An Unattractive Vampire

by Jim McDoniel

  She worked up a confident strut on the way back to Bastion, building up significant steam so that by the time she arrived at the door, she was working everything. She didn’t even bother waiting in line; she just went straight for the man at the rope, who let her in with barely a once-over.

  The club inside was a rather tame version of those she was used to. Everything was more expensive, and because of that, everyone was on slightly better behavior. The mass of dancers could actually be said to be dancing rather than just rhythmically grinding up against each other. The fixtures on the wall, the furniture, and the decorations were extravagantly minimalist. The entire club was lit by pink, purple, and black lights, and they were everywhere, from underneath the floor to underneath the bar.

  Amanda spent her first twenty minutes among the dancers, partially because “Hey, why not have some fun,” but mostly so she could paint a great big target on herself. When she felt she had allowed enough time for the true players58 in the crowd to spot her, she made her way to the bar. Sensing movement on either side of her, as young men with trust funds and venture capital made a dash to get to the bar ahead of her, she slowed her pace, taking a moment to fix her dress and admire her surroundings.

  “Son of a . . . ,” she mouthed.

  Nora was sitting in a booth across from her. Amanda changed direction and made for the vampire.

  “Seriously?” she exclaimed as she stormed up to the table.

  “Seriously? How did you find me?”

  Nora choked on her martini at Amanda’s sudden appearance. Unable to speak, she gave a little shrug. The truth was she had just come out tonight to enjoy herself. The fact that they had both chosen Bastion was mere coincidence. But of course, she wasn’t about to admit that. One of The Doctor Lord Talby’s rules was never admit to the mundane truth when people were willing to chalk something up to your supernatural prowess. So it was here.

  Nora stretched out her arm, offering Amanda a seat and, once she’d found her voice again, croaked, “Drink?”

  Amanda sat down and ordered a glass of wine, which miraculously appeared within a minute, courtesy of “the gentleman at the bar.” There were twelve of them standing where the server pointed, and it was impossible to tell which was the gentleman, because they all winked when she glanced over.

  “Why did you come to a club?” Nora asked, sipping her drink.

  “I was going to pick a pocket,” Amanda answered, giving a nod to the men waiting for her to finish so they could buy her another.

  “But why here?” the vampire continued. “Why not just hit someone on the street?”

  “I’m not going to steal from someone who needs the money,” she sneered indignantly. “If I’m going to take advantage of someone, (a) they’re not going to miss it, and (b) they are going to have it coming.”

  “Well, you certainly came to the right place for that,” Nora muttered, downing the rest of her martini. Two more arrived via waiter to replace it. Both women stared at them incredulously. “Our powers combined,” Nora marveled. They both laughed.

  “So, I guess you’ll be taking me back?” Amanda said finally.

  “No rush,” replied Nora, taking a drink in hand.

  Amanda’s eyebrow went up. “Really?”

  Nora shrugged. “I need a night away from . . . things.”

  Amanda gave a knowing nod. “Well, this certainly is a place for that. Plenty of ‘things’ to go around.” She leaned across the table. “How much damage do you think we could do to their wallets?”

  Nora smiled conspiratorially. “Only one way to find out.” It was her eleventh escape attempt.

  Chapter 26

  Catherine had always thought her first stay in a honeymoon suite would go a little differently. Oh sure, she’d pictured the spaciousness, the fireplace, the rugs designed to hug naked flesh, the complimentary champagne with every room service order, the en suite Jacuzzi, the heart-shaped bed with red satin sheets, the trail of rose petals leading to locations of potential lovemaking, all of it. She’d just imagined she’d be sharing said den of copulation with a partner or girlfriend or Dana Scully,59 not an eight-year-old and a gaggle of vampires.60

  Currently, all the vampires were gathered around the heart-shaped love seat, watching a Spanish-dubbed episode of The Phantom Vampire Mysteries. This included the new arrivals they’d found here in Mexico. Sealed within a temple to Quetzalcoatl they had unearthed the one they’d come to find, Spanish inquisitor turned conquistador Cebrian d’Oviedo. Unexpectedly, though, he hadn’t been alone. For the past five hundred years, Cebrian had been arguing with a vampire none of them had ever heard of before. This Tezcatlipoca, as the Spaniard called him between angry mutterings, had a jaguar’s head, feathers, a leg made out of obsidian, and was, by all accounts, the most ruthless and bloodthirsty god in the Aztec pantheon.

