by Alex Bledsoe
“Lordy, Byron, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you again,” the old woman said, but her smile betrayed her amusement.
“You’re gonna turn me gray before I leave the house,” Cocker said, laughing despite his pounding heart. He picked up the broken glass, then winced as an edge bit into the soft heel of his hand. “Dang! You got a Band-Aid, Mama Prudence?”
He turned to her, and for a moment thought her eyes blazed red again, as they’d done before. Then his vision blurred and everything went dark.
It seemed only a moment passed, but when Cocker opened his eyes again he found himself sprawled in one of the big leather chairs in the living room. The sunbeam had moved off the painting of Patience Bolade and shone almost horizontal across the room.
His body felt heavy and sore, like it did some mornings after serious drinking. His various injuries all tended to seize up when he slept, and adding a hangover merely aggravated them. But he hadn’t been drinking . . . had he?
He forced himself to sit upright. The chair made loud, rude noises beneath him as the stiff leather protested the movement. He shook his head, immediately regretted it, and sagged back into the upholstery.
“Back among the living?” a brittle voice said cheerily. Mama Prudence appeared from the shadows carrying a cup of steaming liquid. “I made you some green tea. It’ll help get you back on your feet.”
“What happened?” Cocker asked, his voice oddly thick and subservient, like a child’s. He felt weaker than he had since the last time he was shot.
“You cut your hand, saw the blood, and passed out.”
“I passed out?” he repeated in disbelief.
“I guess anyone can be a little squeamish at the sight of blood, can’t they?” Prudence said as she put the cup on the little side table.
Cocker frowned. “I never . . .”
“There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone has a secret fear of some sort.”
He reached for the cup and saw the new bandage wrapped around his palm. It was made of gauze yellowed with age, and old tape that was coming undone. He took the cup with his other hand and said, “I’m real sorry, Mama Prudence.”
“Oh, pshaw,” she said with a wave of one long bony hand. Except it no longer looked as bony as he recalled. Nor, he realized, did Mama Prudence’s face appear quite so withered. Then again, he couldn’t trust anything his brain told him at the moment. The tea, hot and sweetened with honey, seemed to muddle his thoughts even more.
“You be sure and clean that hand good when you get home,” she said as she patted his arm. “My first-aid supplies are a bit out-of-date, as you can see. Oh, and see if it still looks funny, too.”
“Funny?”
“Yes. There’s the big cut, and then two little cuts right beside it. Looks like teeth marks, almost.” And she smiled, but her face was in shadow.
Prudence watched Byron Cocker drive away slowly and carefully, with none of his usual flamboyance. She closed the door, turned out the unnecessary lights, and walked back into the living room.
The afternoon sun heated the air, but had no effect on her. Neither did time, nor the elements. Only two things affected Mama Prudence: the blood of the living, and the proximity of her sister.
She gazed at the painting as if it might give up some secret she’d missed in the past century. Every drought caused her to anticipate this moment, but decades had passed before the right kind of drought, the kind that appeared only when a vampire’s malevolence neared, finally occurred. She knew with certainty in her cold unbeating heart that Patience was, at last, coming home.
She sighed in almost sexual contentment as Cocker’s blood coursed through her. She seldom fed anymore; it would attract too much attention in this modern world, and her choice of convenient victims was limited. But the big man’s injured hand caused her hunger to unexpectedly flare, and now she understood it as yet another providential sign, like the drought.
“Soon, dear sister,” Prudence said aloud, “the games begin again.”
CHAPTER 5
ZGINSKI AND LEONARDO stopped at a gas station just before the Shelby County line. The bell connected to the pressure hose pinged twice as Zginski parked at the gas pumps. He revved the car’s engine several times, luxuriating in both the sound and the rumble that traveled through him. Of all this era’s unexpected delights, the evolution of the automobile was the most exquisite. It almost made the sixty years he’d spent in hellish limbo worth it. Almost.
