by Alex Bledsoe
Prudence laughed. “You must cultivate a taste for the small, gentle things, Mr. Jones. The gross and vulgar are so easy for our kind. We could become animals, rending flesh and bone indiscriminately. Our human traits need constant nurturing.”
“Maybe.” He put down his saucer. “Look, I got to ask you something. Have you been keeping company with a tall redheaded white girl named Clora?”
Prudence made a great show of putting down her own cup, which gave her time to choose her words. So it had not been Patience after all. “As a matter of fact, Mr. Jones, I have. She visited me the other night, and I confess to noticing your presence as well. I’m known as a bit of a seer to the local folks and she came to me to ask about her future. I saw in the tea leaves that a lover would be her murderer. Now I understand why it was so clear.”
Leonardo pondered this. “Well . . . yeah, I figure she’ll die eventually because of me.”
“I suppose I should apologize for trespassing on your property, then. Will you make her one of us when her time comes?”
“Naw. There’s enough of us running around.”
Prudence smiled. “Then we agree, at least, on that. Come, let’s sit in the parlor. It’s so much more comfortable.”
Leonardo followed her into the lush, musty front room, still alert for any trap or danger. They passed through the door modified by her father, beneath the unwieldy spiral staircase and into the once-luxurious sitting room. Here the faded, dissipated quality of everything felt stronger, and he worried that the ancient furniture might be dry-rotted and fragile.
Prudence turned on a light and gestured to one of the big wingback chairs. “That’s the seat of honor. It belonged to my daddy; it was where he received obeisance from his sharecroppers.”
Leonardo settled carefully into the seat. “And his slaves?”
“Now, Mr. Jones, that borders on the crude. I am showing you hospitality and kindness, and you wish to provoke me. Those are not the manners of a gentleman.”
Leonardo couldn’t hold back a smile. It was like talking to a female version of Zginski. “I apologize, ma’am. My mama did teach me better, it’s just a long time since I had need of it.”
“Your gracious apology is accepted.”
“So do you live here alone?”
“Oh, yes. Very little needs tending, and I maintain just enough contact with the outside world to avert suspicion of my true nature.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Since my dear sister made me what I am.” Her words grew cold as she spoke. “We were in love with the same man, a handsome young colonel of the Confederacy. He chose me, and as revenge she chose eternal damnation. She murdered him, and left me to rise after my death.”
“No one can hurt you like family.”
“A true thing, Mr. Jones.”
She sniffed her tea again. “A man once wrote a song about us, did you know that? It was quite the popular tune for a brief time.” She cleared her throat and sang in a low, flat voice:
“Listen to what I tell you, son, every word is true
The sisters haunt the night, and might fight over you
Nothing can steal your soul and stamp it in the mud
Like being the new play-pretty for the girls with games of blood.”
“I don’t know that song,” Leonardo said.
“I didn’t expect you would. Its moment of notoriety was brief.”
“So where’s your sister now?”
Prudence shrugged. “She left. She saw her damned state as a license to become a libertine. She always loved music, so I imagine somewhere she’s parading her flesh to the ‘lascivious pleasings of a lute,’ as the Bard says.”
She gazed up at the painting over the mantel. “And yet I still miss her. Before Vincent came along, we were as close as it’s possible for sisters to be. Whatever happened between us was ages ago; now I would just like to press my cheek to hers one more time, and allow the past to wither and die.”
Leonardo followed her glance, then did a double take. “Whoa,” he blurted. “That’s your sister?”
She nodded. “Patience Annabella Bolade.”
“I know her.”
Prudence kept all excitement from her voice. “That seems an unlikely coincidence.”
“Yeah, but dang. There’s this girl that looks just like her, and she’s one of us. She’s a singer at this bar where a friend of mine works. The Ringside, in Memphis.”
