by Tara Moss
I didn’t quite understand what she was driving at. ‘But how are you so young then, if you’re not . . . Sanguine yourself?’
‘There are ways,’ she said significantly, and then winked. ‘I found myself growing old a few decades back. Naturally. And frankly, darling, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, as poor Hedy can attest. Now, thanks to my special friend, I am stronger and more beautiful than I ever was before,’ Celia declared.
‘But are you . . . happier, Great-Aunt Celia?’ I asked pointedly.
If I was expecting her to be wrestling with some kind of profound moral or spiritual dilemma, I was wrong. ‘Happier? Well, obviously,’ she answered without hesitation. ‘Why do you think “sanguine” came to mean cheerful all those years ago? Think about it.’
Oh, boy. Was that possible? What about Hippocrates and his ‘four humours’? Did he know about all this?
‘Of course I’m happier,’ my great-aunt scoffed, bringing me back from 400 BC. ‘Do you realise how frail I would be by now? So I’m allergic to garlic and a little light-sensitive. So what? It’s a small price to pay.’
I blinked.
‘It’s the dilated pupils,’ she explained, with some regret. ‘Great for night vision but a real pain during the day.’
Dilated pupils. Night vision. Exsanguination.
Buffeted by this flood of wild truths, I was struggling to keep up. If I understood the situation correctly, I was some kind of psychic medium living with my great-aunt whose friend the blood-sucking Sanguine kept her young. Somehow.
‘So your friend, Deus. He is one of these Sanguines . . .’
Celia smiled as if recalling a lover. ‘Indeed he is, darling. And a magnificent one. An ancient.’
Ancient. Oh boy. ‘So, he sucks the blood out of people and kills them?’
‘Kills them? Oh, no, darling. Why would he need to kill? Really, there are plenty of young women who are willing. And men too, of course, though that isn’t particularly to his taste.’
I gathered she meant ‘taste’ literally.
‘But he hasn’t made you . . . Sanguine?’ I said, to be sure.
‘No.’
‘And you don’t suck blood?’
‘No,’ she confirmed, to my relief.
‘So how come you aren’t ageing? I don’t get it.’
She sighed. ‘Oh, darling Pandora, use your imagination,’ she suggested.
‘My imagination is getting quite a workout lately,’ I replied flatly. ‘I only just found out that I really can see ghosts.’
‘Really? You only just found out? Be honest with yourself, dear.’
I thought about that. Of course she was right; I had known – and yet I had not known. ‘My parents – especially my dad – insisted such things didn’t exist.’
‘Oh, they were so short-sighted,’ Celia said regretfully. ‘Do try to get all of that out of your head now. It won’t help you here.’ She leaned forward. ‘Pandora, your mother must have known. I can’t believe she wouldn’t know about the beings beyond us. There are Sanguine all around the world, some of them quite culturally advanced, and some quite primitive and ferocious. I am sure she heard about those. Some of the cultures she studied are much more in touch with the undead than we are here in New York. The Otgiruru of Namibia and the Russian Erestun, for example.’ She watched my face and saw that these creatures weren’t ringing any bells. ‘Or the Draugs of Northern Europe. Oh, and the flesh-eating Craqueuhhe. Now that’s one nasty revenant. Give me a Sanguine any day,’ she mused.
‘I just thought they were only in books and movies,’ I replied quietly.
‘Well vampires are in books and movies, but like any good fictional cliché, they are based on at least a few truths. Some of the misconceptions about these Sanguine are just mistakes that caught on, a bit like “Chinese whispers”, as they call it. Others are rumours planted to make them look bad.’
‘Who would plant rumours?’
‘The Church. The . . . others,’ she said vaguely. Others. ‘Beings who are naturally opposed to the Sanguine,’ she clarified.
I thought of the book I’d been reading. ‘You mean werewolves?’
Celia laughed out loud. ‘Do you really think a mortal, half-crazed hairy dog-man would be a match for an “immortal” being? Please.’
Oh.
‘So there is, like, a supernatural eco-system?’ I said, trying not to think about what other beings might be out there.
