by David Lee
“What are you waiting for? Go and read the files,” said the Jew, shooing Ortega down the bar to the exit. “You have work to do; remember, keep it to yourself.”
“I’m going, I’m going.”
“Stanley Cup Champions,” yelled the barkeep.
“What?” said Ortega, confused.
“1917, slaughtered the Montreal Canadiens,” said the Indian, fervent as only a diehard fan can be. “Three games to one, outscored ’em 19 – 3; first American team to take the cup.” The Indian smiled and tipped the schooner in his hand, the skinny white guy just muttered.
Walking out the door, Ortega wondered what time warp he’d fallen into.
CHAPTER 6
Arabella started the morning in Pioneer Square at the Totem Pole and began circling the neighborhood block by block. She’d gone with a short heel cowboy boot with silver toe tips, snug boot cut jeans, a fitted black t and an A2 from Eastman. Her 1911 fit comfortably in the right hand pocket, neither bulging nor sagging. A Terry Tussey Junior built on a Caspian frame, it was concealable and light with full ACP stopping power.
The wooden stake went into the inside pocket she’d added to the jacket for just this purpose. She would never alter her original, and had purchased the repro to modify. Her original jacket was a gift from a WWII pilot reserved for special occasions. She carried her gun whenever she might need to defend herself or discourage hostiles without going all vamp on them. And if she did go Vamp, the police rarely looked farther than the big hole the fat slug left in the unfortunate’s face when assessing the cause of death.
Unlike most of her kind, she functioned in daylight so long as it wasn’t direct bright sun. As a permanent lifestyle, Los Angeles was out except for the occasional short shopping excursion but Seattle, with one hundred fifty eight days of precipitation was perfect. The best part was there were only thirty-eight inches of rain annually so it really wasn’t an umbrella town like London or New York. Except for August when, inexplicably, the sky was clear and the sun was bright, it was the perfect Vampire city. When it wasn’t foggy, misty, drizzling, raining, sleeting, hailing or snowing it was generally overcast with blue grey sludge filtering the sun, allowing her to comfortably move about, unlike the Eastern European and Russian Vampyra who were restricted to the dark. Besides, all in all she preferred the materials and design of fall winter rather than spring summer.
She was quite good at taking care of herself and had since she’d been made on a French battlefield in 1784. A peasant girl, her village had been captured by a German force and, when the French counterattacked, she was separated from her family in the chaos.
Europe had been the perfect habitat for the Vampyra for hundreds of years, incessant warfare and a lack of communication allowed Night Hunters to travel from one conflict to the next unimpeded and anonymous. A Vampire needed to feed but once a month and could go much longer without power diminishing, so it was relatively easy to follow an army and find a target of opportunity.
Such had been Arabella. Alone and frightened and lost in the chaos, a man had appeared from the battle smoke and offered to help her find her family. Under the pretext of avoiding the pillaging soldiers, he had led her into the woods where he had thrown her to the ground and, at penetration, had bitten her and taken her to darkness but not death. As he buckled his pants he said, ”You are so lovely, I gifted you with life; good luck,” and turned, abandoning her. Fifteen years old and delirious with the changes to her body, she determined to stay alive.
Over the days and weeks and months that followed she survived as a camp follower, a prostitute, while her mind and body underwent the transition. She disgusted herself sneaking out at night to roam the battlefields where she sucked blood from the freshly dead. Each morning, sickened by the memories of the night, she swore to never do it again but her body required the energy of fresh blood to fuel the change and, without her maker to guide her, she followed her body’s insatiable desires and survived. Succumbing to the blood lust that infected her and her growing sexual appetites she reveled in war torn Europe, travelling from battlefield to battlefield satisfying her blood hunger with the injured and dying and her lusts with dashing young cavalry officers. As the Continental wars drew to a close and her needs finally satiated she turned her attentions to her situation and determined to carve out a niche in life.
Reinventing herself as a member of the newly emerging bourgeoisie, she moved to Paris utilizing her accomplished charms to become the mistress of a minor nobleman in service to the French Court. With conversational knowledge of German, English and Russian acquired from those countries’ Officer Corps, she was able to converse freely and became a constant companion at the balls and functions that swirled around pre-revolution Paris.
When the revolution came she forcibly spirited her lover to Marseille and put him on a boat bound for London. He had been good to her and she owed him a debt for introducing her to another way of life. Their time together had been good; he had introduced her not only to his social circle but also to the intellectuals swirling about the capitol, so that her excellent mind had been influenced by some of the best thinkers of the time. If he wondered about her occasional night long absences, he was sophisticated enough to tell her he was concerned only about her welfare and secure enough to believe her when she whispered she would always take care to be safe and would always be home before the sun came up.
The revolution and turmoil that ripped through France provided her the cover to continue her education. Finally comfortable with the cycle of demand and satiation that was her lot, she learned to moderate her beast although when it raged she fed easily in the chaos of the streets. Bonaparte’s ascension and the continent wide warfare that followed provided her the cover to grow and to complete her education. A series of powerful lovers in government and the military showered her with presents and indulged her with connections and tutors until she was one of the most knowledgeable people of the time.
