The World on Blood

by Jonathan Nasaw

  "Yes dear," he said meekly. He could afford to be meek: it would be his turn to hold the whip when they got upstairs.

  "What can I say besides thank you?… Okay then: thank you. See you tonight." Betty replaced the receiver in a daze. She had taken the call in the parsonage kitchen, where she was brewing a pot of coffee in preparation for a nine o'clock counseling session with a couple suffering from lesbian bed-death syndrome, which was a sort of sexual Alphonse and Gaston deadlock that occurred when both partners in the relationship were women who had been brought up to be sexually passive.

  It was a difficult problem, but after last night, she found herself feeling as if there weren't any obstacles of a sexual nature that couldn't be overcome. Then, as if to convince her that her luck was really turning, had come the phone call. She'd been expecting a few new locks or floodlights; instead this James W. seemed to be offering to provide both church and parsonage with a state-of-the-art security system wired up to a prepaid twenty-four-hour monitoring service. She reviewed the conversation in her mind: had it been some sort of shingle-salesman scheme after all? She didn't think so, but just to be sure she called Nick and left a message on his machine.

  A few minutes later her phone rang again. "Hello? Oh, hi Nick. Thanks for getting back to me… Well thank you, hon… I don't know. I can tell you I fell asleep in that position, so it was a downhill race for the little fellas… Yes, well, let's hope the best man won. Listen, this James W. just called me and offered to have something on the order of a ten-thousand-dollar security system installed in the church and parsonage. You did say this was a gift from your fellowship, didn't you?… Oh, well, if he's richer than God… What?… Nick my friend, as my A.A. sponsor used to say, after you've been in recovery long enough, you don't just look a gift horse in the mouth, you take a flashlight around to the other end… You take it easy, too, Nick. Talk to you later."

  Nick had received Betty's message in his office that morning after staying up all night working on his Fourth Step, his Life on Blood. Somehow Selene's unexpected call had brought things round full circle for him—then, and only then, had he felt himself ready to go back to that last terrible night on baby-blood.

  He'd written until dawn, then turned off the XT and signed on to one of his networked machines—a genetic engineering firm in Daly City had hired him a week ago to evaluate their system. He'd already proved to himself that the system was secure at night if properly shut down—now he wanted to see if he could hack his way in while it was up. He had just trapdoored through from their WAN to the LAN and was trying to create a fictitious security officer profile to get in a little further when Betty called.

  He was unsettled at first—he'd forgotten all about having asked Whistler to call Betty, and now, after Selene's confession, there didn't seem to be the same need for beefed-up security at the church—it would only be a waste of Whistler's money.

  Then it occurred to him that since he couldn't tell Betty about Selene anyway, it would be just as well to have her mind at ease. Besides, a waste of Whistler's money? Why, the very phrase was self-canceling, especially when Nick considered that someday that very same security system might well be protecting his own child.

  Whip that wallet out, you Jamey Whistler, he thought to himself. Whip it out. And don't spare the horses.

  TWO

  By the close of the Monday night meeting, the remaining loose ends of Operation Dismount-the-Tiger had been tied up into a neat little package.

  As always, Whistler's jewelry broker had done himself proud—maybe broken a few speed limits shuttling between El Sobrante and the direct diamond importers in Concord, but at his customary 60-percent markup, he could afford a ticket or two. And the exquisite engagement ring gracing Lourdes's left ring finger had silenced Beverly effectively enough. After all, what could she say? She'd taken her best shot at Whistler years before—if he'd ever popped the question, she'd have said goodbye to any job she'd ever held just as quickly as Lourdes had kissed off the blood bank.

  Next Nick had explained to the others (as best he could without compromising Selene's anonymity) why it had become necessary to use the Victims Anonymous story. Then he had given them the good news—that the saboteur had come forward, was not one of them, and no longer presented a threat to the fellowship. After that, the meeting turned into such a love feast that Lourdes found herself wondering why it had taken a year or two for Whistler to get bored with fooling these people: the charm of it had already worn off for her.

