Vampire Punk

by Meredith Medina

  The blood.

  Riah and Bishop battled behind me, furniture cracked and splintered. M.A.D.’s gold records smashed on the floor as they crashed against the wall. Riah’s heel stabbed into my face on the cover of the March 1982 edition of Rolling Stone.

  On the ground, Lux started to move, his body mending and cracking back into shape.

  Laudan’s are hard to kill.

  That same fog that had driven me before dropped over my vision and I snarled as I reached down and grabbed Lux’s throat. His moonshined eyes glittered up at me, filled with rage. With one fluid motion, I ripped open his throat and poured his afterlife out onto the floor.

  Riah screamed and lashed out, raking her nails across Bishop’s face, opening three deep furrows in his flesh. They healed almost instantly, but the blood dripping into his eyes was enough to make him stumble back.

  Stake through the heart.

  The chair I’d been sitting in had been smashed and I grabbed a splintered wooden leg. Riah whirled around, her teeth bared and bloody and her fingers curved into claws. She saw Lux in a heap on the floor, his blood beginning to congeal beneath him. She opened her mouth wide and scream at me and rushed forward.

  Hefting the chair leg like a javelin, I channeled my very best impression of Abraham Van Helsing and drove the jagged end into her chest. I half expected her to gasp and clutch dramatically at the improvised stake like they always did in the movies, but she just laughed at me, blood dripping from her full lips.

  I gritted my teeth and put all my strength into driving her backwards. Her shoes crunched in the broken glass that covered the hardwood floor and she gasped as her shoulders hit the wall.

  “What do you think this is? A movie?” Riah chuckled thickly, blood drooling from her chin and onto her ruined shirt.

  I shoved the wooden chair leg hard, hearing it crunch as it broke Riah’s ribs, and slammed through the drywall, pinning her there like a taxidermy butterfly.

  I backed away, watching as she reached down to tug at the piece of wood that had impaled her. “Idiot,” she muttered, yanking on it, but it didn’t budge. She stepped forward, trying to slide off the weapon, but the ornately carved foot of the chair leg held her in place.

  Outside the office, the noise of destruction and anarchy had quieted suddenly.

  Bishop wiped the blood from his forehead and marked Riah’s furious face with his bloody hand. “Riah, krvno dijete to the Laudan, Meridian,” he said calmly, his voice dark and deadly. “You will face the judgement of the Caedyr. They will not be merciful. And your second death will be more painful than the first.” He looked over at the doorway as Church stepped over the bodies of the fallen Laudan who had guarded Bishop’s office.

  “Spiral is under control. She only brought a handful of those rats with her.” Church looked at me and at the body of M.A.D.’s drummer on the floor and Riah pinned to the wall. She bared her teeth and hissed at him. Church nodded shortly and left the room. The goons that had been slain were pulled away from the door by unseen hands and I leaned against the wall, trying to catch my breath.

  Riah struggled against the chair leg that held her to the wall, and I could hear her blood dripping on the hardwood floor. She muttered under her breath in a language I couldn’t understand. Bishop grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him.

  “It’s a shame, Riah. I know Meridian had high hopes for you. He might even have loved you,” Bishop said, pausing to examine her face closely. “Nothing could have come of it, of course. Unfortunately for Meridian, he seems to have forgotten that you will never be more than you are right now. And now you are a traitor to the gift you have been given.”

  Riah snarled and spat a mouthful of blood into his face.

  Bishop dropped her chin and pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, wiping his cheeks deftly before turning to me. “You did well. Laudan are difficult to kill, but there are ways. Riah will be kept here to await the Caedyr’s decision. She will not be allowed to speak on her own behalf, and there will be nothing Meridian can say to save her from her fate.” He turned to look at Riah, who had slumped over the chair leg. What he was saying was more for her than it was for me, and he’d made his point.

  Bishop left the office and I followed, not wanting to be left alone with Riah or the remnants of Lux. I hadn’t disliked the kid, but he’d chosen the wrong side.

  My mouth fell open as we stepped into the club.