One evening she went out to a fashionable party and on her way home vanished from the streets of Paris and indeed from Europe. Taking passage to Buenos Aires under an alias, she knocked at the door of a splendid villa located in the fashionable hillside district, a place that she had spent the past years searching out. Using her European connections to identify the owner and confirm his history, she satisfied herself that he was her maker.
At the door she claimed to be related to an acquaintance from France and only wished to pass on a letter. The manservant admitted her and showed her to a waiting room furnished in dark Teutonic furniture carved with scenes of mounted huntsman pinning pigs to the ground with lances. When the master appeared he broke into a broad smile, as she was beautiful and dressed in the latest Parisian style.
He advanced towards her, saying he did not recognize the name but wished to correct this oversight; he was suave and used to impressing young women with his Old World charm and sophistication. As he reached out to take her hand, she grabbed his wrist and plunged the stake she’d spent the tedious sea voyage carving into his chest, puncturing his heart saying, “I never thanked you for your gift,” and watched as he shrank and began turning to dust. As the spark dimmed in his eyes, he asked, “Who are you,” and finally, “why,” but she did not answer. He could not see the dirty little peasant girl in the beautiful woman who had just ended his life.
He had accumulated vast properties, which she appropriated and liquidated allowing her the financial freedom to live her life as she chose. She roamed the world stateless, without allegiance to any nation or Clan. As word spread among the People of the Night, she was asked to intervene in delicate matters or to lend assistance with a dispute. Since her maker was dead and she had never joined a Clan, she was truly independent and could sell her services to the highest or lowest bidder, as she determined. Over time she achieved a reputation as a formidable and relentless opponent, and her powers grew to equal those of all but the oldest and strongest Vampires.
Tiring of the peripatetic l
ifestyle, she sought a place where she could live in semi-retirement, avoiding conflict and accepting commissions at her discretion. The Pacific Northwest was an attractive possibility; the geography lent it a certain isolation, which served to shield her from some of the more unsavory People of the Night who roamed the East Coast. She hadn’t hunted in the Northwest, so there were no unpleasant surprises lurking about seeking retribution, and it had a nice parochial outlook with a small power structure that would be easy to monitor.
When Petru appeared at her home in Philadelphia with a letter from the Queen of the Northwest Clan proposing a contract for hire, she traveled to Seattle and accepted the commission. While discussing the Queen’s problem, a common enough matter involving a Clanless Vampire looking to set up shop in Portland, she was able to secure permission to establish a permanent residence in Seattle. The Queen got a private enforcer outside the Clan structure and she had the protection of the Clan around her.
The Queen had taken her time considering Arabella’s request. Allowing the preeminent Vampire assassin of the past century to move in as a permanent guest stimulated her neurotic fear, but the chance to make a personal ally out of this dangerous weapon outweighed her paranoia, and she ultimately agreed. Arabella’s ability to persuade the Portland problem to leave without a messy scene impressed the Queen greatly, as she valued discretion. The only condition she imposed was that Arabella not ply her trade in Northwest Clan territory without the personal authorization of the Queen, a condition she was happy to accept, as she had long sought a place where she had no enemies and where no Vampires resided with old connections to someone she had eliminated.
Of course, the Queen had added at the last when the negotiations had been concluded and things were all friendly and neighborly that she could perhaps use some assistance from time to time if Arabella wasn’t otherwise occupied, small services, barely a trifle, something that would take little of her time and would undoubtedly be most helpful.
The trifling little problem annoying the Queen turned out to be Oliver’s Insurrection. Summoned to a midnight meeting at the mansion, she found herself hunting Oliver and the followers he’d recruited throughout the City and finally following him into a devastated section of the Seattle Underground, as reconstruction of the burnt City went on around and above them. Petru accompanied her, whether to assist her or to spy on her Arabella was never sure, as they rampaged through the rebellious Clan members who’d thrown in with Oliver.
Capturing his confederates when they could, killing them when they had no choice, they’d finally cornered him Underground where, with Petru’s help, she captured and subdued Oliver. As they prepared to stake his heart, cut off his head and burn the body, the Queen intervened and spared Oliver’s life. Petru and she had forced Oliver into the concrete burial vault, bound it round with iron bands and hauled it to the waterfront where a well-paid charter with the Puget Sound Tug Boat Company waited. The tug steamed up Puget Sound into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, where they told the Captain to stop then winched the vault up off the deck and pushed it from the stern. After marking the position of the moon and stars into her memory, they returned successful but troubled that a dangerous enemy was left alive, albeit at the bottom of the sea.
It had never occurred to Arabella that the Queen retained any Human emotions, but it seemed her leniency was the result of a passion not entirely grown cold. Oliver was, after all, of her blood and resided with her as her personal Human, bound to her by the blood providing her with nourishment and perhaps even satisfying her lingering sexual appetites before she made him. Once made, he was quickly promoted through the Clan until his ambition made him try for her chair.
Now, either he had somehow returned or another had designs on power. Either way, the Queen wanted them found and delivered to her, and if she wanted to stay alive and living in Seattle, she needed to find and stop whatever was going on.
