Her windows were dark. Even from the street the curtains looked filthy, as though dirt and exhaust had matted them to the glass. Leo stood on the curb and stared at the blank eyes of each apartment window gaping in the stark concrete façade.
Who would want to live here? he thought, ashamed. He should have come sooner. Shame froze into apprehension and the faintest icy sheath of fear. Hurriedly he locked his bike to a parking meter and approached her window, standing on tiptoe to peer inside. Nothing. The discolored curtains hid the rooms from him like clouds of ivory smoke. He tapped once, tentatively; then, emboldened by silence, rapped for several minutes, squinting to see any movement inside.
Still nothing. Leo swore out loud and shoved his hands into his pockets, wondering lamely what to do. Call the police? Next of kin? He winced at the thought: as if she couldn’t do that herself. Helen had always made it clear that she enjoyed being on her own. But the broken glass beneath his sneakers, wind-blown newspapers tugging at the bottom steps; the whole unkempt neighborhood denied that. Why here? he thought angrily; and then he was taking the steps two at a time, kicking bottles and burger wrappers out of his path.
He waited by the door for five minutes before a teenage boy ran out. Leo barely caught the door before it slammed behind him. Inside, a fluorescent light hung askew from the ceiling, buzzing like a wasp. Helen’s was the first door to the right. Circulars from convenience stores drifted on the floor, and on the far wall was a bank of mailboxes. One was ajar, stuffed with unclaimed bills and magazines. More envelopes piled on the steps. Each bore Helen’s name.
His knocking went unanswered; but he thought he heard someone moving inside.
“Helen,” he called softly. “It’s Leo. You okay?”
He knocked harder, called her name, finally pounded with both fists. Still nothing. He should leave; he should call the police. Better still, forget ever coming here. But he was here now; the police would question him no matter what; the curator for Indo-Asian Studies would look at him askance. Leo bit his lip and tested the doorknob. Locked; but the wood gave way slightly as he leaned against it. He rattled the knob and braced himself to kick the door in.
He didn’t have to. In his hand the knob twisted and the door swung inward, so abruptly that he fell inside. The door banged shut behind him. He glanced across the room, looking for her; but all he saw was gray light, the gauzy shadows cast by gritty curtains. Then he breathed in, gagging, and pulled his sleeve to his mouth until he gasped through the cotton. He backed toward the door, slipping on something dank, like piles of wet clothing. He glanced at his feet and grunted in disgust.
Roses. They were everywhere: heaps of rotting flowers, broken branches, leaves stripped from bushes, an entire small ficus tree tossed into the corner. He forgot Helen, turned to grab the doorknob and tripped on an uprooted azalea. He fell, clawing at the wall to balance himself. His palms splayed against the plaster and slid as though the surface was still wet. Then, staring upward he saw that it was wet. Water streamed from the ceiling, flowing down the wall to soak his shirt-cuffs. Leo moaned. His knees buckled as he sank, arms flailing, into the mass of decaying blossoms. Their stench suffocated him; his eyes watered as he retched and tried to stagger back to his feet.
Then he heard something, like a bell, or a telephone; then another faint sound, like an animal scratching overhead. Carefully he twisted to stare upward, trying not to betray himself by moving too fast. Something skittered across the ceiling, and Leo’s stomach turned dizzily. What could be up there? A second blur dashed to join the first; golden eyes stared down at him, unblinking.
Geckos, he thought frantically. She had pet geckos. She has pet geckos. Jesus.
She couldn’t be here. It was too hot, the stench horrible: putrid water, decaying plants, water everywhere. His trousers were soaked from where he had fallen, his knees ached from kneeling in a trough of water pooling against the wall. The floor had warped and more flowers protruded from cracks between the linoleum, brown fronds of iris and rotting honeysuckle. From another room trickled the sound of water dripping steadily, as though a tap were running.
He had to get out. He’d leave the door open—police, a landlord. Someone would call for help. But he couldn’t reach the door. He couldn’t stand. His feet skated across the slick tiles as his hands tore uselessly through wads of petals. It grew darker. Golden bands rippled across the floor as sunlight filtered through the gray curtains. Leo dragged himself through rotting leaves, his clothes sopping, tugging aside mats of greenery and broken branches. His leg ached where he’d fallen on it and his hands stung, pricked by unseen thorns.
