by J. F. Lewis
“What happens if I’m still here on the sixth day?” I asked.
“Then we shall meet again on less friendly terms, Mr. Courtney.” La Bête’s breath washed over me, still smelling of mint and hot as a sauna.
“I shall . . . deposit . . . Christian in the countryside in approximately six to eight hours’ time,” la Bête thought at the others, “and then I shall return to Lozère. Good day to you.”
He left the room and the Apostles followed him. Once they were gone, I smiled at the immortals.
“So.” I clapped my hands together. “Do I get conjugal visits with Tabitha during the stupid ritual thing?”
“The sire must not have any undo—” Aarika began.
“That’s fine,” I cut her off. “In which case, I’m leaving Beatrice here to feed and look after Tabitha and I’m going sightseeing. Which means I’ll need a guide, someone to watch over me and make sure I don’t get seen, and . . . seeing as how I can only kill three humans, I’ll need a lucky volunteer to play the role of snack food. Any takers?”
Luc scowled. “I will go. It is my—”
“I don’t bite guys, Dumbass.”
One by one, the men turned to Aarika.
“I vill kill all of you vun day,” she said resignedly, her irritation bringing out a little more of her accent than I’d heard before, “und I vill enjoy it.” She offered me her arm, the very model of stoicism. “Shall we go?”
Of course, if I’d known any number of things about what was going on back home, or would go on, or even that Rachel had come to Paris to mess with me, I’d have jerked Tabitha out of her whole “make me my own vampire” testing and flown straight home. But I didn’t know any of that, so Aarika and I walked arm in arm out of the castle and into the sun . . . where I caught fire, because I’m good at it.
Once I’d doused the flames in the moat, I ghosted, becoming corporeal once I had moved to the shadow of the castle. Aarika was laughing at me.
“Oh, yeah,” I growled, “you and I are going to get along famously.”
“And to think,” she said between guffaws, “I thought I would not enjoy this assignment at all.”
I turned into a mouse. “Put me in your bra.”
“That will not happen.”
“I have to be protected from the sun somehow.” I batted little mousey eyelashes at her.
“First”—she bent over and picked me up—“I am not wearing a bra, und second . . . a pocket will suffice.” She crammed me in her right pocket next to her car keys and off we went again, this time sans the fire. Seeing Paris with a German. I could hardly contain my enthusiasm. . . .
38
TABITHA:
NONE OF THE ABOVE
Two number-two pencils, a desk, and three Scantron sheets. Master Ji leaned against the castle wall, dressed like an anime character. Strawberry Pocky in one hand and a bottle of sugar-free Bawls in the other, he looked up from the book he had on autoscroll on his cell phone and then back down when I didn’t ask a question. He’d taped a sign to the stone next to him, but it was in Japanese or something and I couldn’t read it.
I sat at the desk, looking at question number one on my test:
1. You are very hungry and it is close to dawn. There are too many people around for you to reliably use a Vale of Scrythax to separate a human from the crowd without risking the notice of the other mortals. There are a few rats nearby upon which you could feed, but you find that distasteful. Choose the best option from the following list:
a. Go to bed without feeding in hopes that you can hunt better tomorrow. You think you can handle the thirst without losing control.
b. Try to ensnare a mortal anyway, using a Vale of Scrythax. You might get lucky.
c. Feed right out in the open and try to convince the crowd it’s a scene from a movie.
d. Feed on the rats.
“You guys must really think I’m special ed.” I looked up at Master Ji. “How did I even get into this dumb hypothetical situation to start with? Why am I not hunting with Eric . . . and if things are all that bad, why don’t I just feed off a thrall?”
Ji took a sip of the soda, the tangy scent of the taurine forcing me to blink my eyes against the fumes each time he opened the bottle to take a sip.
“Just fill it in,” Ji said.
I put an X in the oval on the Scantron sheet that contained the letter d.
I sighed. “Am I going to see my husband at all today?”
“Fill it in. Neatly.”
