by Alex Bledsoe
Zginski turned to Fauvette. “You said there were three others. Where is this ‘Mark’?”
“Don’t you drop a dime on him, Fauvette!” Leonardo warned. “That boy’s been good to you.”
“Shut up, Leo, until you know what you’re talking about,” she said wearily. She pointed toward the offices, a walled-off section of the main room. “He sleeps in there.”
Zginski strode toward it. Fauvette rushed to catch up. “Let me talk to him first,” she said quickly. “He might get mad if—”
“His anger does not concern me,” Zginski said as he reached for the office door.
Suddenly a metal folding chair struck him with vehicular force across the back of his head. He fell to his knees, dazed by a blow that would’ve decapitated a mortal. Leonardo raised the chair again, but before he could strike Zginski shoved him against the nearest wall hard enough to crack the cement.
“No!” Fauvette screamed and grabbed for Zginski a moment too late.
Zginski hit Leonardo again at full speed, ramming him back into the wall. The crack traveled up to the ceiling and dislodged an old light fixture that crashed beside them. Leonardo’s hands were around Zginski’s throat, while Zginski held Leonardo under the arms, his feet off the ground.
“Stop it!” Fauvette shrieked. Neither acknowledged her.
Then Olive struck Zginski across the back with a two-by-four. The wood snapped like a dry twig, and Zginski pivoted, using Leonardo’s dangling feet to knock Olive aside. He then threw Leonardo the length of the huge room, this time into the sliding metal door. Olive rushed to his aid.
“Leo, please!” Fauvette cried. “He’s just playing with you. You don’t know what he’s capable of!”
“I don’t give a fuck,” Leonardo said coldly. “I ain’t playing, and he’s about to find that out.”
Zginski smiled at this. “You are right, Fauvette. They do not know. Let me demonstrate.”
And then suddenly he was gone, and a huge wolf stood in his place. There was no gradual change of shape, no moment of transition. One moment a man stood there, and the next an animal. Its fur was black, and its eyes reflected the moonlight. Its lips peeled back and it growled, a deep rumble that vibrated in their chests.
Leonardo and Olive froze under the animal’s gaze. Fauvette gasped, her eyes wide.
“This is some jive-ass trick,” Leonardo said, but his voice was barely more than a whisper. “It ain’t real.”
The wolf padded toward him. In the night’s silence, the sound of its paws on the concrete rang through the warehouse. A broken bit of PVC piping clattered as the wolf pushed it aside. It stopped again and growled low and deep.
“Can’t nobody turn into no wolf,” Leonardo said, his voice even softer. His eyes never left the animal, and he stayed pressed into the metal door where he’d landed.
Then, just as before, Zginski stood in place of the wolf: no puff of smoke, no flash of light, just suddenly there. “ This is some of what I am capable of,” he said calmly. “Do you need more?”
“That wasn’t real,” Leonardo insisted, his voice rising as he pulled himself free of the metal. “And I ain’t puttin’ up with this massah bullshit, even if he turns into goddam George Wallace. He best start treatin’ me with some respect.”
As Zginski opened his mouth to reply, Fauvette stepped between them and said, “He’s right. You treat Lee Ann better than this. Leo is my friend, and if you don’t respect him, then you don’t respect me.”
Leonardo snapped, “Hey, I don’t need no white honky bitch to—”
“You do right now,” she fired back.
Zginski nodded toward Leonardo. “To gain my respect, he must control his attitude.”
“Do you mean ‘shut up’?” she asked.
Zginski nodded. “That is a start.”
She turned to Leonardo. “Leo, I’m asking you as a personal favor to me, as payback for that time I shared that van full of hippies with you, to please stop talking for a while.”
“Leo, the man just turned into a goddam husky right in front of us,” Olive added.
“That was a wolf, Olive,” Leonardo sighed wearily. But he finally nodded.
Fauvette sighed with relief. “Thank you.”
“Hey, shouldn’t all these balls clacking together have woken up Mark?” Olive said. “He’s usually out here if one of us blinks too loud.”