‘Oh yes. Now you are getting it. We are all part of the eco-system. Only we humans choose to believe the supernatural doesn’t exist, and that makes it easier to assure us we are right. In the human brain, perceptions and belief – what you wish to perceive – has much to do with what you actually see. It works out better for everyone, really. People who can’t handle the existence of the supernatural usually don’t have to worry about it. Things happen to them and they just figure it’s coincidence, luck, or instinct, or their imagination.’
‘I see. So they aren’t about to come out of the closet – and drink synthetic blood?’
She sighed. ‘No. Nobody wants the crusades all over again, Pandora. Spektor, for instance, has been invisible to most common people since Barrett erected this building. It is a magnet for the spirit world, and it repels the consciousness of humans who reject the supernatural, like a blind spot. I find it quite remarkable, don’t you?’
I nodded emphatically. ‘I noticed that cabbies don’t really know about it.’
‘You have a genetic predisposition to sensitivity to the supernatural, just as I have. Just as your mother did.’
I had so many questions, I didn’t really know where to begin so I started with the most urgent question. ‘Celia, could your friend . . .’ I hesitated, careful not to sound hysterical. ‘Could he turn you into a vamp —’ I quickly corrected myself. ‘Could he make you Sanguine?’ I imagined opening my eyes in the middle of the night to find sweet Great-Aunt Celia leaning over me with giant fangs and a demonic look in her eye.
‘Of course. But he wouldn’t. He doesn’t want me as his child.’
‘What about me?’
‘You?’ Her eyebrows raised in an expression of genuine shock. ‘Darling, your Aunt Georgia would be so upset.’
That was true.
‘Not until you are at least twenty-one,’ Celia said firmly. ‘And only if you’re sure that’s what you really want. An immortal’s lifetime is awfully long. I know I wouldn’t want it.’
I could become immortal at twenty-one if I was really sure about it. And this was a real discussion, I could see. Well, Celia was very different from Aunt Georgia, that much was clear. I couldn’t help but like that. ‘Great-Aunt Celia, there is a young lady downstairs in this building named Samantha. She has fangs. Did Deus make her?’
Celia shook her head, seeming more than a little offended by the suggestion. ‘Oh no. Deus doesn’t like to propagate and he is much too ancient and powerful to make children by accident.’ Children? That was the second time she’d used the word in reference to someone being turned into a vamp. ‘Samantha was made by someone else.’
I had been afraid of that.
‘What do your instincts tell you?’ she asked, and regarded me shrewdly.
Athanasia is responsible, I thought. Athanasia is a vampire.
‘I’ve been told not to trust my instincts,’ I responded cautiously.
Celia rolled her eyes. ‘You aren’t in Gretchenville anymore, darling. Put all that nonsense behind you. And think,’ she pressed. ‘Feel. I can tell you have a name there. Trust it.’
I did as she said. ‘Well, I am sure that the woman down there is Samantha, my predecessor at Pandora magazine. And I’m sure she has been turned into . . .’ Celia nodded, encouraging me to continue. ‘And she was last seen at the photo shoot with Athanasia.’
‘Yes?’
‘So the face of BloodofYouth is a vampire?’ I asked. ‘I mean, a Sanguine?’ It would take a while to get used to the term.
‘
Just Sanguine. That’s how you say it. He is Sanguine, she is Sanguine, they are Sanguine.’ Celia continued to regard me intently, silently urging me to continue my deductions.
‘So, how does a . . . um . . . creature like that hide its nature from its employers? I suppose by only meeting people after dark, only ever doing photo shoots and launches after dark. Unless she doesn’t have to?’ I concluded, thinking of the woman in the back of the limousine. The woman with the high collar. ‘Because her employers are also…’ Could it be true? Could BloodofYouth really be run by a bunch of entrepreneurial vampires?
‘Exactly,’ Celia concluded.
‘Oh.’
I fell silent.
‘Well then,’ Celia said briskly, and stood. ‘Cup of tea?’ she suggested, and sauntered to the kitchen to put the kettle on.
I sat on the hassock, my mind reeling. ‘Poor Samantha,’ I said finally. I was glad that Morticia hadn’t had a moment alone with her supermodel crush. I followed Celia to the kitchen. ‘Why is Samantha downstairs?’