  The meeting itself ended early—or rather adjourned to the Dessert Inn, where the betrothed couple was feted with coffee and a hastily decorated, but still decadent, triple-chocolate cake by the entire membership of the so-called Victims Anonymous, with the exception of the youngest member, January, who had a pressing engagement elsewhere, as might be expected of an attractive girl her age, even at ten o'clock, even on a Monday night.

  Besides, the happy twosome had a pressing appointment of their own, across the bay in Bolinas, where they presented Selene with a silver thank-you pendant in the shape of a crescent moon, for which she seemed grateful, and of course a slice of triple-chocolate cake, for which she seemed equally grateful.

  "I truly am happy for both of you," remarked Selene, when she and Lourdes were alone out on the patio, undressing by the hot tub. "But especially for Jamey—I was getting awfully worried about him lately, but you seem to be doing him a world of good."

  "Thank you," replied Lourdes, holding up the ring for Selene to examine more closely—between the two of them, that ring was all they were wearing. "Don't worry, I know I'll never replace you in Jamey's heart."

  "You've got that right, dearie." Selene flashed her a signifying look from under the bushy eyebrows, and Lourdes understood her misstep: as she lowered herself into the hot water, she made a mental note never to come that close to patronizing the witch again.

  "Ah, my harem awaits," called Whistler, opening the sliding glass door and stepping out onto the patio in another of his luxurious terry-cloth robes, this one from Caesars Tahoe.

  "In your dreams, buster." Lourdes voiced their mutual reply.

  But the position of the vein Selene chose for them to open, the one just behind her right ear, nearly cost her her celibacy. For the two vampires made a witch sandwich of her, and between Lourdes nibbling on her from the front, soft cushy press of round breasts against her chest, and Whistler bending down on her from behind, so that the Creature was nudging the small of her back, Selene came as close as she'd come in nearly five years to forgetting her vow.

  Afterwards, as they drifted blissfully away on their blood high, she narrated the gist of her conversation with Nick. "I was good, dearies. Oh, but I was good, given how little I had to work with. My theme was, Hell hath no fury like a witch scorned. I wove my web from two coincidences: that this coming Yule would be the fifth anniversary of the night he gave me this." She lifted her chin and gestured toward the livid scar. "And that you two were now an item."

  Lourdes had floated closer to Whistler; she reached down under the steaming black water to check on the Creature. Selene smiled across the tub at them: she knew all about the care and feeding of that beast and could only thank the Goddess that the burden was no longer hers to bear. "Shall I continue?"

  Lourdes nodded. The Creature, while definitely a threat to navigation, had not yet reached critical mass.

  "I explained that for a Wicca priestess of my standing to allow an injury to pass unrevenged for as long as five years would have cost me great loss of face, but that I had held off due to my obligations to you, Jamey."

  " 'Oh, what a tangled web we weave…' "

  "Only amateurs weave tangled webs, dearie. It all tied together quite nicely. I told him that since you had abandoned me for a younger woman, destroying V.A. would serve quite nicely as my revenge upon all three of you."

  She stilled Lourdes's nascent objection. "Yes, I'm aware the Doe was taken before you were in the picture, Lourdes. I told Ni
ck I didn't know anything about that. It didn't seem to bother him any—we had quite a pleasant chat about the role of coincidence in human affairs. In fact, I think he'd have been more suspicious if I'd tied it all up with a neat little bow: the only loose ends in my webs, dearie, are the ones I leave dangling on purpose."

  "And the hooker?" Whistler slipped an arm around Lourdes's back until his fingers rested against her far hip, so slick and soft and springy.

  "That was the easy part: I simply told him she was one of the Coven, not a hooker at all but an accomplished actress. I then promised him that as far as I was concerned, he and I were even."

  Lourdes giggled. "So when our little surprise comes off next week, poor Nick won't know what to think."

  "That's the idea, dearie. Let him try to figure out whether I lied, and if so, whether I lied for Whistler or for myself. I'll be up in Tahoe by then—"

  "And we'll be en route to Santa Luz—" offered Whistler.