  Vampires. Just when you thought you’d seen the most disturbing variation, the next popped up, worse than all the rest.

  “I don’t see how this is helpful,” Simon grumbled. The two humans had taken refuge in the kitchenette. He was currently taking a break from researching Mesoamerican mythology to shoot angry glares over at the vampires.

  “He’s giving them a reason to follow them,” Catherine replied. She finished dipping a strawberry into the chocolate fondue. “Mmm.”

  “One would think releasing them all would be reason enough,” said Simon.

  “That just makes them resentful,” she explained.

  “We saved you and you aren’t resentful,” Simon countered.

  “I’m not a raging psychopath.” She lovingly placed another chocolate-dipped strawberry into her mouth. “Oh, that’s good.”

  “Still, Yulric is the logical choice to lead. He brought them all together, he speaks all of their languages—”

  “Not Tezzie’s,” Catherine interrupted.

  “Except Tezcatlipoca’s, yes.” Simon glared at her. “Still, he’s the one with the plan. Why wouldn’t they follow him for the duration?”

  “Because they’re afraid of him,” Catherine answered.

  “How do you know that?” Simon asked.

  Catherine paused. She didn’t know how she knew what the other vampires thought, but she did. And there was more, right on the tip of her tongue, slowly materializing. “Something, I think, something about his resurrection.” Her mind flashed. In a single moment, she witnessed the origins of each of the vampires . . .

  In a desert land, a curse descended upon a mighty city, taking up residence in its temple and draining the area of all life . . .

  In a dense tropical forest, a plague, taken form, hunted for prey as an inconspicuous insect . . .

  Under the steps of a mighty pyramid, a god drank the blood pouring down from a hundred sacrifices . . .

  Deep within the earth, a crying Chinese woman stopped clawing at the roof of her coffin and breathed her last . . .

  And somewhere in Spain, an otherwise serene funeral procession was interrupted by an errant hen . . .

  Still, as Catherine’s psyche was assaulted by other times and places, she sensed something looming over all the rest. She pushed past the other visions and literally fell into one that was hidden. She braced herself for impact, but her descent was halted abruptly. When she opened her eyes, she was hovering in the dark over the supine form of Yulric Bile. His arms were crossed over his chest, his hands clasped around an ancient battle-ax. At his side rested a full helmet, complete with an image of his face etched onto the front. Behind his head was a large leather-bound book the size and weight of a small child. This was the barrow of Yulric Bile, his final resting place. Here he was buried, with all rites and honors by people who feared what might happen if they dared neglect them.

  But there was something wrong. Even as this thought floated before her, she could feel malevolence oozing around her, contaminating everything it touched. There was nothing amiss: no curse, no bite, no sign of disrespect. This was no outside eldritch force; this vile aura emana
ted from the body itself.

  The eyes sprang open, and in the dark of the grave, she saw Yulric smile. Suddenly, she was no longer floating above the body; she was the body. She peered up at the image of herself looking down, and this time, it was she who smiled.

  And then . . . agony, fiery and unbearable. The images dissolved around her as she let loose a bloodcurdling scream.

  • •

  A sharp pain split Yulric’s skull. It was as if someone had taken a red-hot acupuncture needle and shoved it through his left eye, into his brain.61 Involuntarily, he hissed in a breath and brought up a hand to cover it.

  A cry rang out in the hotel suite. Yulric removed his gaze from the television to see Catherine in the kitchenette, howling in pain. The boy was holding something to her face. The vampire was about to dismiss it as a helpful ice pack when he caught a familiar flash of silver, which made him wince. A moment later, the screaming died out, replaced by heavy, steadying breaths. The boy pulled away, and Yulric saw clearly the large silver cross in his hand.

