by Declan Finn
“No rush,” he said, “we have time.”
She gulped hard. “How did you know I was behind you?”
“I came in, and you're in the apartment.” He turned, and gave her his little smile. “Sun's still up. There's nowhere to run.” He looked at her a moment, and she worried for a moment that he was focused on the quart in her hand, but his eyes were on her face.
Marco took several strides towards her, stopped within arm's reach, and lifted one finger to the side of her mouth. “You missed some,” he muttered, and wiped the smudge of blood with his index finger.
Amanda moved forward, and her lips closed down on his fingertip, surprising both of them. She sucked the blood off.
Marco slid his hand along her cheek, lightly caressing her with his thumb. His hand lingered for a moment. His eyes met hers, and he leaned in close.
Amanda wondered if Marco was about to change his “let's just be friends” stance.
His lips touched her forehead, and he leaned back. His hand moved to her shoulder, and gave it a light squeeze. “So, what's on the agenda for this evening?”
Amanda blinked, disappointed, and surprised at herself for her disappointment. “We are, um, right…do you know of Mount Sinai?”
“Who doesn't? It's about, what, twenty blocks from here, on Central Park East.” He studied her a moment. “Why, we're going to see someone on staff?”
She shook her head. “Nyet. Near there. The Blood Blank,” she finished, quickly taking another hit from her quart container.
“Wonders never cease,” he muttered. “Well, it'll be a healthy stretch of the legs.”
Amanda nearly choked on the blood again. “Twenty blocks?”
“It would take about as long just for the green line to pick us up from the train station, and I'd much rather go walking with you.”
“Sweet of you, and depressingly true about the speed of the train. I think it has been that way since I first arrived in the city.” Amanda made a show out of looking him over. “You look nice.”
He scoffed. “I'm dressed in mail-order clothing. I see no point in wearing something expensive if I may have to burn it in the morning. Though, given the area, I suddenly feel under-dressed.”
“You prefer a whole military uniform from Xavier?”
Marco nodded. “It came with a sword.”
Amanda laughed. “Indeed. Why did you not become military after attending Xavier?”
“I'm sorry?”
“You went into their ROTC program,” she said. “You had uniforms, swords, but you did not go into a formal military. Were you waiting for something? Your degree?”
Marco sighed, looked off to the side, then looked back. “Actually, it's more a matter of weight. When I gave up my Krav Maga studies, fencing couldn't give me the same exercise value. I gained some fat, lost some muscle mass, and the army has pretty stringent strange standards. I figured I would lose the weight while I got my degree, then join up.”
Amanda looked at Marco's body, then reached up and poked his stomach with a finger. He wasn't solid muscle, but darn, he was close. “I think you're done.”
“Yeah, well, now I have vampires to deal with. I think I'll be a little busy.”
“True, but at least you are fighting darkness in more ways than one.”
“I just never thought it would be this close to home. I always thought it would be a little sandier.”
“But then again, you are nyet, um, am I thinking of team player?”
Marco laughed. “Oh, wow, you have no idea how accurate that is.”
“That is no answer.”
“Nope, it isn't.” He looked off at her Van Gogh reproduction. “Were you in town when September 11th happened?”
Amanda shook her head. “I was up north.”
“I had a great view of the city that day. I could see across the water and stare at it. A great storm cloud had come to ground level and settled over the city.” His vision grew distant and unfocused, lost in a haze of memory as he stared into the white swirls of Van Gogh's Starry Night, and his voice followed him. “It was horrific. I could see dots falling out of the windows. It wasn't hard to figure out that they were people who decided they didn't want to burn. It was something so big, so vile, that it broke through all of the post-modern gibberish where we were 'beyond good and evil.' The ash came down so thick, it was like snow. Some people in the middle east, like Iran, they had parties. Can you believe that? Parties? For mass murder.”