The night he’d first encountered “Eleanor,” in the movie Gone in 60 Seconds, had been unusual for a couple of reasons. It was the first time he and Fauvette had attended a cinema since they’d impulsively viewed Blacula and Vanishing Point some weeks earlier. It was also the first time he’d experienced an institution known as a “drive-in,” where cinemas — no, he corrected himself, they were now called movies, a corruption of the term motion picture—were publically displayed on a common screen before a group of people in parked vehicles. As they drove the truck into the fenced-off exhibition area, they passed a flatbed trailer with a wrecked car on it, and a sign that said, “Meet Eleanor, star of Gone in 60 Seconds.” At first Zginski assumed this referred to an ingenue, but once the movie started he understood that the car was the attraction. It was Eleanor.
And by the time the movie was over, Zginski was in love: with the speed, with the dust, with the roaring engines and the blistering movement. With Eleanor. Each crash of metal against metal, each scream of rubber against pavement, reinforced the feeling that he’d skipped the last sixty years for a reason. If he’d watched the development of the automobile, seen it grow from uncertain horseless buggies through each stage of design and manufacture, he might never have grasped how thrilling these vehicles could truly be. He had the unexpected thought that he should be grateful for the night Sir Francis Colby drove that golden dagger into his heart, removing him from the world for the next six decades.
That feeling didn’t last, but his fascination with all things automotive did. He learned how to drive as quickly as possible, and once he’d mastered the skill looked around for a suitable vehicle. It never occurred to him that he could truly own Eleanor; the vehicle on display that night bore the damage sustained during the making of the film, and would never travel the highways again. But then he realized that automobiles were, in fact, mass-produced by the thousands. He could not possess the Eleanor, but he could own an Eleanor.
The attendant emerged from the station. He was middle-aged, unshaven, clad in a brown jumpsuit with the name CLYDE stitched inside an oval patch. He spit tobacco at the ground, then said, “What kind of gas you want, Chief?”
Zginski frowned and lightly tapped the steering wheel. “Which would be most appropriate for this vehicle?”
“What’s she got under the hood?”
“A Windsor 351.”
Clyde’s eyes opened wide. “No shit. Can I take a look?”
Zginski puffed up with pride and nodded. Clyde raised the hood and looked at the pristine engine beneath it. He let out a low whistle. “A four-barrel carburetor. This thing’ll move, I bet.”
“Indeed,” Zginski agreed.
Leonardo joined them, still annoyed by the scene at Dark Willows. He leaned against the driver’s side fender and said, “You showing off again?”
“Ain’t this a beauty?” Clyde said.
“A pure metal fox,” Leonardo agreed.
Clyde beamed at Zginski as if they were best pals. “What you want in the tank today, mister? Regular or high test?”
“High . . . test, I suppose.”
“Fill ’er up?”
“Yes.”
“Coming right up. Hope you weren’t driving this thing last year when there wasn’t no gas to be had ’cause of them Arabs. Yessir, be a shame for this beauty to sit idle. Thanks for letting me take a peek.”
Clyde took the nozzle from the pump and began filling up the car. Zginski saw Leonardo’s scowl and said, “Something troubles you?”
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br /> “Naw, nothing except the way you treat people. You messed that poor girl up good, you know. She’s just a kid, she won’t know what hit her.”
“Your sympathy is surprising.”
“Why?”
“She and her father certainly consider you beneath their station. Which, considering the depths they have sunk to, puts you very far down indeed.”
“I just don’t think it was necessary.”
“Then perhaps you should return to console her.”
Leonardo’s eyes opened wide in surprise. “What, are you serious?”
Zginski shrugged. “She lives in isolation, she is young and vital, and her will is easily manipulated. She could provide you with sustenance for several weeks, if not months. If you truly wish to experience the relationship I have spoken of between one of us and a victim, this would be an ideal start.”
Clyde returned and said, “That’ll be five-fifty, please.”
Zginski handed him the exact change. “Thank you.”
“Keep it between the lines,” Clyde called cheerily over his shoulder.