  Riah’s rats had destroyed everything that wasn’t nailed down. Spiral was a disaster zone.

  The velvet upholstered booths were ripped to shreds, tables shattered and splintered, stools hurled through walls… flames crackled across the stage I’d performed on almost every night for the last five years and every spotlight had been pulled down from the rigging to be smashed on the black concrete floor of the club. Even the huge wooden staircase that led to the street hadn’t escaped the rampage.

  “Holy fuck,” I whispered.

  Bishop looked around, taking in not only the damage, but also the carnage. A tall man stepped out from behind the bar, kicking the bottom of a broken bottle away from his feet as he walked towards us.

  “Any survivors?”

  “Three. One will not survive the night.”

  “Good. Keep the ones that live safe until tomorrow. The Caedyr will decide if they share the zrádce’s fate.”

  The man nodded, dismissed with a wave of Bishop’s hand.

  “What are you going to do now? This place is destroyed.” I blurted out. I couldn’t believe what had happened here. What about the recording studio? Where was I going to live? Could I go back to the loft? With Riah gone, and Lux dead because of me…

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Maddern,” Bishop said calmly. “You have proven your loyalty to the Caedyr. You could have attacked me at any time, but instead you came to my aid. I won’t forget it, and neither will they. But neither will Meridian… As your rodič, he is bound by our laws to train you, and he will, but I will find you a new place to stay during the daylight hours.”

  “But the club… this will take years to fix… and the money… we were supposed to perform on Saturday. Ah fuck, we have no drummer…”

  Bishop wiped his hands on his handkerchief and tucked it back into his jacket pocket. The blood-spattered fabric peeped out of his torn pocket; it was ridiculous to look at. “It looks like our little plan for a hiatus will have to be accelerated just a little.” His eyebrow rose as he looked around the room again. Two men battled the fire on the stage, and another had begun sweeping up the glass from the ruined bar.

  The head of one of the punks I’d met in the loft lay nearby, its mouth open wide in a soundless scream of rage. The body lay on the dance floor, the limbs splayed in odd angles, as though it had tried to get up after the head was removed.

  My skin crawled as I spied more bodies. Fifteen in total. There were three more hidden away in the depths of Spiral. Witnesses. Twenty mutineers in total. A fraction of the force of Blood Outlaws that gathered in Meridian’s loft every morning. Bishop looked at me strangely, and I tried to clear my mind, I didn’t need him in there. I didn’t want to end up in front of the Caedyr, whatever they were supposed to be.

  “Come back tomorrow night,” Bishop said, but I barely heard him over the sound of the men on the stage with their fire extinguishers.

  “Why aren’t the cops here?” I asked suddenly. They should be crawling over this place. There was a lot of carnage to answer for.

  Bishop shook his head. “We don’t deal with human authorities.”

  Of course you fucking don’t.

  “Fewer questions,” Bishop said quickly. “The Caedyr acts as our governing body… we answer to them. Problems like the one pinned to my office wall? Those are reported immediately. Anything else, they trust me to be fair in my dealings and decisions. Every so often a dítě will run afoul of New York City’s finest… we bail them out, deal with any press and fines… they leave us alone unless things get out of hand. Which they never
do.”

  I pointed at one of the headless bodies on the floor. “I see that,” I said shortly.

  Bishop smiled, his lips a thin line. “A rare occurrence, I can assure you.”

  “Let’s hope so, I don’t like group activities.”

  “A trait that I appreciate more than you know, Mr. Maddern,” Bishop replied. He pointed to the stairs and Spiral’s exit. The red light above the top stair still glowed in the darkness. “There’s a car waiting at the curb, it will take you wherever you want to go. Just be back here tomorrow night.”

  I nodded. I didn’t know where the fuck I was going to go, but I’d figure that out soon enough.

  7

  Bishop! Church! I didn’t expect to see you all here,” Meridian’s voice echoed down the stairs as he descended into the club. I’d been waiting here with Bishop and the other full-blooded Laudan’s who made up Spiral’s core staff for an hour or so. Bishop’s office was ruined, so he’d had the club cleared and set up as a makeshift boardroom. A long wooden table with a speakerphone had been placed on the dance floor.

