One Foot in the Grave - The Halflife Trilogy Book I
Page 6
“Stefan! We don’t even know if or how that could be accomplished!” Mooncloud protested. “And his value to our research in his current state—”
“I am not asking about possibilities!” the Doman rumbled. “I am questioning his desire. Can the transformation be reversed?”
She shook her head. “Even if such a thing were possible, I wouldn’t know how.”
Pagelovitch turned back to me. “I speak to you now, ignorant of the scientific principles in this matter. I speak to you, rather, out of moral obligation before you leave this room. I do not know whether your transformation is at a standstill or just progressing very slowly. If progressing, I do not know if we can hinder it further. I do believe that it is within our power to accelerate and complete the Transformation. If that is what you wish. The question is: what do you wish?”
Everyone was still looking at me.
“Well, I don’t want to die.”
Mouths smiled, teeth glinted, laughter erupted.
“My dear Mr. Csejthe,” Bachman said. “If you remain a mere mortal, death is eventually inevitable. As one of us you can cheat death.”
“ ’One short sleep past, we wake eternally,’ ” the Doman added. “ ’And Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die!’ ”
I forced a smile. “I think you misappropriate Donne’s meaning.”
He smiled in return. “A man of letters, Christopher? I thought the last had died out early in this century.”
“ ’The good die first,’ ” I quoted back, “ ’And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust / Burn to the socket.’ ”
“Coleridge?”
“Wordsworth.”
He frowned. “Really? I suppose Lyrical Ballads . . . ?”
I shook my head. “The Excursion. Though I can see your assumption with their collaborative work.”
Pagelovitch nodded. “Sam was an acquaintance; I never met Bill. Probably accounts for my neglect . . . but I digress. Elizabeth put it more succinctly than any of the poets: you can cheat death.”
I stared past him, at the uncertain darkness outside the window. “ ’Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath. / And after many a summer dies the swan.’ ”
He smiled. “If you’re citing Tennyson to say that you can only postpone the inevitable, you still beg the question. Who wouldn’t bargain for one more summer? Or ten?”
“What price would you pay to live another century?” Bachman chimed in. “Or ten?”
“There are, however, certain tradeoffs,” Mooncloud murmured.
“Well, assuming I have any real decision in this process, I’d like to put it off just a little bit longer. I mean there’s no hurry, is there?” I was still smiling, but it felt more like a grimace.
The Doman nodded. “Fair enough. Dr. Mooncloud’s lab work may help you make a more informed choice when the time comes. In the meantime, I must caution you to share blood with no one.” He turned to Bachman. “I trust this is clear?”
She smiled sweetly.
I looked at Mooncloud. “Um, share blood?”
“It is part of their vampire lovemaking,” Lupé’s brother offered with an undertone of distaste. “They sometimes like to bite each other. Suck—”
“Thank you, Luis,” Bachman interrupted icily. “I think you forget your place.”
Garou scowled but ducked his head submissively. “I must go and see to my sister, now.” He pushed back from the table and left the room hurriedly. As he exited two men entered bearing covered trays. Dinner was served.
Mooncloud, Deirdre, and myself were the only ones served solid food, a point the doctor underscored quietly by explaining that once the transformation was finished my digestive system would no longer tolerate anything but blood. “Anything else will make you sick,” she said.
“One of the tradeoffs,” I observed.
“One. . . .”
After dinner the Doman invited me for a stroll along the castle “battlements.” The others were pointedly not invited and said their goodnights as a formality. Obviously, for everyone concerned, the night was yet young.
July in the Pacific Northwest was a bit cooler than in the Midwest and I was surprised to see a light fog hazing the more distant lights of the city.
“A quiet night,” Pagelovitch said, leaning out upon one of the upthrust merlons in the crenelated half-wall. “Unlike the New York demesne, where the city’s turmoil provides the perfect cover for night predators. I work hard to preserve a peaceful coexistence with the Living in my realm. Do you know how that is done?”
I hazarded a guess: “Blood banks?”
He laughed, the sound of it falling somewhere between polite and weary. “Yes, yes, blood banks. One of the more obvious ploys to serve the needs of the midnight community. Vampire fiction has reduced such stratagems to a clichéd gimmick but it is still a useful and mostly harmless way to attend to our needs.”
“You have your own, I take it?”
“Yes, with several outlets. And our personal withdrawals are minimal compared to what is returned to the medical community at large. We are very philanthropic in this area, but—” his smile faded, “that is not what I meant by my question.”
“How you rule over a community of vampires?”
He nodded. “Rule is a most apt description. And not just over vampires, Christopher. There are other creatures—perhaps I should say ‘beings’—who are assimilated into our community, as well.”
“Like the knockers.”
“Like the knockers. And the leprechauns. And at least a dozen others—well, you’ll be meeting some of them in the days ahead. Their safety and prosperity depends upon the laws that have been set up to govern our community.” His voice hardened. “And my ability to enforce them.”
