We had that in common?
“But you hate him,” I protested, forgetting the dress in my hand as I gestured with it. “He disgusts you.”
“You don’t know me,” Marilyn said. She started folding some of my things, putting them neatly into the suitcase. “And you don’t know him, either.
“Do you know what his hopes and dreams were when he was alive? Did you see him come back from the Second World War, a man who hadn’t believed in killing, but who had believed in doing what was right? We were just friends, then. He was too stupid to realize that when I said I was saving myself for marriage, what I really meant was saving myself for him.”
She didn’t cry; as emotional as her words were, she snapped them off bitterly. “Did you ever hear him play the piano? Did you even know he could? Did you hold his head in your lap on the day you were supposed to be married to him and cry because he’d been ruined, too?”
“You know I haven’t. I wasn’t even born then.”
“I know.” Marilyn’s head sagged. “You’re young and you’re stupid and you think you can treat an eighty-two-year-old man like a teenager. You expect him to run after you, but he can’t.”
“I don’t know what else to do,” I shouted. “It’s like he wants me to leave, but I know he still cares about me. I’ve seen him decide to be cruel on purpose and push me away—”
Marilyn slapped me and I slapped her back, the blow spinning her all the way around before she dropped to the ground like a sack of old laundry. Her glasses landed on the bed and I thought that I had killed her.
“Oh my God. Marilyn.” I touched her shoulder. “I’m so sorry. I—” And then she slapped me again, her laugh sharp and abrasive, cawing crowlike laughter. I reeled away from her and she grinned, her fierce eyes challenging me. My fingernails had cut her skin when I’d struck her, but the wounds weren’t bleeding, they were creeping closed.
“You have to stay and fight for him and you have to win. You have to get Greta on your side and you have to protect him, like I tried to do, but you have to succeed.”
“Protect him from what? Himself?” I asked.
Marilyn pulled herself up and reached for the top of her blouse. I thought she was hiding a cross, that she was going to use it on me, but instead, she opened the top button, baring part of a wrinkled, drooping breast, upon which she had a small tattoo of a frog. “Do you see?” she asked. “Talbot told me you killed Veruca. You might have seen, when she died.”
“She turned to dust, Marilyn.”
“Never mind.” Marilyn closed her blouse, deflated, as she spoke. “I can’t…he won’t let me say more.”
“Who won’t?” I asked. As if in answer to my question, Roger popped up in my mind, seemingly holographic like the vampires at the Highland Towers. He was less powerful than me and had been a vampire for forty-three years. He was shocked to see me, but not as shocked as I was to see his companion. He was walking down Thirteenth Street talking to a young woman who was the spitting image of Rachel. They were arguing and he seemed nervous, almost afraid.
“Nice tits,” he said to me and I broke the contact.
“I’ve gotta go,” I told Marilyn. I slipped the blue dress over my head and darted barefooted out the front door.
They’d reached the front of the Pollux by the time I got there. The girl who looked like Rachel wore tight black hip huggers and a midriff top. A small gold padlock hung from her choker and she wore a jade bracelet on her left wrist. Except for the hair, which had been highlighted in blondes and reds, she was Rachel’s twin. She smirked when she saw me.
“Hi, slut,” she said. “Where ya been?”
Even her voice was Rachel’s. But I’d seen her open casket. I’d watched them lower her into the ground.
“Rachel?” I whispered. “But…but you died.”
“Anyone can get a second chance aboveground, Tab. You just have to be willing to do absolutely anything to get it. Third chances are harder. But I died human, so my path didn’t require any special ingredients that I didn’t have with me. It’s not easy to close the deal when your soul is already hellbound and on-site, but it can be done.”
“Rachel wouldn’t have gone to hell,” I told the look-alike. “She was just a kid.”
The smile on her lips was in that uncertain territory between sweet and malicious. “That’s cute, Tab. I’m flattered.” She turned to Roger. “She gets to leave.”
“Like you could stop me anyway,” I snapped.
“Kill her,” Roger suggested.
