Staked

by J. F. Lewis

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, I tugged on a pair of dark socks and my work boots. My favorite belt was still lying in the shower so I went without one even though it irks me. It’s a hang-up I have. Maybe I got pantsed once too often as a child. I don’t know. After a little searching, I found my watch under my nightstand and slipped it on my wrist.

  I checked the backstage dressing room on my way down the hall. Sheena and Desiree both gave me polite smiles. Sheena was dressed for work, ready to go onstage in a perky cheerleader uniform complete with pom-poms. Desiree, having finished her set, was slipping into a slinky French maid’s outfit to wear while selling drinks and lap dances. I gave them a half smile in return and walked back out into the hall, then out into the club itself. Often the sounds and lights make me feel better. Even though the music usually hurts my ears, it excites everyone else and the more alive they feel the more I can leech off of their excitement.

  I didn’t see Marilyn, which only vaguely concerned me. Maybe she was at another doctor’s visit. Old people get sick a lot, and Marilyn had grown old. We’d known each other since we were kids. We’d been friends, lovers, fiancées. I’ve been told that when I rose as a vampire, she was there, standing over my grave crying. I don’t remember any of it, but it must be true, ‘cause she’s been with me ever since.

  She’s the one woman I’ve ever really wanted to turn, but she’s always said no. Something about her immortal soul, which is odd, since she claims to be an atheist. The real reason is probably a secret. All Marilyn’s secrets are safe from me. I can’t even make her tell me what she’s getting me for Christmas. When she dies, I’m pretty sure I’ll go crazy, but only time will tell.

  I looked around the room, soaking up the atmosphere. Sarah was doing an uninspired bit of stripping while Kelly and Lillian worked the tables. Talbot stood off to the right of the stage. There were a lot of people in the club for a Wednesday. I glanced at my watch and realized it was Saturday. Damn. My sense of time was getting worse. I think that’s why Marilyn bought me a watch that displayed the time, date, and day of the week. Talbot headed my way and I headed back the way I’d come, straight toward the nearest exit. Talbot was big, black, bald, and too well dressed to be a bouncer in a place like mine.

  The Demon Heart was no dump, but it didn’t pretend to be anything it wasn’t. Clean but faded, it was the kind of club that looks better in dim light. The outside still looked like a department store, which is what it had been, I guess, back when the Pollux was open across the street. I’d had the interior redone in red, black, and chrome. It reminded me of a 1950s burger joint gone wrong.

  Talbot sped up to catch me and I let him. It would look a little silly to run away from my own employee, wouldn’t it? Even if that was exactly what I wanted to do? I was ashamed of what I’d let happen and I didn’t want to face it yet, not until I’d eaten, maybe not even then.

  He reached me just as I started down the hall toward the back door. “Tabitha didn’t come up to help open the club,” he said abruptly.

  I turned to look at him and couldn’t say it. “Hire someone else,” I snapped, instead. “Get one of the other girls to fill in for now.”

  He waited for an explanation and I just stared at him. Figure it out, damn it! Talbot has been with me for close to twenty years. By now, I expected him to know when the boss has fucked up. Then I saw it in his eyes. The bastard knew exactly what had happened. He just wanted to make me say it, to watch me be uncomfortable, the bastard.

  “I fucking turned her last night, okay? And I’m too hungry to snack on anyone here. I’d drain them down too far and I don’t want to have to deal with a dead body in the club tonight, so get back there and keep an eye on her for me. If she wakes up before I get back, you can damn well feed her yourself!”

  His brown eyes turned green for a moment and his pupils narrowed into slits. Cats’ eyes. He took a couple of breaths and his eyes turned back to normal. I usually knew not to goad him like that, but I was fucking up so consistently that I didn’t want to interrupt my streak.

  “I can do that, sir,” he rumbled. Then he smiled, regaining his composure. “I was just talking to Roger about a rumor he heard…supposedly a vampire killed a werewolf three blocks from here…around dawn…down at Thirteenth and Eleventh Avenue.”

  “Good for him,” I growled.

  “He said that was where Lillian picked you up last night. Is that so?” Talbot asked.