“Dr. Mooncloud explained some of that.”
He nodded, still looking out over the city. Surveying his domain. “You are my guest—for now. It is my hope that, in time, you will assimilate into our community as a contributing member, whatever your value to our medical and biological research now. But it is essential that you understand this: that I will deal harshly with anyone—anyone—who becomes a threat to any portion of our society, here. Do you understand?”
“I think so.”
“Then understand that your sworn allegiance means little to me at this particular moment. Your ignorance of us and our ways could make you a greater risk than any desire to do us actual harm. That is why you will not leave this building again until I deem that you are ready.”
I didn’t like that. But outside of a hot bath and shave there hadn’t been anything about the past couple of days that I had particularly liked. “So, I’m a prisoner for now?”
“A guest.”
“For how long?”
“As long as it takes.” There was a warning edge to his voice.
“ ’After three days, fish and guests begin to smell,’ ” I recited.
He raised an eyebrow.
“Dear Abby,” I qualified.
He shook his head. “Ben Franklin: Poor Richard’s Almanac. And he said ‘stink.’ ”
“Ah. Of course.”
“Now we are even.”
I hadn’t realized that anyone was keeping score. “Not as long as you are making the rules.”
Pagelovitch sighed. “This is for your safety as well as ours. I want you to become acquainted with us and our ways while we learn more about you.
“But I must also warn you: the fact that we are a mutually dependent community does not mean that we are all one big happy family. There are those who will use you for a variety of purposes if they see advantage for themselves. Elizabeth is but a mild example of the appetites to be found among us. I have warned her that you are not to be harmed—but that may not stop her from anything that you, yourself, agree to.”
“Nice friends.”
“That is precisely the point I wish to make, Christopher: we are not all friends. We are allies—which is a different thing altogether.
“The accommodations are excellent.”
“I speak of the process of your Becoming. Have you experienced the bloodlust, yet? Taj says that you have not cut the new teeth.”
“No fangs, although my appetite has been fluctuating as of late.”
He looked at me sideways. “Christopher, there is appetite and then there are appetites. You killed a man this evening.”
Since it wasn’t a question, I felt no obligation to answer.
“Have you killed before?”
We came to a door which he opened, ushering me inside and down a corridor. “Personal question,” I said.
“You will be asked a great many personal questions over the next few days. I ask, however, because tonight’s impulse—” he gave me another look “—it was an impulse?”
“It wasn’t premeditated.”
“Which brings me to my point. The change is altering the chemical balance of your body. Hormonal changes, mood swings, shifts in brain chemistry—violence will become an increasingly natural response to situations involving stress. The subtler emotions recede. Passion rules—primarily as anger, even hate.”
“What about compassion?” I asked suddenly. Thought upon the growing deadness of my heart this past year. “What about sorrow?”
“You are becoming a predator. Compassion will have no place in your altered nature. Sorrow? You will no longer feel emotions in the human spectrum. Your thoughts and feelings are being cleansed of the muddle that mortals are heir to. You shall feel only that which is sharp and keen, a conscience honed from fire and steel.”
Perhaps that had already happened. For the past year my closest friends had chided me for not being “in touch with my feelings.” Like feelings were something I should want after burying my wife and daughter.
“And then there is the bloodlust,” he continued. “And a whole spectrum of appetites and emotions that bridge the gap between the living and the undead.” We passed through a small antechamber and then through another doorway into a darkened observation room. A row of glassed windows looked down into the main room of the castle, providing us with an excellent view of the nightclub’s inhabitants and their activities.
“Topless dancers,” I mused, watching the silent gyrations on the stage below. “I wonder what Bram Stoker would have made of this?”
“Were he astute, he would have remarked on the benefits for the hunter leaving the jungles behind to open his own private game reserve.”
“And ‘Tits-R-Us’ . . . ?” I gestured.
He shrugged. “One of our lures.”
I nodded. “The best bait always wriggles on the hook.” I could feel the tension building between us but it only inclined me to push a little more. “And is Fantasies the slaughterhouse or merely the holding pen?”
“I suppose it is a natural question,” he said after a moment’s silence, “but I’m beginning to take exception to your tone.”
I shrugged. “Must be those mood swings you just warned me about.”
“Still, I would remind you of your status as guest here—”
I held up my hand. “Words like ‘guest’ and ‘host’ are all very nice,” I said, “but hardly appropriate under the present circumstances.”
His face tightened. “Perhaps when your transformation is complete, when your very survival is hostage to blood and secrecy—” He checked himself and visibly relaxed. “But until then you have every reason to be angry and distrustful. Forgive me: I must try to meet my definition of host even if I do not meet yours.” He lowered himself into a plush chair situated near one of the windows.
“This castle and its environs serve a variety of functions. Here we provide home and shelter to the society we call the Underworld. Here we transact business that pays for the physical necessities of our community. Two hundred years ago our kind had to live in abandoned buildings and neglected crypts. We could only obtain the necessities of existence through brutality and murder.” He gestured toward the darkened room below. “Today we can engage in mutually beneficial commerce with humankind to address our needs. We do not kill unless we are forced to. And we do not take from the unwilling.”
