by Alex Bledsoe
But she didn’t regret it. As her own deathly rest claimed her, she smiled at the memory. She had given, and been taken, and it was all right. Her body was a fair exchange for being given back the sunlight.
CHAPTER 28
ZGINSKI SAID TO Olive, “And so, my dear, please tell us where your friend Toddy acquired the gray powder.”
They stood in the warehouse shadows shortly after night-fall, in a loose circle around Olive. She had on a hot pink tank top and white denim pants, and clearly relished the attention. With her hands on her hips she said, “I suppose I’ve kept you in suspenders long enough. Toddy got his stuff . . .”
She paused, then giggled. “Sorry, y’all just look so goddam serious. Anyway, Toddy got his stuff . . .”
Again she paused and giggled.
“Olive,” Mark warned.
“Okay, okay, sorry. He got it at the Red Palace.”
Mark and Fauvette exchanged a puzzled look. Leonardo said, “Say what?” Zginski merely folded his arms and waited for more.
“He went there for the laser shows,” Olive continued. “He did love his hippie music. And I think he used to stay after everyone left to run around and mess with stuff. They got mummies there, you know.”
“I take it this ‘Red Palace’ is a museum?” Zginski said.
“Yes,” Mark said. “Downtown, by the river. They have laser shows in the planetarium. Kids go to get stoned and watch the pretty lights.”
“Is a ‘planetarium’ something like an orrery?” Zginski asked.
“An ornery what?” Leonardo asked.
“It displays the motions of the stars and planets,” Zginski explained.
“Yeah, that’s it,” Olive said.
Zginski nodded. “And a laser is . . . ?”
“A really skinny beam of light,” Mark said.
Zginski nodded, although the explanation meant nothing to him. “Then we should visit this Red Palace and its planetarium, and see what we may discover about your friend’s activities there.”
“All of us?” Leonardo asked, clearly a challenge.
Zginski merely smiled. “Of course. Friends can always be trusted.” He offered his arm to Fauvette, and after refusing to meet Mark’s perplexed gaze, she took it.
Lee Ann slept the day away in the back of the truck. She had pulled on her T-shirt at some point, but otherwise had not moved. The sun shone directly on the camper all afternoon, and the hot air had no way to escape, so she was covered in sweat and weaker than she could ever recall. Her dreams were almost-nightmares of clawing through choking dirt toward the distant air above, where something wonderful awaited her.
When Zginski opened the hatch over the tailgate she did not stir, and he had to speak her name twice before she awoke. Even then her eyelids fluttered for several moments before finally opening. She stretched, displaying far more bare flesh than she probably intended, and said through her yawn, “Fuck, I’m thirsty.”
Then she stared at the faces peering in at her and clutched the rest of her clothes to protect her modesty. “What’s going on?”
“We are visiting the Red Palace,” Zginski said.
“We are?” she said blankly. “Why?”
“For nothing you need be concerned with.” He climbed over the tailgate and into the camper. Fauvette followed. Mark started to comment, but Fauvette caught his eye and shook her head. He scowled, but did not force the issue.
Zginski stroked Lee Ann’s sweaty, tangled hair. “Fauvette has need of you, Lee Ann.”
“What about you?” she said, reaching tentatively to touch his face.
“At the moment, I wish for you to give yourself to Fauvette as thoroughly as you do to me.”
Lee Ann’s disappointment was obvious, but she obediently began to remove her T-shirt. Fauvette put a hand on her arm. “That’s okay,” she said softly. “What I need doesn’t require you to be naked.” She guided Lee Ann back down and bent to her old bite on the girl’s neck. The truck rattled to life as Fauvette replenished what she’d lost with Zginski.
“Thirsty,” Lee Ann whimpered, so quietly it was lost in the road noise. “Please, I’m so thirsty . . .”
They returned to the apartment complex where Danielle Roseberry lived after filling a gas can, buying jumper cables, and letting Lee Ann drink a half gallon of orange Gatorade. The remains of the burned-out car had been removed, leaving only a patch of scorched pavement. Zginski considered asking Dr. Roseberry to join their expedition, but decided one less person to watch out for would be better.