Prudence delicately placed her cup on the table. Inside explosions of emotion tore through her, but outwardly she was as calm as if discussing the weather. With a polite smile she said, “Then perhaps I will visit the city to see this woman for myself.”
Leonardo nodded, suddenly wishing he’d kept the revelation to himself. Even though she did her best to hide it, there was an eagerness in Prudence that seemed too strong for the moment. Zginski would’ve held back, parceling out the knowledge slowly to make sure he gave away only what was necessary. As Prudence betrayed her excitement, he would’ve kept her off-balance and floundering, the better to retain the position of power. Leonardo used to mock him for that sort of thing, but for the first time he understood its use.
“I’m probably wrong,” he said. “Now that I look at it again, it’s just a vague similarity.”
Prudence wasn’t fooled, but she had the information she needed: Patience was appearing as a musical act at an establishment called the Ringside. “Well, it was a moment of hope, at any rate.”
“Misplaced and pointless?” he said.
She sighed with heavy sadness. “It always is.”
CHAPTER 20
GERRY BARRISTER LAY asleep on the couch in his office. It was long past closing, and he should have gone home. But something compelled him to stay.
He’d had that compulsion a lot lately. It would strike with irresistible certainty just as he was about to leave. He would wake thirsty, horny, and too weak to do more than drive home and collapse on his other couch.
Now he snored peacefully as Fauvette and Patience stood over him in the darkness. Patience shook her head. “This is your victim?”
“Yes,” Fauvette said. In sleep, Barrister’s features softened and he looked almost like a large, hairy baby.
“You could have any handsome young man you want. Why pick him?”
Fauvette ran her fingers lightly through Barrister’s hair. He smiled in his sleep. “Rudy said my first long-term victim should be someone close by, so that when I fed on him my comings and goings wouldn’t seem unusual. He said there was always the chance that someone would recognize that he was being used by one of us, and this way I’d be close enough to know about it.”
Patience shook her head. To her the man looked lumpy and coarse with the scars of his former career. She couldn’t imagine the physical intimacy required to feed on him as a traditional vampire. “Do you like him, at least?”
Fauvette shrugged. “He’s all right. Sometimes he cries, which is a little awkward. He’s known a lot of women, but none of them have treated him very well, I don’t think. But most of the time he’s content with whatever’s happening in his head with me.”
“He doesn’t think it’s real, does he?”
She shook her head. “On his own, he’s never approached me.”
“He patted you on the ass right in front of me.”
“He does that with every girl who works here. He’ll do it to you eventually.”
“He’ll draw back a nub if he does.”
“But that’s just it, he only does it when people are watching. It’s part of his act. In private, he’s a perfect gentleman.”
“Do you always feed on him at work?”
She nodded. “Rudy says that’s best. Do it where your presence isn’t out of place.”
Patience sighed. Zginski’s influence with Fauvette reminded her of the way some of her old relatives felt about God. “You know, Rudy doesn’t know everything about being a vampire.”
“He knows more t
han I do.”
“He says.”
“He’s never lied to me.”
Before Patience could reply, Barrister shifted on the couch. Fauvette’s influence would keep him asleep indefinitely, and normally she would feed from him during this time, taking just enough to sustain her until the next session. But tonight there would be something different.
Patience decided to drop the whole Zginski issue. She didn’t trust her own motives for berating him to Fauvette, and until she did a dignified silence was best. “Are you ready, then?”
“Yes,” Fauvette said. “How do I start?”
“I don’t know exactly, honey. It happens for me when I’m singing, and everyone’s focused on me. You have to sense the moment when all his attention is entirely, willingly on you, and learn to latch on to that energy. Does that make sense?”
Fauvette nodded.
Patience kissed her forehead. “I won’t stand over you and watch. I’ll be out in the dining room working on a song. Come get me if you need me.”
Patience left, closing the office door quietly. Fauvette knelt on the floor in front of Barrister and brushed his hair back from his face. If she could master this, then he might live to see another birthday.