  I didn’t remember. It sounded right. “Maybe.” I sighed.

  “Rumor also has it that the dead wolf was important to his pack,” Talbot added.

  I looked away for a moment and rubbed my eyes. I could feel the beginnings of a nice happy migraine coming on. “How important?”

  He pursed his lips and made a whistling noise. “Pretty darn.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s just wonderful! With my luck, it was the fucking Alpha.”

  He laughed. “Actually, it was William’s eldest son.”

  “William’s the Alpha?”

  He nodded.

  “Shit.”

  Enjoying my dismay, Talbot continued, “The van cleaned up well, but the Hummer will be in the shop for a while.”

  “Sell it for scrap,” I said harshly. “I don’t even know why I let Roger talk me into buying it.”

  Talbot has one of those infectious laughs that can make anyone laugh in return. It didn’t work this time, maybe because I felt he was laughing at me, at the mess I’d made. When I didn’t share in his amusement, Talbot grimaced. “What else are you not telling me, Eric?”

  I waved him off and walked out the door. My Mustang was waiting for me. Even though Ford didn’t make a distinction between the 1965 and the 19641/2, I could tell. I’d bought it new in late April 1964, and had it loaded with options. I don’t know if it was the first vehicle with a power convertible top, but for fifty-four dollars and ten cents, I’d said hell, yes. That Mustang was the first car I ever owned that had an air conditioner.

  I ran my hand along the long blunt hood and grinned from ear to ear, picturing the 271 horsepower V-8 engine underneath. I understood why Roger wanted me to get used to a new car. The Mustang couldn’t last forever, but I wouldn’t let it go yet. Marilyn’s first time was in that car. They don’t make cars like that anymore.

  “Hey, asshole,” Roger shouted from the club’s rear door. That I hadn’t sensed him only slightly surprised me. The first and second tier of vampires can sense each other when they come into range. Roger’s second tier, a Master. I’m a Vlad and a Vlad trumps a Master. My not sensing him meant that he’d been within my range before I woke up. Technically, I must have sensed him in my sleep, but since it was Roger, it hadn’t woken me.

  He was dressed better than me, as usual, but he looked harried, every hair out of place. “I just heard that guy who owns the Demon Heart turned another one of his girlfriends last night….”

  “What a prick,” I said dryly. If Roger was trying to cheer me up, he was going about it the wrong way.

  “Tell me about it.” He walked over to the car, thoroughly enjoying pissing in my Cheerios. “I hear he crashed his new Humvee, too.”

  “Sounds like a real fuckup. What do you want, Roger? I’m hungry.”

  “I hear he’s eating out tonight.”

  “I figure I’m on a roll…”

  “…so why not let it ride?” he said, finishing my sentence. The last time I could remember Roger being all buddy-buddy like this was in Vegas. We’d hit it big, or I had, and I’d taken care of his losses, paid for the whole damn trip, actually. Roger’s always happier when he’s spending someone else’s money.

  “You want to come with?” I asked.

  He shook his head no, the prospect unthinkable. “Look, buddy, I know it’s not my place to say—”

  “But you’re going to anyway.” That drew a smile, but not the friendly one for which I’d hoped.

  “Why don’t you go ahead and end Tabitha? Spare yourself a little heartache and get it
over with, huh? She’s not worth it.” It was Roger’s same old song and dance. He was right, of course, but that didn’t mean I wanted to hear it.

  “Speaking of girlfriends,” I said, “are you still fucking Froggy?” It was nasty and I shouldn’t have said it, but I wanted him to go away. If he didn’t want to be teased about having a girlfriend vamp who could only turn into a frog, he should know better than to start poking at me and mine.

  Besides, I needed to eat. No vampire is hungry and nice. Nice and hungry, sure, but…

  “Look, just hunt away from the club tonight, okay?” he said.

  “I was planning to.”

  “Oh, you were planning?” Roger smirked. “Where were you planning on going then, if I might ask?” He emphasized planning like it had air quotes around it. Still, I’d asked for it, by mentioning Froggy.

  “North Side,” I blurted.