“She’s right,” Fauvette said to Zginski. Without waiting for his permission, she opened the door to the old office.
The enclosed space was neater than anywhere else in the warehouse. Mark’s books were stacked on shelves, and his clothes arranged in the huge desk’s drawers. His coffin leaned against the wall at a forty-five-degree angle, blocked from view by a filing cabinet. It wasn’t as secure as the coffins in the basement, but a casual look would not spot it.
“So this is where your leader lives,” Zginski said disdainfully.
“Yeah,” Fauvette said.
“Then I shall meet him.” Zginski pushed the coffin lid aside. Fauvette gasped.
Mark had vomited blood in his sleep, and the dark liquid had dried down the side of his face and soaked into his clothes. His cheeks were sunken and cadaverous. A vampire at rest mimicked a fresh corpse, but Mark looked truly, genuinely dead. Losing Toddy had been sad, but to lose Mark would be a genuine tragedy; in a tiny, trembling voice Fauvette said, “Mark?”
He slowly opened his eyes and turned his head as if the effort overwhelmed him. When he saw Fauvette, he smiled. His teeth were coated with dried blood.
“Hey,” he croaked. “You came back.”
“What happened to you?” she said, brushing disheveled hair back from his forehead.
He smiled again. “I was a bad boy. I went prowling and found your stash.”
She felt her stomach drop. “No, Mark . . .”
“I just took a taste, just a taste . . .”
“Of the gray powder?” Zginski asked.
Mark nodded, then frowned. “Hey, who’s this guy?”
Fauvette ignored the question and reached for his arm. “C’mon, you need to get cleaned up.”
He laughed weakly. “That’s a switch, isn’t it? You saying that to me . . .”
Fauvette helped Mark from his coffin and into the old desk chair. He slumped over, elbows on his knees, as if he’d pass out any moment. “That stuff is some heavy shit,” he said. “I never felt anything like that. It was awful . . . but sweet, too.”
“Where is the powder now?” Zginski asked.
Mark looked up suspiciously. “And exactly who are you?”
“He’s okay,” Fauvette said quickly. “And he’s smarter than us about some things.”
“I want to identify the powder,” Zginski said, “and find its source. Its properties are clearly a danger to us all.”
“I dunno . . . maybe it’s all for the best, Fauvette, like you said. We are dead, after all.”
Zginski started forward impatiently, intending to assert himself with Mark as he had with Leonardo, but Fauvette grabbed him by the collar and pulled him back. “No,” she hissed, “you will not hurt him.”
“I will have my answers,” Zginski said, and slapped her hand away.
“Yeah, you will, but first we’ll make sure Mark’s okay.” She trembled a little, but she’d finally had enough of his snotty continental attitude. “Unless you intend to throw me around like you did Leo.”
Slowly Zginski smiled and bowed his head. “Very well. Let us first attend to your friend.”
They stood him up and walked him around a little to clear his head. Fauvette got him a clean shirt, and he washed the dried blood from his face. He phoned the store to tell them he was sick. He would need to feed soon, but otherwise he appeared past the crisis.
Then he removed the bag of gray powder from his pocket and handed it to Zginski. “Don’t try it,” Mark warned. “Not even a taste.”
“I have no intention,” he said.
“Who are you ag
ain?” Mark asked.
“He’s Rudy Zginski,” Fauvette said. “He’s been around for centuries, and he knows a lot more about things than we do, trust me. A lot more.” She couldn’t wait to tell Mark about the sun, and the sweet taste of blood willingly given. But this was definitely not the time.
“That a fact,” Mark said, and weakly offered his hand. “Well, then, pleased to meet you.”
Zginski ignored him as he studied the texture of the powder in the bag. “I have never seen anything like this,” he said softly. “And none of you has any idea of its origin?”
“If you mean where it came from,” Leonardo said from the office door, “all I know is that cracker nut-job Toddy showed up with it about a month ago. Never said where he got it.”
“Then we must know its nature in order to know its source,” Zginski said, turning the bag in his hand and watching the flakes catch the moonlight.
“And how do we do that?” Mark asked. “Toddy’s dead. The real kind of dead. Who do we ask?”