I honestly don’t know whether he was talking to her or to me, but the Rachel look-alike answered him. “If I do, he’ll know I did it, because you insisted that I link with him, make him think he’d made me his thrall. I’m not like your wrinkled-up old fuck puppet, Roger. I’m a witch and you’re just a frickin’ Master vampire. You can’t control me.”
Roger opened his mouth to reply, but I beat him to it. “So that’s how you look like my sister? You used magic?” I popped my claws. “Well, stay back, witch, because I’m not just a ‘frickin’ Master.’ I’m a Vlad.”
The witch laughed like a wicked child, eyes sparkling as if she enjoyed a challenge. “Don’t tempt me, sis.”
“Do it,” Roger urged her. He reached out to her, but drew his hand back before he made contact. He feared her. She sensed it and her nostrils flared. He stammered, “I didn’t—”
Her eyes narrowed. “Watch it, dead boy. I’m only helpingyou out because it will help pay my debt. My real boss got me out of hell. You did squat. He said to help you with Eric. Tabitha is not part of the deal.”
“You guys are going to try and take Eric on?” I asked incredulously. “The two of you?”
“Roger thinks he is,” the woman who claimed to be Rachel answered. “Which is a total joke. I mean, let’s be serious. In a fight, even you would kick Roger’s ass.”
“That’s why you’re here,” Roger said angrily. “You have to help me.”
“Not in a fight. Your contract for assistance specifies non-combat. If you want more, you’ll have to work it out with my boss.” The witch tapped Roger on the nose with her index finger like he was a particularly dumb child. “If he was really just a Vlad, then I might’ve helped you out. My magic would have had him wrapped around my little finger in under a minute.” She ran her hand along Roger’s shoulder and he relaxed visibly. The scent of freshly baked cinnamon rolls washed over me, but I couldn’t tell where it came from. “But as it is, I have to go all out to influence him even a little bit. I could barely keep him from flying to the other side of the interstate after that mess at the lake. He nearly didn’t make it to the right house. So, I’m sorry, but you’re on your own.”
“Which,” the woman turned her attention to me and began massaging Roger’s shoulders as she spoke, “is why Roger, here, is going to get his undead ass handed to him tonight.”
“He won’t kill me,” Roger objected, shoving her away with some difficulty, trying to regain his composure.
“Oh yes, he will,” the witch countered. “Because you refuse to believe that Eric is an Emperor, not a Vlad. I get why. Accepting what he is means you have to accept that you helped Eric become more powerful than you will ever be, even though you didn’t mean to do it.”
Emperor, my ass.“You’re both nuts,” I said finally. “And you,” I added, pointing at the Rachel look-alike. “I don’t know who you are, witch, or what spell you’re using, but you are definitely not my sister.”
I stormed back into the Demon Heart and locked the door. Marilyn sat behind the bar, my packed suitcase propped up on top of it next to a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Lord Phillip’s diamond necklace sparkled on top of the suitcase. The shoes that went with my dress were sitting on a bar stool.
“You’d better go,” Marilyn said after she took a shot of Jack.
“Who is that girl?” I asked.
“I don’t know for sure,” Marilyn replied, “but she’s bad business and that’s all I can say
. I’m only able to say this much to you because he’s careless with the details.”
“Who is?” I wondered if she was being infuriating on purpose.
Marilyn cursed under her breath. I know she thought I was stupid, the look in her eyes told me as much, but there was another emotion there that I couldn’t read: not fear, but frustration, perhaps? “Don’t let her touch you, and stay away from Roger. If you try to hurt him, I’ll have to defend him.”
“What? Why? Defend Roger? You’re just as nuts as they are. You’re all in on it!”
“Just go.” Marilyn sighed. “Go to Eric. He might not figure it out either, but he can protect you, as he has me.”
“I’m not going to Eric!” I shouted. “He’s coming to me!”
Marilyn made a hand-washing motion and reached into her purse for a pack of cigarettes. “Do what you want then, Tabitha. I hope you’re right about him. I truly do.”