“Where’s Beatrice?” I thought I heard her, off in another building, but I couldn’t be certain.
“You’ll see her later, after the day’s testing.”
“But I’m cold.”
“You’re a vampire,” Ji told me. “Cold is your natural state. If you’re to be trusted as a free individual, you’ll have to demonstrate your ability to function without the presence or assistance of thralls or your sire.”
I carefully filled in the bubble for d, erased the portions of my X that overlapped the marked edges of the oval, and blew the tiny pinkish gray bits of eraser off the sheet.
Question two:
2. You’ve just made your first thrall. S/he is good at his (or her) job, but you decide it was a mistake. You’ve already killed your quota of mortals, so you cannot slay the thrall. What do you do? Choose the best option from the following list:
a. Kill the thrall anyway and hope the immortals don’t sense it.
b. Get another vampire to kill the thrall for you and promise you won’t hold it against her or him.
c. Lock the thrall in the basement and forget about him or her, or command the thrall to carry out a meaningless task that might attract attention.
d. Learn to live with the thrall and remember the lesson for the future, then deal with the thrall appropriately when you are allowed another kill.
I filled in d and rolled my eyes at the next few questions, answering d to all of them. It was simple stuff, the purportedly correct answers obvious based on tone, if not context. An idiot could pass it.
“Is this one of those tests where I can just go through the whole thing checking d?”
“Believe it or not . . .” Master Ji set down his drink, took a bite of his Pocky, and continued speaking. “There are many vampires who do not pass the written portion of the test.”
“Why?”
“They’ve changed too much.” He picked up the exam and flipped through it. “Some find it impossible to give the same answer over and over again. Others have become arrogant predators who find the idea of even pretending not to do what they want to do unfathomable. Others refuse to finish it or to take the testing seriously at all. They believe they are more important than the billions of mortals living in Europe, that they are somehow better just because they are longer-lived and more of a burden on their fellow beings.”
“Oh.” Was I guilty of thinking myself more important than normal people? Probably. “May I have my test back, please?”
The papers rustled as Ji returned them, and I set my mind on the task of completing the test. The answers weren’t all d; they changed to b halfway through and then to a at the three-quarter mark. The answer to question two hundred and fifty was c.
“What next?”
“The essay.” He provided more paper and let me sharpen my pencils. “Please write an essay explaining why you haven’t asked me what this means.” Ji tapped the sign he’d taped on the wall. I said Eric’s favorite words and started writing.
“Master Ji?” I asked.
“Yes?”
“Is it all going to be like this?”
“Not all of it,” he said. “Tomorrow night we’re going to watch an educational video.”
I bit my tongue and went back to the essay.
39
ERIC:
WHY ERIC WON’T ANSWER THE PHONE
I spent my first ten minutes at the Louvre trying to understand why some dumbass put up a glass pyramid and the next ten staring at the
thing while Aarika tried to explain it to me. I don’t understand; I probably never will.
I’d used my tour guide and my free time running about Paris to find places Tabitha would like so that I could do them with her once she was all free and clear, since we’d only have two nights. Yeah. I know. I’m a total fucking sweetheart. Once Aarika understood the concept, she’d actually been fairly helpful.
Oh, and by the way, France sucks. How vampires put up with everything closing so damn early, I’ll never know. Nightclubs and restaurants are open, but what if you want to buy a CD, a book, or a DVD? You’re SOL, that’s what. You’d think they’d have used their pull to push back the closing time on the city. Not so much.
One thing I do like about France is the scenery. You can’t buy a plasma screen television at 8:30 p.m., but the city will entertain you with her architecture alone.
Then again, I like old buildings. It’s humbling to stand on top of a structure older than your country. Okay, humbling for some people. But, to quote one of my favorite movies: “I ain’t people.”
“Eric!” Aarika shouted at me from the lower platform. I pretended I couldn’t hear her, but she knew I could. “Eric, get down from zere.”