Something brushed against his fingers and he forced himself to look down, shuddering. A shattered nautilus left a thin red line across his hand, the sharp fragments gilded by the dying light. As he looked around he noticed other things, myriad small objects caught in the morass of rotting flowers like a nightmarish ebb tide on the linoleum floor. Agates and feathered masks; bird of paradise plumes encrusted with mud; cracked skulls and bones and cloth of gold. He recognized the carved puppet Helen had been playing with that afternoon in the Indonesian corridor, its headdress glittering in the twilight. About its neck was strung a plait of flowers, amber and cerulean blossoms glowing like phosphorescence among the ruins.
Through the room echoed a dull clang. Leo jerked to his knees, relieved. Surely someone had knocked? But the sound came from somewhere behind him, and was echoed in another, harsher, note. As this second bell died he heard the geckos’ feet pattering as they fled across the ceiling. A louder note rang out, the windowpanes vibrating to the sound as though wind-battered. In the corner the leaves of the ficus turned as if to welcome rain, and the rosebushes stirred.
Leo heard something else, then: a small sound like a cat stretching to wakefulness. Now both of his legs ached, and he had to pull himself forward on his hands and elbows, striving to reach the front door. The clanging grew louder, more resonant. A higher tone echoed it monotonously, like the echo of rain in a well. Leo glanced over his shoulder to the empty doorway that led to the kitchen, the dark mouth of the hallway to Helen’s bedroom. Something moved there.
At his elbow moved something else and he struck at it feebly, knocking the puppet across the floor. Uncomprehending, he stared after it, then cowered as he watched the ceiling, wondering if one of the geckos had crept down beside him.
There was no gecko. When Leo glanced back at the puppet it was moving across the floor toward him, pulling itself forward on its long slender arms.
The gongs thundered now. A shape humped across the room, something large enough to blot out the empty doorway behind it. Before he was blinded by petals, Leo saw that it was a shrunken figure, a woman whose elongated arms clutched broken branches to propel herself, legs dragging uselessly through the tangled leaves. About her swayed a host of brilliant figures no bigger than dolls. They had roped her neck and hands with wreaths of flowers and scattered blossoms on to the floor about them. Like a flock of chattering butterflies the surged toward him, tiny hands outstretched, their long tongues unfurling like crimson pistils, and the gongs rang like golden bells as they gathered about him to feed.
SERVICES RENDERED
Louise Cooper
British writer Louise Cooper (1952–2009) began writing stories when she was old enough to control a pencil. Her first novel, The Book of Paradox, was published when she was twenty-one, and she worked in publishing before becoming a full-time writer in 1977. Her more than eighty books for both adults and children included the Time Master trilogy (The Initiate, The Outcast, and The Master), the Indigo sequence (Nemesis, Inferno, Infanta, Nocturne, Troika, Avatar, Revenant, and The Aisling), the Daughter of Storms trilogy (Daughter of Storms, The Dark Caller, and Keepers of the Light), and the Mirror, Mirror trilogy (Breaking Through, Running Free, and Testing Limits), along with the novels Storm Ghost, The Summer Witch, Hunter’s Moon, The Bad Seed, and Doctor Who: Rip Tide.
“I haven’t the faintest notion
how this story came into my head,” the author admitted. “It just did. One moment I was racking my brain for a plot that would make for a slightly different twist on the vampire theme; the next, the complete idea was sitting grinning in my mind. That’s unusual for me.
“The theme of ‘Services Rendered’ came from a question that I find endlessly fascinating: how an ordinary, down-to-earth human being reacts when faced with the apparently impossible, especially so when that ‘impossibility’ combines something terrifying (possibly), repellent (probably), and dangerous (potentially) with the lure of a ‘dream come true’ scenario.
