by J. F. Lewis
“Rage blackout, huh?” Rachel asked.
Talbot and I both looked at her funny. “How the hell do you know about my rage blackouts?” I asked.
She laughed and rolled her eyes. “Sorry. I guess everyone who knows anything about vampires in this city knows about your rage blackouts.” Her pulse quickened, but I couldn’t decide whether she was lying or nervous.
“She’s got you there.” Talbot walked over to the door. “I just want to know how you’re going to break it to Roger. He and Brian seemed pretty tight.”
“Yeah, well, Roger isn’t renowned for his choice of acquaintances,” I said, “present company included.”
“Depends on what you’re looking for in a friend,” Talbot countered. “He certainly attracts the powerful, wealthy, and influential. Present company included.” He added that last bit with a mocking nod. Talbot had a smirk on his lips and he cut his eyes toward Rachel as he left. “I’ll be across the street. Call me if you need anything.”
Rachel squirmed under his gaze. As the door closed, she seemed comfortable again. Too comfortable. “What are you going to do about the werewolves?” She slunk toward me and the vibe was suddenly very different than it had been with Tabitha. This wasn’t about sex. I could smell that sex was an option, but this was something different. She was teasing me, flirting with me, manipulating me.
“So…you know about the rage blackouts and the werewolf fiasco. You’re pretty well informed.”
“I’m just lucky.” She moved close to me. I couldn’t help but notice that her breasts were nearly touching my chest. “I heard some of your employees talking about it.” She closed the gap between us. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”
It was more than okay, but more because of how she was touching me than the answers she was giving. She could read me better than Tabitha ever could and we’d known each other less than a day. She was extremely dangerous, a very good liar. She hadn’t heard my employees talking about the werewolves; she couldn’t have. I reminded myself to be careful.
“You’re standing a little closer than I think your sister would approve.” I took a step back, mentally applauding my fortitude.
She put a hand on my chest and I found myself staring down her tank top.
“You like it,” she said, following my gaze.
“She wouldn’t.” I pushed her hand away.
“No, Tab would be mortified. If she even knows what mortified means,” Rachel said.
“Look, what’s going on between me and your sister is complicated and I’m not sure I want to complicate it any further than it—”
“I know,” she said, “you’re trying to be a good boy, but if you want a girl who really gets the whole vampire thing, who can give a vampire everything he wants and make him go all weak and kitteny…”
“That would be you?”
She nodded again.
“Not interested.” Now I was lying. I decided to give Rachel the benefit of the doubt. We all lie sometimes. Maybe if I were a eunuch, I mused, things would be easier.
I left the seating area, passing the old refreshment stand as I crossed the lobby. At the top of the stairs, to the left of the mezzanine access, a long hall led to a row of offices. She followed me to the stairs. I held out a hand behind me to stop her. “No one comes up to my offices uninvited.”
“Can I send somebody home to get my clothes?” Rachel asked. “Do you have any movies?”
“Why don’t I just get Talbot to take you home, period?” That was my first good idea of the night. “Won’t your parents be looking for you?”
She laughed. “Not likely.”
I turned to face her. “If I were your dad, I’d be worried sick.”
Rachel moved in close, too close, and kissed me. “Don’t stress over it.” I wasn’t supposed to be kissing her back, but I was. Maybe it was the perfume she was wearing. Something about the cinnamon smell made me want to keep her around. Sure that was it. It was the cinnamon. It had nothing to do with my desire to throw her on the ground and tear her clothes off.
“Let me worry about my parents,” she said, pulling away briefly and rubbing at her thigh where I’d bitten her. “I’m still kind of sore. You should at least let me hang out for the rest of the day.”
“Fine,” I said. “Get one of the girls to take you shopping. Tell Talbot I said it was okay. I don’t care what you spend. I just don’t want one of my employees having to explain to your dad why they need to pick up a change of clothes.”
She squealed; I turned into a bat and flew up the stairs. I was showing off for her. It was not a good sign.
