Voyage

by E M Gale

  I paused to think about what I knew about the one vampire I had met. It wasn’t much. He seemed to think that kitchens were places to store boxes, so I guessed restaurants weren’t a good place to look. And that was really all I knew, other than, if he were typical, vampires had far too many clothes. Neither of these facts helped me identify where to find children of the night.

  After a few hours of searching, I gave up and decided to head back to the others. By my guess they would be getting up shortly.

  I was daydreaming when suddenly there was a pain in my canines. I tongued them and my teeth fell out. I caught them and stared at my palm in shock.

  ‘My teeth!’

  Gingerly tonguing where my canines ought to be, I discovered that I had another pair in my mouth. They were somewhat longer than usual, curved in an odd way and sharp. I cut my tongue on my teeth and the strong and disgusting taste of my blood flooded my mouth. I spat it out, then looked around the empty streets to see if anyone had noticed: there was no one around. Somewhat disturbed, I felt around in my mouth with my hands. My new teeth were really, really sore. I hurried back to the inn and went straight into the bathroom to look in the mirror.

  ‘I still have a reflection at least.’

  I smiled in relief at that, and then saw the teeth. They were about two and a half centimetres long, curved inwards rather than straight and the tips were much sharper than is normal.

  ‘Great. There’s no denying it now, I am a vampire. Those are definitely vampire teeth.’

  I put my hand up to my neck. I still had a pulse though, which was somewhat weird. And, to myself at least, I still felt warm.

  ‘He wasn’t warm. I never checked whether he had a pulse or not. I should have. Or maybe I did, I can’t remember. He was capable of having sex… well, I think we had sex. Does that mean that he did have a pulse? If he did, why did he feel so cold? I definitely remember him being cold.’

  Putting my thumbs up to my mouth, I wobbled my new teeth. They hurt at this, but pushing one of them upwards, I discovered that I could push the teeth back up into my skull. Doing that made my face throb, but I pushed the other one up as well and they both stayed there.

  Grinning at myself in the mirror, I noticed they still looked somewhat sharper than normal. If you knew what you were looking for, you’d be able to spot a vampire.

  ‘But will anyone look that closely?’

  ‘Maybe vampire hunters will. And they are the sort of people I think I shall want to avoid.’

  Thoughtful, I wandered back upstairs to find that Jane and Anna were up and brushing their hair.

  “Good morning… or good night or whatever,” I said, as I threw myself down on the floor. I lifted my knuckle to my mouth to chew on it, but knocked one of my new teeth, which made it hurt.

  ‘OK, so even retracted they’re a little longer than my old teeth. And far more painful. The pain will go away, right? Right?’

  “Thanks for the note, very informative,” commented Anna. I could see she was dying to ask where I’d been, but for some reason she left it. Perhaps she remembered our discussion from the day before.

  “We’re heading out for breakfast now,” she said. I nodded and stood up.

  ‘Ah, will I be able to eat?’

  Now I thought about it, I did feel a little hungry. I hadn’t needed to eat as much on Ragnarok IV as I ate on Earth. I didn’t feel any odd desire to drink blood.

  ‘Is blood supposed to be my food now?’

  “You coming then?” asked Anna. She was now dressed. I had been standing there lost in thought for a while.

  “Yeah, sure,” I said vaguely, and I smiled.

  ‘Hold on, what about my teeth? Will she notice? Will I have to stop smiling?’

  But Anna hadn’t noticed anything and was already off walking up the corridor by the time I’d pulled myself together. I ran lightly after her. The others were downstairs and we went round the corner to a place advertising both Japanese and Western breakfasts.

  ‘Is blood-drinking a food thing or a sex thing? And since I’m hungry, what does that mean? Am I misidentifying blood-hunger for hunger? And what will my friends say if I can’t eat?’

  I ordered a Japanese breakfast, whatever that was, and sat there morosely, tonguing my teeth: they still hurt.

  ‘The musician, Mr. Does It Matter, didn’t have food in his house. Does he not eat? Can I not eat? And why the fuck did he lie to me?’