  Lourdes finished for them: "And St. Nick will be left holding the bag."

  "Precisely." Selene raised herself up on her skinny arms. "And now, if you two lovebirds will excuse me, I'm going to get out of here before that thing—" She pointed towards the submerged Creature. "—goes off. I've made up your bed, Jamey. Call me if you need me, but call loud: I'll have my earplugs in. Oh, and before you leave for Santa Luz, you will have that list I asked you for?"

  "Of the V.A. membership?"

  "Yes, dearie. Names, addresses, your best guesses as to the weaknesses in their recovery—where they're going to be vulnerable to attack." She climbed out of the tub—the waves raised by her wake were still rippling as Lourdes swung her leg over Whistler and lowered herself upon the Creature.

  THREE

  The last meeting of Vampires Anonymous at the Church of the Higher Power—the meeting that Whistler and Lourdes expected would be their last at any location—began promptly at nine o'clock on Saturday, December 14. After the opening readings of the Steps and Traditions, Nick turned the floor over to Whistler, who announced that he and Lourdes would be leaving for the islands—he was careful not to say which islands—on Sunday morning, and would be away for much of the winter.

  But during those few months, he assured them, they would be staying in touch with the fellowship, as well as holding their own dyadic satellite meeting regularly. "Furthermore," he promised, "every time we see that glorious sun in the sky, starting with our dawn flight out of SFO tomorrow morning, we will recall with love and respect the fellowship that's made it all possible."

  He wondered as he looked around the circle if he hadn't laid it on a bit thick. January, at least, seemed moved—or perhaps only agitated: at this first pause her hand shot up and waved about violently, as if she were trying to catch his attention from the last row of an auditorium. "Yes, m'dear?"

  "Here." She tossed her one-year chip in Whistler's general direction, but high and wide. He snatched it out of the air by the whirling chain far too deftly for a recovering vampire, but again no one seemed to notice. "I mean, Hi my name is January and I'm a vampire. It was burning a hole in my pocket—I don't deserve it anymore."

  "Nonsense."

  "I really don't—I don't have a year anymore."

  "Doesn't matter, you've still earned it."

  "I don't care, I don't want it."

  "Why don't you just tell us about it?"

  "I can't."

  "I guarantee you, it's nothing everyone in this room hasn't gone through at one time or another."

  An assenting murmur arose: Right, all been through it, remember I went out once, still love you, here for you, yadda yadda… until with a sniffle the fallen addict began the tale of the mosh pit:

  There were resources available to Gen X vampires that their forebears could only have dreamed of. Body sculpting, for one: storefront shops dedicated to piercing and branding and scarification. Then there was the primal fount of serendipitous bleeding, the mosh pit: the area just below the stage at rock concerts, right at the feet of the band, where the moshers threw themselves about with such abandon that lacerations were commonplace, especially scalp wounds with their characteristically generous flow—not for nothing had the moshers originally been dubbed head-bangers, back in the heavy metal days.

  But January swore to the meeting that she'd only gone to the Omni that Friday night because one of her favorite bands was playing—she never missed the Butthole Surfers. Hadn't even been moshing—just standing there on the outskirts of the pit—when, with the hollow sound of canteloupes colliding, a pair of moshers had banged their heads together like rutting moose. January had gone down in the resulting pileup, according to her story, found blood on her forearm, and had licked it off before she realized it was not her own.

  That wasn't the worst part, though—she'd scarcely picked up a buzz. What she had picked up was the boy who'd received the more severe gash on his forehead. She'd ended up bringing him back to her room, where, during a bout of sex nearly as violent as the mosh pit itself, somehow the wound had been reopened. As her orgasm began she'd seized his head between her hands and sucked blood until he'd managed to pull her away.

  "He didn't mind or anything—I think he thought it was so twisted it was cool. But then I woke up this morning alone in my bed with blood smeared all over my face and my pillow and sheets, and my chip was still hanging around my neck, and there was dried blood on that too…" Her hands were twisting violently in her lap as if she would wring the very blood out of them.

