“Hello,” he said. “Another unexpected guest tonight, ladies and gentleman.”
Doris looked out at the crowd. Red eyes glowed back at her own. They were speckled among a crowd that was mostly human and mostly pale. The members of that bunch looked to the vampires for guidance.
None of her so-called brethren seemed to consider her a threat.
As Doris made her way over to Gesine, the man with red-hair locked eyes with her for a second. He reassured Mab, guiding her behind him, then took a step toward Gesine.
Doris shook her head, but the man ignored her. Just as Doris was about to pull Gesine back, Gesine sprung to life and bit into the man’s arm. His eyes glowed red and his face contorted with a mix of pain and anger.
The drummer’s beat got livelier, too.
“Doris, do something or one of us will,” said Mab.
Doris held her hand up, asking a moment of the redheaded male vampire even as Gesine threatened to gnaw him arm off. It was, after all, only a bit of intense physical pain.
Doris whispered into Gesine’s ear. “Let go. I know. It’s my fault for bringing us back here. I’m sorry.”
Gesine limply put her hand behind her, grabbing at Doris’ head, her hand drifting through her locks. Then she let go and fell backward into Doris’ arms.
Her eyes were teary. Doris didn’t even know she was capable of it.
Mab rushed over to her fellow redhead. “Are you all right?”
He nodded, flexing his arm as his face returned to its less fang-dominate state. “Just need a bit of blood,” he said with a Welsh accent.
Mab’s face brightened a bit.
Doris rubbed Gesine’s arms. “Maybe you were right,” she said. “Maybe we should have never come back.”
“Come on,” yelled a man from the crowd. “Give her a kiss. Some of us are here for a show!”
The red-headed man turned around. He raised his hands, then lowered them over his legs as he shuffled them from side to side. The crowd roared with laughter, and the red-headed man jumped from the stage onto the floor where the tables were. His dancing turned into something not unlike ballet by way of highland dancing. The wound of his arm bled periodically, and he occasionally pointed to the puddles and shook his head. The redheaded man danced around one table in particular, where a white-haired man with spectacles held up a mug of beer.
As the saxophones and trumpets blew to a crescendo, the red-headed man tore into the white-haired man’s neck and drank. A pretty woman who had been at his table screamed and ran off, but the scream quickly ebbed at some border Doris didn’t care much about at the moment.
Mab took the woman’s seat at the table.
“And that,” said the man in the cage, “is what can happen when you want a cheap show instead of a good story. Usually doesn’t, though. But don’t mind me, folks. I’m just a ghost.”
Doris squinted at him, and he nodded at her before she turned and with Gesine made her way around a young man whose job it was to guardedly clean the pools of vampiric blood that had formed. Gesine looked at him longingly. Doris nudged Gesine with her forehead, guiding her over to the bar.
The bartender, a woman, was looking frantically around for someone else. Doris snapped her fingers to get her attention.
“Raw meat,” she said. “Please.”
The bartender pinched the bridge of her nose. “We don’t really do food here, but I’ll try to find something. I just need to talk to my boss, okay?”
“Only if you don’t want another of your fine human clientele to get jawed,” said Doris.
The bartender smiled nervously. “You know what, lady? As long as it’s not me,” she mumbled, before speeding off to elsewhere.
Doris hopped over the bar. The place had blood, blood with absinthe. Plenty of alcohol in general that came with too high a cost. Doris hopped back over to the patron-side of the bar, where Gesine stared blankly at a pumpkin near the base of a pyramid of bottles. It was nowhere near spoiled.
As Doris scanned the crowd, humans shifted uncomfortably in their seats. In her peripheral vision, she could see the red-headed man approaching as he wiped his mouth.
“I don’t mean any harm,” he said softly. “Really, I just want to help.”
Nearby, a man with pointy hairline was nervously tapping his foot. Doris went over and grabbed his neck. She pulled him up and stared into his eyes. They were brown, a bit wounded. She couldn’t find it within her to want even a tiny bit of his flesh. With a sigh, she let him go and went back to Gesine. The redheaded man was in her way.
