by J. F. Lewis
“His brain glows?”
As I came closer, I made out more details. Shrunken eyelids were closed, concealing the empty sockets beneath. Above the snarling mouth, three slit nostrils gaped, a tear in the central nostril linking it with the right. The head was twice the size of a man’s and trailed off at the neck, revealing withered cords of muscle that would have seemed more at home in a robot than in a living thing.
“Guy looks like he was designed by H. R. Giger . . .”
And then it moved. Nostrils flared, gaping even wider, and the rush of air created by its sudden inhalation sent dust bunnies fleeing out from under its jaw. Its eyelids slowly opened with the sound of creaking leather to reveal empty sockets partially illuminated by the golden light pulsing within its ancient noggin.
My heart beat once and my vision shifted. Instead of feeling the energy moving through the room, I saw it. Ghostly streams of spiritual essence filled the room in a spiderweb of spirit and extended out through the doors. It flowed through the immortals, linking some of them, avoiding others. There was a separate strand tied to me, a deep line that ran from my chest to the head in the center of the room. As the immortals went into action, I watched cascades of spirit rise up from within them, manifesting into arms and armor. I realized that they weren’t re-creating the items like I do when I transform. Instead, they had stored them, converted them purposefully to energy, and were bringing them back.
The demonic lips of the thing parted and a withered purple tongue with forked ends that had long since dried together rasped along the portion of the lips that were intact.
It spoke, and I recognized the voice. The same ghostly voice had spoken to me when the wards parted for me, both here in France and back in the States during the whole “let’s trap Eric’s soul in a marble” affair when it had let me through the wards at the Highland Towers.
“Does my nose deceive me,” Scrythax asked, “or do I smell a Courtney?”
II
IF ERIC IS IN PARIS,
THEN LISETTE IS IN . . .
AS TOLD BY GRETA AND TALBOT
18
GRETA:
DADDY’S GIRL
A walking dead man crossed the road at the corner of Fourteenth Street and Vicar Avenue. Shifting position on the roof of the old Greymont Hotel, I held a brass spyglass up to my eye so I could watch the expression on his face. His body looked young, but he wore it like an old man. It revealed him to be a vampire even before he was close enough for the death smell to give him away. Fresh from the kill, blood ran hot through his veins. High on life, but not for long.
If my dad were home I wouldn’t have been able to do this, not actually make the kill. Daddy doesn’t hunt vampires. He only likes to end them when they get in his way. Dad doesn’t like it when I hunt them, either, but he went to Paris without me. He should have known I’d get bored. He even took Mom and Auntie Beatrice with him, but I wasn’t mad.
My prey walked on, eyes on the open lot in which he’d parked. His car was safely stowed in the parking deck at the Pollux next to two others I’d stolen from him. Not seeing it, he panicked. I would have, too, in his place. Three nights running he had gone out, killed, and come back to find his car missing. This was night number three. He pulled out his cell phone and I took careful aim. Even with vampire strength, a .357 Magnum has a noticeable kick. Guns are wonderful. Bullets won’t kill any vampire more powerful than a Drone, but they sound loud as hell to our preternaturally sensitive ears. That’s why I was wearing earplugs.
Careful to squeeze the trigger, not pull it, I opened fire. My first shot trashed the tiny new Nokia; the second hit him in the left eye. I don’t see with my eyes anymore, ’cause vampirism takes vision to a whole new level of mystic cool, but I’d watched this idiot for three nights and it was clear that he still felt human inside. He was still using his physical brain, the meat brain, and the meat body. That’s why he walked like an old man. Only Daddy pulls that off without looking stupid. This guy was just some schmuck who couldn’t comprehend what he had become.
Sliding the gun into my thigh holster, I leapt from my perch, propelling myself into range, and felt his power. Mom says that vampires show up like little holograms hovering in the air when she sees them, but for me, it’s like a little dossier file opens in my head, complete with a short bio and a snapshot. His name was David. He’d spent the last hundred years as a vampire. He’d kept up with the times through about the seventies. He still listened to disco. I was unimpressed. David was about as strong as me. We were both Vlads, but he was outclassed. I’ve never met a vampire who can do the things I can do. Not even Daddy.