  Yulric’s mind raced. Why would she have such a violent reaction to the cross? Was it coincidence that he’d been in pain at the very moment she’d cried out or something more? What exactly had happened? He was about to investigate the incident when he was interrupted by Arru.

  “What is the tiny man in the box saying now?” she asked. On the screen, Phantom and Sasha were standing close to one another in the rain.

  Yulric’s suspicions evaporated as he was returned to his immediate purpose. Processing what he’d just heard, he translated Spanish into the most common language between them, Latin. “He said”—Yulric nearly vomited in his mouth having to repeat it—“I love you.”

  There was a round of disgusted hisses from those who understood.

  “Love, bah!” spat Cebrian.

  “What does love have to do with anything?” Adze grimaced.

  Tezcatlipoca growled something in Nahuatl. The other monsters gave him a mystified look, then turned back just in time to witness Phantom and Sasha kissing. The group erupted into jeers. Bits of popcorn, which Catherine had insisted on making them, were hurled at the screen, along with a glowing green energy that caused it to spark, smoke, and melt.

  “I have seen enough,” Arru said. “You were right to summon us.”

  “How could this have happened?” asked Yu Mei. The vampires turned to Adze, the only one of them who had not been imprisoned.

  “Don’t look at me,” he told them. “I am still feared in my lands.”

  Yulric shook his head. “I do not believe anyone here would be so careless. Only a fool would . . .” The English vampire trailed off as mental calculations were made. In a flash, he was in the kitchenette across from the two mortals. “We need to go to Tuscany.”

  Even through the dull ache in her left eye, Catherine smiled. This was, by far, the best vacation ever.

  Chapter 27

  It had long been understood by the vampires of Europe that it was only a matter of time before a member of the great families—the Hapsburgs, the Medicis, the Borgias—was to join their ranks. With the kind of power these dynasties wielded for centuries, it was impossible to imagine one of them wouldn’t seek to extend their influence beyond life. The only question was which of the many ruthless, cutthroat members would carry their names into eternity.

  Sadly for the pride and honor of both the Medici family and vampires as a whole, the person who had finally achieved immortality was Cosimo II de’ Medici, an overweight and underambitious member of the family, who’d been perfectly content as a footnote in the future biography of Galileo. But he’d found himself gifted with immortality, thanks to an ancestor’s botched Satanic pact. Now the possessor of a host of supernatural abilities and a thirst for blood, Cosimo had taken to vampirism like a theater person takes to sports—badly.

  And so it came as no surprise to anyone that, when Yulric Bile dragged the Italian vampire out of his ornately decorated sarcophagus in the private, unsanctified Italian chapel he’d had built, the first words out of his mouth were cries of “It wasn’t me!”

  “What wasn’t you?” Yulric growled, throwing him to the tiled floor in front of the five other vampires.

  The Italian vampire gulped. “Whatever it was you think I did?” His gaze darted around, apparently searching for an alibi. He pointed to his box. “I’ve been in a sarcophagus. See?”

  Arru took a step forward. “In Latin, if you please, so we can all understand.”

  Tezcatlipoca grumbled something in Nahuatl.

  “So most of us can understand anyway,” Arru corrected herself.

  Switching to the dead language most of them spoke, Yulric uttered only two words: “Proper vampyrs.”

  “Oh,” Cosimo uttered.

  “Yes,” agreed Yulric. “Oh.”

  “So you read Douglas’s pamphlet then?” Cosimo’s eyes lit up. “Do you have it with you? Can I see? I’d love to know what changes he’s made since—”

  Yulric held up his hand, and the Italian vampire fell silent.

  “I want to know how,” Yulric bellowed, his voice echoed around the chamber, which, despite its Renaissance trappings, managed to avoid any actual Christian iconography.

  “Well, you see, I was bored, and there weren’t any good operas, and there was this man named Darwin, who through a series of observations on the Galápagos Islands . . .”