“Sounds downright charitable.” I lowered myself into the chair across from him.
“We provide services and entertainment for humans. They assume the occasional half-glimpsed oddity on the premises is part of the special effects that we’ve woven into the ambience and the product. Hence, our name: Fantasies. For the entertainment we provide, we acquire currency and resources for our own needs. We provide shelter and such benefits that our people cannot or dare not obtain from the society of humankind.
“One such example is the hospital facility underground where Ms. Garou is now being cared for. In addition to a multifunctional surgery and various treatment rooms, we have a laboratory and research facilities, an extensive library, a gymnasium and pool—”
There was a knock at the door.
“I’ve summoned one of my assistants to finish your tour, Christopher. I think it’s best that I get back to work before the night is too far gone.”
That was curious: at no time during our after-dinner stroll had I seen him pick up a phone, use an intercom, or relay a verbal message through a third party. The door opened and a young Asian woman entered.
“Suki, this is the man I told you about,” my “host” said. She looked me over and I reciprocated. I would have described her as tiny up until this evening—before I had seen Hinzelmann and the knockers. She was small and delicately formed but still sized and proportioned in the human range. Blue-black hair, sheened like a starling’s wing, dropped in a straight flow to her shoulders. She wore a red silk dress with a mandarin collar and a coiled dragon in green embroidery over her left breast. Jade earrings tinkled like emerald wind-chimes as she bowed to me. There was nothing subservient in the act, and her eyes, as they came back up to regard me, betrayed amusement mixed with cool appraisal.
“I’d like you to give Mr. Csejthe the basic tour, make the requisite introductions, and answer all reasonable questions before tucking him in.” The Doman turned to me. “I’ll catch up to you tomorrow.” He extended his hand. “Whether you believe me or not, I do have your best interests in mind as well as our own.”
I took his hand and shook it in observance of the social amenities. “Perhaps. But you must understand my need to exercise my own autonomy.”
His nod signified acknowledgment of my statement. Not agreement.
Chapter Five
My new tour guide turned to me. “Before we begin, are there any questions that you would like to ask?”
I glanced back down at the stage: new dancers were exchanging places with the others and hardly missing a beat in the music.
Suki smiled. “You’re wondering about the dancers,” she said. It was not a question.
“I’m curious about the business angle,” I clarified.
She just looked at me and smiled.
“Well, the Playboy clubs and their upscale like have long since disappeared from the American landscape. The only places one expects to find topless dancers, these days, is in seedy bars and—”
She held up her hand. “First of all, we do not employ topless dancers.”
I glanced back down. “One of us either needs to check our eyesight or our definitions.”
She laughed. “Yes, our definitions. Fantasies employs exotic dancers.” Emphasis on exotic.
“Ah. I see.” I smiled. “Topless dancers are bimbos who take off their tops and wiggle. Exotic dancers are artists who engage in interpretive performances involving music, lighting, and costumes—costumes with removable tops.”
Suki smiled right back. “An interesting if not entirely original distinction, Mr. Csejthe. But I think you will find that our definition of exotic exceeds your expectations. Come, let us walk
while we converse.”
I followed her out of the room and down the hall.
“I’m afraid I didn’t answer your original question.”
“Which was?” I didn’t think I had gotten around to actually asking it.
“You were going to ask about the dichotomy of an obviously upscale club like Fantasies utilizing low-brow entertainment like topless dancers.”
“Exotic,” I said.
She hesitated. “What?”
“Exotic dancers.”
“Um, yes. Well, to fully answer your question, I’ll introduce you to the dancers individually. But a part of the answer lies in the fact that there are still upscale clubs in existence that do cater to a wealthy and hedonistic clientele.”
“Private clubs. Exclusive memberships with low profiles.”
“You are a quick study, Mr. Csejthe.”
“You should see me ride a unicycle.”
“What? Oh, I see. I was warned about you.”
“And what did they warn you about?”
She merely smiled and kept walking.
We toured the library—three large rooms claiming to hold thirty-five thousand books and a fourth room housing a microfiche viewer, three computer on-line services, and two CD-ROM readers. I looked around carefully, asking pertinent questions about the facilities: if permitted, I would be camping out in here with some regularity.
“How do you get away with it?” I asked as we exited and started down another hallway.
“Get away with what?” She actually batted her eyelashes. “We get away with a great many things: you will have to be more specific.”
“Seattle doesn’t strike me as being the sort of city that would support your organization.”
Once again she cut me off with a simple hand gesture. “First of all, our clientele comes from many places besides Seattle. More than a few are from out of state. Some come from even farther away.
“Secondly, Fantasies is not the demesne’s only source of income. But I believe you are mainly wondering how we can operate so boldly with minimum scrutiny?”