It’s like some mystic law that Vlads and Masters can sense each other, but not me. Nobody senses me unless I want them to. When Dad is around I let people sense me. But when I’m hunting, I keep quiet, tightly drawn into my own head. They assume that I’m a Soldier or a Drone, because they don’t get that telltale head warning. Sucks to be them.
I hit the asphalt, the impact forcing me down on one knee. He spotted me. Claws sprouted from his fingertips, dark little thorns of bone and blood. Mine are prettier, long sharp fingernails that gleam in the night. The black nail polish goes all the way down to the base. Hard to put it on that way, but half-done claws look trashy.
“Come to Daddy, little girl.” He laughed, a low throaty challenge meant to make him seem menacing. My eyes glowed crimson, lit from within. Only Dad can call me that. It made me wish that I could’ve shot him with El Alma Perdida, Daddy’s magic gun, but he’d taken it with him. The ghost inside the revolver doesn’t like me anyway. I can’t see him, but I can tell he thinks I’m weak . . . just like this vampire, David.
Underestimation is a powerful tool. I use it well. The more powerful the vamp, the harder they are to kill. Hunting Drones is no fun at all. Soldiers are okay if they’ve been around awhile, and Masters can be challenging if they’re smart, but nothing beats going after a Vlad. It takes a hunter trial and error to find that one special way to send one of us to our final death, unless that hunter is me. All I have to do is read a Vlad on three successive nights and their special weakness pops into my brain like Christmas morning. It works on everyone, except Daddy.
This was the third night for David, here, and I now knew that he could only be killed by decapitation followed by submersion in running water until his body turned to ash and floated away. I didn’t even need the sack I’d left on the rooftop or the flamethrower that I had stashed in the guard shack. Telly, the parking garage guard, was a smart boy. He didn’t speak much English, but he spoke self-preservation like a native. I did what I wanted there and Telly never complained or said a word. He just smiled and nodded like a good human should. He had a cute butt, too. I wondered why he never asked me out.
I paid too much attention to Telly and David almost laid a claw on me. He was a better fighter than I expected, but far too slow, and he let my boobs distract him. I always dress to inspire when I’m hunting. Braless in a cut-off white T-shirt that’s a size too small, I was deadly to the best of men that night. A pair of form-fitting black jeans revealed the top of my pelvic bone from the front and a flash of my thong from behind. I planted my combat boot upside David’s head, sending him up and over the guard shack. Telly ran out of the booth and across the street. Part of me hoped he’d be back tomorrow. I’d been thinking of learning Spanish just so I could carry on a conversation with him while I was waiting for a mark.
David caught the edge of the shack with his fingertips, pulling himself gracefully onto the roof.
“Never cede the high ground, little girl,” he told me.
Even blind in one eye and half-deaf, he was cocky.
I drew the Magnum and shot him in the crotch. As he fell off the guard shack, I fired again, splattering the back of his left knee. It wouldn’t hurt long, but I didn’t need long. He lay on his back screaming; I took the opening. My gun clattered to the ground. Before he could stand I was on him.
Straddling David�
�s waist, I buried my fangs in his throat, tore out a hunk, and spat it onto the asphalt. Secondhand blood crossed my lips and it felt like I was stealing his kill, robbing him of the life he had taken tonight. Just like fruit, blood tastes sweeter when it’s stolen. He struggled, so I put my thumb into his other eye. He shrieked like a baby when it popped, the wetness running out of the socket and covering my hand. It’s good for the skin.
“Let me go and I’ll do anything you want,” he begged. Real men never beg. His daddy should have taught him that.
Blood ran down my chin when I let go of him. “I would,” I lied, “but you did a no-no. You said ‘Come to Daddy,’ but you’re not my daddy.” I smiled sweetly, let my fangs retract, my eyeglow fade. I leaned in as if I might kiss him. “My daddy would crush you like a motherfucking insect!” Eyes aglow, fangs out, I slammed my forehead into his. Then I announced myself.
