by Alex Bledsoe
Inside, he winced at her venom. “Are you angry with me, Fauvette?”
“Would it matter?” Before he could reply she continued. “You are really something, you know that? Do you even remember that night in the warehouse? That was important to me. I let my guard down with you.”
People turned toward them at the sound of Fauvette’s raised voice, and continued to stare due to their apparent age difference. Zginski said quietly, “And I believe I fulfilled my part of our agreement. You experienced pleasure with a minimum of pain and discomfort.”
“Jesus, listen to yourself. I thought . . .” She bit off the rest of the sentence.
“What?” he prompted.
“I thought you felt something for me.”
He knew what he should say, knew that it was true. But he resolutely kept silent. He had felt the same for Tzigane, and that had ended badly indeed.
Fauvette continued. “And what about Patience? She practically drools every time you walk in the room. Are you going to use her and throw her away like you did me?”
“I have not thrown you away, Fauvette.”
“No, you keep me around for the next time I might be useful to you. Like when you need to find out whether or not Patience is a danger. What do you use Leonardo for, I wonder? And what . . .” Her fury caused the words to jam in her throat. Finally she said tightly, “And what exactly did happen to Mark?”
Zginski fought down the emotions struggling for expression. “Mr. Luminesca left,” he said in his normal cold tone. “Of his own free will. I neither requested nor compelled him to do so, and was unaware of it until after he had departed. I have no explanation for his conduct, and bear no responsibility for it.”
Fauvette felt as if her chest would burst from the rage building in it. “And why, exactly, should I believe you? You’ve told us all how expendable we are many times.”
“I have never been dishonest with you, Fauvette.”
“No, but I am expendable, ain’t I? Aren’t I?” she corrected.
“I am sorry you feel that way.”
“I could say the same to you.”
She waited until a young couple, holding hands and basking in each other’s presence, sauntered out of hearing. Then she said more calmly, “Look, would it be a huge inconvenience for you to stay the hell away from me for a while? Whenever I see you my heart breaks just a little bit more, and I’m afraid it’ll fall apart for good before too long.”
They stood in silence for a long moment, not looking at each other. A child on a bicycle rode past, swerving at the last minute to miss them. Finally Zginski said, “If that is what you wish. But I do insist that you inform me if anything happens that I might need to look into.”
“You insist?”
“I do.”
“Well, we all know how well you can do that.” She walked away into the pedestrian traffic and quickly vanished. Everyone who passed her saw only an upset teenage girl who probably should’ve been in school.
Was this emotional discomfort a result of the blood bonding he’d shared with Fauvette? Had he absorbed some of her weakness while she drew on his strength? Or was he belatedly coming to terms with his own greatest failure, his inability to see Tzigane—the woman, not the car—for what she truly was?
Like Fauvette she had appeared fragile, in need of his protection and kindness. The other peasants traveling with her, sullen Russians relocating to Ireland, treated her like a dangerous outcast. In his presence her dark eyes grew wet with tears at the slightest reproach. And she knew how to make a man feel powerful, using her moans and cries to bind him to her as surely as chains or locks.
Only it had all been an act that proved fatal for him and then for her. Was it even possible for Fauvette to be that devious and that deadly?
Suddenly a voice said, “You one of them mimes or something?” A black man with a little girl in his arms looked quizzically at him. He realized that he’d remained absolutely still in the middle of the sidewalk, staring into space as he reminisced.
“Can you do that thing where you’re stuck in a box?” the man added.
He ignored this, walked away, and sat on a bench beneath a large maple tree. A squirrel approached him in jerky, furtive movements, seeking the handouts it usually received. It stopped several feet away, no doubt puzzled by what it sensed from him. Then it scurried up the nearest tree.
Everything runs away, he thought bitterly. It was a feeling he could not recall experiencing before, and he had no idea what to do about it now.
Prudence kept watch through the grimy front window of the River City Pawnshop, located across the four-lane boulevard from the Ringside. Behind her, the store’s lone clerk sat on a bar stool behind the counter and stared at the floor, eyes glazed and openmouthed. His erection bulged visibly at the front of his tan polyester slacks. He was not dead, but neither was he conscious; Prudence had simply turned his mind to its own sexual fantasies, and he would stay that way until she released him. He certainly didn’t put up any resistance.
Her own mind was weak and fuzzy from the sun; it was difficult to exert her powers during the day. She had arrived at the Ringside before it opened, then spotted the clerk unlocking the barred door that protected the pawnshop entrance. She reached him before he could flip the sign to OPEN and made him lock up behind them.
A few people had come to the door, expressed their vulgar outrage that it was closed, and then stormed away. Had any of them peered inside, they would have taken Prudence for one of the mannequins. Vampires could remain still longer and with more consistency than any living being. Prudence saw no reason to pace or otherwise expend energy, so she simply stood in the darkened shop and watched.
At last a big black car pulled into the Ringside’s lot and parked in the limited shade. Patience emerged, stretched, and spent a moment looking at Prudence’s old Thunderbird, left in the spot farthest from the building. She could not possibly recognize it, since Prudence had bought it a century after her sister left home. As Patience removed her guitar from the LTD’s trunk another woman joined her.