“Robin,” he said as he extended his good arm to Doris. She put a finger up to his mouth, then with her other pointed toward Gesine.
“Your arm should heal quickly,” Doris said. “They have plenty of blood … the bottled stuff.”
“Hey,” said Robin. “A vampire could take offense at that.”
“What they don’t have,” said Doris, walking away from his outreached hand, “is any meat.”
Robin put his hand down. “I think there’s some in the cage of that man on stage.”
Doris shook her head. “I would have smelled it.”
“You probably smelled garlic. Most of us are too repelled by the scent to sort the world out much beyond it.”
Doris closed her eyes and tapped her forehead a few times. “Trying can be fatal.”
“Yes,” said Robin. “I suppose it can.”
Doris finally looked into Robin’s eyes. They were gray. “Can you watch my friend?” she said.
“What about me?” Mab said from her table. Doris ignored her.
Robin nodded. “It would be my pleasure.”
Doris hated bright light, even the artificial stuff. As the band played, she went around the corners of the stages until she was at the back of the cage.
“Hello,” she whispered.
The man inside had been bopping his foot to the beat of the music when she startled him. But he did not turn around.
“Hello,” he said through the side of his mouth. “What can I do you for?”
“Do you mind if I have some of whatever is on the plate there …?”
“Only if you can pay for a replacement,” he said. “They’re real cheapskates around here.”
“I can do that. I may not look like it, but I’m pretty high on the ladder at the local horseshit company.”
The man in the cage chuckled.
Doris reached through the bars of his cage and took the meat there. Next to it, there was a bottle of water – the source of the garlic smell.
“Thank you,” said Doris. “Can you do me one more favor?”
“All right,” said the man in the cage, “now you’re just being greedy.”
“I suppose so,” said Doris. “But I just really want to break this cage up. They’re awful things.”
“Ah,” said the man in the cage. “What if I told you that you were the one who was really inside a cage?”
“I would say I’ve also studied philosophy.’”
The man in the cage chuckled again. “You’re all right,” he said, “but while of course these things are all a bit relative, for me right now this is an okay enough gig. Please respect that. Before this, I was wandering around these streets in rags, not even talking to myself. Screaming to myself, hoping the next beating would kill me. Then a couple came over to me and said, ‘What’s the problem, my good man?’”
Doris didn’t argue with him. “They sound like a nice couple … I’ve got a lot on my own plate, but I’ll try to see you later, if that’s all right with you.”
“Yes,” said the man in the cage. “I hope you do. See me, that is.”
4
Bloodletting
Present
On the rare occasion that Roger got a phone call at work and, as was not so rare, he was flustered from running around from aisle to aisle, he would answer the phone by saying, “Simon, I’m fine.” It was a force of habit, even if the only calls he got since Simon went deep und
erground were usually just robots or telemarketers. When he answered the phone that night, however, it was Desmond, and his friend did not let him get a word in edge-wise. Gesine hadn’t shown up to the concert they were supposed to go to together.
“She’s probably fine, right?” said Desmond. “I mean, she’s a lot stronger than us.”
“Yeah,” whispered Roger over the phone. “She and Doris both are. But, well, are you sure she just didn’t go back to the house? Maybe she just didn’t want to deal with all the people.”
“Maybe,” said Desmond. “But I feel like she would have made sure I could see her on a nearby rooftop or something.”
Roger smiled a little, though that relented as his supervisor came over and mimed him being on the phone. As someone scarcely on the phone, Roger noticed people who always were had an indifferent brazenness. It often equated to a strange kind of respect that got people a few minutes of phone time on the regular, even in a quota-driven kingdom.
“I’ll be off soon,” said Roger to both his manager and Desmond. “We can meet up at Vincenzo’s before we head home.”
“I’m already here,” said Desmond. “You know I get hungry when I feel anxious.”