  The room still smelled like smoke from the scorched stage.

  Riah and her two surviving conspirators were kneeling on the black and white tiles. She looked up as Meridian descended the stairs, and I wondered what she was feeling at that moment. Seeing the Laudan who had turned her against the leader of the New York društvo and then abandoned her to fail... what if she’d succeeded? Would he return like a conquering hero ready to reap the rewards of Bishop’s fallen midnight kingdom under Brooklyn’s streets?

  But she hadn’t succeeded.

  And now Meridian had a problem.

  “Didn’t you,” said Bishop quietly. He stepped forward to welcome Meridian, but I could see that he wasn’t pleased about it. The Caedyr had been waiting on the phone for his arrival for some time, and it was obvious that Meridian had delayed his arrival on purpose.

  “I love what you’ve done with the place,” Meridian said with a smile, his voice echoing off the ruins of the club’s interior. His nose wrinkled as the smell of smoke hit his nostrils. “I hated that stage anyway...”

  “Meridian, there is someone here who has been anxiously anticipating your arrival. And I’m sure you know who is waiting on the line,” Bishop pointed to the phone sitting on the table, and one of the Laudan’s standing nearby pressed a button and a speaker crackled to life.

  “You are late,” several voices speaking as one echoed through the speaker and I watched Riah shrink away from the sound of it.

  “Ah, his master’s voices...” Meridian said with a wry smile. He walked in a wide circle around Bishop, Riah, and the kneeling punks. His voice was smooth and calm when he spoke. “Greetings, Ctěné. It has been some time since I have heard your voices.”

  “Too long it seems,” one voice replied. “Vaše děti, your children... they are restless, Meridian.”

  “I had no knowledge of any restlessness,” he began.

  “Knowledge enough to leave New York,” Bishop snapped, cutting off Meridian’s excuse.

  “I see what is happening here,” Meridian said, spreading his hands in supplication. “My Riah, moje dítě, she has wounded you, and I apologize... but I cannot take responsibility for her actions.”

  I heard Riah’s sharp intake of breath, but it might have been a whisper for the attention it was paid.

  The speaker crackled again. “You know what she has done, then?”

  Meridian looked around the ruined club and kicked a piece of glass before meeting Bishop’s eyes for the first time. “I can guess, Ctěné.”

  I knew Meridian was lying, and I had a feeling that Bishop did too, but I didn’t say anything. What could I say that wouldn’t link me to everything that had happened.

  Better to keep my goddamn mouth shut for once.

  Riah’s head bowed. She was beaten... and I had to admit that I was a little disappointed in her. I’d expected her to take everyone around her down at the same time. But she refused to speak. Not that it would have saved her if she’d dared to open her mouth.

  The speaker crackled. “The Caedyr has come to a decision.”

  A heavy silence descended on those assembled and I swear that I could hear the heartbeats of the accused.

  “Moving against your ctěné is an attack against the Caedyr and our rule over your existence.” The heavily accented voice paused momentarily. “You are not Laudan; therefore your sentence will be carried out immediately, with no arguments heard in your favor. You will not be imprisoned, nor banished for the remainder of your afterlife.”

  One of the Laudan’s reached down and gripped Riah’s chin, forcing her to look up at her judges before she was dragged to her feet.

  Bishop leaned against the table, his arms folded over his chest. He stared down at the phone, waiting for the decision he knew was coming. Meridian’s expression was oddly neutral, but he didn’t look at Riah or the surviving mutineers.

  “It is the will of the Caedyr that you be given to the rising sun. Make an example of her.”

  Bishop nodded slowly. “It will be done.”

  The phone crackled once more and then a dial tone buzzed and echoed in the room. Bishop punched the red button to end the call and turned to look at Riah, who sagged between the Laudan who held her upright.

