"Hush, baby-heart. It's all right now, it's going to be all right now."
"Are you real?"
"Real as I ever was. Now go back to sleep."
When I open my eyes again the white glare has resolved itself into a square luminous ceiling panel. Fleece-lined leather cuffs secure my wrists to the silver rails of a hospital bed. This seems like a terribly good idea. "Keep it tied up," I murmur.
"What?" Not Leon's voice: a woman.
"Where's Leon?"
"Here. I'm here, Nick." His goblin face at the foot of the bed.
"Am I in a hospital?"
"A clinic."
"Don't let them untie me?"
"Not till you' ready, baby-heart. Not till you' god-dayam good and ready."
"Mr. Shaw?"
I gather that's me: there's no one else in the room but me and the woman in the cardigan sweater leaning over me. "Yes?"
"Can you lift your hip up a little for me, and sort of twist to the side?"
"Why?"
She held up a syringe. "I thought you'd rather have it in the buttocks, now that you're awake."
"Story of my life, nurse. Story of my life."
"Leon?" Nighttime now.
"Talk to me."
"Did anybody… die?"
"Not that I know of."
I thought about that for a minute. I supposed I ought to be grateful, but I couldn't imagine to whom. "Got a joint?"
He shook his head. "Got a Camel."
"Have to do." A match flared in the darkened room, and a lit cigarette was placed between my lips. I took a drag, coughed, and the cigarette popped out of my mouth; Leon snatched it up and brushed the ashes off my chest before replacing it; when I was done he took the butt into the bathroom; I heard the hiss as it hit the water, and then the flush.
"Why is everything so quiet?" I asked him when he reappeared.
"It's Christmas Eve, baby-heart."
I thought about that for a while.
"Leon?"
"Still here."
"Know what I want for Christmas?"
"I sure don't."
"Nothing."
To his credit, he got it right away. "You don't want anything, or you want Nothing?"
"I want Nothing. I don't even want to die, I just want to already be dead."
"Why?"
"You know why."
"What, because you' an evil vam-pie?" He started to laugh, then made a spitting noise, worked his tongue around, and plucked a shred of tobacco from between his teeth. "Oooh, evil vam-pie!"
"It's not a joke, Leon. You of all people know it's not a joke."
"Au contraire, mon frere." He stood up then, drawing himself up to his full height, which put his chin an inch or two above the top rail of my bed. "I am quite possibly the only person on earth who knows precisely what a joke that is." He chuckled, and began unbuckling my restraints. "Evil vam-pie my ass! What you are, friend Nick, is a pitiful, powerless, chicken-shit ass-wipe of a dope addict, and the fact that your drug of choice is blood doesn't make you a snip more evil than some Sterno junky ralfing his liver out in some gutter someplace."
"You think so? Whyn't you ask Selene about that, see what she has to say." I began kneading my left hand with the numb fingers of my right—the pins and needles were making me testy.
"Selene won't be talking for a while."
"Or the Viscount?"
He gave me a blank look.
"The Viscount? Whistler's friend, from England?"
He shook his head, and I felt the first flutter of panic down deep in my intestines: if Leon didn't know anything about him, then his previous assurance—that no one had died—became a good deal less assuring. "Never mind. I'm not up for any metaphysical discussions anyway—you bring me any blood?"
He looked surprised? "Blood? Baby-heart, I thought you knew: I've been clean and sober for damn near two years now."
I was pretty sure he was bullshitting me—he had to be: as far as any of us knew, no vampire had ever given up drinking—but I was also pretty sure that I wasn't about to get any blood off him this night, for whatever reason: it's the sort of thing junkies just know. If begging would have done it, I'd have begged—as it was, I shifted my ground. "Okay. I'll settle for that shit the nurse has been shooting me up with."
"That I can do."
"What the hell is it, anyway?" I asked him, but he was already out the door. Fuck him, I didn't need him anyway. I worked my fingers around until the full feeling was back, and was just thinking about sitting up when Leon returned with the nurse.
"Experiencing a little discomfort, are we?" she remarked, unwrapping an alcohol wipe.