Patience stood in the darkened kitchen outside the office. Only traffic and the steady hum of refrigerator compressors broke the silence.
She could go and work on her music, as she’d said. She did want to learn the rest of the verses to “American Pie,” as well as polish some of her own work. She understood that people wanted music they recognized with their dinner, and “American Pie” had that chorus eminently suited for sing-alongs. But some audiences wanted the surprise of originals. After all this time she had a good sense of when to change things up, since her life literally depended on it.
Something else gnawed at her, though. She drifted down the hall to the waitresses’ lockers. All were padlocked, but when she idly flicked the one on Fauvette’s the lock turned out to be unlatched. She looked back at the closed office door, and felt terrible for what she contemplated. But that didn’t stop her.
She opened the locker door, wincing at the squeak, and stared into the rectangular space at a sliver of the girl’s life.
Two things were taped to the inside of the door. One was a postcard that showed sunrise over the ocean, faded so that the only color left was a pale yellow. “Greetings from Gulf Shores” was printed in one corner. No doubt this had been the only sunrise in Fauvette’s life before Zginski came along, and the pity of that made Patience choke a little.
The other was cut from a newspaper, recent enough that the paper had not yellowed. She squinted at it, trying to decipher the significance.
The headline over the photo had been torn in half, but the words “teen racial slaying” were still readable. A bloody body lay on a stretcher in the street while policemen restrained the mostly black crowd. But there, at the front of the crowd, behind the barricade, was a vampire. Even in a photograph, one vampire could always spot another one. A black girl vampire, Patience thought; it must be Olive, one of those who died when Zginski appeared.
She touched the paper over Olive’s face. Patience had made and lost human acquaintances, but until meeting Fauvette she had never befriended another vampire. Was that sort of loss different? Had Fauvette and Olive been friends longer than human lifetimes? Would she and Fauvette still be friends in a century, when all the mortals around them had gone to the dust?
She looked through the other items. Most were directly related to Fauvette’s job: skirt, blouses, apron, shoes. But in the bottom, beneath a folded towel, she found something she couldn’t identify. After another check of the office door, she pulled out a plastic bag, tied with a metal wire, that contained some sort of dark powdery substance.
She untied the bag and sniffed. It smelled loamy and dank. With a smile, she reached inside and withdrew a pinch. When she held it close to her nose, she recognized it at once.
Dirt. Grave soil. One of a vampire’s few creature comforts.
She shook her head but didn’t laugh. There were no rules for this sort of thing; the transition from coffin to bed did not have to be made all at once. She carefully replaced the bag and closed the locker, feeling even more like a heel for her snooping.
Fauvette kissed Barrister lightly on the lips. His eyes opened and tried to focus. “Fauvette?” he said fuzzily; in his dreams her lips were also cool against his own.
“It’s me,” she said. “How do you feel?”
He blinked a few times, then smiled. She was naked, and his eyes took in her youthful form, all soft hair and gentle curves. “Tired. But pretty groovy. Did we do it?”
“Just like we always do, baby.” She kissed him again, and let him touch her breasts.
“Dy-no-mite,” he murmured with a smile and closed his eyes. His hand fell away.
She leaned closer and nibbled his earlobe. “Don’t go back to sleep, honey. Look at me.” She turned on the little desk lamp for illumination.
He rose on one elbow, shook his head a little, and gazed at her. She stayed as still as death, trying to sense the little shiver that meant energy was flowing from Barrister to her. She’d practically seen the air reverberate with it the night of Patience’s show, but now there was nothing. Unless it was the slight, almost imperceptible tingle that faded almost at once.
Barrister watched her for a few moments longer, then closed his eyes. His head sank down, and he went back to sleep.
“Honey?” she said, and then more firmly, “Gerry?” But he was too far gone into dreams of carnal excess to respond.