9
ERIC:
DAMAGE REPORT
Sitting at my desk with a small stack of notes, I looked at the bricked-up windows and shook my head. The first two notes were from Talbot. One said that Carl needed to know what to do about the Mustang. He hadn’t done a complete assessment yet, but most of the interior looked salvageable. The rest of the car was a mess and Carl’s best guess was that repairing it wasn’t worth the effort or the money. Talbot noted that he’d told Carl to protect the interior of the car, and to start looking for replacement parts, but to do nothing further without calling first.
His second note was attached to a clipping from that morning’s Void City Echo. The headline read “Local News Anchor Found Dead in Sewer.” I would have had to drop my victim down a drain someone was going to start working on in the morning. Her name had been Evelyn Courtney-Barnes. Lots of people were going to miss her, blah blah blah.
The third note was from Roger telling me that he’d given Veruca the night off again and asking me to get Tabitha to cover. Veruca. Veruca. It took me a moment to recognize the name, because I always called her Froggy. She was Roger’s girlfriend. She could only transform into one creature: a frog. Her other vampire powers were fine, but it seemed to piss her off that all she could change into was an amphibian. According to Roger’s note, she might need the next several nights off. I wondered if this was some kind of payback for me having turned Tabitha…making my vampire girlfriend work so his wouldn’t have to.
The last note was an invitation to a hockey game, though, also from Roger. For the last decade or so Roger and I hadn’t exactly been bosom buddies. We didn’t hang out much anymore, and when we did, he almost always brought some new friend or other along. Lately, it’d been Brian.
Our business relationship hadn’t been much better. Roger had been big in real estate when he was alive. Now that he had more time, I think he aspired to be an undead Donald Trump. Roger always picked what stocks we would buy and how much of each we needed. He’d made us both rich men. He had also been the one who’d figured out how to transfer our wealth back to ourselves once we’d officially died.
But time changes things, and it had certainly changed Roger. I knew he didn’t like the way I was running the club, though I’d noticed it didn’t stop him from taking payouts from the register whenever he needed petty cash. My guess was that the whole operation made him look bad to his high society buddies. I kind of missed the way things had been between us. Maybe he did, too. On the other hand, I’d just whacked his buddy Brian…and it was probably Brian’s ticket to the hockey game that Roger was offering me.
Stacking the notes to one side of my desk, I looked around my office. Except for the modern conveniences, it looked like it had jumped fully formed out of The Maltese Falcon. The door in the outer office had my name stenciled on it in nice black letters. The secretary’s desk was vacant. Sometimes when I was working I’d have Tabitha come up and sit at that desk. I’d have her run errands for me to and from the Demon Heart. I could have used the telephone, or even e-mail, but I liked the illusion that it created. For a time it let me pretend that the world was still the same place where I’d once walked in sunshine, a world in which area codes were new and there were some numbers that you just couldn’t dial without operator assistance.
“What the hell am I going to do?” I asked the room. I put my head do
wn on my desk like I was a little boy in school and the teacher was mad at me. I wasted an hour or more that way before I noticed the burning sensation in my pocket and remembered the bullet.
“Son of a bitch.” I picked up the phone and the number for the Demon Heart went right out of my head. I could remember the first three digits, but the last four…well, I knew it had a six in it. One quick flip through the phone book later, I called over to the Demon Heart.
Roger answered, but I wasn’t in the mood to talk to him. Having ripped his friend’s head off and lied to him about it made me a little uncomfortable.
“Get Marilyn on the phone,” I said brusquely.
“She’s kinda busy, Eric,” Roger snapped. Why was he being so bitchy lately? Was all this really over the damn Froggy crack? Was this my fault? Maybe I should go to the hockey game after all.
“Look, just get her on the phone,” I answered.
“She’s not here because you broke her arm, tough guy.” He sounded so smug about it that if he hadn’t just invited me to a hockey game, I’d have walked across the street and wiped the accompanying look off of his face. “She’s old and fragile. You can’t just push her around like that. She didn’t want you to know, but she’s gone to the emergency room.”