It’s something vampires can do, a demonstration of power that only other vamps can feel. They see your power, your age, and in David’s case, he cowered, a typical man, when he felt me. “You still use your meat brain, you useless ass. You still think like a human! You’re a disgrace!” Slicing through his shirt with my foreclaw, I cut all the way through the flesh below, pulling it back, exposing the sternum and pectoral muscles beneath. There’s a sweet spot in the sternum. If you hit it just right, you can crack it in half with one smooth motion. In humans, the good blood is in the veins, but vamps store most of the blood in their hearts. I don’t know how it all fits in there, but it does. I think they do it with magic, the same way they make microwave popcorn.
Cracking his chest reminded me of shelling peanuts back when I was alive. His heart filled my hands and his screams stopped abruptly when I pulled it free of his chest. Still warm, the blood tasted like murder on my tongue. It’s a messy business feeding on another vampire, but it’s not that different from eating crawfish. You just suck the heart instead of the head. If you don’t, you leave all the good stuff behind and it’s hardly worth the effort.
I didn’t notice Telly’s return until he touched my cheek with a warm wet washcloth and started gently wiping the blood from my face. He babbled as he wiped the redness from my chin and neck, hesitantly at first and then with more confidence. Telly thought he had me figured out. What was I in his eyes, some dark goddess that hunts her own kind to protect the humans? It didn’t matter. It would take David some time to repair the damage to his body without blood. I had time. Other nights I usually handed Telly a hundred-dollar bill or gave him a knowing smile; this night his reward got a bit more personal.
When we were done, he sawed David’s head off for me, his eyes tracking me like a heartsick puppy as I hauled the body into the storm sewer to take care of my fellow vampire’s final send-off. I held David under the polluted water. His flesh slowly disintegrated between my fingers and the guilt crept up on me. What Telly and I had done had been fun. It had felt wonderful and it had been a long time since I’d been with a man, but I shouldn’t have done it.
It was the way he’d washed my face. Daddy usually does that. Impatient to get back aboveground and deal with Telly, it was hard to keep still. I shifted my weight from knee to knee, but David wouldn’t come apart fast enough. As the last of his face sloughed away, I felt a contact pressing against my presence—another vampire, one I couldn’t get a complete reading on without letting her detect me, too. She felt female, old, and more powerful than me.
“That’s not right.” David’s skull bubbled away like an Alka-Seltzer, the bubbles tickling my fingers as the mass shifted and shrank, hard to hold on to. The only vampire that’s ever felt more powerful than me is Dad. Did I dare reveal myself? The sensation faded before I made up my mind either way. Curious. I’d never hunt Dad. Never! But the idea of hunting a vampire as powerful as Dad . . . ?
Three words: Om. Nom. Nom.
David’s remains drifted away. I watched after them, depressed that he was gone, the hunt finished. I felt hungry again, but not for blood. For the thrill of the hunt. I breathed slowly in and out, because it’s something Dad would have done, then climbed out of the sewer to deal with Telly. He was such a nice boy and he worshipped me, but I picked my gun up off the ground and put a bullet in his brain.
I whistled for Fang, my dad’s car—an undead 1964 ½ Mustang convertible. Fang’s paint, candy apple red by night, black by day, didn’t show any reflections under the moonlit sky. He rolled hungrily out of his parking space, my backup, just in case the mark has friends or is tougher than he seems. Fang rolled over Telly and I laid my head on the ground to watch. I don’t know how Fang does it, but the skin ripped itself off Telly’s body, followed by the muscle, then the organs. They flattened out against Fang’s undercarriage, sinking slowly into the metal. The bones faded too, but I knew Fang hadn’t eaten them and that they’d wind up in the trunk. I listened, cheek still pressed against the grit of the asphalt, waiting until I heard the muffled clatter of bones in Fang’s trunk. It’s nice to give Fang time to enjoy his meal. I lay on my back, the smell of oil and gasoline from the parking lot seeping into my hair, and frowned at the sky. Dark clouds rolled in fast, like a time-lapse video.
“Are you ready?” I reached underneath Fang and ran my fingers along his undercarriage, feeling the row of smiley stickers I’d applied. My hand lingered there against him, a shiver of excitement rolling up my spine complemented by a gentle tightness in each breast as my nipples hardened. It felt like putting my head in a lion’s mouth. Fang crept backward, exposing the undamaged flesh of my arm, as if my excitement made him uncomfortable, and I sat up.