  "Shhh," said Whistler, as sweetly as a father comforting his child. It was a peculiarly intimate tone, as if they were alone in the room, but it caught her attention. She looked up from her lap—he was polishing the silver chip with a snowy white handkerchief, but his eyes were fixed on hers, and with his voice he gentled her like a spooked horse. "None of that matters, January," he was saying. "That first year you got in before you slipped? That was hero's work, and no one can ever take that away from you."

  "All that happens now is that you get to earn another one of these in a year." He rose and crossed the circle. "You're on the roller coaster of recovery now, m'dear—it's not like that safe old addiction merry-go-round: there are bound to be dips you never dreamed of." As he knelt before her with the chain spread between his long fingers, she tried to pull back and away from him, her chin carrying her head up and to the side, her body twisting after it, arching like a cerebral palsy victim in a wheel chair, so that when he leaned forward to drop the chain over her head his face came within inches of hers.

  It was only for an instant, but that was all it took for her to smell the blood on his breath—to smell the blood and to know. Over his shoulder she caught a glimpse of Lourdes leaning forward, eyes trained adoringly on Whistler. Without thinking, January seized Whistler's head in both hands and pulled it toward her; her tongue darted into his mouth. Then she released him, grabbed her bag from the back of her chair, and ran from the room.

  Slowly Whistler rose from his knees, the only sound the thump of January's footsteps overhead, followed by the banging of the double doors as she fled the church. He turned to the circle and shrugged like a borscht-belt comic. "Perhaps she doesn't care for roller coasters?"

  Whistler and Lourdes offered to straighten up the room after the meeting. Their intention, of course, was to be the last couple to leave the church, so that on their way out they would have time to plant their little bomb on the lectern of the pulpit unobserved.

  It went off without a hitch; they closed the double doors behind them and hurried out to the Jaguar, which was parked in the handicapped space with the chauffeur seemingly asleep behind the wheel, cap pulled down low. Whistler opened the back door for Lourdes, then followed her in. "You're supposed to come around and open the door," he remarked to the back of the driver's head. "I wish you'd pay a little more attention to duty."

  The chauffeur removed her cap and handed it back to Whistler by way of reply. "Here," said Selene. "Wish in the front half of this, then shit in
the back half and see which side fills up faster." The Jag pulled away from the curb. "Did you drop off the book?"

  "Where it's bound to be found, no later than ten o'clock tomorrow morning," said Whistler, pulling the chauffeur's cap over his yellow hair for a goof, cocking it at a jaunty angle.

  "And my list?"

  "Got it right here. Names, addresses, and weak spots." Lourdes produced a small green spiral notebook from her purse and handed it up to Selene.

  "You don't have to start working on this until after we get back, you know. Shouldn't be more than a few weeks," Whistler reminded her.

  "I don't have to work on it at all," Selene reminded him in turn. "But I want to. I cast the runes last night, and got a new twist on the results I've been getting for a week." They turned right on Central Avenue, heading for the freeway. "The Oakland airport, you said?"

  In the mirror, she saw Whistler nod.

  "Oakland it is. Now, back to the runes. What I kept coming up with was beginnings and endings, birth and death. Pretty common for this time of the year, what with the Yule solstice and all. The numbers were a little weird, though. I ran them a few times, and they kept coming up two and one—two births, one death; two births, one death.

  "But then when I threw the bones again last night, they came up reversed. Not clean beginnings and endings, but cycles. And the numbers were five and five."

  Whistler nodded. "As I recall, it's been five years since Nick attacked you."

  "Come the Yule, five years exactly. I think what the bones were telling me is that one five-year cycle has to end before the next can begin."

  "Sounds reasonable to me," said Whistler. "Did the runes also happen to give you any hints as to how to go about it?"

  "Not the runes. But I cast the Ching this morning—twice. Both times the yarrows came up Basic Principles." This time she caught Lourdes's eye in the rearview mirror. "Remember what I told you was one of the foundation stones of Wicca, dearie?"