He looked to Amanda once more, his eyes hardening. “Right then, I decided that I wanted to hunt those bastards down and kill them like the dogs they are. I wanted to kill those responsible. I wanted to kill those who helped them, those who planned it, and everybody who felt happy about it. I wanted to hunt them down and kill them all.”
“How old were you?” she asked.
“I was young. Very young.” His look turned distant. “Oh, and if I had the time, and the energy, I would join the military now, or when I get out of college. But, seriously, when are we going to be rid of all of these vampires?”
“We will.”
He shook his head, ready to change the topic. “Speaking of, anyway, let's go.”
“Would you like me to bite you before we leave?” she asked quickly. “We know that we are heading into a hazardous situation. Want me to enhance you?”
Amanda winced at how fast the words came out, as though she were eager to taste him again. Was she that transparent? Did it come out as whiny? She wanted her lips on his skin more than her teeth in his throat. His blood was nothing special; it tasted like copper, like all blood did. But it was him. Even having him hold her as she drank was worth the bite.
Marco shook his head, though. “As much as I would like the little added boost, I would hate for them to smell it on me when I walk in. I would especially hate to antagonize them, letting them think I'm only a threat when you've bitten me. If any of them were interested in revenge, they'd simply try hunting me down later on.”
Amanda frowned. “But that would make you vulnerable.”
“Not much. Try and hit me.”
Amanda blinked, furrowed her pretty brows, and then shot out with a right palm to Marco's chest, a strike she knew would not incapacitate him, but would make him know he was hit.
But the moment she lashed out, Marco had already twisted his upper body out of the way, grabbed her wrist with his right hand, and swiveled his left elbow into her upper arm, above the elbow. Had that been an actual strike, at full force, her arm would have been broken.
“Fighting is just three-dimensional chess,” he said, “like fencing.”
“Let us hope that other vampires are as predictable as I am,” she told him.
“Oh, Amanda, I'm never totally certain what you're going to do next.”
Chapter Sixteen: Bar Hopping
March 13th, 6:00 p.m.
The Blood Bank was upscale. It would have to be, being near Fifth Avenue. Since no one wanted a large influx of humans walking in the front door, the sign was only eight-and-a-half by eleven. It was large enough for vampires to see, but dark red lettering on a black background was difficult for most humans to notice.
The bar ran the length of the room. There was a full stock of standard alcohol, though the bottles of blood were under the counter, in case there was the odd human walked in and happened to survive. Under the bar was every conceivable flavor of blood, from A-positive to O-negative, diabetics for the extra sweetness, and even the blood of cancer patients for those who wanted to “taste their suffering”—there was actually only a real impact from the patients on radiation therapy, and that gave a real kick to it. Behind the bar was not a mirror, but a giant television screen. Tiny cameras embedded in the shelving were connected to the large screen, “reflecting” the room.
Amanda walked into the Blood Bank in a nice, black business suit. She looked around, amused at the styles she saw. Black velvet dresses with underwire bodices were strangely in fashion.
&n
bsp; Marco leaned into her and whispered, “Too many Anne Rice novels?”
Three of the nearest women in the same outfit turned to glare at him. One in particular, a blonde with a tightly wrapped bun of a hairdo, looked him over. She glanced to Amanda and said, “Oh deary, you brought your own wet bar? How tacky .”
The background chatter of the bar died down at the comment, drawing attention to the newcomers, and, more importantly, to Marco's decidedly human scent.
Amanda shook her head. “To use him for snack time would be to bite off more than I could chew.”
The blonde smiled broadly and started to slink her away across the room. “I don't think I will have that problem.”
“I'm actually here to ask a few questions,” Marco said, his voice loud enough to broadcast to the room.
The woman in the black velvet Anne Rice getup stopped, looked him over, and scoffed. “What could you possibly ask from us, you Happy Meal with legs?”
Amanda put a hand on his shoulder, both to restrain his next remark and to mark her possession of Marco to the room. “There are problems in Brooklyn. We want to know what any here may have heard. Particularly if it involves the Vampire known as Mikhail. He is supposedly known for starting nests like the one that has popped up.”