I stood on top of the Eiffel Tower, on night number last of Tabitha’s big test, attracting attention to myself and watching Singin’ in the Rain on my iPod. Gene Kelly danced across my tiny screen and I mimicked his movements. Only an American would be standing where I was, right on top of the tallest antenna. Well, okay, I do know a Swede who might do it, but he’s crazy and I’m pretty sure he’s dead.
Gene swung on a lamppost; I jumped up and down on the television mast, playing havoc with everyone’s reception and trying not to break any of the antennas. Not showing up on security cameras is a real benefit sometimes.
“Come and get me, bitch!” I yelled into the night, more to Lisette than Aarika, but my immortal tour guide didn’t have to know that. “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?” That’s the longest sentence I know in French. I was tired of being on top of the Eiffel Tower, tired of being in France, and even more put out that no one was showing up to play.
My plan had been simple. Fly to Paris. Spend a night or three taking Tabitha to all the little romantic spots that tourists can go at night. By night four, big badass uber vamp was supposed to show up and fight me or talk or I don’t know—something! On night five Tabitha and I would make love in the Eiffel Tower after it closed and then we’d fly back to the good old US of A on night six or seven. Here on night three, my sire’s failure to appear was pissing me off, and Tabitha’s stupid exam had almost completely ruined our supposed honeymoon.
Vampires can “announce” themselves mentally to other vampires. Or did I already tell you that? Well, either way, I had been doing it every night in different parts of the city, basically anywhere Aarika and I went, and still no dice. Eventually some local vamp would come along to either fight or to ask me politely to fuck off. La Bête’s grant of free rein to kill vampires was the only thing keeping me sane. Speaking of which . . .
A dead guy popped into my head. Two Drones, five Soldiers, and a Master vamp landed at the bottom of the television mast before shouting up at me in angry French. One of them said something about a futon, and his groupies laughed.
My eyes flashed (they do that a lot) and I ghosted, flying down past Aarika (but not without giving her a wave and a smile as I flew by), and materialized in front of the Master vampire. He dressed better than I ever would, and he looked like he thought that made him better than me. Other vamps feel the powers and ages of other vampires in different ways. I think Greta actually gets birthdays and stuff, but I get more of a comparative feeling. For example, this guy’s felt like Bruce Dickinson’s announcement that he was leaving Iron Maiden, but before he did the Raising Hell farewell concert. In other words, somewhere around seventeen years or so ago, Jean-Philippe had impressed someone enough for them to make him immortal.
“Verdammt vampires!” Aarika bellowed as she waited on the elevator. I paid her no mind and neither did my new friend, Jean-Philippe.
As Aarika neared, the air wavered and a shimmer spread out from me and my fellow combatants. She’d opened a Vale of Scrythax. Vales were supposed to show the area as Scrythax remembered it, but thanks to the Eye of Scrythax I had buried in my chest, each Vale I entered got a happy little update. I had a feeling Old Headless could pick and choose, but had decided to be annoying.
“Parlez-vous anglais?” I asked the Master vamp.
“Non,” he lied. I punched him in the face, showed him my fangs.
“Sure you do,” I said. I swept his feet out from under him, tagging him again with my right fist on his way down. “I only asked to be polite.”
Having thralls was just chock-full of benefits. If I remember to check (and I rarely do) I could tell where my vampiric offspring were and how they were doing. I could even sense when they got themselves into trouble. It juiced up the old vampire early warning system, too.
Vlads and Master vamps can sense other vampires, whether or not they announce themselves. Before my first thrall, I got faces, names, and relative ages. With practice, I learned to get a whole lot more. During my short time in France, Aarika’d taught me to weed out the bloodsuckers that spoke only French from the ones that just didn’t want to let on that they understood English.
Jean-Philippe was one of the latter. He and his goons sped up. Vampires in France were faster than the ones back home, but they also weren’t as strong. His goon squad tore into me, and my own speed increased. Every other vampire I know can speed up at will; it’s decision based, like diving for home or going from a walk to a run. They’re just always that fast if they want to be.
