by CD Brown
“Thanks. I can’t tell you how much this means.” Sophia grabbed a pen to sign, but hesitated. “Carmen, I’m flattered, but I have to have everything in the clear. I don’t understand why David’s work is so important to someone who isn’t…like us.”
Carmen stared at her hands. “He never told you?”
Sophia shrugged. Carmen rolled her long-sleeved t-shirt back and held out her wrist. Two pale, circular scars lay just below the wrist. “Yes, his work is important. But David was important to me, also.”
“He never said he had thralls. No offense.” Sophia thought back to the boots in the armoire. It all made more sense now.
“It’s okay. And I also knew I wasn’t the only one. But he was a special man, even if he wasn’t technically alive.”
“I agree.” Sophia looked up at the clock. “Showtime.”
As she stood, Carmen said, “I’m gonna write grants, fundraise, anything I can do to get you some money. I want us to be partners, not just co-workers.”
Sophia lifted Carmen’s left hand and kissed it. “Deal.”
Sophia walked toward the conference room, the buzz of the new arrivals filling the hall. But before she could enter, Steve called to her. “Can we talk?”
“If you need some counseling, we could do it after the meeting.”
“This will only take a sec.”
They went to the reception area, Steve looking more excited than troubled. “I’ve been approached by this guy, a vamp, y’know.”
“And…”
“He’s starting a new cabal. He wants me in on the ground floor.”
“That’s great.”
“It’s like, whoa, y’know. I thought I’d have to climb the ladder again or something, but he has this whole new concept.”
“Well, being in a cabal is tricky. It’s like joining a new family, with all of the love but just as much of the mess.”
“That’s what he’s disrupting. It’s cabal as startup. We all work together for profit and gain. We’ll leave the co-habitating and other stuff to others. We’re gonna develop technology, social media, 21st century stuff. There’s just one catch.” Sophia nodded. “They want to talk to you.”
“Your resume wasn’t good enough?”
Steve’s nods showed he didn’t get the sarcasm. “No, it was strong. But they like your ideas, maybe even looking to invest in the project.”
“Is meeting me part of your deal?”
“They didn’t say it, but they strongly implied it.”
“Anything. As long as I still see you in meetings.”
“Dude! Huge!” He grabbed Sophia, lifting her off her feet. “I’m so stoked!”
He almost skipped into the boardroom, Sophia on his heels.
“Kids,” she thought. “Just like little puppies.”
The limo arrived for Sophia at 8:30, the sun completely gone and leaving the night’s illumination to the yellow halos surrounding the street lamps. Although she considered putting on one of her nicer numbers, she stuck to her uniform. She didn’t want to seem thirsty for acceptance, a new term Jeremiah had introduced her to.
As the car rolled downhill on Hyperion, the chauffeur called back, “Any preference for music, ma’am?”
“Are there any jazz stations?”
“Sure.” The young man with a thin Ethiopian face flashed over his shoulder quickly. “If you don’t mind my saying, ma’am, the clients going to your destination usually prefer darkwave techno. I like this much more.”
“You ever been to New Orleans?”
“No, ma’am.”
“That’s the place to go for the real stuff. Uncut from the street.”
“I would love that. Oh, and there’s drinks courtesy of the company in the fridge.”
She pulled a stoppered glass bottle from the fridge, smelling around the rim. Duck blood. She filled a champagne flute halfway, sipping at the chilled liquid: nuttiness from wild rice and heavy viscosity from the fat content, but not so much that it overpowered. This was a wild bird, recently killed. Two more sips confirmed it was a mallard. She relished the thought of finishing the bottle, but that would be another tell.
Whoever she was meeting had really done his homework.
For that was the first way she’d impressed David. He’d gone hunting one week, out towards the Gulf of Mexico in lands so wild no human could live. If the mosquitoes didn’t drain you, the gators would chomp you up.
