by Jim McDoniel
Foolish girl, thought Yulric. He walked away from rooftop’s edge. After a sound best described as squelching, a large bat flew off into the night.
It did not fly far.
The peregrine falcon is the fastest animal on earth. Reaching speeds of two hundred miles an hour, it is known to dive-bomb its quarry from perches high in the air, catching them unaware. This makes them very formidable birds of prey, despite being smaller in size than hawks or eagles. After the use of pesticides resulted in population endangerment, many major American metropolitan areas teamed up with conservation groups to introduce these raptors into their cities as a means of pigeon control. Here, among the towers and spires of the modern city, the falcons have flourished.
None of this was known to Yulric before he transformed himself into a big, juicy, and comparatively slow-moving target.
Several blocks away, something large and Yulric-shaped, going terminal velocity, landed with a crash on a parked Ford Contour. The vampire pulled himself out of the resulting twisted, economical wreckage. Nearby, others among the cost-efficient herd, ones he had not even touched, honked loudly and flashed their lights to raise the alarm against him.
Oh, how he hated cars.
Yulric fled into an alley, away from the heads that were poking out to check on their property. He did not know where he was. He did not know where he was going. All he knew was that there were far too many ways of being caught in a city of ten thousand. This, according to the girl, was a city of eight million, with businesses open all night long and lights that never went out. He was vulnerable, exposed. He needed to find shelter fast.
The vampire headed north, the direction from which he and Amanda had originally come, and when he spotted an underground tunnel, he ducked inside. It quickly became apparent, though, that these were not mere sewers or crypts. They were well-traveled paths, which not only required payment but were also under constant observation. An attempt to enter through the turnstile without paying or understanding what a turnstile was resulted in him being stopped. Trying to bribe the Authority into letting him pass only compounded his troubles, and he was forced to bid a hasty escape. However, where Yulric himself had failed, a large pack of rats skittering suspiciously in unison went completely unnoticed. And so, the vampire found his way into the New York subway system.
Several electrocutions and one bone-shattering impact later, he abandoned the New York subway system.
He emerged out of these deadly underground caverns of gigantic linked cars into brightest day. Failing to dissolve into nothingness, Yulric opened his eyes and gaped at this tremendous display of bottled lightning. Everywhere he looked, TV screens advertised everything from theatrical productions to underwear to banks. So atrociously illuminated was this area of the city that, high above, the night sky became a wash of feeble gray with barely a visible star to be seen.
Even as the vampire marveled at the power of electricity, he became aware of the dangers of his location. The streets were filled with a ubiquitous species of yellow car, one that honked loudly and was less inclined to stop for pedestrians. The sidewalks were filled with humanity. Wealthier, less accepting humanity. The kind of humanity that would notice a hideous man in rags and call over Authorities to deal with such a one. Reluctantly, he turned away from the lights and made his way into the darkness.
It was only a matter of blocks before he found himself in much more comfortable environs. Gone were the massive television screens and crowds, replaced by trash bags, graffiti, and rats. There was still a persistent sense of being watched, but it was a sensation Yulric was more accustomed to, caused not by ever-present video cameras but by eyes behind blinds and figures in doorways. The first time someone tried to mug him, he knew he was safe. And when his would-be assailant told him the name of this neighborhood, he almost laughed out loud. How appropriate that his journey would lead him into the very Kitchen of Hell.
There, stooping beside the blood smear that had been his unsuccessful robber, Yulric licked his fingers and considered his next move. In a few short hours, the sun would rise. He was reasonably sure he could find shelter, but for how long would he need it? Would he remain in the city? The vampires he had encountered were sure to return eventually, and even if they didn’t, there must be others. The question was, how much could he really learn from a three-year-old?
Yulric caught a dull glimmer out of the corner of his eye. He turned, expecting to find another ostentatious display of electric light, but instead was surprised to find a simple red glow emanating somewhere northwest of him. There was something familiar about it. And comforting, in a way only an undead mass murderer could appreciate. It called to him. Standing once more, he drifted in its direction. He followed it across several blocks, weaving between tenements and through dark alleys, somehow never losing sight of its glimmering. Finally, after crossing a large abandoned lot, he found himself in front of a shabby bar with two fixtures glowing on either side of its door. One was a neon sign, hanging against trash-bag-covered windows and promoting a popular brand of beer, which, according to Amanda, tasted like watered-down urine.38 The other was a dull, infernal radiance emanating out of the crude, grinning face carved into a turnip.
The vampire eyed this makeshift lantern suspiciously. He didn’t know how hellfire had come to rest within this overlarge root vegetable, or how that had in turn come to rest outside this bar, but he couldn’t help but feel it had been left here for him. Was this a trap or an invitation? There was only one way to find out. Yulric stepped inside.
The interior of the bar bore little more charm than the outside did. The tobacco stains on the walls were actually an improvement on the vomit-green wallpaper, which was peeling at the edges. Of the five uselessly circling ceiling-fan fixtures, only three actually had lightbulbs in them, and these looked as if they might go at any second. The molding and pool tables were scarred with innumerable scratches from what looked like vicious attacks, and the stools and tables showed signs of having been mended multiple times. The clientele was rugged, hairy, and had a look about them, as if the bottom of the bottle wasn’t nearly far enough down for their liking. Also, to a one, they smelled like wet dog.