Cursing, I hung up on Roger. Sometimes it seemed like Roger was closer to Marilyn than I was. Then again, maybe that was a good thing. Why did she even stay around a guy like me? Couldn’t she see I was dangerous? I told myself that what happened was her fault, that she shouldn’t have slapped me. I was lying to myself again. I wondered if I’d ever get any better at it.
If I concentrated, I could hear Rachel talking to Sally downstairs, their words vibrating along the air ducts and the building’s central vacuum system. I went downstairs and found them in one of the dressing rooms behind the stage.
Tabitha had a tendency to dress like a sex doll. Her sister had better taste. She was wearing a floor-length backless evening gown. The green set off her eyes beautifully. Her hair was up and she’d replaced her nose ring with a small silver stud that was barely noticeable. Even her makeup was right. Have I mentioned how dangerous I thought she was? I had no idea where she had gotten the dress, but it was beautiful. She was beautiful.
“Goldman’s opens at ten and it’s not that far from here,” she explained. “Sally went down with me and we picked up a few options.” Rachel twirled and the dress rose off the floor a little, enough for me to see her matching shoes and a glimpse of ankle. Sally looked proud of herself. I was proud of her, too.
“We spent almost five thousand dollars,” Sally told me.
“Why the hell did you buy a prom dress?”
“Because we all know what happens after prom,” Rachel whispered.
“Yeah.” Sally giggled with amusement. “You kids have fun.” She winked at me on her way out the door. What the hell had Rachel told her?
Rachel smiled. I checked my fucked-o-meter. The gauge was set firmly on “Seven ways from Sunday.” That seemed about right.
Rachel pulled up her dress and showed me her thigh. The wound was gone.
“It’s already healed,” she said.
“Mine always do,” I told her. “I don’t know why. Roger’s bites don’t heal like mine. Talbot tells me it’s an unusual ability for a vampire.”
She looked at me quizzically, dropping her dress back into place. “Talbot tells me that about most of my abilities, though,” I added.
She walked over to me casually. “Have you asked him about it?”
“No,” I answered. She was leaning close to me again. Her smell was different, less musky, and I couldn’t smell cinnamon anymore. I decided it wasn’t a perfume that she’d been wearing; it was something else, something that came and went. I didn’t ask, for the same reason I didn’t ask a lot of things. I was afraid that she might tell me, or worse, lift up her dress and show me.
“Why not?”
“Because I was worried that he might tell me.” I backed away from her, pausing at the doorway.
“You want to know about that bullet, don’t you?” She was just full of surprises.
“What bullet?” I asked.
“The magic one you’re holding in your hand.” Rachel pointed. “Or is it just a party favor?”
I looked down and sighed. The bullet glowed even more brightly now, like it was charging back up, replenishing itself.
“I was going to call Magbidion. He’s kind of my mage on retainer.”
“Can I see it?” She held out her hand. Since I had no reason other than blatant paranoia not to hand it over, I gave her the bullet. She held it up to her eye and put a hand on my shoulder. We both got popped by static electricity. “Ow. Yep, it’s magic. I’m no expert on magic bullets, but it’s made of silver. My guess is that it’s enchanted to kill lycanthropes. One of those swirly symbols kind of looks like a rune I’ve seen used to represent them.”
“How do you know all this?”
There was mischief in her eyes. “Because, unlike some people, I ask questions.”
“Yeah, but I’m a vampire. How come you know more about it than me?”
“I don’t jump blindly into anything. I do research. There’s a place called the Irons Club. It’s really exclusive and a lot of vampire thralls meet down there and play golf when their Masters are asleep.”
“And they just told you all this stuff?”
“It took a little doing,” she said, leaning in close to nuzzle my neck, “but you know how persuasive I can be and how curious I am.”
“Remember what curiosity did to the cat.”
“I’m not a cat,” she answered. “I hate cats.”