Zginski started the car again, sighed contentedly, and for the first time noticed the radio in the center of the dashboard. He turned the knob and a blast of trebly sound came from the speaker. The announcer was in midproclamation: “. . . home of the hits, WHBQ Memphis!”
Zginski drove off, wondering what in the world the singer meant by saying the hills that he climbed were just seasons out of time.
As he resumed following Zginski, Leonardo pondered the suggestion. When Zginski first met Leonardo, Fauvette, and the rest, he looked disdainfully on their feeding habits; he considered killing one victim a night to be egregious and dangerous, since it might attract notice. He preferred to establish a long-term relationship, seducing the victim into becoming a willing donor even though she knew that death waited at the end. He had found a new victim himself, but said little about her except that she was well educated and wealthy.
Clora Crabtree was neither, Leonardo thought. But then, his standards were different.
Gerry Barrister settled back into one of the chairs and propped his feet on a table. Since he owned the Ringside Bar and Supper Club, he could get away with that. Had a patron tried it, he would’ve been out the door so fast his shadow would have to hurry to catch up.
Gerry was thirty-five but looked years older. His long hairsprayed bangs hid the ragged forehead scars that were the most obvious sign of his years as a professional wrestler. He also could not fully extend his left arm thanks to a once-shattered elbow, and occasionally his vision blurred if he turned his head too fast. But he remained six feet tall and solidly muscular, avoiding most of the portliness that marked many ex-athletes.
He had wrestled for fifteen years as Gerry “King of the Ring” Barrister, on the Mid-South circuit. Most of the time he was a “face,” the wrestling term for a hero, although management sometimes cast him as a “heel” to stir things up a bit. He’d toed the line, performed as required, and built a considerable fan base. But one night Jim Hogan, a fireplug Australian with a notoriously short temper, went off-script and cracked Gerry’s skull with a metal folding chair. That had been enough for Gerry; he took a severance deal and used it to buy an old bar on Madison Avenue in Memphis, which he refurbished into a nice drinks-and-dinner spot. He liked the idea of being the big man dispensing free drinks to the pretty girls.
Now he regarded Patience Bolade with the same appraising look he gave every woman. She stood in the open space used for dancing to jukebox tunes, her guitar casually over her shoulder. She was pale, a bit overweight, but with the full breasts he always liked and a twinkle in her eye he suspected would appeal to a tipsy bar crowd. She had long dark hair and big eyes, and seemed perfectly at ease with his scrutiny.
“So,” he drawled, “your name is Patience.” His grin was accented by the mustache-less goatee on his chin. He slapped Fauvette, who stood beside him, playfully on the behind. “Fauvette here tells me you’re a singer.”
“I’m a musician,” she corrected gently. Her full lips turned up in a wry half smile. “Singing is part of that. And I’m looking for a job, somewhere I can play regularly.”
“You union?”
“No. Is that a problem?”
He smiled. “Probably. But problems exist to get solved, don’t they? What kind of songs you do?”
“My own stuff, mostly.”
“Who do you sound like?”
“Ever heard of Laura Nyro?”
“Nope. You got any records out?”
She shook her head. “I’m not really interested in that.”
“Not interested in being a big star?”
Now she smiled all the way. “I like playing for people right in front of me. That’s enough.”
“What instruments do you play?”
“Guitar, mostly. Piano. Some violin.”
“I don’t think we’ll have much call for fiddle music here,” Barrister said. He turned to Fauvette, who had folded her arms impatiently. He found the barmaid almost unbelievably attractive, her little-girl looks mixing with a world-weary air to make one sweet package. She also never seemed to mind his occasional gropes or fondling, which endeared her to him even more. It never occurred to him to actually proposition her; he’d had enough barely legal poontang to do him for life, and was content these days to merely act the rogue. He said to her, “But a piano might be classy, for the early-evening crowd, don’t you think?”
Fauvette shrugged. “Maybe.” Gerry didn’t really want her opinion, he just needed another excuse to pat her on the ass.
“Do you have a piano?” Patience asked.