“As for vampires … I’ve yet to encounter one of the classical kind outside of a movie screen, and I sincerely hope it stays that way. But there are individuals whose effect on those around them has something in common with the vampire of legend: who seem to attach themselves to others and take nourishment from their energies. I saw Carmine as one of these individuals, in addition to her more ‘traditional’ qualities. Even vampires, if they exist, must surely have their hopes and fears and dreams, like any ordinary person.
“However you define that …”
THE CULTURED FEMALE voice at the other end of the phone line said, “I saw your advertisement in Alternatives. It’s possible that I might be able to help.”
The sick lurch of hope had become all too familiar over the last few months, and Penny tried to ignore it and keep her mind neutral. “I see. What … uh … exactly would you be suggesting?”
There was a slight pause. Then: “I’d guess from your tone that you’ve had other calls, yes? But nothing worthwhile came of them?”
“You could say that.” Hope turned sour as she recalled them: two fringe herbalists, a crystal healer, a woman trying to sell her a “magic luck talisman” complete with a Your Personal Love Rhythms chart. Oh, and the crank who had banged on about Jesus and the wages of sin, until she had sworn at him and slammed the receiver down. The magazine had advised her, when she placed the advert, not to include her home number. Desperate needs, though, called for desperate measures.
“Look,” Penny said, “if you’re marketing some new miracle cure, then—”
“Oh, no. It’s nothing like that, I assure you; what I could offer is entirely practical, and entirely effective. The only caveat is that the patient must be prepared to accept certain side effects.”
Hope began to creep back. Words such as “patient” and “side effects” were reassuring; they had a ring of orthodoxy.
“May I ask you a question?” said the woman.
Penny snapped back from the tangent her thoughts had abruptly taken. “Yes; yes, please do.”
“You obviously couldn’t go into detail in the advertisement. It’s your husband who’s ill?”
“Yes.”
“And the doctors say that … well, that there’s nothing more they can do?”
“Yes.” The GP; tests; the specialist; more tests; that loathsome hospital … Penny breathed deeply and carefully to knock the tremor out of her voice. “It’s incurable, and it’s progressive. Over the last two years we’ve tried everything, but it didn’t … And now—now, he might have a couple of months, but the doctors say that …” Something caught in her throat; she turned her head aside from the receiver and tried to clear it.
“That there’s no hope,” the woman gently finished the sentence for her. “I understand. I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you,” Penny said tightly.
“So, then. I think I can help you, if you want me to. But I’d prefer to talk about it face-to-face.”
Penny’s cynicism had begun to come back in a reaction to the last few moments, and she demanded, “Why? That’s the sort of thing the evangelists do: worm an invitation, then start on their conversion technique. Only last week I answered the doorbell and there were some bloody—”
“Please. I promise you, I am not an evangelist in any shape or form. Far from it. But what I … need to explain really does need a personal meeting.”
Penny looked down the length of the hall. The thin February daylight made everything look bleak and depressing; the stairs were deeply shadowed, and David was lying up there in their bedroom, drugged to the eyeballs with painkillers, hardly knowing her, hardly knowing anything.
“All right,” she said on an outward rush of breath. “When, and where?”
“It’s best if I come to your house, I think. Would this evening be convenient?”
“Yes.” Face the thing quickly. If it’s yet another disappointment, better to have it over with. Feeling that the situation wasn’t quite real, Penny gave her address and agreed on 7:00 p.m.
“I don’t know your name,” she added.
“Oh, of course. It’s Smith. Carmine Smith.”
Penny didn’t believe that, and she didn’t believe that the woman could be of any use at all. But what did it matter? There was nothing left to lose.
Carmine Smith was probably in her early forties, elegant in classically understated dark clothes and expensive black silk coat. Her hair, too, was dark, cut in a young, gamine style that suited her perfectly. Her eyes were subtly made-up, but she wore no lipstick.
“Thank you,” she said, taking the coffee (black, no sugar) that Penny handed to her. She looked around the room, assessing it, her expression inscrutable. Then she asked, “Is your husband at home?”
Penny nodded. “They said there was no point his staying in the hospital. They need the beds, and there’s nothing …”
“Of course. Could I see him?”