“I’d noticed. You know, your sister is going to wake up about an hour after sunset. I should talk to her about things.” Rachel opened her mouth, but I shushed her. “Not about us, if there is an us…which there isn’t.” Shit. “I need to explain. I have to break up with her. She’s dead now and I don’t date corpses. I’ve tried it and it doesn’t work.”
“She talked you into it, huh? What an idiot. There is no quicker way to lose your undead boyfriend than turning off the body heat.” Rachel turned her back to me and looked over her shoulder in my direction. “Unzip me? I want to change out of this before I get it dirty.” Reluctantly, I did as she asked. She was wearing a strange-looking bra underneath it.
“What is that?”
She looked down. “A backless bra,” she said with a smirk. “I can’t go braless all the time, silly. I’d sag.”
“What was I just talking about?” I sighed.
“My sister,” Rachel answered. She bit her bottom lip thoughtfully and then stepped out of the dress. I watched her put it on a hanger and pull a plastic bag over it. I was still staring at her when she took off her shoes. She had a small frog tattoo just above her ankle. It was cute and dainty and I seemed to remember it from somewhere, as if I had previously seen one just like it.
“You like frogs?” I asked.
“Better than cats,” she answered mysteriously. She glanced at me as if waiting to see if I had any other questions, then pulled on a new pair of jeans and a silk blouse.
“You were talking about my sister,” she repeated. “She’s going to be really pissed off when you dump her. Does she have any idea that it’s coming?”
“It’s what happened to the one before her,” I answered defensively. “Look, I think she knows, but either way I’m sure Talbot will have told her that it’s likely.”
Rachel shook her head as she pulled a pair of socks out of a shopping bag. They were followed by a pair of new tennis shoes. “So in other words, she’s probably in denial. You’re not one of those guys who tosses ‘I love you’ grenades around, are you?”
“I told her she was a moist warm tightness with the right attachments.”
Rachel looked exceedingly amused. “Holy shit! You did not tell my sister that.” She stopped laughing and looked up at me. “You did tell her that? Oh my God!” She sat down on the
dressing chair and tried to catch her breath. Amusement was not the reaction I had been expecting. Anger would have been my bet, maybe a little dash of outrage, but not this. It was a clear sign that I did not understand the modern teenager.
“What does she expect?” Rachel continued. “You’re a fucking vampire. You eat people.” Her comments weren’t accusations. I might have felt better about it if they had been.
“I have to go across to the club and talk to Roger,” I said, changing the subject. I needed to ask him about the hockey game, maybe find some way to mention Brian. I also wanted to be there whenever Tabitha woke up. “Look, just hang out here. Watch a movie, listen to CDs, just…whatever. I’ll be back.” Applauding my mental fortitude, I left, walking up the stairs, out through the lobby, and across to the Demon Heart without a backward glance.
Since it was a few minutes before noon, I caught fire again on the way. Catching fire always reminds me of that one horrible week in California, a week full of demons and hellfire. “Fricking El Segundo,” I griped.
10
TABITHA:
RELATIONSHIP ISSUES
When I awoke, I was in Eric’s bed again and he was standing over me. “You’re up early,” he remarked.
“Hello to you too,” I said with a smile. I expected him to kiss me. Instead he pointed at the shower. “You smell,” he said bluntly. “Go take a shower.”
There was an odor in the air, like natural gas or methane mixed with pee. I sniffed my forearm. “That’s me?”
Eric pulled me off of the bed by my arm and dragged me to the shower. Too stunned to react, I just lay there while he turned the shower on and pushed me inside. I was still wearing my leather outfit. He didn’t notice. Instead, he stripped off his shoes and stepped into the shower. The cold water slowly became warmer as he removed my clothing. I closed my eyes and imagined him delicately unsnapping each snap and kissing the soft white flesh underneath.
“My darling,” my imaginary Eric said. “I love you. Now we can be together, creatures of the night, unstoppable, unquenchable; the world is ours.”