The bar was silent. The blonde was particularly annoyed, if her scowl was anything to go by.
Marco looked them over. “What? You guys all afraid of one stinking Brooklyn vampire? Please. You want to worry about someone you should fear, it's me.”
The blonde rolled her eyes. “We don't care about you, or your little girlfriend. Girl, take your pet home before he gets eaten by something with bigger teeth than he has.”
Marco moved forward, going for the center of the floor, while Amanda moved to the bar counter, keeping an eye on the patrons. He kept his eyes on the blonde the entire time. When he arrived at the center of the room, he noticed that the other vampires had formed a semi-circle around him. Most had probably sensed the crosses on him, so they kept their distance for now.
“Say what you like,” he said, his voice deliberately projecting, “at least she doesn't have a bad dye job.”
The blonde's fingers became white, turning into a fist. Her lips pursed so tightly that they turned white. Her hand blurred.
Marco moved.
Her hand had gone for the nearest bottle to hand, a bottle of Absolut Vodka, as Marco thought it might. When her hand moved, Marco had already twisted his body to one side, certain that she would be hurling it for his center line: either in the head, or in the middle of his chest.
The bottle shot past him, and Marco didn't turn his attention to the blonde, but to the bottle. It had smashed on the other side of the room in a perfect example of a Polish firing squad. One vampire–one of the few who had completely ignored them until now–took the bottle to the side of the head.
Knowing vampire reflexes as he did, Marco's first thought was to drop to one knee in a full genuflect. A fraction of a second later, the assaulted vampire sailed over Marco's head, missing him entirely, but landing on the blonde.
Marco's computer-like brain crunched the variations.
The blonde could throw him at me.
The blonde could throw him into the crowd and lunge for me.
The blonde could stop to engage him; this is unlikely.
The blonde could throw him aside and throw something else at me.
Conclusion: Be somewhere else.
The blonde tossed her attacker aside, into the rest of the crowd, and lunged for Marco on her own.
Marco was already in the process of leaping to one side, drawing one of his special stakes. As she past him, he stabbed into her side. The firecracker snapped in a small explosion, setting the turpentine ablaze, making her black velvet dress catch fire.
Marco came up in a roll and turned to the blonde in time for her to start putting herself out. He took the opportunity to look through the crowd for signs of anyone who wanted to join in on this little assault. Most of the looks he got were bewildered glances of vampires who had trouble believing that a human was able to do this.
The blonde was almost done extinguishing the fire when Marco saw his opening.
He darted in, rushing her. The side of her velvet dress had largely burned away, showing the underwire beneath. Marco dove under her obvious backhanded swing, and grabbed her dress, his grasp feeling parts of the wire beneath the velvet, and he slid forward, dragging her forward only one step, and he plugged the exposed wire into an outlet in the wall.
Marco let go immediately and rolled away, to his feet.
The blonde stood there as the electricity coursed through her body. She was frozen there, a rictus grin on her face as the electricity forced all of her muscles to contract. Her body started to smoke and smolder. She couldn't even scream as her body incinerated itself.
“And that,” Marco said aloud, “is why you don't read Anne Rice novels for fashion advice. It makes you a fire hazard when you're as flammable as a vampire.”
Marco turned his back against the wall and surveyed the room. The gaze of every vampire was on him. He felt himself tense, waiting for any one of these predators to pounce.
From the other side of the room, there was the sound of a pump-action shotgun being racked.
Marco blinked, not expecting a weapon in a vampire bar.
The gun was pointed at Amanda's head.
“This is filled with silver buckshot,” the bartender began, in a loud voice and heavy brogue. “With alternating shells of wood flechette. So, I wish to ask ye all, who wants to get shredded to pieces?”
Marco and Amanda exchanged a glance. “We just want information. That’s all. We don't want trouble. Think about it; if we did, we would have led with a flamethrower from both ends of the bar. We came to talk.”