Penny became defensive. “He’s probably asleep. He sleeps a lot, and even when he’s awake he’s vague. He couldn’t tell you much.”
“All the same, if I could just look in?” Carmine’s eyes were very intense.
Penny hesitated, then shrugged.
They climbed the stairs. Carmine walked noiselessly, which Penny found faintly unsettling. She fancied that if she were to turn her head she would find nobody at all behind her, and that this whole encounter was a delusion.
David, as she had predicted, was asleep. Carmine moved to the bed and stood gazing down at him by the soft light of the bedside lamp, while Penny, who no longer liked to look at her husband too often, hovered by the window.
At length Carmine said quietly, “He’s very handsome.”
“Yes.” Or was, before he couldn’t eat properly anymore and started to waste away.
“How old is he?”
“Forty-six.” Penny moved restlessly. “Look, I don’t want to wake him. You’ve seen him now; if we’re going to talk, I’d prefer to do it downstairs.”
“Of course.” Carmine led the way out with a confidence that she hadn’t exhibited before, as if in the space of a few seconds she had observed, considered and come to a decision. Back in the sitting room she sat in what had always been David’s favorite chair, sipped her coffee, then set the cup down and looked directly at Penny.
“I can bring him back to you,” she said.
A crawling, electrical sensation went through Penny’s entire body and she stared, disbelieving. “How?”
Carmine studied her own hands where they lay in her lap. “This is the hard part, Mrs. Blythe. The part you’re going to find difficult to accept.”
“You mentioned side effects—”
“Yes, yes; but I’m not talking about those, not yet.” She inhaled deeply. “Perhaps it’s best if I put it bluntly, rather than beating about the bush. I can restore your husband to you, whole and healthy, stronger than he has ever been before. Because I can make him immortal.”
There was a brief, lacerating silence: then Penny stood up.
“Get out of my house,” she said. “Now.”
“Mrs. Blythe—”
“Now,” Penny repeated ferociously. “People like you—you’re sick. I suppose you find it funny, do you, playing your jokes, having your laughs at someone else’s expense? Some kind of turn-on, is it?” She strode to the door, wrenched it open. “Get out!”
Carmine was also on her feet now, but she didn’t leave. “Mrs. Blythe, I’m serious!” She sounded almost angry, and Penny turned, thumping a clenched fist against the edge of the door.
“Oh, she’s serious! So it’s not a sick joke; she really believes it! God give me strength!” She swung round again. “What kind of moron do you take me for? And what kind of moron are you? Immortality, she says! You’re in some cult, right? Well, I’ll tell you right now, Ms. Smith, or whatever your real name is, you have been brainwashed, and I’m not listening to another moment of this crap!”
“Mrs. Blythe,” said Carmine, and something in her voice made Penny stop. “Mrs. Blythe, I do not belong to any cult or other organization. But I am immortal, and I am offering your husband the chance to be the same, because it’s the only alternative he has to dying. You see, I’m a vampire.”
Penny pressed her forehead against the doorframe and started to laugh. The laughter became hysterical, then turned into gulping, hiccuping sobs; then she threw anything movable within her reach at Carmine, screaming abuse. Carmine avoided the missiles and waited calmly for the worst of the storm to pass. When it did, and Penny was slumped on her haunches against the wall with both hands covering her face, she asked, “Have you got a mirror?”
Penny raised her head and stared, but she didn’t speak. Looking past her through the open door, Carmine saw an oval mirror hanging in the hall. She fetched it, and crouched down at Penny’s side.
“Look in the glass,” she said.
Too drained to argue, Penny looked. She saw her own red-eyed, disheveled reflection, decided that she resembled an unhealthy pig and even in extremity felt shamed. Then her brain caught up as she took in Carmine’s image beside hers. In the mirror, Carmine had no face. She was nothing more than a vague, gray blur, as if an isolated patch of fog had floated in and settled at Penny’s shoulder. The fog dimly suggested a humanlike shape, and there might have been a fading hint of features shrouded somewhere in it, but that was all.
The Mammoth Book of Vampire Stories by Women Page 19