When he returned to Miss Arlington’s house, he’d had a duck but no cook to strip it down. Way too late, even by New Orleans standards. So one of the girls had woken Sophia up and brought her downstairs where the man in the low-brimmed hat smiled at her.
“Heard you knew how to handle this creature.”
“Sure. You making a gumbo?”
His smile leaned into a head shake. “I’ll let you do that for the rest of the house. I just need one part of it, but don’t want to make a mess.”
Sophia nodded and put a pot on to boil. He tried to object, but she said it wouldn’t hurt the flavor. He remained nervous as she dunked the bird in the boiling water. He seemed to lose his edge when she pulled it right back out.
The feathers loosened, she plucked the bird down to naked skin. Getting a rack, she went to hold it over the sink, but he stopped her.
“That’s what I need. The blood.”
“City boys usually don’t like that.”
“I have special needs. So do a few of my friends.”
A copper pot caught all the drained liquid, Sophia cutting the bird from throat to gullet to make sure all the blood was gone. He pointed to the bird’s heart.
“Mind if I take that?”
Sophia shook her head and sliced it free. He tipped it back like a shot glass full of whiskey, then wiped his mouth. “That’s the best part.”
As he left the kitchen, Sophia said, “I don’t know your name.”
Without turning around, he said, “You can call me David. Just not in front of other people.”
The whoever waiting to meet her turned out to be Jim Ferriday. Sophia followed the car’s path as they traveled west along the 10, then south. She pulled up a mapping app on her phone to see where they were exactly: Venice Beach.
Ferriday’s white locks drifted over his face in a perfectly layered shag, cut off at the chin to emphasize his Van Dyke mustache. His clothing—purple shirt with a repeating rainbow pattern, pre-distressed jeans with the left knee out and tan loafers whose toes pointed up like elf boots—showed three things: hip, casual and expensive. He smiled as she shook his hand.
“Welcome, welcome. I know this was a bit of a haul, but we’re glad you could come down.”
Sophia looked at the building taking up the whole block: three stories, mostly glass with stainless steel accents and giant signs reading, “Creative Offices Available” and a phone number. “Are you moved in?”
“Oh, sure. We’re calling this neighborhood Silicon Alley now. The development is coming even faster than the business. We have one floor now, but there’s room for expansion when we need it.”
Sophia noticed the “when” in that statement, plus a lingering groovy ‘60s tone to his voice. He was older than he appeared—“But aren’t we all?” she thought—but still recently turned compared to herself.
As they rode up the elevator, Jim said, “I heard you met my sire.”
“I did?”
“Yeah. The infamous Melvin Green.”
“Oh, wow.”
“My dad was one of his producers, but never a vamp. Long after Melvin was turned, Pops brokered a deal. I had leukemia and now I don’t.”
“Did you live as Black and White?”
“For a while, but Holy Christ it gets old. I’m a kid of the ‘60s, so Melvin let me go. He’s actually a cool guy behind all that hard-boiled talk.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
The elevator opened right onto the office floor. Across from the landing was a reception desk, a logo hovering above: a blo
od red square with rounded corners that contained an unadorned V. Sophia had seen this kind of logo in her phone’s app store.
“Welcome to VampAmp,” Jim said, leading her to a row of work spaces without interior walls, just lines of Apple computers on top of glass desks. “It’s quiet now, as we mostly employ daywalkers, but we have a few of our kind on staff.” He pointed to a curtained-off corner where five white-haired workers in casual clothing typed, talked on the phone and conversed. Sophia saw Steve rise from one of the seats with an excited look on his face.
“Hey, Sophia!” All of the other workers turned to see her, expressions of awe on their faces. “I’m glad you made it. I’ve been telling the others about the program.”
One of the women, very thin with a hooked nose and bobbed hair, said, “Could you do one of your blood feasts for us? I mean, I was, like, a vegan before I was turned and animal blood sounds closer to what I’m used to.”
“Sure,” Sophia said, unsure what some of those words meant.