"I guess you could say that." Remember, this was the longest I'd been without blood in nearly a decade: I could almost smell hers: I may even have licked my lips before I turned away—on my side, without being asked—and felt the needle-prick. "But I sure feel better now."
I didn't, not yet, but I wanted an excuse for what I did next: rolled onto my back and took her hand in mine as I thanked her. Really all I wanted was her slender warm wrist in my grasp, so I could feel her pulse pounding through my fingertips. I could see it all now: next time, no Leon, grab the syringe, inject her, find a bigger gauge needle if I could, if not use the same needle to take her blood as she slept—that would give me the strength to blow this pop stand. And apparently they didn't even know my real name: that would be handy…
But I couldn't keep my eyes open long enough—the last thing I saw before falling back to sleep on Christmas Eve was the last thing I remembered from Yule: the Viscount. He seems to be underwater. His eyes are wide and staring, bloodshot red; his long hair floats dreamily upwards as if it were trying to tug him along with it. He opens his mouth to speak—or scream—only bubbles emerge, big ones at first, ba-loop, ba-loop, then smaller ones, tiny balls of mercury flashing up silver to the surface.
When I awoke the next morning it was with an oddly unfocused sense of excitement. I felt around in my mind, trying to figure out what it was attached to, this anticipation—for a moment I thought it was about Christmas, but I hadn't given a good goddamn about Christmas in twenty years: why would I start now? Then I remembered my plan to turn the syringe on the nurse, and take her blood—
Blood. How long had it been? Four days. I took inventory: nothing hurt—no wait, the back of my left hand was kind of sore. I turned it towards me like a man looking at his watch, and saw a little round band-aid centered in a yellowing bruise: I must have had an I.V. in at some point. Other than that, nothing physical, but I would gladly have traded a broken bone or two for the teeth-gritting ennui, the excruciating boredom that washed over me when I looked around the room. Nothing, nothing, nothing: it was all as flat and soul-crushing as a black-and-white Dana Andrews movie on the late show. I tried to remember whether reality had been like this before I was Awakened.
I couldn't remember, though, and I'd just about decided that it couldn't have been—I'd have killed myself years before—when the doorknob turned, and every cell of my body came to rigid attention…
… then collapsed—as you were, men—it was only Leon, looking even droopier than usual in a floppy red felt Santa cap with a dangling white deedly-ball. "Merry—"
I interrupted him. "Don't be chipper. Just don't fucking be chipper, I'll kill you with my bare hands."
"—Christmas." He lowered the left bed rail and held out his hand. "C'mon, up you go, baby-heart, come with me, I have something to show you."
I sat up—too fast—and found myself hanging on to his forearm as if it were a trapeze. The floor seemed awfully far away—even when my bare feet were on it, it still seemed like a long way down, and I had to sit back almost immediately. Made it on the second try, though, and shuffled the first few steps leaning on Leon like an old man after hernia surgery.
"Is this going to be worth it?" I asked him.
"I think so," he said. "It's something you haven't seen in a long time—just a few more steps now." We ha
d crossed the room and were standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling black curtains. Suddenly he grabbed the curtain cord and tugged; the curtains parted with a diabolic creak; I whimpered out loud and threw my forearm across my eyes to shield them from the bright sunlight.
I shrieked, stumbled backwards. He leapt forward and caught me, but couldn't hold my weight; he settled for lowering me slowly to the carpet. "Quit whinin' and open your eyes," he said softly.
I did: no pain. Leon reached down and helped me to my feet again, then pulled open the sliding glass door. We were a good twenty stories in the air. I shook his hand off my arm and stepped out onto the balcony, tottered forward and grabbed the railing for balance. Leon was at my elbow in an instant—I waved him away weakly. "I just need to be alone for a minute, bud."
"You ain't gonna jump or anything, are you?"
"I don't know. I don't think so."
"I'll bring you a chair anyway."
I'd never seen Lake Tahoe in full sunlight before. They haven't got a name for that color yet. But the pale-washed turquoise of the sky, that's cerulean: I'd forgotten all about cerulean. Leon returned with a blanket for my lap, and one of those wooden-armed vinyl-seated side chairs you only find in hotels and hospitals. I sat down heavily. "Hey bud?"
