“We?” asked Colin, once again shifting his eyes in my direction.
“Hi,” I said, sticking out my hand. “I’m Bill, but everyone in the coven calls me…Dr. Death.” Yeah, you guessed it. It was another one of those cases where something sounded a lot cooler in my head. It probably also didn’t help things that my hand was still stuck out there like a doofus. I quickly lowered it when it became apparent that no return greeting was forthcoming.
Instead, he frowned and began typing on his keyboard. “Dr. Death?” he commented more to himself than either of us. “Oh, well, I guess it’s not any stupider sounding than ‘Night Razor.’”
“That’s what I said.”
He ignored me, though, and was still looking at his screen when his eyes went wide. “You’re the Freewill?” he asked, his tone one of disbelief.
“What are you looking at?” I asked.
“Your profile.”
“I have a profile?”
“All vampires have a profile,” he said with a sniff. “Gods, Sally, don’t you people at least give the newcomers an orientation down there?”
“Nope. Not even a flyer for my troubles,” I quipped, just before I felt her foot hit me in the side of the leg.
He gave me the once over yet again. “I thought you’d be more…well…not you.”
I shrugged as I answered, “I get that a lot.”
This prompted Sally to interrupt us. “James?” she reminded him.
“He’s not here.”
“Where is he, then?”
Colin answered her question with another. “Why do you need to know?”
“I’ve been trying to call him all week, and haven’t been able to get through.”
Giving her a smile that was both sympathetic and condescending all at once, he said, “My dear Sally. James is a busy man. You can’t really expect him to answer the calls of every love struck puppy who chases after him.”
“It’s not like that,” she snapped. “I’ve been working with him on coven-related business. He was supposed to smooth some static between us and another group, but he no-showed. I’m trying to get some answers.”
“When was all this supposed to happen?” Colin asked, starting to type again.
“Beginning of the week.”
“Ah, that makes sense, then,” he answered whilst looking at his monitor. “He was called away on business, unexpectedly, I’m afraid.”
“What kind of business?” Sally again demanded.
“The kind that’s none of yours,” came his reply. Damn, he was a snarky little fucker.
“Cut the shit, Colin.”
He scoffed, “Or what? You’ll sick him on me?”
She seemed to consider this for a moment and then said, “Well, he is the Freewill. I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors.”
“Oh, please, as if I believed half of that garbage.”
“James believes it.”
“Sorry, love, but just because I work for him doesn’t mean I drink the same Kool-Aid he does.”
I was really hoping the next words out of Sally’s mouth weren’t going to revolve around ordering me to kick this guy’s ass. Regardless of my chances at doing so, we were in a building full of all sorts of god knows what. I really didn’t want them all to descend upon me just because her panties were in a bunch.
Before she could respond; however, Colin added, “Apparently, Jeff doesn’t believe it either.”
“Jeff? How do you know that?” she asked, quickly hiding the look of surprise that appeared on her face.
“He called not an hour ago. I haven’t heard a peep from you SoHo coveners in months, and suddenly, bam, you’re crawling all over me like fire ants. Interesting coincidence, isn’t it?”
“What did he want?” she sounded perhaps a bit more frantic than she had meant to.
“Same thing as you.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Remember what I said before about none of your business? Same principle applies. You needn’t concern yourself with the conversations of beings above your pay grade.”
She let out what sounded like a sigh of exasperation and then said, “Come on, Colin. If he sent me here in person, then obviously he trusts me to relay the info back to him.”
“Why does it matter if I potentially already told him what he wanted to know?” he slyly asked.
“Because we both know you. Jeff…Night Razor realizes that you’d be more than happy to give him half a story over the phone just to get rid of him. He sent me here as backup to make sure there wasn’t anything left lying on the table,” she lied…or presumably lied. I still wasn’t entirely convinced of what side of the fence she was playing on.
“Please, help me out here. It’s important,” she continued. Vinegar hadn’t worked, so I guess she was now trying to use a little honey to catch this fly.
That seemed to deflate his asshole sails a little. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t,” he replied. “James is working on something for the Draculas. Official business. Need to know, only.” He paused for a moment, and then added, “It’s all right here on the screen. I’m sorry, though. I can’t talk about it.”
“You can’t talk about it?” she asked, a grin starting to work its way onto her face.
“Exactly. I can’t talk about it.” He leaned toward her with a sly smirk. Oh, I think I get it. I’ve seen this in the movies before. Any second now, I was going to be asked to leave the room and then they’d settle their differences the old-fashioned way. If I had my guess, I’d say that would involve something that started with the word blow and ended with job. Man, maybe I should consider shooting off a resume to this place.
Sally and Colin locked eyes for a moment, and then she asked in an innocent voice, “You got coffee in this place?”
He smiled and replied, “Vending machine’s down the hall.”
Sally reached into her purse. “I’m afraid I’m a little tired from the trip up here. Colin, would you be a dear and get me a cup?” She pulled out a couple of bills. Not sure how much she had there, but I distinctly saw Ben Franklin staring back at me from the top. She held them out to him. “Here, this should cover it. Feel free to keep the change.”