Zginski smiled a little. “You will enjoy this, Fauvette. I am about to admit that I have made . . . an error.”
CHAPTER 21
DANIELLE AWOKE FACEDOWN again, only this time it wasn’t hard concrete beneath her but a soft familiar mattress. She rose up with a start, looked around, and saw that she was in her own bedroom, lit only by the glow from the streetlamp through the window. Her old teddy bear, complete with surgical mask, watched her from atop her dresser. For one brief, blessed instant she thought that perhaps the whole experience had been a dream inspired by a bad barbecue sandwich. Then she tried to move and felt the same tight, aching pain in the muscles of her rear end and knew it had been real. She clutched the lace-edged pillow and began to cry.
The bedroom door opened a crack, and a sliver of yellow light cut across the floor and the foot of the bed. Someone peered into the room and said softly, “Danny?”
“Leslie?” Danielle whimpered.
Leslie entered the room and turned on a lamp by the door. She was still dressed for work, which in her case meant she looked like a cross between Perry Mason and Foxy Brown. She placed a glass of wine on the nightstand before kneeling and taking Danielle’s hand.
“Hey,” she said gently. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”
Danielle looked around, as if the walls might dissolve into those of the awful warehouse. “How did you . . . ?”
“They found your car downtown. I’m friends with one of the patrol boys, so he let me know. Your office said you hadn’t been in today and hadn’t called in sick, so I came straight here. I found you passed out at your door and brought you inside. You looked like Evel Knievel had dragged you behind his motorcycle.”
Danielle nodded; Leslie did have the spare apartment key. “Did you see anyone else? A man with long hair, or a skinny teenage girl?”
Leslie shook her head. “No, you were alone.” After a moment she added, “I haven’t called an ambulance, but I think it’s a good idea. You’re hurt. Were you . . . ?”
The question hung for a moment before Danielle’s fuzzy brain deciphered it. “No, I don’t think so,” she said. “I mean . . . not how you mean.”
“It looks like you’ve been stabbed in the ass with an ice pick,” Leslie said. When Danielle looked at her in surprise she added, “I undressed you. Those punctures could be serious.”
“I’ll look at them in a little while,” Danielle said wearily.
Leslie picked up the glass. “I brought you a drink.”
The sight of the red fluid made her stomach churn. “No thanks.”
“You never drink . . . wine?” Leslie said in a Lugosi accent, trying to lighten the mood.
Danielle’s eyes opened wide, and she began to shake. Then she began to scream.
By the time she stopped, Leslie had crawled onto the bed with her and held her tight, trying to calm her down. A neighbor pounded on the wall for silence. “Whoa, Danny, it’s okay, it’s me, no one can hurt you now,” Leslie repeated firmly, stroking her friend’s hair. When she saw Danielle’s eyes had lost their glassy look she said, “Shit, girl, what was that all about? I’m calling that ambulance.”
“No!” Danielle cried, and clung tightly to her. “Don’t leave me, please.”
“I’m not leaving you, sweetie, but you need medical help. Then we can talk about whatever happened to you.” She reached for the phone beside the bed. “Every cop in Memphis will want in on this. Whoever did it won’t get far.”
“No!” Danielle repeated, only this time with an inexplicable edge of anger. Leslie jumped, then looked at her friend with shock.
“Wow,” she said softly. “I’m just trying to help, you know.”
“Jesus, will you just shut up?” Danielle said. She untangled herself from the sheets and climbed off the bed. “Just wait here, I’m going to go inspect the damage.”
Leslie nodded, continuing to stare at her.
Danielle turned the light on in the bathroom and shut the door. In the harsh illumination her pale body looked filthy, smeared with grime and blood. She turned so she could examine the wounds to her rear end, and saw that the bruises had faded quite a bit; how long had she been out? The actual bites were small and scabbed over, with no red streaks indicating any kind of infection.