Rachel, or the thing that looked like Rachel, knocked on the door. “You still in there, slut?”
Marilyn tore a match out of a Demon Heart matchbook, lit her cigarette and coughed on the smoke. “I hate these things,” she told me, “but if you smoke enough of them they can kill you.”
“Stop talking to her, Marilyn,” Roger shouted from the other side of the door. As if by magic, Marilyn’s mouth snapped shut. Her eyes spoke volumes and I finally got it. Somehow Roger was controlling Marilyn. But really, what did that have to do with me? I was leaving.
I slipped on my shoes, put on my necklace, and glared at Marilyn, suitcase in hand. If…no,when Eric came after me, I’d tell him about all the weird shit that had been going on behind his back, but until then, he was on his own.
I heard Roger fumble with his keys, followed by the metallic click of the lock. I waited until they stepped through the front door.
“Give Eric a message for me?” I asked, looking from Roger to the witch and back to Marilyn. “Whichever one of you is in charge?”
“I’m not giving him any mess—,” Roger said. Rachel shut him down with an elbow to the side.
“What’s the message?” she asked.
“Tell him I’m going to Lord Phillip’s at the Highland Towers.”
Roger’s lip twitched, but he didn’t say anything.
“Fine,” Rachel told me.
I nodded and headed out the back way, to Eric’s loaner, smiling as I loaded my suitcase into the trunk. Marilyn thought Eric wouldn’t come for me, but she didn’t know him like I did. She’d only really known him when he’d been alive. My knowledge was more recent. Death had changed him, changed both of us. It might take him a while, but he’d made me immortal. I had nothing but time.
Even when the loaner broke down four blocks from the Demon Heart, it didn’t put a dent in my good mood. Carrying my suitcase, I headed toward the Highland Towers, a strong, single, attractive vampire queen. My only thought was how jealous Eric would be when he found out where I’d gone.
34
ERIC:
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
I had William drop me off a few blocks from the Demon Heart and I walked them slowly. Roger and I sensed each other half a block away. He popped into my head and I into his, but we acknowledged each other too fast to allow the other to gain much insight into our emotions. We both had things to hide.
Roger was waiting for me at the Pollux. He sat on a wrought-iron bench to the left of the door in front of the marquee. TheCasablanca title was clearly visible on the poster above his head.
When I was sixteen, I sawCasablanca at the Pollux. Rick said good-bye to Ilsa in the end, even though he loved her. He didn’t know that he was just a character. He didn’t know that Bogart would be in other movies and that on one of those movie sets, Humphrey Bogart would meet Lauren Bacall and fall in love, real love, not celluloid make-believe.
By leaving me, Tabitha had proved herself. Even as a vampire, she loved me, or she wouldn’t have been so angry when she stormed off. She was better off without me. If I went after her, I’d regret it. If not today or tomorrow, then soon, and for the rest of my unlife.
“You look like shit.” Roger blew a smoke ring from one of his expensive cigars. He offered me one and I shook my head.
“I can’t taste them,” I told him.
“Neither can I, but I still enjoy the aroma.” He put the extra back into the inside pocket of his suit. Roger’s lips pursed together, the hazy fragrant smoke flowing lazily from his nostrils. He looked so cocky, so self-assured, daring me to call him on what he’d been doing, to accuse him.
“How’d it go with the werewolves?” Roger took another longer pull on his cigar and held it.
“They’re dead,” I lied casually. We looked at each other. I stared him in the eye, but his attention was focused on my eyebrows, my chin, somewhere over my shoulder, my shoes, and lastly the concrete.
“Tabitha?” he asked, the words pushing the smoke back out of his lungs.
“Dumped me. It seems that I’m a murderer and an asshole. I pull the wings off flies and glue them back on upside down…the whole nine yards.”
The ember at the end of his cigar glowed brighter as he took a long steady draw. “That sucks.”
I laughed bitterly. “Yeah, it sucks.”
“What about the wildflower…what’s her name?” He looked up, still careful to avoid my gaze.
