
I grabbed my car keys and sunglasses. The dagger was tucked into the waistband of my jeans, in back, hidden beneath the T-shirt. Out on the sidewalk, the wife with the bloody nose asked me what had happened. Hector and company looked pretty damned curious, as well.
“He won’t ever hurt you again,” I said, and then I got in my car and drove away towards the intersection of Benefit and Wickenden, to Our Lady of the Rosary. Mostly Portuguese, not Irish Catholic. But what the hey. I spared a single peek at the rearview, and the wife hadn’t moved.
* * *
The business at the church went smooth as smooth can go. The sanctuary doors were unlocked, which surprised me. I thought everyone locked everything these days, but maybe the righteous are less cautious than the rest of us, or simply more concerned with saving souls than with material possessions. Anyway, I admit that I lingered a moment at the threshold after pushing open the heavy wooden door. How could I not? Lots of people buy into all those timeworn, treasured chestnuts about interactions between the Old Man in the Sky and us walking-dead types. Those empty superstitions to make them feel just a wee bit safer in the night. Say your prayers, go to confession, drop a buck in the collection plate, whatever, and the nasties won’t get you, and you won’t go to the Bad Place, and you’ll even be forgiven for cheating on your income taxes. See, you hear that shit repeated all your life, you have it drilled into you as a kid, and some of it sticks, and it really doesn’t matter if you realize it’s all a crock later on.
But I only lingered a moment.
I stepped into the sanctuary, and nothing happened. Nothing whatsoever. The air in there was heavy with the odors of dust and aging hymnals and Murphy’s Oil Soap, felt and polished wood, plaster dust, sacramental wine, candle wax, the bodies of a thousand different men and women and children . . . and no, you probably wouldn’t have smelled all this stuff (or it might have struck you as a single complex scent), but I did. The door creaked shut behind me, and I stood there in the silence, as though I’d forgotten why I’d come to this place. It reminded me too much of a childhood I’d done my best to forget, but always wanted to remember. Former homeless, junky runaway cum pissed-off and terrified werepire, thy name is contradiction. But if I looked at the pews, there I was with my mom. I shut my eyes, and when I opened them, the phantoms had gone.
I walked a little way down the aisle, kneeled (as Jesus, Mother Mary, and any number of saints watched on) and pulled Evangelista’s black dagger from the waistband of my jeans. I laid it on the red carpeting. And, at once, it began spinning like a top, finally coming to rest with the tip of the blade pointing, more or less, southwest.
“Great,” I whispered. “So, we could be talking about Connecticut. Or New Orleans. Or Mexico fucking City. Or . . .”
But then I remembered some of what Evangelista had slipped into my head. I saw a tumbledown wreck of a house, and knew the address that went along with it. It was in Exeter, less than twenty miles from where I kneeled there in the sanctuary of Our Lady of the Rosary.
“Tag,” I said. “Got you now, bitch.”
This was, obviously, a tad premature. I did not have her. I only knew where she was, and the one ain’t the other. Not even close. But I was tired, the church was creeping me out big-time, and I was getting a headache. Probably, whatever had been coursing through the veins of Mr. White-trash Wife-beater Crack-head wasn’t agreeing with my bloodsucker’s anti-metabolism (just made that phrase up). Or it was a side effect of the hocus-pocus Penderghast was playing at with my mind. I picked up the dagger, and pulled that heavy door shut behind me as I left. I prayed to nothing at all that it was the last time I’d ever have cause to enter a “house of God.” Whether he was there or not, I’d not felt welcome.
* * *
What I did next, it sure as hell wasn’t on Bad Mr. B’s itinerary. It was, in fact, a major deviation from the plan, his and Evangelista’s. But I did it, anyway. I didn’t do it to spite them—but I also didn’t
do it not to spite them. I was the black knight being sent into Blake’s “forest of the night” to slay this “Tyger! Tyger! burning bright.” “What dread hand? And what dread feet?” indeed. I was the one who was about to face her fearful symmetry, and, the way I saw it, that gave me a certain degree of latitude as to how this endgame was going to play out. And, besides, I was in the mood for a big-ass, fuck-ton of Fourth of July fireworks—the ones that get all the ooohs and ahs—not a handful of bottle rockets. Maybe this would be my coup de grace, and if that were to be the case, I wanted a blaze of glory that the nasties would be talking about for decades to come.
I knew the late and possibly lamented Jack Grumet, formerly of Woonsocket, had a wife. It had come up in that conversation with B, right after I’d made my first kill. Her name was Hannah. Getting her phone number was easy. A walk in the park, or two for one; choose your favorite idiom. I drove to the parking lot at India Point, there where the polluted waters of the Seekonk and Providence rivers flow into Narragansett Bay. I rolled down the Honda’s window and dialed her number on Aloysius’ cell, and stared at the late afternoon sun glinting off the calm blue water. It rang six times before anyone answered. Before Hannah Grumet answered.
“I’m Siobhan Quinn,” I said. “I was there when your husband died.”
There was quiet then. Let’s toss in another idiom: you could have heard a pin drop. Well, except for the crows and the catbirds making a racket in the trees.
I heard her draw a deep breath, and the exhalation seemed to take forever. And then she said, “The bitch-whore that murdered him. That’s what you mean.”
“Is that the way they’re telling the tale up Swamp Yankee way?”
“Don’t think this is over,” she said. “Don’t think I won’t have my retribution.”
“Re-tri-bu-tion. That’s an awfully big word, Hannah. How about you just say you’re gonna get even and be done with it? See, that’s what I’d have said.”
I’d never heard the cold, hard hiss of seething rage, but I heard it in the spaces between her words, the spaces between the syllables.
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