But Colin wasn’t done yet. “You know, it’s kind of odd that Jeff didn’t mention he was sending you up, now that I think of it…”
Apparently Sally had apparently played this game before, though. A few more bills appeared in her hand as she purred, “Must have slipped his mind.”
“Must have.” He accepted the ‘coffee fare’ with a greasy little smile and replied, “Back in just a sec,” before getting up and walking out of the office.
Sally immediately jumped behind his desk and started reading what was on the screen.
“That’s it?” I questioned.
“What’s it?” she replied, eyes on the information in front of her.
“A bribe? That’s so…so…un-vampire like.”
“What? Should I have offered him my immortal soul and then sealed the pact in blood?”
“Well…yeah. Something like that,” I replied. “There should be something dark and demonic going on, not just you handing the guy a few bucks to let you read his email.”
She continued scrolling through the document as she answered, “You know, you really need to get out more. There’s this thing called reality. You should try it sometime.”
“Oh, you’re just a barrel of laughs, Lu…whatever he was going to call you. What is your real name, by the way?”
“Can’t talk, busy reading.”
“C’mon,” I said, not so easily dissuaded. “What is it? Lucy? Maybe you’re really Lucille Ball…nah, she was a redhead. Ooh, I know. You’re that girl from Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”
“No.”
“Well, then, what about…”
She cut me off. “Did you ever think that maybe there’s no mystery? Maybe I just like ‘Sally’ better? Sally’s a nice name. I had an aunt named Sally. She was cool.”
“
Sally Sunset?”
“It’s just that last part I don’t like. Sally is fine.”
“So, in other words, there is a mystery!” I exclaimed.
“Oh, enough of this shit.” She hit a button and the page she was reading started printing out on the LaserJet sitting on the desk. “I can’t concentrate with your stupidity hovering over me.” She grabbed the printed pages. “Let’s go. We can finish this in the car.”
* * *
We ran into Colin again as were exiting James’ office. Oddly enough, he didn’t have Sally’s coffee with him.
“Find what you need?” he asked with a smug grin.
Sally just gave him a grunt as she walked past, the printout safely in her pocketbook. I, on the other hand, just couldn’t leave without having a little fun first. The slimeball had reminded me a little too much of some of the directors at my company whose sole marketable skills were apparently an expertise in brown nosing. Taking them down a peg was usually a political no-no for people in my position, but I didn’t work for Colin.
“Thanks for all your help,” I said a little over-energetically. “By the way, your machine back there was running a little sluggish. Probably a virus or something. I took the liberty of reformatting your hard drive for you.”
The remaining color drained from his already pale face and he raced into his office. “You’re welcome!” I shouted after him as I caught up to Sally. She was smiling. “Liked that, huh?”
“Maybe just a little,” she admitted.
On the Road Again
My roommates were waiting for us when we got back to the Escalade.
“Did you know this place has zombies?” Tom excitedly asked while we climbed into the back seat once again.
“Yeah,” Ed affirmed. “One came by a little while back and validated our parking.”
I nodded and said, “There were a bunch of them inside. Apparently, they do office work, too.”
“Really?” Tom asked. “I wonder how much they make. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’d be pretty pissed if I found out a rotting corpse made more than me.”
Ed smirked as he started the Escalade, “But would you be surprised?”
“Not in the least.”
“If you two are done jerking each other off, can we get moving? It’s a long ride back,” complained Sally, taking the printout from her purse.
“What about those microbrews we were gonna tour?” Tom asked from the shotgun seat.
“Do I need to kill you as an example for everyone else?” she nonchalantly commented, starting to leaf through the sheets of paper.
After a few impatient minutes of waiting, I reached out for a page. “Can I see?”
She pulled them back from my grasp. “No.”
“Why not?” I complained. “Besides, you read really slowly.”
“Sorry if my Latin is rusty.” She finally held out a page to me. “Can you do any better?” I took the paper and saw that she was right. It all looked like incomprehensible lorem ipsum garbage to me.
“Not unless it’s Pig Latin.” I handed it back. “So, is there any particular reason it’s in Latin?”
“It’s simple. Nobody reads it anymore, especially not this dialect.”
“Except for vampires?” I asked, dreading a future that saw me sitting in some ghoulish classroom studying for a final on some dead language. Damn, I barely passed basic Spanish in high school.
“Not really. Most vampires can’t read it, either. It’s mostly for guys of James’ rank or higher.”
“Let me guess, it cuts down on the shoulder surfing,” said Ed from the driver’s seat.
“Pretty much,” Sally explained. “Although I think it’s mostly an elitist thing for the elder vampires.”
“But you can read it?” I asked.
“Not really, but I know enough to fake it. Each of the coven heads is supposed to have a remedial understanding of it for courier purposes.”
“But you aren’t the coven head,” I pointed out.
“No shit,” she replied. “But Jeff can be one lazy S.O.B. He likes to think of some of us as his own personal secretarial pool. Hence, I’ve picked up a few things here and there. Now if you’ll excuse me, this might take a little while. If you three chimps can fling your shit amongst yourselves for a bit, it would be most appreciated.”