Yulric nearly burst out laughing. What were the odds he would wind up at a werewolf bar tonight?
All eyes, and more importantly, all noses turned toward him as his gaze scoured the bar. Yulric paid them no mind. In his experience, werewolves came in two types: self-loathing moralists and French/German psychopaths.39 He could tell by the quality of the alcohol being served that there were no French or Germans here. Immune to the confused sniffing of the sad-eyed lycanthropic beings, as they tried to place his odor, a combination of death, decay, and the pine fresheners Simon often slipped into his pocket, Yulric searched the room until finally, in the back of the bar, he spotted eyes that not only gleamed with cunning and mischief but that he vaguely recognized: an unusual occurrence for an immortal and one that was never a coincidence.
Yulric used a small sapphire to buy two of “whatever he is having” from the bartender and made his way to the end of the bar, where his quarry was engaged in a question-answering contest on the television.
“Nice to see the old ways are still remembered,” the stranger said, finishing his current glass in a single gulp. Yulric frowned at the sound of the man’s accent. Or rather, his brogue.
This was an Irishman.
Yulric did not like the Irish. Like most English, he’d always found it better to kill them rather than deal with them. The two general rules for when you absolutely had no choice were, first, never let them talk, and second, never let them drink.40 Here he was about to do both.
The man raised his new glass. “Cheers,” he said and took a drink, letting some of the beer spill down his long, scraggly beard. Or was it all the beer? Now that Yulric was closer, there was something not quite there about his new acquaintance.
The man’s attention turned back to the TV as a new question appeared on the screen:
/>
The movie My Fair Lady was based on the play Pygmalion, written by what author?
Oscar Wilde
Irving Berlin
George Bernard Shaw
Bertolt Brecht
“George Bernard Shaw, an Irishman,” he answered, pressing the letter C into a small device on the table. After thirty seconds, the television proclaimed him correct and awarded him one thousand points. “It’s been a while,” said the Irishman.
“Has it?” replied Yulric, still not exactly sure where he knew the man from.
The Irishman clutched at his heart in mock surprise. “I’m hurt. Though, to be fair, we weren’t properly introduced the last time. Jack’s the name. Stingy Jack to my friends, if I had any.” He gave a little bow. “And you are?”
Yulric paused. Names had power. Even the young vampires knew this, christening themselves with ridiculous pseudonyms as an expression of their new found strength and independence. What this mysterious barfly was doing was testing to see how desperate the vampire was.
With a sense that playing along was his best bet, the vampire admitted his name. “Yulric.”
“Yulric? Very uncommon name, Yulric. Almost as if it came from another age.” The Irishman looked back at the TV. Little animated words bounced across the screen, announcing the break the game was on. “So, Yulric, what brings you to these parts?”
“I seek a story,” Yulric said carefully. He was playing to the Irishman’s vanity. The ability to twist language into any shape one desired, to create worlds with words, was an Irish trait, a leftover from the races of fairy folk who had once ruled their island. They called it the “gift of gab” and those possessing it could never resist employing it. The trick was goading them into telling the tale you wanted to hear.
“A story?” The Irishman sipped his beer. “I know many stories. What kind would you like to hear?”
“How about a vampyr tale?” Yulric replied. Metal screeched across wood as several chairs were pushed out, and once again, all eyes turned to the newcomer. While werewolves and vampires had gotten along famously in Yulric’s time, these days, the two couldn’t stand each other.
“Well, that certainly got everyone’s attention.” Jack laughed. “What say, everyone? Would you care to hear a vampire tale?”
“Only if it involves those stuck-up little shits getting what’s coming to them,” barked the bartender.
“So, a story of comeuppance, then. And I . . . What do I want? I want a drink.” He drank the last fifth of his beer, which dribbled through him and onto the floor. “Another, if you would? On him.”
The bartender looked to Yulric, who nodded.
“So a story about vampires, comeuppance, and drink.” Jack turned with a grin to Yulric. “I know just the one.”
“Once upon a time in the land of Erin,” the Irishman began, “during a month of great portents and storms, a boat came from across the sea carrying with it an Englishman. No one knew how long he’d ridden the waves, but fearing reprisals from the English, he was brought into the nearby village, where the doctor declared him dead. The people of the village gave him what burial they could, though being a Protestant and English, he was not buried in the churchyard, but out by the woods, with a simple wooden cross erected to mark the spot. Without a name, of course.” He looked right at Yulric here. “They didn’t know his name.”
Yulric frowned. He remembered now where he’d seen this man.
“’Twas several days before the first of the livestock died. A week before the infants followed suit. All across the village, people fell ill. The doctor from a nearby town could make neither hide nor hair of it, before he stopped coming at all. The only hope the villagers had left was prayer.
“After a week, the sick began to mend, and the foul weather cleared. The priest declared it a miracle, and everyone took it as such. Everyone except the village drunk.”