"Hey what?"
"How long does it take? Before you stop wanting the blood?"
"I don't know—I haven't stopped yet. I long for it, sometimes. But I haven't craved it for over a year, if that's any help."
"I don't know if I can make it."
"That's good." He was standing behind me, his hands resting lightly on my shoulders. "See, the day you know you can make it, you call me. And until I get there, chain yourself down in the basement, 'cause that's the day you're gonna slip."
"That's not the problem." My eyes started tearing: I'd forgotten you can't stare at the sun, even if you're not a vampire.
"What is it?"
"I don't know if I want to make it."
He came around from behind me. "How 'bout jus' for today? You know, one-day-at-a-time, and all that."
I thought about it for a minute. "I can't give you an honest answer. And I don't care enough about anything to lie."
He turned his back to me, and leaned on the railing.
"Leon?"
"What?" Without turning.
"This isn't a clinic, is it?"
"Not exactly—it's the nineteenth floor of the Gold Dust Hotel and Casino in lovely downtown Tahoe. And you, you're free to go, baby-heart. You can walk out that door anytime you want."
"Yeah?"
I started to push myself up from the chair, and he turned and looked down at me, grinning. "Absolutely. Well—you best get some clothes on first—they' picky about bare asses in casino, 'less they' in the revue." I sat back down—I'd forgotten for a moment that I was in a hospital gown—and Leon went on. "See, old bud, I can't do a minute of your recovery for you. I can take you this far, get you de-toxed, show you the sun, let you know you're not alone. The rest is up to you."
"Great. Where's my clothes?"
"In the closet there. But before you go—"
"A catch! I knew there was a catch."
He held his thumb and forefinger a half inch apart. "Little one. All I'm askin' is, before you make up your mind—"
"I've already made up my mind."
"Before you leave then. Before you leave I want you to sit down with me and tell me all about that last night of yours? The solstice?"
Ba-loop, ba-loop. "Didn't somebody give you a full report, all the juicy details?"
"Baby-heart, I was the ghost at the banquet—I showed up at five a.m.—oh, I had it all figured out—everybody'd be stroked out on the lawn per usual, waiting for dawn—I was just gonna tell all of you 'bout being clean and sober, I was gonna be so cool, no preachin', just bear witness, let everybody know it was possible, it could be done, we aren't doomed to live the rest of our lives hidin' from the sun. Instead what happens is I find you stretched out on the dock like a drowned rat, the witches are shriekin', the vampires are runnin' around like chickens with their heads cut off.
"So what I did, I took Whistler aside—he was the only one had his head about him, despite being wrecked on baby-blood, I gather, and worried sick about Selene—and offered to take you off his hands—at his expense, of course—and get you straightened out, de-toxed. I called AA to get a doctor referral, hired the nurse, had a few of the boys 'walk' you through the casino and up here to the suite. Mind you, I don't actually know if Whistler understood I was clean now, don't know if he took that in. He just wanted you gone before some of them witches got aholt of you."
I closed my eyes and saw a dozen yellow-white suns against the black field of my eyelids. "So you know by and large what happened, what do you need the details for?"
When I looked up, Leon was leaning back against the railing, propped on his elbows—man at leisure, except for that stupid Santa cap. "Oh, it's not for me to hear it: it's for you to hear it. See, when you make your choice, bud, I want you to know what it is you're choosin'. You owe yourself that much."
"Then I can go?"
He nodded, smiling slyly. "But I wouldn't go straight back to Whistler Manor if I were you—I gather some of those witches are fixing to tear you a new asshole, baby-heart, and it ain't gonna be near as pretty as the old one, either."
"All right, here goes: I guess about twenty minutes had passed since I dropped the baby-blood—"
"Try it in the present tense." Leon had dragged another chair out onto the balcony and placed it alongside mine; we were both looking out through the railings to the lake, and the surrounding bowl of mountains. The sky had darkened to the west—a high gray-bottomed anvil of clouds—perhaps a storm was on the way at last. The skiers would like that.