“Rachel? She’s still around. It’ll probably take me a month or two to screw that up.” I sat next to him on the bench. He suppressed the urge to flinch, thought I didn’t notice it, but I did.
“I’m still sorry about Brian.” He smirked when I said the name. “I killed him the same night you framed me.”
“You were meant to. That’s why I befriended him.” Another series of smoke rings slipped from his lips, perfect, each inside the other, the way only years of practice can achieve. Damn! And the Cold-Blooded Bastard Award goes to Roger Malcolm.
“So how much is it going to cost me to buy into this Orchard Lake thing?” I asked, trying to make it sound like a real interest. Here was a man I thought I’d known, a man I’d calledfriend since 1937. I wanted to know how long he’d been playing me false. After he became a vampire? Before?
“I underestimated you.” He said it thoughtfully and with a complete lack of shame. No remorse at all.
“Maybe you just overestimated the werewolves,” I said, trying to match his tone, his total lack of emotion. It was easier, because I could feel Rachel nearby and her influence crept in. Aware of it this time, having been outside her field of influence, I noticed how my control came back in some areas, fled in others: much of my anger was replaced with a desire for her.
Moving the cigar from one side of his mouth to the other, Roger closed his eyes. “Maybe you were just lucky.”
“Could be,” I allowed. “I always have been.”
Roger threw the cigar to the ground. The cherry, still lit, rolled free and lay burning on the concrete. We both watched it burn. “That’s something I’ve always hated about you.” He slapped his hands on his knees and rose to his feet. “You get everything you want. You didn’t even care about being a vampire.” He made an effort to stop himself, to bottle up whatever it was that had been boiling up inside him, but it bubbled out anyway, the rant making him look more alive than he’d been in years. “God, I mean, do you even understand how hard I worked to find just the right sire for myself, to arrange things carefully, to slowly win her trust and work my way in?”
“I bet she really made you work, too,” I said, remembering the rituals he had told me about, the ones she made him go through before she would bleed on his cross-inflicted wounds and heal him. “You must have had it rough. Poor Roger.” Sarcasm bled into my voice. I couldn’t keep up the act anymore. Neither, apparently, could Roger.
“Damn it!” he shouted at me, fists clenched, eyes burning with a light matching the dying ember from his discarded cigar. “I’m a Master vampire. A Master fucking vampire! Sure it’s not the top. Not the same as b
eing a Vlad. But it’s still the big time. And you, you die in a goddamn car accident…and…and…destiny says screw it! Eric is important. I like Eric. Eric can’t be dead. Let’s make him a Vlad! He’s a good boy! He deserves it!”
“It could have been anybody, one of the ambulance drivers, a passing bum,” I offered. “What does it matter? What does that have to do with anything?”
“There was no ambulance, you dumb shit. No hospital. I watched you lie there bleeding for a damn hour before you stopped breathing and then I watched you for another hour just to be sure. And when I was certain you were good and dead, I bribed the cops, paid the fang fee to have you taken directly to the mortician, and had your ass embalmed so that there would be no doubt, because I was tired of you being so much better than me and you getting everything I ever wanted!”
Cold. Icy cold is how I felt—too astonished or appalled to be mad. “Roger? What the hell, man?” I felt sore and tired. I pushed myself up off of the bench like an old man. “That’s what this was all about? You’re jealous?”
“Oh. It’s funny to you, huh? Poor jealous Roger.” I had never seen him like this. Not ever in all our fights had he looked at me with such hatred. It was like walking in on your mother-in-law in the bathroom and realizing she’s a guy in drag. It just didn’t fit. What had I ever done to Roger? Who cared if he was a Master and I was a Vlad? “You won’t think it’s funny for long.”
“Look,” I said soothingly. “Maybe we should get you a vampire therapist or something and just move on.”
“God! You’d do it, too, wouldn’t you?” He took two agitated steps away from me and spun back around, flailing his arms. “You’d just forget all about it. I bet that if I told you I was sorry you’d forgive me. Inside a month you probably wouldn’t remember it ever even happened.”
Urban Fantasy Collection - Vampires Page 64