His engine revved and he let his tires squeal, leaving rubber on the asphalt. I liked watching the three-pronged centers of the simulated knockoff hubs spin, and he knew it.
“You are ready.” I rounded Fang and the trunk opened. Telly’s bones lay amid the debris, naked and unashamed. A splatter of water hit my arm as the rain began. I slammed the trunk and climbed in Fang’s driver’s side door. Telly’d had pretty pink lungs. I really liked him. I might learn Spanish anyway, in his memory, but I couldn’t let a human come between me and my creator. It’s like that old song that my grandmother used to sing, before she died and I went into foster care. “My Heart Belongs to Daddy.”
19
GRETA:
THE NEW DEMON HEART
Rain came down in large heavy drops as I drove too fast through the city streets toward the Demon Heart. Midnight was a little early for me to turn in, but if I stayed out any longer I would kill again and I knew that I’d been doing too much stress eating lately. For the week I’d averaged two or three humans a night, plus one really stupid Vlad. And that doesn’t even count pets, strays, or that lion I ate at the zoo.
My cell said that I had fifteen missed calls and a single voice mail. I thought that I knew what it said, but I checked anyway. Talbot’s low grumble tickled the inside of my ears. “Phillip requests, and I quote, ‘The pleasure of young Greta’s company at her earliest possible convenience upon her return to the Highland Towers.’”
Uncle Phil was older than dirt, crazy powerful, and the only vampire wizard in the world. He owned the cops in Void City and most of the surrounding towns. The dirty cops were bought with greed and the good cops were kept in line with magic. He practically was Void City, so ignoring him wasn’t wise, but I couldn’t talk to him that night.
I hurt too much, my skin felt tight, and I was jumpy. Killing helped me focus, but it didn’t last, and snapping at Uncle Phil was not an option. He and Dad had come to an agreement last year when Dad had killed Uncle Roger and the demon Uncle Roger had been in league with. It’s a long story, but the short version is that Uncle Roger tried to kill Dad, steal all his money, and eat his soul. The demon tried to use Dad to get a magic rock, the Stone of Aeternum, from Uncle Phil. Bad career move all the way around. The demon wound up getting eaten by Talbot and Uncle Roger’s soul was trapped in a fisheye marble, which is now on display in Uncle Phil’s apartment. When Uncle
Phil’s in a good mood, we play catch. It drives Uncle Roger into wild fits of silent screaming. Pretty funny stuff.
“Can I put the top down?” Even with the “power” convertible top, putting the top up and down on Fang was a pain in the butt before his transformation. Now, he handles it all himself. Fang’s top popped up and back, folding itself away and allowing sheets of cold rain to wash over my skin, each drop stinging as it hit. I laughed at the chill, at the newness of the sensation, and at the lengths to which I was willing to go to try and distract myself from the ache underlying everything now that Dad was so far away. I thought about my cell phone a little too late, the corners of my mouth making a downward turn as the screen died. What message, I thought to myself, smiling up into the rain. I never got any message. My cell phone got rained on.
I turned across from the newly restored Pollux Theater and left Fang in the no-parking area in front of the completely rebuilt Demon Heart. A new version of the same old heart-with-horns Demon Heart sign flashed on the roof, but now the sign beneath it said, “All Nite Bowling” in bright blue neon.
Dad had wanted to build a memorial to Old Mom. He picked a bowling alley. Dad’s a little weird, but vampires are prone to eccentricity.
On the right, near the entrance, a picture of Old Mom as a young woman hung in a locked display case. Below it was a small metal vase containing what we’d been able to find of her body (mostly chunks of bone). A bronze plaque was mounted to the base of the case, dedicating the building to her memory. I resisted the urge to smash the case. Old Mom had slept around on Dad. If I’d known that when she was alive, she wouldn’t have had time to get blown up. New Mom had slept around on Dad too, with Uncle Phil no less, but they worked it out before I had to murder her. She’s so easy to kill, too, for a Vlad.