  My breakfast arrived. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting. It consisted of little dishes with different foods on them: a small omelette, little balls of meat wrapped in some sort of glutinous rice stuff, cold grilled salmon, some pickled things, a bowl of hot miso soup and as much rice as you could eat.

  ‘Right then. Where to start?’

  I picked up a dumpling. It glistened wetly, steam carrying the smell of pork and the slightly tinny smell of rice to my nostrils. I gave it a go. Chewing hurt my teeth every time they were knocked, but I managed to swallow the dumpling. I didn’t feel the need to be sick. I speared another one and ate it off my chopstick, chewing carefully. The meat was a bit overcooked in my opinion, but it was OK.

  ‘Phew! I can eat!’

  Having eaten a dumpling, my body remembered it was supposed to eat. I munched my way through the whole thing, except the salad, in short order.

  ‘Does this mean that I am some sort of half-vampire thing? Or can all vampires eat food and the blood-drinking is recreational? Or have I not yet finished turning?’

  I needed answers, but had no idea where to get them.

  I spent the afternoon shopping with Anna, which was nice; the others had headed off to pawn stuff–at last–and find out how much passage to Earth would cost and probably dick around sightseeing. My shopping took only as long as it took to buy a few pairs of combat trousers, a pair of big black boots with soft soles, and some strappy tops and tee-shirts in my habitual black and red. I even managed to find a big pair of thick black wrap-around sunglasses. They looked like they would hardly let any light in at all. Anna seemed to like just strolling around the town looking at all the strange things for sale. It was like old times.

  I skipped lunch and drank a coffee whilst Anna ate. I thought although I could eat I didn’t need to eat as much or as often as a normal human. The others all met up for dinner and I took the opportunity to make myself scarce. I only had about half a ‘day’ left of night before the sun rose.

  The good thing about being in a twenty-four-hour city was that it was always someone’s time off. I browsed the bars again, looking for vampires or anyone odd. Finding no-one, I stopped for a drink in one of the trendy clubs in the centre. This one was decorated with a shock of purple on black, plenty of coloured lights and a backlit mirror behind the bar, lighting up the bottles of spirits.

  Ordering my drink, some sort of local cocktail that was the same deep purple colour as the decor, I noticed a cute guy eyeing me up. I’d already had enough of hunting for non-existent vampires so I went over to talk to him, or, more accurately, to smile at him.

  The music was loud, ringing my senses as we headed onto the dance floor. The lights flashed in time with the music. We danced a variant of the close shuffle and grope that people danced in clubs in the twenty-first century. Getting closer to him, I felt like the night became sharper. Over the smell of hundreds of people’s sweat, blood and drinks I could smell his personal scent. I smiled at him. My teeth hurt again and I pulled him off the dance floor into a dark corner booth that had high walls to hide what couples were up to in it.

  My teeth hurt more. I felt them grow to full size, which was a weird experience. He pulled me into a hot, passionate kiss. Noticing the teeth, he pulled back and shot me a puzzled look.

  “Hey… you’re a–”

  “Yes.” I supposed that it was polite to ask permission before drinking someone’s blood, but he smelt so good. I nibbled on his ear, brushing my tongue over the artery in his neck. Tempted, I pulled my head away.

  �
�Is it a problem?” I asked softly. He wouldn’t have heard over the music, but somehow he seemed to understand me. His eyes were soft with arousal rather than wide with fear.

  “No… you can–”

  I did. Breaking the skin in his neck, I found the artery. I felt the pumping of blood through it and broke a small hole with my teeth. It made my teeth hurt, but instinct took over and I drank deeply of his blood. He gasped, his eyes rolling back into his head and his body slumping. I caught him and held him in my embrace, switching from the initial passionate need for blood to a subtler, more tender drinking to prolong the experience.

  For me, each second seemed to last an infinite time, the heady feeling of his blood flowing into me, the delicious taste.