  One of the kneeling Outlaws hissed. The Laudan standing nearest to him punched him squarely in the face. The Outlaw shook his head and spat a mouthful of blood onto the white tile and stared up at the Laudan defiantly.

  “Do we have space for two on this little errand?” the Laudan asked. Bishop held up a hand.

  “The Caedyr have only decreed for Riah. The others will remain as a reminder for us to be more vigilant. If we are diluting our blood and creating děti, it must also come with the knowledge that we are bound by the Caedyr to teach them our ways, and to keep them, and ourselves safe. What happened here last night is preventable,” he said, looking at Meridian meaningfully. “This defiance is something we shall all bear on our consciences. But the responsibility for carrying out her punishment will fall to her rodič.”

  “What?” Meridian spluttered. It might have been the light, but I had the distinct impression that he paled at the thought of what had to be done.

  “This punishment is not just for Riah, it is for you as well. Her afterlife is your responsibility. And it is your responsibility to end it when the Caedyr demands.” Bishop’s expression was stony. Meridian closed his mouth. This was not the time to argue, and if he did, he risked exposing his own involvement in Riah’s actions.

  “Fine. I accept the Caedyr’s judgement,” he said and then turned on his heel and left the dancefloor, his boots echoing on the staircase as he fled the club.

  “Dawn is only a few hours away. Church, I trust that you will ensure that Meridian will be there to fulfil his duty.” It wasn’t a question, and Church’s answering nod of agreement was solemn.

  “Bishop… How do you know we can trust these rats not to bite once they’ve been released?”

  Bishop pondered the Laudan’s question for a moment. He got up from the table and walked over to them slowly, his hands clasped behind his back. “Zrádci though they may be, they have been led astray by Riah’s words and her promises. Our promise, allowing them to live, should be enough for them.” He looked down at the one whose nose had been broken by his Laudan guard. “What’s your name?”

  The Outlaw spat on the floor again, the blood bright red on the white tile. “Oren.”

  “Who turned you, Oren?” Bishop asked in the same dark voice.

  The vampire shifted on his knees and I leaned forward just a little. Would he tell the truth, or—

  “Riah. It was Riah.”

  The Laudans holding the Blood Outlaw leader dragged her away into the depths of the club. Bishop watched them go and then nodded gravely. “I see. Your blood is thinned by her treachery, Oren. You are barely one of us. What did she promise you?”

  “A place at th
e table,” he snarled.

  “Indeed. Unfortunately that is not hers to give away to whomever she deems worthy. You aren’t even a proper dítě… if your blood was any thinner, you would be a ghoul… do you understand that, Oren?” He shook his head. “Get him out of my sight; I can’t stand the smell of them.”

  “You can’t do this to us!” Oren shouted as the Laudans holding him pulled him away towards the stairs that led to street level.

  “I can, and I will. The Caedyr placed me here to keep their laws and traditions overseas. If we were in the Caedyr’s territories, you would have been killed as soon as the truth of your maker was discovered.”

  Oren struggled against the hands holding him, but there was no way they would let him go. The other Outlaw hung between his captors lifelessly, his feet bumping against the stairs as they dragged him upwards.

  “What happens now?” I wasn’t sure if I was curious, or if finding out the answer would be the worst possible outcome. Knowing my luck, I was going to regret opening my mouth.

  Then again, I’d regretted almost everything that had happened since I’d come to New York, why stop now?

  “Now? Now we go to JFK and carry out the Caedyr’s orders.” Bishop raised an eyebrow. “You’ll be coming with me.”

  “JFK? I can’t fly… I’m… not good with heights.” I was getting nervous, but I didn’t know why. Dawn was coming, and being in the air while the sun was out was pretty much the last thing I wanted to do.

  Give her to the rising sun. What the fuck did that mean anyway?

  Oh, wait.

  Bishop just stared at me, waiting for me to figure it out.

  “We’re not flying anywhere, are we?”

  Bishop shook his head.

  I swallowed thickly.

  “It sounds very dramatic, I know. There’s nowhere else we can go without being disturbed. Out on the tarmac, we can do what needs to be done without interruption.”