Lee Ann’s car would not start until she put some gasoline directly into the carburetor; then it rumbled to life. Zginski and Fauvette rode with her, while Mark, Leonardo, and Olive followed in the truck.
The route took them along the riverfront, past the bridge to Arkansas and the flat-topped, round form of the Mid-South Coliseum. At last they entered a genteel neighborhood of parks and manor houses, and turned down a winding driveway. Ahead the Red Palace waited, illuminated by safety lights and the parking lot’s streetlamps.
The Red Palace was aptly named, since it had been constructed in 1920 out of red bricks, with its elaborate wooden trim painted a darker crimson. The parking lot faced the main entrance, located in the center of the rectangular five-story building. At the far end a round structure, like the dot atop a lowercase “i,” stood set off from the main edifice. This was the Hoving Planetarium, attached to the museum itself by a single enclosed corridor. There were several cars already parked, and a group of teenagers waited outside the domed planetarium building.
Mark parked beside Lee Ann’s car, and when Zginski emerged he and Lee Ann were in the midst of an argument.
“I don’t know why!” Lee Ann snapped. “It’s just a song on the radio!”
“But it makes no sense,” Zginski insisted. “If he is in the desert alone, for apparently days, why would he not name his horse?”
“A problem?” Mark asked Fauvette.
“Culture shock,” she replied, and rolled her eyes.
Zginski stepped close to Lee Ann. “Wait for us in the automobile.”
“But—” she started to protest.
He touched the hollow of her throat, very lightly. She gasped. “Wait,” he repeated, and she nodded.
Mark bent to Fauvette’s ear and whispered, “Can we talk?”
“Later,” she said, and patted his hand.
Zginski turned to the others. “I do not know precisely what we seek here. Perhaps someone who knew your friend, and can relate more of his activities. Perhaps the very person behind his death. I ask that you each keep your eyes open for anything that might provide us with a clue. I never met the late Toddy, so only you would know his potential behavior.”
“And then we come tell you, is that it?” Leonardo said.
“That would be wise.”
“Huh,” Leonardo snorted.
Zginski fixed his eyes on him, but his tone stayed even. “The mind behind this is well aware of us. He understands more about how we exist than any of you do; perhaps even more than I. I would not choose to face him alone, and on his terms. It would therefore be unwise for you to do so.”
“How do you know it’s a ‘him’?” Olive asked.
“I do not,” Zginski agreed. “In fact, I know nothing, and will learn nothing out here. Come.” He led them toward the sidewalk that ran along the front of the museum building, past its main entrance.
Leonardo touched Mark’s sleeve as they walked, and Mark dropped back a few steps. “Dude seem a lot more mellow than he was?” Leonardo asked softly.
Mark shrugged. “Mellow how?”
“Like he got him some last night.”
“We were with him until sunup,” Mark said, bristling at the suggestion. “When would he have gotten it?”
“Dunno, man. Just sayin’ what I’m seein’.”
Ahead, Fauvette walked beside Zginski, their hands repeatedly brushing. Was Mark seeing things, or did they both spread their fingers to
ensure the brief moment of contact?
They passed the four great columns that supported the balconied porch over the museum entrance. An informative bronze plate attached to one of them explained that the color scheme was the direct request of the man who put up the money for the construction.
Zginski suddenly stopped, turned, and went back to the plate. The others watched him read it again, running his fingers over a particular name. At last Olive said, “Hell, even I could’ve read all that boring shit by now. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Zginski said distractedly. “A name I did not expect to encounter.”
Olive peered past him and read aloud, “ ‘Sir Francis Colby.’ Friend of yours?”
“Hardly,” Zginski said. Then he strode toward the planetarium so quickly the others had to rush to keep up.