Prudence squinted through the glare. This newcomer was the same young woman she’d seen behind the Ringside’s bar. Prudence focused all her attention on them, and was able to read their lips as long as they faced her direction.
“Wow,” Patience said when she saw Fauvette’s expression. “You look pissed off.”
“I am,” Fauvette agreed.
“What happened?”
She raised her chin proudly. “I told Rudy Zginski to kiss my ass and go to hell.”
Patience’s eyebrows rose. “Really?”
She nodded. “I told him I didn’t want to see him anymore, or talk to him, or fuck him.” She punctuated this with a little nod of certainty.
It didn’t fool Patience. “Is that true?”
“That I said it?”
“That you meant it. Especially about that last one.”
“Hell, yes, I meant it. I have enough to worry about without sex getting in the way. Maybe I’m an eternal virgin for a reason.”
“So the Catholics can worship you?” Patience said teasingly. “And hey, didn’t you say the first time with Zginski was also the only time it wasn’t agony?”
Fauvette scowled. “Yeah, but I’d damn well rather be celibate than fucked by someone who would kill me in an instant if it was convenient for him.”
Patience smiled and shook her head. “He’s not like that, really. He just wants you to think so.”
“You don’t know him like I do.”
“Maybe not in the same ways. But I know him.”
Fauvette was tired of this whole subject. “Can we drop this? I have to get changed for work.” She nodded at the Thunderbird. “Whose car is that?”
“Probably broke down and the driver went to get help,” Patience said.
“He better,” Fauvette said as they went around the building to the kitchen entrance, “ ’cause Gerry will for sure have it towed if it’s still around
when he gets here.”
Across the street, Prudence released her hold on the pawnshop’s owner, who climaxed inside his trousers and collapsed to the floor. He lay there shaking, disoriented and confused, then began to cry at the vivid memory of making love to his dead wife.
She shielded her eyes as she went outside and dashed across the street through the midday traffic, eliciting only one horn honk of protest. She found the back kitchen door unlocked and opened it enough to peek inside. A cold blast of air-conditioning blew over her. She saw no one, but heard muffled female voices. She slipped inside and followed the sound to a door marked WOMEN. She stood close to listen.
Fauvette quickly undressed, her uniform on a stall door hook. She said to Patience, “I guess instead of chasing him off, I should try to be more like him. He definitely gets what he wants.”
Patience leaned over the sink and checked her eyeliner in the mirror. She watched Fauvette’s reflection; stripped down to her underwear, her physical youth was even more apparent. Fourteen years old forever, with the pert breasts and wide hips of maturity as well as the baby fat and touch of unformed softness still left from childhood. Patience often regretted being doomed to immortality with twenty extra pounds on her frame, but had long since realized that, for a vampire, appearance was entirely beside the point. Looking a certain way was useful only as camouflage. “Honey, do you want to be like that?”
“No,” Fauvette said wearily as she stepped into her skirt. “I want to be like you. I want to be able to move through the world without leaving a trail of death and destruction.” She pulled up the zipper and turned the skirt into place.
“I’m sorry, honey, I wish I could tell you more. I don’t know how I do it. I don’t even know how I became what I am, really.” She turned away from the mirror. “Maybe you and I aren’t even the same thing. I mean, maybe we just superficially look alike, but we’re actually completely different.”
Fauvette buttoned up her blouse. “You have fangs. You could drink blood if you wanted to. Just like me.”
“That’s true,” Patience agreed sadly.
Fauvette fluffed her hair from her blouse’s collar. “Did you know Gerry actually wants me to start going without a bra? ‘Nipples sell more drinks,’ he says. Can you believe that?”
“From what I know about men, yes. Are you going to do it?”
“I might. Not tonight, though.” She went to the mirror and applied some lipstick. “Tonight I’d like to hang on to just a little bit of dignity.”
When she finished, Patience went to her and wrapped her in her arms. “I’m really sorry, Fauvette. It seems like I’ve been nothing but a source of disappointment to you. It might be better if I’d never come along.”
As always, Patience’s soft embrace reminded Fauvette of her long-dead mother. She closed her eyes and said softly, “Just don’t leave yet. I don’t care about the whole energy thing anymore, I just . . . please stay, okay? You’re my only friend.”
Patience stroked her hair. “I’m not going anywhere, little girl. I promise.”
At the words “little girl,” Fauvette felt the hot sting in the corners of her eyes from tears she could not actually produce.
Outside the door, Prudence smiled and had to bite her knuckle to keep from laughing with delight. Fate had conspired to give her the perfect way to get back at her sister, to start this campaign of retribution with a nuclear strike.
Fauvette reluctantly pulled away from Patience. “I’m sorry, I just got a little carried away. It’s been a difficult morning.”
“No need to apologize. I’m here if you need me.”
“Thanks.” She kissed Patience on the cheek.
“Well, I need to go see about this piano I have to use. If last night is any indication, it’s been spending its time in a whorehouse run by deaf people. I have to see if I can fix it up a little.”