Stepping out of her building on Second Avenue, she crossed Yesler at the crosswalk, turned right, then a left on Occidental and into Pioneer Square. Since the area had upgraded from brothels and opium dens to art galleries and tourist museums she had lost her taste for the area, although she particularly liked the Totem Pole the City had purchased from the Tlingit to replace the one they’d stolen and been forced to return to its rightful owners.
As usual, people were clustered about the base of the 60-foot Totem craning their necks to see the top. She stood off admiring the raven guarding First Avenue when a woman wearing a pilled orange sweater and blue stretch pants sausaging her significant behind, with a watch cap pulled over her head like a navy blue condom covering a red fire hydrant handed her a camera and told her to take her family’s picture and be sure to get the Totem Pole in the shot. Complying, she maneuvered the herd so that the hook nosed figure on the Totem appeared poised to gouge out the tops of their heads and snapped away.
Returning the camera, she realized where she needed to go to find the Ratman. Continuing through the Square, she turned left on Jackson and walked towards the International District, one of the downtown areas clinging to the old ways. At an intersection she watched as the WALK/DON’T WALK crazily flashed, the people beside her stepped off the curb then back confused by the erratic behavior. Watching she realized there was a pattern although what it meant was beyond her. Her cell phone buzzed and answering the phone a machine voice said, “Morse Code.”
“I don’t remember the code, if I ever actually knew it,” she said.
After a moment the voice said “Would you like to learn?”
“No,” she barked.
After a long moment the voice said, “We found an anomaly in the data.”
“Are you going to tell me about it?”
“It involves a spike in data to and from a source in the Underground.”
Trog communication was slow when limited to language, she thought, “Who is it and what are they talking about?”
“This would go faster if you would allow us to install a plug in your head, we could give you wireless capability and do a data dump whenever we had something,” said the voice, “think of it.”
She did, the thought of the Trogs dumping data indiscriminately into her brain creepy and repulsive, “No thank you,” she said as politely as possible.
“Who, what?”
“Jason at Blood Simple seems to be acquiring more, much more, than his existence requires.”
“Send me a list of what he is purchasing and copies of his email.”
“Done,” said the voice as the line went dead.
Spotting the neon sign up the block, she crossed the street and strolled along the sidewalk, a tourist wandering the spicier part of town to a bar she hadn’t been in for almost a century.
Satisfied that the street was not under any surveillance either from the Humans or the Underground, she turned her attention to the Blue Anchor and extended her senses, feeling for power radiating from an unseen but malignant source. Satisfied, she waited at the light, crossing with the signal. Seattle police were enamored with jaywalking citations and frequently issued them as prelude to altercation, a fact that made her miss New York every time she went for a walk. Casually wandering down the sidewalk, she pushed through the door of the Blue Anchor, a tourist soaking up Seattle’s seedier side.
The bar looked unchanged from the last time she’d been in it and, although she knew it couldn’t be the same Human, the elderly gentlemen stocking the coolers deeply resembled the Human who’d helped her all those years ago. Ignoring him, she walked through the bar to the back where she entered first the men’s room then the women’s, satisfying herself that they were both empty.
Returning, she turned her attention to the only patron, a large, enigmatic Indian standing passively at the shuffleboard table watching her through sharp, dark eyes. His hair was thick and lustrous, pulled back into a ponytail reaching halfway down his back. His face was broad and full, showing little emotion as she walked past him; only his eyes tracked her. The
Indian moved to the other end of the shuffleboard table and casually began to practice. He had a nice touch and lagged the blues to the end of the table.
“I believe I knew your father,” she said, stopping in front of the bartender, “Or maybe your grandfather.”
“Possibly,” he replied, “or my great-grandfather.”
“My apologies; it is difficult to keep track of your generations through time.” She stood in front of him, openly inspecting him.
“The traditions are alive,” he replied formally.
“There may be a problem.”
“Yes, there is,” was all he said.
Arabella turned to the bar and, choosing a stool in the middle of the bar, said, “Something to drink, please, anything will be fine.” The bartender pulled a draft and set it in front of her. “It’s on the house.” He stood there waiting for her. Arabella ignored the beer and looked at him with her green, steady eyes; he stood motionless and tried to look away, but every time he shifted his gaze her eyes trapped him until he stood frozen, unable to blink, unable to run, almost unable to think.
“You resemble him,” she said, “Although he was better looking, I think taller, with a nicer nose.”
She blinked, releasing him, and in the respite he blurted, “I know who you are.”
“Good,” she said, “tell me who I am, I would like to know.”
“It was foretold that you would come; we have been waiting for you.”
“We? Exactly, who are we?”
“We study the Book, watching for the return of the Plague; you could come to our gathering, every Thursday at eight in the basement.” He nodded toward the back where she’d seen a door probably leading to a basement.
She stifled a grin, picturing geezers downstairs, the mah jong analogue of the women’s club.
“I’m looking for Ratman; tell him that I wish to meet with him; tell him that I will be here in two days.”