The bartender raised a brow, the barrel of the shotgun shifting back to Marco. “Oh? Really?”
Marco studied the vampire a moment, considering exactly what sort of person would be running a vampire bar. Especially who would hold onto a shotgun underneath the counter in a neighborhood this ritzy, with clientele to match. Add the brogue, the build like a refrigerator, the short haircut, and an unfashionable, bushy mustache, and Marco came up with one conclusion.
Irish cop…circa 1850, when they were being drafted right off of the boat. He’ll likely listen to reason; we may be able to avoid further violence.
“Look, we're basically trying to do some police work. Help us gather some information, and we'll go away. The equation is that simple.”
“Of course it is,” the bartender said. There was enough skepticism in his voice to level several city blocks. His eyes darted to his left, and the shotgun swung up. “Rosenthal, if you consider going after the prick because the late lamented Kathleen hit you by accident, I'm going to blow off parts of your body and cauterize it with holy water so it don't grow back. Are we understood, lad?”
He looked back to Marco, and then Amanda. He had the expression of someone weighing his options between telling them what they wanted to know and wondering how much it would take to clean their blood off of the wood paneling. “As for you, all I can tell you is that there've been some noises about something big coming down lately. Mostly noises around Mount Olivet Cemetery, in Queens. Now, the both of you get the hell out of my bar.”
Marco nodded. “Thanks for the lead.”
He strode towards Amanda, keeping an eye on the other vampires in the room, thinking, Come to think about it, no one even considered moving to the rescue of what's-her-name. She must have been really popular. Anne Rice must be the source of all annoying vampires. Unless, of course, they sparkle.
Amanda leaned toward the bartender before rejoining Marco. “Yes, thank you. While I think of it, I must to ask: NYPD? 1850s?”
The bartender gave her a smile. “1860s, but yes, thank you. I still go to church every Sunday, so don't come back with any holy water, thinking you're something special.”
Mar
co nodded, flashing him a smile. “Good to know, though I’m sure now that we wouldn’t ever need it with you anyway. Thank you, sir. We'll be leaving now.”
When Amanda and Marco made it out to the street, Marco laughed. “Well, that was fun! Wasn't it?” He looked to Amanda, and saw she wasn't smiling. “Wasn't it? Um…is something wrong? Amanda?”
They walked in silence for over a block. When she thought they were far enough away, Amanda grabbed Marco by the shoulder and dragged him against the wall. “What were you thinking?”
Marco was thrown by her uncharacteristically violent outburst. He met her deep brown eyes, and found them hard and angry. He blinked, genuinely confused. “That vampires don't want to answer questions unless they don't have a choice in the matter?”
“You could have been killed!”
Marco rolled his eyes and scoffed. “Feh. Nah, you would have saved my ass if I even looked like I was in the slightest bit of trouble. Besides, did you really think she was dressed for optimal movement in that outfit? Please.”
Amanda stared at him a long moment, growled in frustration, and turned away, leaving Marco confused.
“We will call those Vatican ninjas,” Amanda said, as she walked away, glancing over her shoulder, “tell them the tip we got and see what they find.”
Marco sprinted a little to catch up. “Gotcha, sure. Whatever you want,” he said, trying to smooth over whatever the hell was bothering her. “I wouldn't trust our gang wannabes to do a quiet recon, either. What do you want to do now? Try some other bars?”
Amanda spared him an angry glance. “I think it is time for you to go home.”
Chapter Seventeen: A Quiet Talk
March 13th, 7:00 p.m.
Amanda Colt didn't have any rational thought about the depth of her anger. After all, Marco had only risked his life in a one-on-one confrontation with a vampire, without any support, or additional strength that came with her bite.
It was only one vampire! she tried to reason with herself. He managed to handle multiple vampires in the ordeal on the subway car, back in January, so what’s the deal? Then again, I was watching his back then, and this time it was a room full of vampires. Not even I could have protected him if they had all decided to join in the fray.