The Irishman paused his tale to answer a question on the television. “Would anyone happen to know who opposed Richard the Lionheart in the Third Crusade?”
“B,” Yulric answered.
“Saladin? Are you sure?” asked Jack suspiciously.
“Quite,” responded Yulric, his hand unconsciously moving to the place where his throat had met with the blade of Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub.
The Irishman punched the answer into the controller. When it was deemed correct, he continued.
“Several nights before, the drunk had been out a-stumbling, as was his way, when out of the shadows the Englishman appeared. His eyes still dead, his heart still stopped but certainly standing there. ‘You look well,’ said the drunk, ‘for one in the ground.’
“The Englishman just smiled and replied, ‘I am seldom in the ground.’
“‘Well, the worms have been kind,’ said the drunk. He took a bottle from his satchel. ‘Care for a drink?’
“‘Shortly,’ the Englishman said back, letting the man have a final nip.
“What the Englishman did not realize was that this man was a thief as well as a drunk. He’d long since been banned from the pub and was no longer invited into homes, lest people find themselves suddenly bereft. In fact, there was only a single building in all the village that was honor bound never to close its doors to him. Coincidentally, this building was always well stocked in wine. That building was the church, and the wine was the consecrated blood of Christ.
“So as the Englishman fell upon the throat of his drunken prey, and when the first drop of blood touched his lips, it burned them. He screamed and smoked and spasmed and swore. Where the skin did not ignite and turn to ash, it sloughed off like slugs, trying to escape. The muscle boiled, and the organs steamed. The mingled blood of drunk and Savior tore through that unholy beast till naught but the basest bones remained.
“The village drunk took the Englishman’s bones and put them back on the boat he’d arrived in. He covered them in a traveling cloak and threw a couple o’ dead rats aboard before pushing it back to sea. This done, he clapped his hands together and then got pissed from His Lord and Savior.
“When asked later why he didn’t just destroy the stranger, the drunk replied, ‘I’d not want to rob the English of his company.’”
The Irishman soaked in the attention of the entire bar. “The moral of the story, ladies and gents—always know what’s in your drink.”
A number of wolves let out appreciative laughs. A few applauded. One reached over to clap the Irishman on the back, went off-balance when it failed to connect with anything solid, and fell right off his barstool, which incited a much heartier round of laughter. In fact, the only person who wasn’t at all amused was Yulric.
“What’s the matter?” asked the Irishman. “Didn’t you like my story?”
“I’ve heard it before,” Yulric said.
“That’s right. I told it to you the last time we met,” Jack replied, a playful twinkle in his eye. “You liked it even less then. Hated it, in fact. Right down to your bones.”
The Irishman laughed and reached for his drink. His hand came back wet but without his glass. For the first time, he looked distraught. “Damn.” He stood up from his seat. “Time we were going, friend.”
Yulric did not move. “I’d like to catch up more.”
The Irishman raised his hand, which was now clearly seethrough. “The sun will rise within the hour. Time for all likeminded shades to be on their way.”
They made their way to the door. As they passed, the bartender tossed Yulric back his gem. “For the story.” Jack nodded and made a tiny salute.
Outside, the cold night breeze blew against vampire and phantasm. Neither felt its chill, though it swept up the Irishman’s tattered clothes and brambles of hair, as if mercilessly driving him onward.
“Here.” The Irishman handed the vampire a small sliver of paper. “I believe this is the tale you were after.” It was no wider than a hand, no thicker than a thumb. A pamphlet, in fact.
“If you go several blocks down,” Jack said, “yo
u’ll find a sewer grate. The tunnel beneath leads straight out of the city, so no worries about subway or sunlight. How are you at crossing water?” Yulric did not answer. “Well, I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
He turned to the turnip that hung next to the door. Despite his growing translucence, he had no trouble lifting the very solid lantern from the door.
“Your lantern led me here,” Yulric stated.
The Irishman nodded. “Aye. An ember of hell resides inside. Tends to attract the wrong kind of crowd: rogues and ne’er-do-wells. It led me to you and then led you to me.”
He raised his lantern before him and split the fading night as if it were solid. The wind changed direction, whirling toward the open void.
“Why?” Yulric yelled over the roar of the wind.
The wraith grinned the frightening, malevolent grin of a man mad enough to cross the devil and clever enough to win. A man too sinful for heaven and too slippery for hell. A man of Ireland.
“It’s been quiet around here for far too long,” he shouted over the roar. “High time things were a bit more interesting.”
The Irishman walked toward the tear in the universe. Reality warped around him so that each step was a hundred, and he shrank quickly from sight. However, just before he disappeared, he turned and hollered back, “What’s worse than an Englishman?”
Before the vampire could answer, the ghostly man passed through the portal, which promptly closed, allowing the laws of nature to take over once again. And just like that Jack of the Lantern was gone.
Yulric turned the pamphlet over, read the title, and understood why the Irishman had been there, why he had “helped.” What is worse than an Englishman? Two Englishmen.
Cursing all Irish, Yulric began to read the pamphlet in his hand: “Proper Vampirism by the Honorable Doctor and Lord Douglas Talby.”