My powers are a little less fickle than they once were, now that I have a memento mori. The closer I am to Fang, the more reliable my powers. QED, the farther I am away from him, the more flaky they are. And since from Paris to Void City is about four thousand five hundred miles . . . I think you get the picture. Total flakesville.
They ripped and tore at me, but despite the pain I wasn’t concerned. It’s hard to kill a Vlad if you don’t know how, and even harder to kill an Emperor like me. I could remember being staked, beheaded, burned alive, dowsed in holy water, and even blown up by blessed charges of C4 by people and things with a much greater desire to see me dead than these fashion victims. No, I wasn’t worried. I caught two vampires by their throats, one in each hand, and roared as I squeezed, fingers sinking through the flesh to touch the bony spine beneath. A sharp, high-velocity flick of the wrist sent their heads right off onto the metal floor. See? There’s the speed! It worked for a whole second. Anger seems to help. So much for Singin’ in the Rain.
Twin jets of blood splattered the Eiffel Tower’s brown girders. Jean-Philippe went into instant retreat, turned into a bat, and flew. One thing I had learned about French vampires was that they didn’t try to kill each other. It was about skill and who was better, not like in the States. Compared to them we’re animals, unless you count some of the nonfatal punishments they come up with to entertain each other. It wasn’t surprising that Jean-Philippe would run once he realized I was the crazy American vampire that la Bête du Gévaudan had given a free pass. It came as a total shock that his five remaining buddies tried to cover his escape.
I locked eyes with one of the Drones and ordered, “Allez!” I hadn’t been able to kill a Drone since the werewolves killed . . . I don’t know . . . somebody important. A guy, I think? Name starts with a K? I couldn’t remember his face, yet all of their faces reminded me of his, the dull little gleam to their eyes, the light that had gone out rather than burning brighter . . . I just couldn’t do it. The first Drone ran and the second one went with him before I’d even sent the order. That left me and the last three Soldiers.
They fought well, and they were used to working together. One of them favored some kind of freaky kickboxing. It was cool and deadly. I’ve had very little martial training si
nce Korea. Fortunately for me, turning into the uber vamp is something of an equalizer, even if it does take a little bit for the old uber vamp juice to get flowing.
My skin went gray, moving steadily toward black, and I grew in size. Fancy-Footwork Boy kicked me off the Eiffel Tower (my fault for letting my mind wander) and the transformation sped up. Purple-eyed and grinning, I flew back toward the three Soldiers. In France they call them les Chevaliers. Even with the fuzzy state of my brain, I remembered that it meant “knights.” I also recalled the name of the kickboxing style Soldier Number One had been using on me. It was called savate. It’s funny, the things I remember. He kicked me in the head and it crossed my eyes. Not that I haven’t taken an injury like that before.
This time something was different. There was a pop and a hiss, followed by a strong odor, gunpowder and something else and then more pain, hot and burning all through my sinuses, as if someone had lit a pair of bottle rockets and shot them up my nose. Pop. Hiss. Ow.
I felt another vampire, a Vlad. She was on Aarika in seconds, moving with impressive speed. Aarika armored up, but even as her weapon manifested, the new Vlad was taking it away from her and pinning her to the Eiffel Tower with it. The new Vlad reminded me of “99 Luftballons” by Nena. Then again, that could have been Aarika, because she’s German. Something about the newcomer reminded me of the last episode of M*A*S*H, too.
Stars flared in front of my eyes. The Vale of Scrythax was dissolving around us. The Soldier I was fighting tried to use the opening to leave, but the new Vlad broke his neck from behind and pulled his head off. His body rotted so fast, it looked almost as though he’d just turned to dust, a swirl of particles in the night. My face felt hot. Beads of red ran down my forehead and I touched one and the gunpowder smell melded with a sweeter one—cinnamon. I closed my eyes. The fight went on without me, but the newcomer didn’t need my help. In my head she blew me a kiss. She seemed so familiar.