  “Any particular spot?”

  “I’ll figure it out when I get there.”

  “Right, ‘cause you’re so good at winging it. Why don’t you come inside and drink some blood from the fridge, just to take the edge off? The way you look, you might go all Black Out Boy any minute and—”

  “‘Bye,” I said brusquely. I slid into my Mustang and started her up, gunning the V-8 before peeling out toward North Side. I don’t normally hunt over there, but I craved a change of pace and it was the first place that had come to mind when Roger asked.

  A vampire can get tired of eating the same old people. Tonight I wanted to eat someone upscale who worked out every day and smelled like expensive perfume. By the time I reached the tony neighborhood, my head had cleared a little. I parked my car on the street and began prowling the specialty coffee shops.

  I passed up two college students and a cop before I started to get desperate. I had to pick a victim soon or I might not have much of a choice—sheer need would make me grab whoever was closest. Just then a woman in a Jag pulled up and parked in front of the hydrant across from Starbucks, then got out of the car. Her perfume smelled like heaven, and her skin looked soft and supple. Finally. The street was empty for a moment and I dashed out from my spot in the shadows.

  Everything dropped into slow motion. I was glad now that I’d decided to hunt away from my normal territory. Basically all vampires are monsters and I’m no exception. I’m not proud of it, and I try to keep myself well fed so that most of the time my prey are spared the worst of it, but bad nights do happen. Feeding was going to be bad tonight and I knew it. Roger might have known it, too. Maybe he’d been trying to help in his own weird passive-aggressive way. I was too hungry to hunt carefully.

  She barely knew what hit her. I had her back in the alley and on the ground in the twinkling of an eye. The perfume was expensive stuff: delicate, but arousing. She’d even dabbed a little down below, on the nape of her neck, and between her breasts. Someone called a woman’s name, so I leapt to the fire escape, dragging her up to the roof in spite of her struggles. She bit me, which always pisses me off (I’m the biter, not the bitee), so I slapped her. I didn’t want to, but it happened. The worse the hunger is, the less time there is for thinking, and the more primal those few thoughts become. The slap dazed her, but she still tried to scream when she saw my fangs. Fingernails clawed at my face, hard and lacquered. I threw her down on the roof and unwrapped her like a Christmas present, shreds of fabric scattering as I ripped and tore.

  Her lingerie told me I was screwing up someone else’s evening. It was a lacy purple number, expensive and luxurious. She’d shaved her legs for someone who would never know. Some vampires like the jugular, but I prefer the vein at the inner thigh when I’m drinking a woman. Another hunger stirred and I fought it like a drowning man. No, I told myself. Finish it.

  Normally I would have broken her neck first, but right now I wanted the blood hot and alive. She screamed so loud my eyes crossed. I wish I could say she tasted special, but the truth is all blood tastes the same. She bled out in little under a minute. When I was sated, I ripped her head off to make sure she wouldn’t rise as a wampyre.

  My memory’s not great, but I did remember reading about wampyres—they’re what happens when a human dies from a vampire bite. Wampyres are mindless rotting corpses that drink blood. They’re kind of the black sheep of the undead family, just above zombies.

  I dropped her body down a city drain and left her car illegally parked. It wasn’t smart, but then again this wasn’t my week for smart. In the end, all I’d done was kill her. I’d roughed her up some, too, but as hungry as I’d been, not doing more was a victory. A hungry vampire is capable of anything.

  I was willing to forgive myself a little carelessness. Besides, in a town like Void City, you can get away with being careless if you’ve got the money. Despite the enchantment over the city, most of us take additional precautions. Various flesh-eating types can be brought in for corpse disposal. Some pay to have the norms’ memories professionally rearranged, just in case. We can even get a mage or shaman to come in and move along any angry spirits we leave behind. It’s a hassle and it costs more than I like to think about. In my case, it would also result in a few hours of listening to Roger bitch and moan about the expense.

  No wonder I prefer to eat in.

  On the way home, my cell phone rang and I nearly wrecked the Mustang trying to find the damn thing. It was in the car charger. As I answered it, it occurred to me that it would have really pissed me off to wreck the Mustang.