She left, and in a few moments Fauvette heard her playing in the dining room. She smiled and applied eye shadow, then bent down to retrieve her hairbrush. When she stood back up, a blond woman was reflected in the mirror.
She turned, startled. How had she not sensed this woman’s approach? “Wow, I didn’t even hear you come in. Are you a new waitress? Gerry should be here pretty soo—”
Prudence grabbed Fauvette by the throat and pushed her back against the wall. She crushed the girl’s neck, feeling the bones snap against her palm. The spinal cord was also severed, leaving Fauvette immobile, her body hanging limp in Prudence’s grasp. Her eyes opened wide and her mouth worked to try to speak, but she could make no sound.
Prudence smiled. “I should probably tell you this is nothing personal, but that’s really not true. It’s very personal. Just not to you.”
She drove her other hand, fingers first, into Fauvette’s belly, piercing the skin and grabbing a handful of intestines.
Fauvette was grateful for the numbness below her neck, although the wet sounds of the woman’s efforts were almost as bad. Whatever the woman did would be repaired after a night’s vampiric rest, but that did nothing to make the disembowelment any less terrifying.
“You should never get emotionally involved with someone like my sister,” Prudence said as she pulled a string of intestines out and tossed them aside. They landed with a wet smack on the tile. Then she reached up into Fauvette’s body cavity for her heart.
Fauvette realized what was happening, what the woman intended to do, and tried with all her strength to scream. Patience would rush to her if only she knew. A single cry, a lone shriek of terror, would summon rescue.
She made no sound at all.
“Only one person can get close to Patience, honey,” Prudence said as her fingers dug for the organ. “And that’s me.” Then she smiled. “A-ha. There you are.”
Prudence tore Fauvette’s heart free of her body.
Fauvette had time to see her own heart in the woman’s grasp. Then Prudence opened her mouth wide, bared her fangs, and sank them into the organ. She tore out a bitesize chunk and spat it into the sink.
Fauvette’s vision suddenly receded, and she sensed her hair crumbling and the skin of her face growing tight and parchmentlike. Over fifty years had passed since her biological death, and all of it was catching up to her now that her heart had been destroyed. The last thing she saw, the last moment of consciousness she had before she finally, truly died, was the woman’s arrogant sneer.
CHAPTER 29
PATIENCE HAD TURNED out the bright house lights in the Ringside dining room and noodled at the piano in the semi-darkness. It really did sound like a whorehouse instrument; she remembered playing one very similar when she had actually worked briefly as a whore. It was during that time she learned to love both music and sex, although music eventually won out as a priority. However, since meeting Rudy Zginski, she wondered if she needed to reevaluate.
Something indefinable changed in the empty room’s atmosphere. It now felt icy and dangerous. She looked up and gasped. “Prudence!”
Her sister was a silhouette in the kitchen door, still but unmistakable. “Hello, dear Patience. It’s been a long time. My, how you haven’t changed.”
Patience stood, instantly on her guard. She looked around the room to make sure they were alone. “I saw you here last night,” she said, hoping she sounded casual. “You ran off before we could speak.”
“What on earth would the two of us have to talk about?” Prudence said with mocking frivolity. “Everything we needed to say should’ve been said a hundred years ago. Saying it now would just make a mockery of a good man’s death.”
“A good man?” Patience snapped. “Vincent? What kind of man proposes to one sister and then seduces the other?”
“A man who needed more than his fiancé could give him,” Prudence shot back.
Patience clenched her fists. “What do you want?”
“Why, to settle accounts. Even the score. Balance the ledgers. Choose the metaphor you like.”
“Can’t we put the past b
ehind us?”
“The past is what we are, dear sister. The past, when our hearts beat and our blood raced. Everything since then is just one long, breath-holding moment.”
Patience moved through the empty tables toward Prudence, who was still a sharp black outline against the harsh kitchen light. “So what do you want me to do? Go away again? Stay away?”
“Good heavens, no. I want you to stay right here, close to the bosom of your family. I want us to play our games again, like we did before. But as it stands now, you are ahead by one, and it’s time for me to even the score.”
She held up something shriveled and black that crumbled even as she displayed it.
“What is that?” Patience whispered.
“Something you once had, and don’t anymore. You made it so easy, Patience, just like with Vincent. You opened yourself up wide to let someone in, which gave me plenty of room to reach in myself and yank them out.”
Patience felt a jolt of fear. “What are you talking about?”
“You’ll find out. And then we’ll be even, and we can begin again. Like the song says, we can play our games of blood. See you soon, big sister.” She backed into the kitchen and the doors swung shut behind her.
Patience rushed to follow, fast enough to hear the back door slam as Prudence fled. When she passed the women’s restroom, though, she froze. Something lay on the floor and blocked the door open.
She stood over it, staring. She switched on the hall light. It took a moment for the withered, musty corpse on the floor to register on her. Only the incongruous little skirt and tattered remains of the white blouse identified it.
She should have screamed, or wailed, or smashed something. She should have chased after Prudence, who was no doubt nearby, gloating and listening for the cries of rage.
Instead she gently picked up Fauvette’s withered corpse and carried it downstairs into the cellar. One leg broke off at the knee when she bumped into the rail.