“Kids, huh?” Jim chuckled. “Me? I’m still old-school. Swore off the killing, sure, but I need that human blood. Speaking of which…”
A blonde woman, her toned body wrapped in an intricately-tailored pantsuit, pushed a drink cart up to the gathering. She held her hand out to Sophia. “Pamela Garland. COO of VampAmp.”
Jim put his hand on her shoulder. “And my thrall for the last fifteen years.”
Pamela waved away his comment. “Ugh, I hate the word. I prefer pulsed companion.” Pamela handed Sophia a shot glass. “This is a special occasion, so I donated a little something for the party.”
Sophia struggled to hold onto her glass. “This…is…your blood?”
“Of course. And after all that Paleo diet and CrossFit, I hope it’s the best you ever tasted!”
The underlings surged forward to get their shots, while Jim toasted Sophia. Since the blood was freely offered, she decided to indulge, the meatiness of it nearly overwhelming her. She flashed back to one of her last tastes of human, the blood she took from the voodoo priest Lastie before fighting werewolves. That was forced from him, the extra adrenaline adding a rusty chemical taste. This was more like bouillon of rare steak. “It’s gorgeous.”
“Thank you.” Pamela touched Sophia’s hand lightly. “I hope this is the start of a strong partnership.”
“Don’t get ahead, dear.” Jim stroked Pamela’s cheek with a curled index finger. “She hasn’t read the precis just yet.”
But Pamela turned a serious look to Sophia. “You have to know that I believe in what we’re doing here. We may look a bit kooky, but we have a great business plan for people...like you.” She stumbled on the last bit, but Sophia was used to mundanes never knowing what to say.
“Then I’ll listen close.” Sophia nodded. “My whole philosophy is about respect.”
“Shall we?” Jim pointed to an open office door and she followed him through.
Jim closed the door behind Sophia, guiding her to a leather chair with no arm rests. He turned on a flatscreen television which was connected to his computer. “This will look like a sales pitch because it is. But I’ll explain everything you need to know.”
He led her through a PowerPoint, explaining how the day company made a series of game apps which were all vampire-centric. “We make money at that, especially with all the in-game purchases, but that’s what’s outside.” A second PowerPoint revealed the hidden business.
“See, we like L.A. being an open city for vampires, but couldn’t we also be connected?” The screenshots showed a setup similar to Facebook but filled with drawings of bloodsuckers. “And why stop at just our city? Why not connect the whole nighttime world?”
“The councils across the country will freak, that’s why.”
“They all think they’re fucking Count Dracula, the grand invisible hands controlling their worlds. Times have changed. We can all have our say in the way things are run.”
Sophia remembered the rarified air of Dragos’s house back in Gentilly with no technology past a Princess phone. Smug bastards like him wouldn’t even see their power being slipped from their grasp. She would enjoy that hell of a comeuppance.
“I’m just some swamp hippie with a few inherited ideas. I don’t see how I fit into this.”
“By disrupting the whole idea of cabal. I lived through the psychedelic ‘60s, New Hollywood in the ‘70s, the cocaine-fueled ‘80s and the grungy alternative ‘90s. Each of those times had one ideal: living in community, one group against society. But this is the 21st century! The cyber times! We can do virtually what we once had to do physically. Our cabal doesn’t need to even be in the same town. We join our forces online and build the best world for our kind.”
“With you in charge?”
Jim smiled, but she knew he felt the dagger. “I’m planting the flag. That should come with a few privileges.” But he dismissed her concern with a wave of his hand. “Come on our board. I’m sure it will allay your concerns. We call ourselves The Insiders.”
“Jim, I’m a child of the ‘60s, too. The 1860s, but hey.” She saw him smile, rue clinging to his lips. “We don’t take orders well. I am the boss of my little thing and I like it that way. But, and I mean this, I would support your overall project.”
“I’d like to cement that support by donating to the ZLVG.”
“I hear you can write it off.”
“Sister, I refuse to write off anything you do or say.”