  “What?” I spat into the phone.

  “Hey, buddy,” Roger oozed.

  “Yeah?”

  “Did Brian tell you where he was headed last night?” He sounded concerned and more than a little weird.

  “Fuck Brian,” I snarled. “I don’t even know why you keep bringing him out with us. If he doesn’t learn to keep his mouth shut about the Void City Howlers I’m going to wind up shutting it for“—oh, shit. That was how I knew the headless vampire in the alley’s face. It was fucking Brian. Damn it!—“him.”

  I swerved around on the road for a minute and slammed my fist into the console.

  Roger’s voice sounded even more distant, and I could hear faint music in the background. “Okay, well, just let me know if you hear from him. He was supposed to meet me here at the Artiste Unknown.”

  “Fine.”

  “What?” he asked incredulously. “You wanted to come?”

  How the hell had Roger gotten that from “fine”?

  “Um, have I even heard of that place?” I asked, trying to figure out how the hell I was going to tell Roger that I’d offed his buddy.

  “It’s Ebon Winter’s club, very exclusive. Vampires have to bring a human date.” He paused. “The only place more exclusive than the Irons Club?”

  Have I mentioned that my memory is shit? “Doesn’t ring a bell, but you and Brian have fun.”

  “I was supposed to meet him at eight. It is now eight thirty.”

  “Then I guess he’s late.” In the corner of my mind, an alarm was going off. I eyed the spotless white truck behind me, but didn’t see anything strange about it. I checked all my mirrors, but still saw nothing suspicious. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up anyway and a cold shiver went down my spine. My body thinks it knows better than me whether I’m in trouble or not. It’s usually right.

  “I don’t think so,” Roger said, sounding pissed. “You’re the only one who ever keeps me waiting.”

  “Get over yourself.” I laughed. Roger certainly had an ego. If I hadn’t known him from my living days, there was no way I would have put up with his crap.

  I’ve always thought it was kind of weird that we both became vampires at about the same time. Roger’s never given me a good answer about it either. If we’d had the same sire it would have been less confusing to me, but Roger’s sire was from Atlanta and we have no idea who sired me. He told me not to worry about it, but I do. Marilyn tried to explain it away once. She had this whole sob story about Roger being distraught over my death and
arranging his own; she seemed to believe it, but I didn’t.

  In my rearview mirror, the same spotless white truck was pacing me. A red truck pulled up beside it. Same make, same model, same year…my alarm kept going off. I shifted my attention from Roger’s past to the present. “Look, he’s probably just running late. I’m sure he’ll show up. Why don’t you go on in and have a good time. I’ve gotta go.”

  “Why? Have some other important werewolves to piss off tonight? Watch out for William, by the way. I hear he’s not your average fare.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant while keeping an eye on the trucks in my rearview mirror.

  “He’s supposed to be a real badass, one heck of an Alpha.” Roger covered the phone for three or four seconds and then continued talking. “He’s probably as hard to kill as you are. You’ll have to use blessed silver, the whole nine yards.”

  I told him to go screw himself and hung up before I meant to, but he deserved it. This wasn’t really my fault. If the werewolf from last night was so damn important then he should have been wearing a doggie collar and a tag. And he should have been warned not to hunt vampires so close to my club.

  Before I could decide what to do about my suspicious tailgaters, my cell phone rang again. As soon as I said, “Hello?” the shit hit the fan. Another truck, a black one, pulled off of a side street and swerved to a sideways halt in front of me. The other two trucks sped up and rammed me from behind, knocking my Mustang into a skid.

  I spun sideways, smashing into the truck in front of me. My Mustang flipped up and over. Metal scraped on concrete as it cartwheeled down the street. Loud music was coming from the cell phone. As the car rolled, I was dumped unceremoniously onto the concrete (seat belt anyone?) and the cell phone flew out of my hand. Through the crunching death knell of my Mustang, I still managed to hear Sheena’s whiny voice. “Boss, did Veruca say anything to you about coming in late, or taking the night off? Oh, and Talbot said to warn you…”

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