  After a hundred years, or so it seemed to me, I sensed that I should stop. Somehow I knew that to go any further would hurt him. I retracted my teeth, leaned back and licked the puncture wounds on his neck. Instinctively, I found myself in the healing state and I concentrated on the puncture wounds on my neck–or was it his? Leaving that state, I became aware again of the limits of my body and was unaware of his. I looked closely at the wound on his neck, worried that I would find his life’s blood gushing from the artery, but it seemed to have closed up. There wasn’t even a visible wound.

  ‘Did I heal him then? Can I do that?’

  “That was your first time?” he asked incredulously. I could hear him over the music. I searched his face for answers under the coloured flashing lights.

  “How do you know that?” I mused aloud, far too quietly for him to hear, but somehow he did, because he answered.

  “I feel you, I feel what it’s like to be you. Will this last?”

  ‘Not a clue.’

  “Ah, you don’t know.”

  ‘He can hear my thoughts? What the hell? Is this normal?’

  ‘Can you still hear me?’ I asked, thinking the thought in my head but not speaking it.

  “Barely, it’s fading,” he told me.

  ‘He can read my mind! Weird. Nothing I read suggested that telepathic communication was possible. Is it because I have his blood in me? But how would he able to read my thoughts from that? Or, is it because our minds seemed to join during the blood-drinking?’

  “Will I turn into a vampire from this?”

  ‘No,’ I thought.

  ‘I’m pretty sure that it should be drinking vampires’ blood that turns people, otherwise they’d be more of them. But who knows…’

  He asked again. I guessed the telepathy had worn off then.

  ‘Good. I’m not too keen on other people being able to read my mind. Can he read everything, or was it just sensations and surface thoughts?’

  “No, you won’t,” I said exaggerating the mouth shapes so he could read my lips. He understood that and nodded.

  Then he looked at me seriously, his eyes shining with hope. “Can you turn me?”

  ‘What? What the hell? Why on earth is he asking me that?’

  “You don’t know what you’re asking for,” I said darkly.

  ‘Of course, I don’t know what he is asking for either. This is a very new thing to me too.’

  “What?” he yelled.

  ‘Ah, with the telepathic resonance gone, he can’t hear me over the music.’

  “Wait here,” I yelled in his ear and grinned at him. He nodded, at ease.

  I slipped out of the booth and strode across the dance-floor, keeping to the shadows. Creeping up the stairs, keeping the crowd between me and his booth, I headed out of the club. The cooler night air hit me, chilling the sweat on my skin. The sky was that wan grey colour of pre-dawn light. I walked casually round the corner out of sight of the bouncers, then picked up my feet and ran as fast as I could towards the ryokan, even though it was on the other side of the city.

  I didn’t feel good about running away. It’s not something I am proud of.

  Stopping a street away from the ryokan, I stood in the shadows and got out my mirror.

  ‘No blood on me, none on my lips or teeth. The teeth have retracted and look normal, but still ache. Great.’

  I lit a cigarette and smoked it slowly as I tried to calm down. Mostly succeeding, I strolled back up to the ryokan and found Anna in the lobby. She was dressed in a yukata and was flicking through the photographs she’d taken, a cup of tea at her elbow. She’d cleaned off her makeup and looked unfamiliarly pink-cheeked and fresh-faced, so I reasoned that she must have just gotten out of the bath. “Morning, Clarke,” she said.

  “Night, Anna,” I replied.

  ‘OK, that is dawn light out there, but most of the people on the planet consider it evening.’

  “You’re like a cat, you know.”

  ‘Tonight, she’s not mad at me.’

  “Meow, meow.” I laughed. “Why’s that?”

  “Well, you’re untameable, you come and go as you want.”

  ‘Ah, she’s being philosophical. And I can see she’s dying to ask what I’ve been up to.’

  “You missed dinner,” she added.

  “I ate out.”

  ‘Heh.’

  Although that wasn’t not strictly true. I’d concluded blood-lust was more of a lust thing than a hunger thing.

  “What were you up to?”

  ‘Oh, Anna, you don’t really want to know.’

  “You don’t really want to know.” Then I grinned like the vampire who got the blood. She still looked curious. I sighed. “I was gathering information. You can’t really know a place unless you see it after dark.”

  ‘That’s true at least.’