Neither Roger nor Desmond really knew Mab, but they did know she had a company that occasionally sent bulldozers to drive slowly by their house in the evenings. Doris said she recognized the jackets of the sub-contracted employees who did as much.
Mostly when it was nighttime, though, they were more worried about fangs than bulldozers – particularly without Doris or Gesine around.
At Vincenzo’s counter, Roger poured the contents of a big container of garlic powder into a smaller one. He then exchanged it with Desmond for another smaller, empty one he promptly began filling. He smiled awkwardly at Aaron, the son of the owners of both Vincenzo’s pizza and the Chinese food store next door, as he came over. Roger had just learned Aaron’s name about a month ago, having not known it for a year of acquaintanceship. He’d been too depressed to be that thoughtful, and when he was a bit less so, he felt like he’d been horribly impolite.
Desmond on the other hand had known Aaron’s name for quite a while; he just assumed Roger knew, too. Roger sometimes thought Desmond gave him too much credit when it came to understanding social intricacies.
Aaron nodded at them. “Hey, guys. So, uh, I thought you guys were done with all the garlic.”
“What makes you say that?” said Roger. “I mean, who is ever done with copious amounts of garlic?”
“I can’t eat anything that doesn’t taste like concentrated garlic,” Desmond said.
Arron slowly nodded. “Yeah? It’s just, your friend doesn’t seem to like it.”
“No,” said Roger. “But she thinks it can be healthy for people … other people.”
Desmond nodded. “She’s incredibly human.”
Aaron squinted at them through one eye. “Yeah,” he said, glancing around at some of the pizzeria’s other occupants. “I guess she’s nice for someone who’s always kind of distant. The new wave of customers … kind of the opposite.”
“Yeah,” said Roger. “Some of them think that, like, people can own garlic, which is ridiculous.” He screwed the cap on the second small container of garlic.
Aaron mock-winced. “It’s dicey territory, for sure.”
“Look,” said Roger. “It’s a bit hard to explain. We, really, or well, me … I don’t mean to be rude.”
Resting his arms on the counter, Aaron sighed. “You know, I kind of worry about you guys sometimes. You two and your two friends.”
“Your business treats me and my friends like human beings,” said Roger, half-turning to leave. “We worry about you, too.”
“Sorry, Aaron,” said Desmond, “but we have to go.”
As they were on their way out, Desmond looked over at Roger. “By the way, you don’t think I can be rude?”
“No,” said Roger. “Not particularly.”
When they got to their dead-end street, the light was on upstairs. The first floor, however, was eerily dark. Desmond had put a small pumpkin-shaped light on the windowsill that was usually on if nobody else was home.
Roger and Desmond looked at each other and nodded. As they each began to cover themselves with garlic powder, a car blasting reggaeton suddenly passed the nearby main street. They both half-jumped out of their skins. Roger felt his hands trembling. It took about twenty seconds for the car’s sound bubble to pass, and for once such a thing had a benefit. Roger took a breath and quickly opened the front door, sure that even vampires wouldn’t be able to hear it creaking over the music.
Desmond was behind him as Roger stepped inside and took his improved cross from the wall; it was the one that looked more like an “X” than a traditional cross, though neither of which worked against vampires. The “X” just happened to be visible as orange streetlight poured in behind them from the doorway.
Roger pulled the “X” apart and handed one of two dull stakes to Desmond, who took it with a sigh that Roger still couldn’t hear over the music. The car blasting it was still nearby.
Desmond took his phone out of his inside coat pocket. He used it to put on a light, then flashed the phone around. It was in this way that they got a gander into the kitchen and the dark-haired man with gray at his temples tied and bound on the floor.
The door shut behind them, and something hit Desmond’s hand so hard that it sent his phone flying. The light came on. Seven vampires were scattered throughout the room, their eyes red and their faces contorted in offense at the smell of garlic. Beyond that, they were silent. A red-haired man sitting half-way up the stairwell pushed himself to standing up.