‘She is most likely an abandoned Fledgling,’ Celia explained, scooping aromatic leaves of English Breakfast tea into a teapot. What a time of day for breakfast tea, I thought. ‘Such behaviour is quite frowned upon in the supernatural community,’ Celia continued. ‘As you can imagine. The poor girl won’t know what she’s doing there.’
‘We’ll have to help her,’ I said.
Celia frowned, but didn’t say anything. The kettle came to the boil and she warmed two cups with hot water and let the tea steep in the pot.
‘You wish to help this Samantha?’ she asked at last.
‘Yes,’ I heard myself saying. Sure, she had tried to eat me, but she was so confused, I didn’t think she’d meant it. If the poor thing didn’t know where she was, or why she was so thirsty, she needed someone to help her.
‘You are a generous soul,’ Celia stated, and smiled as if this both pleased and bewildered her. ‘Well, if I can’t stop you from going down there, I ought to at least go with you,’ she suggested.
‘Oh, would you?’
‘All right. But let’s drink our tea first.’
I left the penthouse with my Great Aunt Celia around nine. Celia knew how to make one wicked pot of tea and I was as hopped up as I’d ever been. She insisted I change into something casual in case ‘things got messy’, as she put it. Obediently, I put on jeans, a T-shirt and an old sweater, though I noticed she still looked impossibly glamorous in a silk dress, silk stockings, Mary Jane shoes, buckled leather gloves, her fox stole and ubiquitous black veil. We each carried a torch and, strangely, she was carrying a small bag of rice.
‘Do you really think it’s safe to go down there?’ I asked, as we descended in the old lift.
‘Safe as it ever is, darling.’
I found this to be a less-than-comforting reply, under the circumstances.
‘Why the rice?’ I had to ask.
‘Here, you hold it,’ Celia said, and passed the bag to me.
It weighed more than I’d thought, and I made a brief exhalation of air upon receiving it. The doors opened on the third floor. The lights were on, but most of the gilded wall sconces were broken or lacking bulbs. The area was only dimly lit, and the whole landing seemed draped in dust.
‘There are two important things you should know about these particular creatures,’ Celia explained. She switched her torch on and I did the same. ‘Number one: they need to be invited to enter a home.’
I had heard that before, but then I’d also heard that crucifixes made them burst into flames, and that they could not be photographed. What did I know?
‘Okay,’ I said.
‘So, for the lady of the house, obviously, it is easy to repeal that invitation if it suits,’ Celia said, looking around for signs of the undead. She stepped out of the lift before the doors closed again, and I followed her. ‘If anyone acts out, I cast them out. Not that I’ve had to. They know better than that.’
Handy, I thought.
We stood on the landing just outside the lift, and shone our torches over the floor. Celia also shone hers across the high ceiling above her, as if looking for spiders. I found it strangely unsettling.
‘So, Samantha had to ask your permission to come in here?’ I said. Celia had known she was here all along? Did she know she was from Pandora magazine? Was that how she knew there was a job opening?
‘Well, no. This Samantha was able to come in here of her own will – or she was brought here once she was turned, or even about to be turned, we can’t be sure. It’s a deal I have with Deus and his, um, bosses. The undead aren’t allowed on the penthouse level without an explicit invitation, but they can use the rest of the building as a kind of safe house.’ She gestured with her leather-gloved hand in that casual way of hers, as if what she was telling me was perfectly mundane. ‘Those are the rules. So there will be Fledglings like Samantha from time to time, if someone turns them and then turns them out. Though that’s a pretty naughty thing to do.’
‘Right,’ I said, and tried to comprehend the implications of such a deal. Was the whole place crawling with vampires after dark? I felt the small hairs on the back of my neck stand up. ‘And what is the second thing?’ I asked, now nervously casting my eyes about.
‘The second thing is about the rice,’ she told me, and gestured to the bag I was holding. ‘It is a peculiar fascination . . . If you spill rice or seeds, for instance, these creatures will be distracted, especially the new ones, the Fledglings. They will be compelled to count every grain. The Chinese have long known this. It is said the Poles favour carrot seeds, but I prefer rice.’ She paused. ‘Let’s go this way first.’