Leon had brought me a blanket; I tucked it in a little tighter around my lap, and started again. "About twenty minutes have gone by. Whistler and the Viscount are talking about going down to the casinos. Whistler explains to me that it's easy to make money when you're high on baby-blood. Says it's clear as glass from the minute you walk into the casino which players are lucky at that particular moment. Says they practically glow. So you find some shooter glowing at the craps tables, you bet with the shooter, you clean up.
"Anyway, I'm letting the talk wash over me. I know for a certainty they haven't the slightest intention of going down to the casinos—I don't know how I know—I just do—baby-blood, I suppose—and I'm paying more attention to the poor-will calling its name in the woods off to my right, and it seems as if the woods would be interesting in my condition. A line from old Uncle Frost is rolling around in my head—Lovely, dark and deep. Lovely, dark and deep—and off I go for a pleasant nocturnal stroll."
I could feel the words starting to come more smoothly now. My eyes were closed: I was back in the woods again: lovely, dark and deep they are, and sparkling like Sugar Frosted Flakes to my vampire eyes. The closer I got to the poor-will, the clearer its cry. "Poor Will my ass," I call, just to make trouble, and the startled hush that follows is as dark and deep as the woods themselves, but soon broken by a hollow whistling sound—wheeeeee-wheeeee-wheeee-wheee-whee-wee-we. I know that call: Peterson describes the rhythm as a rubber ball bouncing down a flight of stairs: it's a screech owl.
I stop stock-still in the path. Silence again, then a smooth shuddering in the air; a contained gray shadow drops like a stone; only when it rises again is there a beating of wings, and over it a thin chittering sound. For an instant the owl is silhouetted against the strip of starry black sky directly overhead; in its talons a tiny mouse still struggles. But not for long, I think. And although in a very cool way I feel some empathy for the mouse (I find myself wondering if, in its terror, it even sees the woods receding below: what a strange vantage for a mouse!), it's clear as the world on baby-blood that most of my fellow-feeling is reserved for the owl: what a warm bloody treat it has in store. And still struggling: how much more savor that will add.
<
br /> It occurs to me as I meander on up the path that I haven't felt anyone struggling in my talons for—oh, for absolute ages!—and with that thought at the back of my mind I find myself at the door to the gingerbread house—the bungalow. The baby is upstairs, but I know before I turn the knob that it's not the baby I want, but the mother. Sweet candy Mandy. I can already feel her long-boned arms trapped in my own, the warmth of her torso against mine, the feminine flutter of her throat. I make my way up the stairs so stealthily that even I cannot hear my footfalls. The room is dark; I'm already standing over the bed when she opens her eyes.
"Hallo Nick." Sleepily. "What is it? What do you want?"
Your blood, I think, but I don't really feel much like talking. I whistle, instead: Wheee-whee-whe-we. A falling tone, a rubber ball bouncing down the steps. There is a small sewing basket on the bedside table: the scissors will do: all I need is a snip.
At first the struggle is all I'd hoped for. I even let her beat about with her fists, and the screaming is relish for the blood—I have found a small but satisfying vein behind her ear—picturesque really—now her fists begin to annoy me, and I pin her arms behind her with one hand, and tilt her head back with the other—dear mouse. I drink until the blood smears my chin, and then hands—small hands—are tugging me away. "Nick, enough. Nick, that's enough, you've got to stop now."
Selene. Doesn't understand: the mouse doesn't tell the owl when it's time to stop. I turn, slowly, to show her my blood-smeared face, but she's dived past me onto the bed, and taken Mandy's head between her hands. Her clever fingers find the wound, pinch it off.
"Good," I say. "Good for you." I give her time to close the wound. Not so much an owl now as a cat. Fun with your food. And Selene not so much a mouse as a bird: small, hollow-boned, her heart beating with a shallower, quicker hop. I leap for her with a gleeful shout, and she begins to fight. But like a sparrow: those little fists a-hammering away: it's like being tickled when you want to be beaten, flutter-tongued when you want to be sucked dry. Tiring of the game now, I tear a hole in her throat with my teeth (not an easy thing to do, I assure you: nearly impossible unless you've already got your blood-strength), and lap a few drops from the welling wound before turning away. I'm not really thirsty anymore, you see.
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