Chapter Eight
One night after meeting Ferriday, Sophia received another invitation: a house party at the Muertos’ compound. Tamar, in her e-mail, said it was a peace offering.
“After she destroyed my business, the least she could do is buy me dinner.” Sophia smirked as Jeremiah chuckled his farmboy laugh, reminiscent of her Cajun cousins back in the days when everyone she knew spoke only French. “You wanna be my plus one?”
“Full moon these next few nights. I gotta disappear.”
“Do you have a safe place?”
“Dude I know in San Bernandino has a farm with a barn. He’s been helping me this past year.”
“He like you?”
“Yeah, but the wolfy kind. Turns into a howling party, ya dig?” Jeremiah smiled through his crooked teeth. Sophia felt their bonds becoming tighter to the point where she would miss him while he dealt with his changes.
“Too bad. You freaked them good. I’d like to have them on edge while I’m there.”
“Shit, I didn’t do nothing but have your back. You coulda taken the lot of them.”
“But I didn’t want to.” Sophia knew her power was surging. Los Angeles was a sprawl, wide and intimidating to an outsider, but its heart was young, a mere babe compared to her hometown or any of the northeast capitals. Her age gave her a great advantage, and with the only other old one recently ashed, she walked around with a bull’s-eye on her back for any vamps wishing to make their bones. But she knew her power was a disadvantage, too, especially if she ever lost her precious control.
Jeremiah promised to give her a ride to the party, but she’d have to find a way back.
“I’ll just catch a cab or something.”
“Or you could turn into a bat and fly.”
“I don’t waste my powers like that.
“Then do Uber. It’s cheaper.”
“What the hell is that?”
After five minutes of trying to explain ride sharing to her, Jeremiah took her phone and downloaded the app.
“Seriously? People give strangers a ride in their own car?”
“Brave new world, boo.”
On that Saturday, Jeremiah dropped her off in front of a ramshackle craftsman house with a squat porch supported by basic round columns and a string of multi-colored flags drooping between them. From the backyard, she could hear the steady oom-pah beat of Mexican music. She headed up the driveway.
Sophia could feel the tension ratchet up as she appeared, faces showing they were unsure if she was invited or in
vading. She did her best to stay relaxed but confident, unwilling to show any weakness. Opening the gate to the backyard, she scanned for her former opponent among the low light of burning tiki torches.
She spotted Tamar near a cooler. The Latina was casual today, no face paint or leather pants. She wore the same biker jacket as the other night, but she was in tiny jean cutoffs, so short that the pockets extended beyond the fringe. Sophia could tell part of her power lay in her beauty, a card Sophia never chose to play. As Tamar strutted over in four-inch leopard pattern heels, the young woman extended her arms.
“This will be a peaceful day,” she said, giving Sophia a light hug. “I defer to my elders.”
The barb didn’t sting as much as Tamar thought it would, but Sophia smiled. While the tension in the yard had dissipated, Tamar still looked like she reveled in drama, as if life were one of those telenovelas. Sophia thought it best to play to her ego.
“So this is the queen’s castle?”
“My domain, si.”
“What neighborhood is this?”
“Boyle Heights. Some people think of East L.A. as being Los Feliz or Silver Lake, but this is the true east.”
“Some people think Hollywood is the center, I guess.”
“They’re transplants. Like you.” Sophia felt the tension rise again, but only between her and Tamar. Sophia could tell this girl was still upset at being overcome in a fight. Only serious back-and-forth could create a true detente. But then she smiled. “Let me get you a drink.”
Tamar led Sophia to a bar. “Papi, get her a special.” The older man, nearing sixty with a heavy face and streaks of gray through his hair, poured a red drink into a glass filled with ice.
“You’re her dad?”
“No, her brother. Older brother.” He laughed, his round belly shaking under his guyeberra shirt.
“We ain’t all turned here,” Tamar said. “Just mostly.”
Papi handed Sophia the plastic cup. “I take care of business, y’know.” His accent was thicker. “Have a sip. Is a special I made up.”