“I hope you don’t mind us being here. They both insisted.”
“They both?” Roger said, relieved. Who else could “they” be, after all?
“Yes,” said the redhead. “I’m Robin. You’ll forgive me if I don’t shake your hands.”
“Their awful seasoning is enough,” said a red-eyed woman from the living room couch. “Can you put those stakes down?”
Desmond relented. Roger did not. He shifted the stake between his index and middle fingers and held it up. “You mean this?”
The woman leaned forward and crossed her arms. “Yes, quite obviously.”
Desmond tapped Roger on the shoulder. “I think they’re Doris’ friends,” he said, his voice more hushed than usual.
“Besides Gesine,” Roger told him, “you’ve never met her other friends.”
“But I have,” said Robin. “That’s why we’re here. And she’s here, too.”
The man who was tied up in the kitchen began to mumble.
“Yes,” said Roger. “You should be set free.”
“He’ll be fine,” said Robin.
“Where are our friends?” said Desmond. He slowly made his way to the kitchen. A vampire by the doorway whose red eyes retreated to blue gave Desmond a tiny berth, his face contorting in pain. The vampire looked to Robin, who shook his head.
Desmond sprinkled the man with garlic.
“We’ll untie you soon,” said Desmond.
As Robin shifted his stance, the floorboards of the stairs under him creaked with his weight. His eyes turned red. “That, the garlic, may be fine down here, but I can’t let you upstairs with so much on you. Doris is in a bad way. She doesn’t need the air up there to feel like it’s on fire.”
With a sigh, Roger approached the stairs. “She’s been around me before like this,” he said.
Robin slowly nodded. “Maybe, but she’s lost a lot of blood, and that animal run-off you have downstairs. That’s not as good as human’s blood. It’s good that you’re here. We were about to bleed our company friend over there. Not fatally, of course.”
“Oh, of course,” said Roger.
Robin went further up the stairs. He glanced back, his face returning to its less fire-eyed visage. “I’m sure you know where the bathroom is.”
Upstairs, Roger quickly hopped int
o the shower with all of his clothes on and put what turned out to be exceedingly hot water on. It took a bit for him to get it to be less hot. His eyes burning, Roger watched the garlic-tainted water go down the drain. He thought of Doris as he waited for the water pouring down off him to seem like it wouldn’t burn her. When it seemed garlic-free, Roger got a towel for his hair.
Desmond, who’d been waiting for Roger in the doorway, switched places with him.
As Roger dried off his hair and patted his damp clothes in the hallway, he heard footsteps coming from the stairs. He’d put the stake in his coat pocket and was about to get it out when he saw a black-haired figure coming his way. Gesine. There was blood all around her mouth, and she walked with a slight limp.
Roger ran over to her. “You’re okay!”
Gesine nodded with a slight sniff of the air. She lifted her hand up to push aside the wet hair from Roger’s face, and Roger almost wiped away the blood around her mouth. But quickly decided against it.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was supposed to meet Desmond, but … Mab.”
“The vampires all around our house,” said Roger, “they’re not with her, are they?”
Gesine shook her head.
Roger was about to ask her if the blood around her mouth belonged to anyone in particular when she turned and walked into the bathroom.
Behind the shower curtain, Desmond yelped.
“I’m sorry I didn’t meet you there,” Gesine told him.
Roger moved to the side of the doorway.
“It’s okay,” said Desmond.
No, thought Roger as he paced quickly to his bedroom. The blood didn’t belong to the tied up man with the gray temples downstairs.
Roger was still dripping wet. He almost slipped as he halted at the open doorway of his room.
Doris was sleeping on his bed. Robin was sitting on a chair in the corner, reading the book of haiku by Josephine Drearden.
“You’re going to catch your death walking around here like that,” said Robin without looking up.
Roger ignored him. He went over to Doris and sat down on the edge of the bed. She was bandaged up. There was a bowl full of blood on the nightstand.
The Howling Twenties Page 3