  The vampires listened intently as Cosimo began to ramble about finches and niches and the bizarre belief that animals change over time. A few of them tried to interrupt but to no avail. Even Tezcatlipoca’s rumbling jaguar growl only excited the little Italian, who went on to explain how this evolution had affected big cats in general and the jaguar specifically. In the end, there was nothing to do except wait for him to run out of steam. As his main claim to fame was a friendship with a famous astronomer, this took quite a while.

  “And that’s why I say a leopard can change its spots. It just takes a million years,” he finally finished with a bit too much laughter. Once he had composed himself, Cosimo went back to his original point. “And I thought, well, if it works on finches, why couldn’t it work on vampires, too?”

  “You tried this evolution on vampires?” spat Cebrian.

  “What? No. No, no, no,” cried Cosimo. “I would never dream. I’m just a layman. I don’t have the skills. No, I found a proper scientist to do it for me.”

  “The Doctor Lord Talby,” Yulric answered for him.

  “Douglas was very keen on my ’dea,’” said Cosimo. “He had all sorts of marvelous thoughts. It was his idea to attempt a kind of social evolution to the vampire, as well. A perception change. We commissioned writers and painters and . . .” He trailed off as Yulric walked past him to stare at a fresco of Orpheus descending into the underworld.

  “How did you conduct this experiment?” the English vampire hissed.

  Cosimo, unwisely, took a few steps toward him. “Do you want to see the data? I’m sure I have my notebooks around here somewhere.”

  “How did you make the vampyrs?” Yulric clarified, oozing contempt with every syllable.

  “Oh, well”—Cosimo chuckled—“that took quite a bit of trial and error, let me tell you. Some of the results we ended up with—ha. In hindsight, it seems so obvious that the mingling of blood would do it. Take my blood, drink it, everlasting life, you know.”

  The vampires clearly did not know. Except for Cebrian, who quietly explained, “It’s a Christian thing.”

  “Can I ask a question?” Cosimo pleaded. With a wave of his hand and a glower, Yulric gave him leave. “I guess I don’t really understand, well, what the problem is?”

  One of Yulric’s eyes blazed with anger. The other remained fairly pretty.

  “You don’t understand?” he snarled. “You don’t realize what you’ve done to us?”

  “No?” the Italian squeaked.

  In a flash, Yulric had him pressed up against the wall. The marble behind him cracked under the
pressure.

  “We have become shadows of our true selves. Defenseless, nearly powerless. Killed with a mere stake through the heart and turned to dust.”

  “True, we never did figure out why that happens,” the Italian rambled. “I suppose it’s a result of the weakening of the curse. Though, personally, I’ve always wondered if it could be a psychosomatic reaction caused by . . . Ack!”

  Yulric’s grip on the man’s throat had tightened. “You have traded our power and reputation for mere beauty. Do you not realize that vampyrs are now seen as . . . good?”

  Cosimo pulled Yulric’s fingers away, just enough to croak,

  “What’s so wrong about a good vampire?”

  • •

  The next morning, the residents of Tuscany awoke to find the small Medici chapel on the far side of town was gone. Where once it stood was a pile of oddly rounded marble and goldleaf pebbles, each no bigger than a fingernail. Those who lived nearby remembered being awakened by a horrible clap of thunder in the middle of the night, which was odd, because it hadn’t rained. The police and AISE investigated the possibility of a terrorist attack, but no one ever claimed responsibility and there was no evidence of an explosive device. In the end, it was labeled a gas explosion, and everyone involved went to lunch.

  The same morning that the chapel disappeared, Catherine Dorset left Italy with a wonderful tan, a little boy, and six caskets in tow.

  Chapter 28

  The Doctor Lord Talby sat at his desk, casually flipping through the files of future vampire candidates. “And how is Vermillion working out?” he asked the speaker on his desk.

  “It took a while, but we figured out where to pose him,” replied a voice that remained deep and sultry despite the phone’s added tinniness.

  “Good, good.” Talby set aside a file on Johnson, Janelle.

  “Any sign that he might be falling into old habits?”