She turned on the shower and, while she waited for the water to warm up, allowed herself to remember what had happened to her. The obvious truth, that she’d been assaulted by teen vampires, was too ludicrous for words, Occam be damned. Clearly these kids thought they were vampires, or enjoyed pretending to be, and they’d attacked her as if they really were. But vampires were fairy tales. The strange, overwhelming attraction she’d felt could’ve been simply the effects of the marijuana on her squeaky clean, and no doubt repressed, psyche.
Finally she stepped into the water. She turned it as hot as she could stand it, then began scrubbing from the top of her head down. She shampooed three times, then lathered up with disinfecting soap from work and rinsed her body until she felt less like a piece of rotted garbage. The puncture wounds stung, but did not reopen or bleed. If anything, they seemed to be closing up with surprising swiftness.
She stepped out, toweled herself dry, and brushed her short hair back from her face. She wiped the mist-covered mirror and saw the dark circles under her eyes and the red splotches all over her white skin. Still, she did not look too badly battered now, and if she continued to heal as quickly, she would be fine. She’d get herself checked for diseases, of course, but since she had not actually been raped, the chances of transmission were slight.
She let out a deep, long sigh. Maybe this would turn out to be nothing but a well-learned lesson. She began to feel giddy, realizing her unbelievable luck.
She pulled on her blue terry-cloth robe. It felt sumptuous against her skin, and she felt a flutter deep inside at its touch. That was weird, being turned on by just a bathrobe. The feeling passed, and she wrote it off as some delayed aspect of shock.
When she opened the bathroom door, the light fell across Leslie, who remained in the same spot on the bed. She looked up at Danielle with a puzzled, frightened expression, but said nothing.
“Sorry for snapping at you,” Danielle said as she went to her dresser. “I saw some crazy stuff last night, and I think I just barely avoided the ol’ ‘fate worse than death’ our moms always told us about.” She pulled out a pair of her baggiest, most comfortable cotton panties and pulled them on. “Guess I should pay more attention to my smart friends like you, huh?”
Leslie neither moved nor spoke. Her eyes were wide with what looked like terror, yet she said nothing. “Are you all right?” Danielle asked.
“I can’t move,” Leslie said in a flat monotone voice.
Chills ran down Danielle’s spine. She knew that tone, because it had been the very one she had used when under the influence of those . . . those people. She swallowed hard and had to take a deep breath before speaking. “Leslie . . . are they here?”
“No,” Leslie answered. “No one’s here but you. You told me to shut up and wait here. It’s all I can do.” Her full lips trembled, and her eyes grew shiny with unshed tears.
Danielle stood very still as she absorbed this. She looked away from Leslie, took a deep breath, and said, “Leslie, stand up.”
Leslie scooted to the edge of the bed and stood up. She did nothing else, her hands dangling at her sides. In the silent room, her rapid, panicky breathing was as loud as a furnace.
Danielle was suddenly at war with herself. Her decent side, the one that made her a responsible adult human being, told her to free her friend, apologize for her actions, and seek medical help. Whatever was happening wasn’t natural, and she had no guarantee it wasn’t also fatal. Yet the rush of power was intoxicating, more than the marijuana had been, more than any alcohol. Had surviving the previous night’s assault somehow gifted her with this ability? She felt no compulsion to drink Leslie’s blood, but the thought of controlling her . . .
No! her conscience demanded. Leslie is your friend, has been for years, she came over to help you, you can’t treat her like this.
Danielle licked her lips. Leslie’s fear was turning to anger, although it showed only in her eyes. Her hands swayed slightly as she fought to exert control over her body.
Just then, the phone beside the bed rang. Danielle picked it up and said, in a trembling voice, “Hello?”
“Boss?” Skitch said. “Is that you?”
“It’s me.”
“I heard you’d been . . . that you had some trouble. Are you all right?”
He sounded so worried it almost made her smile. “I’m fine,” she said. She imagined Skitch in the lounge at the morgue, hunched over the counter as he spoke, his scrub pants firm against his fine tight ass. She’d listened to the other women at work talk about how cute he was, and for the first time she realized she agreed with them. Now, if she controlled a hunk like him . . .
Then she did smile. It couldn’t hurt to try.
“Skitch,” she said carefully, “are things busy tonight?”