“No, but we can rent one of those little stand-up electric ones, just to see if it’s worth the investment.”
“Shouldn’t you hear her sing first?” Fauvette prompted in annoyance.
“I reckon I should, since you’re not doing a fan dance,” Barrister said with a chuckle. “So go ahead, give us something.”
Patience put a glass slide onto her left pinky and ran it down the strings once. The shimmering sound commanded the bar owner’s full attention. “You might know this song,” she said.
When she strummed, the air around her seemed to vibrate. She delicately cleared her throat and began to sing the Drifters’ classic “On Broadway,” except changed to the Memphis-centric “On Beale Street.”
Fauvette moved away from Barrister so she could watch what happened. Long ago she’d realized that it wasn’t physical blood she needed, but some intangible aspect of it that allowed her kind to survive. When the man told her how the Patience in his story drained the audience’s energy, Fauvette immediately recognized it as some strange form of vampiric feeding. Now that Patience apparently stood before her, and was also clearly a vampire, she wondered if there might indeed be a way to feed on the intangible part without actually drinking the blood.
When Patience’s voice first rang out, Barrister sat up straight, and his feet slid from the table. He leaned forward as if awaiting the signal to start a race.
Patience did not look directly at him, but stared into space toward the middle of the room. Her only movement was a slight rhythmic swaying. She was doing nothing, in fact, to hold his attention except singing in a pure, sweet voice.
But the vibration in the air grew stronger. Fauvette squinted and saw the air shimmer in waves that traveled from Barrister to Patience. She changed position so she could see more clearly, but the trembling was so delicate and subtle that she couldn’t find it again.
Patience finished the song with a flourish, tossed her long hair for effect, and smiled at Barrister. “That’s what I sound like. What do you think?”
Barrister stared at her as if he’d just seen either an angel or a ghost. His eyes even gleamed like tears were about to fall. “Holy shit,” he whispered.
“See?” Fauvette said, and nudged his arm. “I told you she was good.”
The contact seemed to bring him back to the moment
. “Holy shit,” he repeated, then got to his feet. “And you’re that good, all the time?”
She nodded. “It’s my job, after all.”
He grabbed her hand and pumped it enthusiastically. “Well, when can you start?” Then he looked down at her fingers. “Dang, girl, your fingers are cold as ice. You’d think they’d be smoking hot after that!”
“So does she have the job?” Fauvette prompted.
“Are you kidding? If I could, I’d start you tonight. Except. . . why don’t we start you on Friday? That way I can get some posters up, maybe some ads in the weekend papers. What do you say to two shows, at eight and eleven?”
Patience nodded. “That’s fine.”
Barrister was grinning, sweating, and shaking. “Just with the guitar at first, until I can get a piano in here.” He yawned, and shook his head violently as if to shake it off. “Fauvette, honey? We got anywhere we can use as a dressing room?”
Fauvette shrugged. “We got that storeroom where we keep the extra chairs. It has a sink.”
“That’ll do. Well, it’ll do after you get it cleaned out and fixed up. Take some of the petty cash and get a bunch of nice things, mirrors and stuff. Hell, just let Patience here give you a shopping list.”
“Sure,” Fauvette said with a scowl. “Waitress, janitor, and now decorator.”
He yawned again, completely missing her sarcasm. “Thanks, hon, I knew I could count on you. Look, I’ve got to go lay down on the couch in my office. Patience, Fauvette will show you around. Make sure you leave a phone number and address. We’ll get the contracts signed next week, okay?”
By then he had gone into the kitchen and they heard his office door slam shut. Patience chuckled and took out a cloth to wipe down her guitar strings. “And that, my dear, is how I feed. What did you think?”
“I could kind of feel it,” Fauvette said. “It was like the air was vibrating between you two. Like when you make a telephone out of two cans and a long piece of string.”
Patience put her guitar back in its case. “That’s a very good analogy. I got enough energy from him to counteract what I lost in the sun coming down here. Now I should be fine until tomorrow.”