Fifteen people gathered outside the double doors embossed with stars and ringed planets. All but two were male, and most had long hair, scruffy clothes, and glazed, red-rimmed eyes. A distinct, sweet-smelling smoke hung in the air. Many sported scraggly facial hair and T-shirts proclaiming things Zginski could not identify. He wondered at the cultural significance of Frampton coming alive; perhaps it was a religious cult built around the curly-haired messiah splashed across the girl’s ample chest.
“Is it Zeppelin tonight?” one of the boys asked.
“Naw,” his friend replied, chewing a mouthful of Frito’s chips. “I think it’s Parliament.”
“Who?”
“One of them big funky bands, with the horns and everything.”
“It’s not Zep?” a third man asked, his voice rising with his outrage. “Or Floyd?”
“Shit,” the first man said. “Parliament. Figures it’d be nigger music.”
His friend jabbed him in the ribs and pointed to Olive and Leonardo. “It’s cool,” he said in exaggerated street talk, so that the final word actually came out “coo.” They turned away with ashamed casualness.
“Stoned white crackers,” Leonardo muttered. “I must not be living right if I got to hang out with them.”
“You ain’t living at all,” Olive pointed out.
“That’s a natural fact,” he agreed. “Least the show should be good. Parliament,” he said with a grin.
“Can you translate this conversation for me?” Zginski said softly to Fauvette.
“They’re talking about different music they use during the show. Parliament is the name of a band.”
“Ah. It’s not the one who sings about nameless horses in the desert, is it?”
“I doubt it.”
“Good.”
An attendant, not much older than most of the kids, opened the door and began collecting admission. He exchanged soul handshakes with several of the patrons, obviously regulars. Zginski paid for them all with money taken from Lee Ann. The attendant stared at them as they entered, but said nothing.
“Did you notice the eyeball that boy gave us?” Leonardo asked Mark.
“Yeah, like he knew us. Did you ever come here with Toddy?”
“Course not. You?”
“No.”
They milled about in the lobby, whose walls were painted with a panorama of the solar system. Tiny lights set within it twinkled to mimic the stars. The ceiling was domed in imitation of the actual planetarium, although it was decorated only with ridges that ran to a central point, like the vaulted ceiling of a church.
Zginski said to Fauvette, “The man who accepted our admission seemed unduly concerned with us. Do you think you can find out why?”
She shrugged. “Olive’s a lot better at getting men to—”
“Olive is a fool. I have more faith in your judgment.”
She shrugged again. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do. Save me a seat inside.”
The doors to the actual planetarium were opened by a middle-aged woman, who stepped wearily aside to let the kids enter. She had the same look of disdain for all of them, and paid Zginski and the others no special notice. They took up one whole row, with an empty seat between Zginski and Mark for Fauvette. The sweet-smelling odor grew stronger as homemade cigarettes flared to life all around them in the semidarkness.
Zginski sniffed, then softly asked Mark, “What is that?”
“Dope,” Mark said.
Zginski blinked in surprise, then fired back, “Muck-snipe.”
“No, they’re smoking dope,” Mark explained. A couple of people looked back and glared at him between tokes. More quietly he said, “Marijuana. It’s like tobacco, except it gets you high.”
“Ah,” Zginski said, and nodded. He studied the elaborate projector mechanism, unaware or unconcerned that Mark continued to stare at him. Wow, Mark thought, he has mellowed out. Maybe he’s been smoking dope and just didn’t know what it was.
Fauvette leaned against the wall as the crowd entered the auditorium. She slipped her hands into her jeans’s pockets and pushed out her hip, maximizing her seductive pose. She wore a white sleeveless jersey with a daisy design, and tugged down the front to show off her cleavage. She waited for the young man to notice her.
He closed the front doors, rattled them to make sure they’d latched, then turned and stopped. The doors to the auditorium closed as well, leaving him alone with Fauvette.
“Uh . . . can I help you?” he said. He fidgeted in place, first crossing his arms and then sticking his hands in his own pockets. He had a pimply neck and the kind of greasy hair that no amount of washing could fully contain. If he’d worn glasses he would’ve been a textbook nerd, but his eyes were big, green, and clear.