  “But”–her brow furrowed in confusion–“aren’t we leaving here?”

  “True, but we will need to know about this place in order to figure out how to leave it.” She seemed satisfied with that. “Anna…” I faltered.

  “Go on.” She was waiting, her hands wrapped around her tea.

  “Do you want to go back home? I mean…”

  ‘How can I explain why I don’t?’

  She was staring at the calligraphy on the wall. “Not yet. It’s fun at the moment, and if we can go back to the exact point we left we don’t have to hurry, I guess. But yes, of course I want to go back. Why? Don’t you?”

  ‘No, not really.’

  “Like you said, of course,” I replied smoothly.

  She nodded. “Rob thinks he can build a machine and we can go backwards and forwards whenever we want. Maybe if it were properly portable, we could travel anywhere in time, like in Doctor Who.”

  ‘If he figures out what it was that caused the time travel, he might be able to do that.’

  I shrugged. “Well, meow, meow, this cat’s going to bed.”

  For the first time since arriving on Ragnarok IV, I actually remember sleeping. It was less like complete unconsciousness and more like a normal sleep. I even remembered my dreams. Confused, dark dreams of chasing something.

  * * *

  The Cuddly Side of Crime

  As I awoke the sun was just cresting the horizon; it was a day of dawn. I hung around with my friends until it was time to sneak away for my appointment with the orc and the smuggler.

  I was seated in the same deep booth in the spaceport bar. The bartender was one of the replacements, not the one I had left with before. He’d nodded at me when I had come in, and I’d nodded back.

  ‘Great, so now I’m a regular.’

  The early morning sun speared through holes in the paintwork on the windows, lighting up bits of misshapen furniture in golden spotlights, making the glossy black paint look like an oil slick. I was feeling relaxed. I had a bottle of cold sake in front of me. I wiped condensation off the glass whilst smoking a cigarette and pondering just exactly what the decorator thought he had been doing.

  Half an hour before our appointment, the orc and the weaselly smuggler came in. They didn’t look surprised to see me there early.

  “Hey,” I greeted them.

  The orc smiled, revealing a line of large, wide teeth. “You go
t guts, you know.”

  I nodded, a little disturbed at his comment. He just grinned as if he knew a secret.

  “Three thousand pelfre,” said the weaselly man.

  “OK, but let me see the IDs first. And I’d like my photos back, please.” I smiled pleasantly.

  The orc and smuggler glanced at each other.

  “Oh, come on, there’s no need for any palaver.” I drew on my cigarette. They were twitchy. I didn’t think that they were trying to pull one over on me, rather I got the feeling they were worried that I was trying to screw them over. I guessed that telling them I wasn’t wouldn’t be too useful.

  The orc pulled the pile of photos out of a grubby pocket and placed an ID on it. I picked it up. Unsurprisingly, it was mine. The ID was a bit smaller than a credit card, thin, with some sort of plastic-electronic circuit embossed on the back. My photo was on the front along with the words ‘Clarke’, Homo sapiens sapiens, ‘Ragnarok IV’.

  “Do these work?” I asked, pointing to the circuit. The orc grinned again.

  “Yeah, that’s the hard part. But the info on that matches the records.”

  “Difficult, is it?”

  “You have no idea. You’re lucky that Ol’ Grolgamesh was here.”

  I smiled.

  ‘Did he mean to let his name slip? Is he trusting me, stupid, or up to something?’

  Deciding that withholding the money any longer would be unwise, I pocketed the ID and passed three thousand pelfre to them. The orc counted the money quickly and then passed over the rest of the ID.s. I flicked through them and stuffed them away. My companions relaxed.

  “So… you’re kosher then,” said the smuggler.

  ‘I’m a vampire or half-vampire, I hardly think that’s kosher.’

  “Honestly, what did you expect?”

  “Well, let me know if you need anything else, young lady,” the weaselly smuggler said with a leer. I suspected that the trade had gone off easily and profitably for them.

  “Actually, I’m interested in information.”

  “It’ll cost yer,” said the smuggler.

  “Well, not really that sort of information. I’m looking to get off-planet and get some money.”