* * *
We drove on in the fading light of the afternoon. Sally had pulled out a pen and was busy scribbling notes on the sides of the paper. We three guys tried to keep quiet, so as not to bother her, but ultimately, that lasted all of ten minutes at most. Fortunately, for her at least, she seemed well equipped to be able to tune us all out as long as we weren’t directly bothering her (which I made the mistake of doing at one point and almost got her pen jammed into my forearm).
As the last of the light was fading from the sky, we made a pit stop for burgers. Sally opted to remain with the car. When we finally returned, full of burgery goodness (rare meat didn’t need a blood chaser to be fulfilling, thank goodness), she announced, “I think I’ve finally got it.”
“Please tell me you didn’t spend the last seventy miles translating out to lunch, back in five,” Ed commented.
“No. Otherwise we would be turning our asses around to get a refund,” she replied. “It looks like Colin was right. James did have some official business to take care of.”
“Okay, so are you going to tell us, or do I have to beg for it?” I asked.
“While I have no doubt that you’re a master at begging women (bitch), I think we can dispense with the formalities this once. It would appear that James was given a summons by one of the Draculas. He…”
“Okay, hold on a second,” Tom interrupted, “Draculas as in plural? What, did The Count have himself cloned?”
“There is no Dracula, genius. Bram Stoker’s book was just fiction,” Sally replied with a sigh.
“But you just said…”
“I said Draculas, yes, I know. They’re the ruling council of the vampires, traditionally the thirteen oldest and most powerful of our kind. They’re officially known as the Coven of Midnight, or sometimes just the First Coven.” Tom opened his yap to speak again, but she held up a hand to silence him. “‘Draculas’ is kind of a nickname. After Stoker’s book started to get popular, a few people began referring to the First Coven by that name as kind of a sick joke. After a while, it just stuck.”
“And these elder vampires,” I asked, “who presumably predate the book by quite a bit, are okay with this?”
“Don’t be crazy,” she answered. “If you called them the Draculas to any of their faces, they’d rip you to pieces and take turns wiping their asses with your remains. Like I said, it’s a nickname. If you are ever called before them, you make it a point to keep the word ‘Dracula’ as far from your mouth as possible. These guys do not have a sense of humor.”
“Have you ever met them?” Ed asked, his eyes meeting ours in the rearview mirror.
“No, but then nobody in our coven has. James is the closest we get to them and as long as we fly under the radar, that’s the way it’ll stay. Supposedly, there was this coven up in Westchester about seventy-five years ago whose leader got called in to meet with the Draculas. I don’t know what happened, but he must have insulted them in some way, because by the next week, that entire group was wiped out to the last member.”
“Supposedly?” asked Ed.
“Well, that’s what I heard, anyway. It was a little before my time.”
Ed was still not buying it, though. “Then how can you be sure it’s not all just bullshit? For all you know, these Draculas are just a bunch of toothless old geezers gumming their victims to death.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” she stated. “Bill, you’ve seen James in action.”
I nodded and replied, “Damn straight. That guy’s all sorts of scary. I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of any hurt he was dishing out.”
“Exactly,” Sally confirmed. “Gen
erally speaking, as vampires get older, they get more powerful. Well, all of the Draculas are older than James, some of them by a lot.”
“Okay, well that’s kind of…frightening,” I said. “And James was summoned by them?”
“One of them,” she replied. “The Khan, to be exact.”
Before she could say another word, she was drowned out by the voices of three Star Trek geeks simultaneously shouting, “KHAAAAANNNNN!!!”
When we had at last died down she asked, “Do I really want to know what that was about?”
“Doubtful,” Ed answered.
“So, this Khan dude,” Tom piped in, “are we talking Space Seed or Genghis?”
Sally looked perplexed. “Space seed? Whatever that is, I’m thinking probably not. And no, he’s not Genghis Khan.”
“I didn’t think so,” he said. “That would just be silly.”
“He’s Ogedei Khan,” she continued. “Genghis’ son.”
Tom got a blank look on his face, and then replied, “Oh, of course. That’s a lot less silly.”
Sally shot back, “Be thankful. If we had turned Genghis, humanity would probably all be living in cattle pens right now. Ogedei was just as good of a leader, but a bit mellower as far as conquest was concerned.”
“Okay, so that makes sense, I guess,” I said. “James said he represents the Draculas in these parts. So, where is he?”
“According to this?” she glanced down at the paper. “The Gansu province of China.”
“China? Why the hell is he in China?”
“That’s where the Khan is.”
“I get that. But why did he send for James? That seems like it’s a little outside of his jurisdiction.”
“Because the Khan is James’ sire,” she explained. “When the guy who made you is also one of the high muckety mucks, you tend to pick up when he calls.”
That piqued Ed’s curiosity, and he asked, “So, what’s the deal? Did he turn James when the Mongols were busy trying to annex the rest of the world?”
“I don’t know the specifics,” she admitted. “But from what I’ve heard, it was a bit after that. Supposedly James met the Khan in China.”
“So, what was James doing in China six-hundred years ago?” I asked. “I didn’t know it was a big vacation spot back in those days.”
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