Fauvette pushed herself off the wall. His nervousness made her uneasy as well; she had exerted no power over him, and unless he was simply terrified of girls—which was possible—he had no reason to act this way. “I noticed you staring at me when I came in,” she said, careful to keep her distance. She reached out with her power tentatively, to see if she met any resistance. “I thought you were cute, too.”
He licked his lips, but did not appear to be succumbing; the front of his jeans remained resolutely unlifted. She took a step closer. “What’s your name?”
“David,” he said, and glanced toward the doors that led directly into the museum. A sign marked them for AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. “My name’s David.”
“It’s okay if you’ve got a girlfriend, David. I won’t tell, and we can have plenty of fun.”
He took a matching step away from her. He knew what she was, that much was clear, and seemed to be immune to her nosferatic power. Trying to seduce him would not accomplish anything. She could call for help, or . . .
What would Zginski do?
She flew across the room and pressed him back into the wall. He was almost as tall as Mark, but she closed one hand around his neck, while the other clutched his genitals. Both grips were like iron. She pulled him down until his face was level with hers, his gawky knees splayed wide.
“You knew we’d show up, David,” Fauvette whispered. “Who told you about us?”
“Th-the old man,” he hissed, his hands flattened against the wall. He was covered in sweat, and she worried he would lose bladder control as well. She’d seldom seen anyone so afraid. He kept looking at the door to the museum.
“What old man?” she asked, her voice still soft.
And he told her.
• • •
The lights inside the arena suddenly dimmed, and a sea of stars appeared on the ceiling above them. For a moment they were stationary, then they began to spin clockwise as music blared forth from hidden speakers. Someone yelled, “Yee-hah!”
The show was entrancing. From the zooming passage through stars and galaxies to the abstract patterns of narrow beams of light, Zginski watched with childlike delight. The music was tribal, primitive, and yet relentlessly upbeat, extolling the virtues of that mysterious “funk” and insisting that the band could “tear the roof off the sucker.”
He glanced at the other patrons. Some were awestruck, some giggled, and some, he was a
mazed to see, appeared to be asleep. One girl ate a bag of potato chips with such gusto, he wondered if she had been on a religious fast.
Several minutes into the show Fauvette appeared, climbed past Zginski, and settled into her seat. Mark turned to speak to her, but she ignored him and leaned close to Zginski.
“There’s some weird stuff happening,” she said over the music. “We need to get out of here so we can talk.”
He nodded. Although he hated to leave this spectacular presentation, he was far more interested in Fauvette’s report. He stood, she followed, and after a moment Mark and the rest did as well.
In the deserted lobby the music was still loud, but they could speak without shouting. “What have you learned?” Zginski asked.
“David, that’s the guy’s name, said he was told to watch out for people who had the same look as Toddy,” Fauvette said. “Pale, dark eyes, you know.”
“He knew Toddy?” Mark asked.
She nodded. “Said Toddy was a regular, and used to sneak out during the show and prowl the museum. At first David would chase him out, but then he was told to leave him alone.”
“Told?” Zginski said. “By whom?”
“An old man who works nights in the antiquities collection. David only works here on the weekends to see the show for free and score some weed, so he doesn’t know the man’s name, just that he’s important.”
“Then I assume this old man in antiquities works weekends as well,” Zginski said.
She nodded. “David says he’s here every Saturday.”
“Think he’s our vampire pusher?” Mark asked.
“Possibly,” Zginski said. “Did your friend describe him?”
“Said he was old, really old. Could barely move around. He has a big mustache and long white hair.”
“And that is all?”
Fauvette paused. She’d read the story of Zginski’s imprisonment, and seen his reaction to the name on the plate, so she knew how he’d respond. “And he’s British.”
“British,” Zginski repeated softly.
“Yeah.”
Zginski could not speak for a long moment. Only one mustache-wearing Englishman could be smart enough to create this powder, and clever enough to distribute it so discreetly. An Englishman who had once destroyed a vampire long ago in Wales, and would no doubt know that this same vampire was now walking the night again.