Fauvette sighed and stood. She walked to the window and looked out at the deserted street. After a moment a Gran Torino went past, the hooga-chakka chorus from “Hooked on a Feeling” blaring from the 8-track. She winced at the intensity.
The office door opened, and Patience silently entered. She stood behind Fauvette, her hands on the girl’s bare shoulders. “How’d it go?” she whispered.
“I don’t know,” Fauvette said aloud, still watching the world outside the window. “I think I felt something, but he wouldn’t stay awake.”
“You may need to do more. I sing; it’s something to make people focus on me.”
“I can’t sing.”
“Can you do anything like singing?”
“What’s ‘like singing’?” Fauvette snapped, whirling so fast her hair smacked Patience’s face. “Should I belly dance? Read a poem? Dance a jig?”
Patience held up her hands. “Don’t get defensive, honey. I just mean, because of what we are, it’s easy to make people do things. It’s more difficult to make them want to do something. It’s the difference between looking at a painting because someone tells you to, and looking at one because it’s so beautiful you can’t look away.”
Fauvette gestured at herself. “Then I don’t think I can ever do it. No one looks at me that way.”
Patience lifted the girl’s chin. “I’m no classical beauty either, hon. Nothing quite like realizing you’re stuck for all eternity with those twenty extra pounds that the world now considers unattractive. But how we look has nothing to do with it. It’s about being . . .” She searched for the word. “Compelling.”
Fauvette stepped around her, gathered her clothes, and began dressing. On the night she died, she was traveling home through the woods alone because Junior Caldwell ignored her at the revival. That humiliation, like her virginity, seemed doomed to repetition. “I don’t know that I can ever master that. I’d probably be a dried-up old maid by now if I hadn’t become what I am.”
Patience knew better than to push the issue. Despite the years and experiences, something in Fauvette remained fundamentally childlike and easily hurt. And much like feeding on energy, no one could be taught how to overcome that; you either matured, or you didn’t.
On the couch, Gerry Barrister moaned and rolled onto his back. His erection pressed firmly against his olive sans-a-belt slacks. To Patience, it seem
ed pitiful and sad.
Zginski looked down at Alisa asleep on her bed. She wore a sheer nightgown, and her skin glistened with unhealthy sweat. The cancer had begun to eat into vital organs, and her body tried desperately to communicate its agony through the haze of Zginski’s influence. So far, it was unsuccessful, but he knew that soon he would be forced to finish her. Their contract said he would let her feel no pain.
A book lay open on her chest. The spine read Looking for Mr. Goodbar. He picked it up and read the page where she had stopped. He grimaced; this modern American fiction struck him as more gynecology than literature. And when the body, the instrument of love, held no mystery, love would inevitably become as base an emotion as jealousy or hate.
He unbuttoned his patchwork shirt and stepped out of the platform shoes. The footwear made him two inches taller, which secretly pleased him; he had once been of average height, but during his time in limbo people had grown taller in general. A short man stood out almost as much as a tall one, and the shoes helped him blend in.
It was almost dawn, and now that he was on his traditional schedule he should descend to the basement to rest. Yet something kept him at Alisa’s bedside. She moaned softly, and intermittently tossed her head. He knew what was happening in her mind, and felt oddly sad at its pathetic unreality. Chad would never be beside her when she awoke.
At last he said firmly, “Alisa, awaken.”
She opened her eyes at once, and stared up at him with the desperate, on-the-verge look of a woman distracted at the worst possible moment. Her surroundings gradually replaced the landscape of her dreams. “Rudy,” she whimpered, tears welling in her eyes. He touched her cheek. She swallowed hard, emotions churning within her.
“I wish to feed,” he said.
She nodded and turned her head to display the bite marks over her jugular.
He felt the tug of her blood, but held back. When she finally noticed she said, “What?”
He shrugged out of the shirt and stood bare to the waist. He put his thumbnail to his chest and dug it deeply into the skin. When he finished, a three-inch gash cut across his pectoral muscle.