I followed in silence, deeply puzzled.
Rice? Carrot seeds? This was possibly the most preposterous thing I had ever heard. At least I could see some thread of a reason for the violent allergy to garlic, as garlic is supposedly a blood purifier. But was I now to believe the undead were obsessive-compulsive counters, suffering some kind of special, undead arithmomania? Inconceivable. But then I thought of that old childhood favourite, Count von Count from Sesame Street. The makers of Sesame Street knew this?
No way.
It occurred to me that I ought to be taking notes. I’d have to record all these rules and facts – invitations, rice, garlic – when I was feeling less on edge. As it was, we were searching for a newbie vamp with an awful thirst – one that had already attacked me once. And if I understood what Celia was suggesting, the place could be crawling with them.
Ah.
We found Samantha curled up in the far corner of the third-floor landing, asleep or quite possibly unconscious. She still had my woolly shawl wrapped around her, and she was not far from where I had seen her last. Her knees were folded up into her chest, and her head had lolled to one side at a slightly unnatural angle. Samantha looked truly awful. Her pale complexion had turned sickly, and she looked much thinner than when I’d last seen her. Her cheekbones were already jutting out sharply.
‘Oh, would you look at that? Bloody Fledglings . . .’ Great-Aunt Celia cursed quietly, fixing her eyes on the wooden railing nearest to her. It had been chewed like the end of a pencil, as if by a teething puppy. ‘Damn.’ She moved in dangerously close to the woman, kneeled for a moment and looked at her mouth. ‘Fledgling teeth,’ she confirmed. ‘Hmm. You stay with her, darling. I’ll get a cat or something.’
‘A cat?’ Was this to be some kind of ritual?
‘She has to eat something, poor thing . . .’
A cat? I couldn’t let her do that.
I stood stiffly on the third level holding the bag of rice while Celia walked back to the old elevator and made her way downstairs. I heard the lift stop at street level, followed by the click, click, click of Celia’s heels on the tiles. When the heavy entry door closed, the building was quiet again, and I felt very, very alone with this sleeping vampire next to me. Alone and uneasy. I found myself wondering if I would be safer back in the penthouse, just until
Celia returned. I looked at my bag of rice, and then looked at the sleeping (dead?) vampire.
Hmmm.
I couldn’t help myself. I had to see if it was true. ‘Oh boy . . .’ I muttered, and spilled a small heap of rice grains at Samantha’s feet.
I waited. She didn’t stir.
‘Oh, I’m an idiot,’ I told myself, and looked nervously around me. Every shadow seemed to hide another bloodthirsty creature, each more deadly than the last. I held the bag of rice like a weapon. I bit my lip. ‘Oh, boy. I really don’t want to be alone right now . . .’
In moments I felt a chill descend, and in front of the railing a white, nebulous shape materialised.
Lieutenant Luke!
He formed before me, slowly at first, and then with some speed. I tilted my head up slightly to look into his face. ‘Hi,’ I said, beaming, and dropped the bag of rice.
‘Miss Pandora, are you okay?’ he asked anxiously. He took off his dark blue cap and held it in his hands respectfully.
I nodded. ‘I’m okay. Hi,’ I said again, stupidly. ‘It is really nice to see you.’
Luke put a cool, misty arm around me. ‘I don’t want anything to happen to you.’
I found myself grinning. I leaned into him, and found his attractive form comforting. ‘I missed you. I sure wish you weren’t dead,’ I remarked.
I explained why we were looking for Samantha, and he said, ‘You have a good heart.’
The return of my great-aunt was announced by her echoing footsteps downstairs and the rattle of the ascending lift. Luke and I stopped talking, so I wouldn’t seem to be talking to myself. Celia approached us with two small hessian sacks. The sacks didn’t appear large enough to be holding fully grown cats. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought the sacks were moving.
Kittens? I thought with horror. No!
‘Oh, darling, I’m not about to feed her kittens. Relax,’ my great-aunt said. She sounded amused. ‘Harold can get anything when you need it most. He’s such a dear.’
Wait, did she just read my mind?
‘What’s this?’ she asked, pointing at the small pile of rice on the floor.