by Varian Wolf
That night I looked down upon the sleepy nighttime world of the mortals, the rooftops blanketed in silver snow, the darkened yards, some with yellow light spilling forth from the windows of night owls like butter melting in a black skillet. So small were they! So unimportant! The whole universe now was the leaping and the soaring, above their world and beyond their notice. That night I was given a teeny, mortal glimpse of what it means to be a vampire: what it means to be free –free from gravity, humanity, the trivialities and the trauma endemic to the labyrinth of the mundane. That night I glimpsed what it means to be a god in a world of ants.
I was hooked.
All too quickly, the joyride was over. The vampire set me down softly upon my own uncertain feet in an alley I could not name. Where was this? It had all been so fast, and I had never seen the city from the air. I, who knew the seedy capillaries of this concrete monster so well, was lost.
But, as we emerged from the alley onto a lamp-lit street, I realized where we were. It was all too familiar.
It was a cold realization following my cathartic ride through the night. We were just down the street from the jail. I could see the front door from here.
I looked at the vampire.
“You’re kidding me.”
He did the understated version of biting his lip.
“You vampire dog!”
He was gonna eat me, when he first saw me here. That was his plan. He was gonna eat me. I could envision him in the alley, or up on a rooftop –somewhere dark, lurking, stalking, doing all those creepy things that everyone pictures vampires doing, waiting for some poor idiot to walk out that door, for some lowly skank of society to drink dry. Someone nobody would miss. Someone people would expect to disappear. Someone like me.
It crossed my mind then that maybe he hadn’t changed his mind. Maybe this was some sick game he played with his prey –worse than I had even hypothesized earlier. Being undead probably did some wretched things to your sense of humor. Take the dancing, for instance.
“I’m not going to kill you,” he said, smiling with all those teeth. “Not anymore.”
I still looked at him accusingly.
He offered his arm.
“Come along,” he said, “There is a patrol car turning the corner down there right now. Now would be a good time not to look like you’re limping.”
I took his arm.
“I hate you.”
“Good. It’s your most flattering sentiment.”
We walked to his car, which was, of course, expensive, glossy, and new, if covered with the three inches of snow that had fallen while its master decided whether to finish or spare his dinner. Somehow, I hadn’t imagined him driving a rusted-out 1980 Station Wagon. Vampire Miguel drove a Mercedes Benz SL600, a hundred-and-thirty-thousand-dollar car.
And he didn’t even wear any bling.
The vampire didn’t try to open the door for me. Good thing. I might have killed him, vampire or not.
We checked into the ritzy hotel that was apparently the vampire’s idea of a fine coffin, complete with a big fountain in the lobby, an escalator, and a bunch of tropical plants. The receptionist took one look at us and figured me for a working girl and the vampire for my paying customer. She kept her mouth shut about it, but her eyes smiled with knowing condescension. She was lucky I was so tired. Energetic Annie would have punched her lights out.
There was no more mention between the vampire and I of the circumstances that had led to our acquaintance, and there never would be again. I collapsed brainlessly on the massive bed in the equally massive suite, determined to think only of pillows and covers and sleep.
“Annie?”
“What now, vampire?” I grumbled, half asleep before he’d even closed the door.
“I’m going out. There is still an hour before dawn.”
“Good, go kill some people. Let me sleep.”
I put a massive pillow over my head.
“I will be relying upon you, Annie, when I return. The sun will kill me. You must keep the draperies closed all day.”
“I’m gonna sleep all day. Don’t worry about it.”
“I am going to hang the ‘do not disturb’ sign on the door. Do not allow anyone to enter the room.”
“I’ll shoot anyone who tries.”
“We must trust each other now. That is the only way this arrangement will function…Annie. Annie.”
“Trust, right. All kinds of trust.”
If he said anything after that, I did not hear it. The longest day of my life had finally ended.
When I awoke, I almost wished the vampire had killed me. I had finally caught the motherfucker of a cold that had been going around the jail for weeks.
The night of frozen hell probably hadn’t helped any. All the symptoms that typify the nastiest of colds gripped me then. I made the mistake of swallowing, and my throat raged like I’d been eating broken glass. My whole head was so stuffed that you could have strung it up and used it as a piñata, so stuffed that there was no room in my head for my eyes, for my brain, or for the buckets of snot streamed forth, threatening to flood the entire room. My joints felt disconnected from one another, unlubricated, bone grinding against bone.
I had no idea what time it was, or what day, or for a moment where I was or anything that had happened in recent hours. My first impression was that I was in jail, but then I felt the familiar cold shape of the gun beside me, and after that the cold shape of a hand.
That got my attention. I opened my eyes, sat up, and threw back the covers.
And I found a dead guy.
It really took me some time to clear my head of the idea that I was lying next to some corpse, and I was in some kind of trouble. After all, it made more sense than the truth.
What led my sluggish mental processes to the truth was the fact that the dead guy was so dang beautiful. His skin was vibrant pearl with a gold cast, his lips, eyelids, and other sensitive areas rosy. He looked very different than I remembered him from the previous night, when he had seemed almost the color of the snow falling on his hat. He was lying flat on his back, eyes closed, one hand on his chest and the other lying, I realized, where I had been. His hand had been entwined with mine.
Okay, now that was a weird thing. I rolled hastily out of bed and away from hand and dead guy, putting weight on my bad ankle and being painfully reminded just how bad it was. Drooling like a drunk dog and with about as much coordination, I limped to the bathroom, poured myself a cup of water, and tried to douse the demons in my throat. It didn’t work.
Ice, I thought. When I was a kid, Chris used to smash up a bag of ice cubes with a hammer and give them to me with a spoon when I had a sore throat. Hotels have ice machines. I had to find one.
I limped back into the room, seeing the vampire once more, lying exactly as I had left him, unmoving, dead. I realized that it was probably not a good thing that I had left him uncovered. There was light tracing a bright line around the borders of the curtains. Was it sunlight or artificial? The clock by the bed said 5:00pm –still daylight outside. Hot hell, I’d slept all day. Getting an early start on this whole nightlife thing, I guess.
I reached for the covers to shield the vampire once more, but something made me pause. I lingered there, staring at him, his proud forehead with the depression of a scar stabbing down toward one eye, his slightly beaked nose, his ebony hair. He looked like he had been sculpted of stone, not grown of flesh, and he was beautiful, so beautiful. I touched his cheek –cold, like the room. I ran my fingers across his forehead, down his nose. I touched his lips. Slowly, I parted them. His teeth were like newly-carved ivory. His gums were vivid velvet red.
I moved away, realizing why he looked so different. He was full of blood –fresh, red blood. That was why his frosty complexion of the past night was gone. He had stolen a new one.
But he had not taken it from me. He had spared me, chosen me, and now he was lying still as death. Was he really helpless? Was he serious when he said he woul
d be so by daylight? How could he trust me like this? Was he some kind of undead idiot?
My head threatened violent retaliation for all this deep thought. After all, I was suffering from an infestation of microscopic enemy soldiers, tearing up my insides at the cellular level, herding impotent white blood cells into tiny concentration camps. I replaced the covers over the vampire’s head, took the card-key from the bed stand, and swallowed, which was a mistake and reminded me how badly I needed ice.
Being the paranoid creature I am, I took the .45 with me on my foray. Maybe it was the memory so fresh of last night’s heinous experiences. Maybe it was the dead guy in my bed. Maybe it was the fever. Whatever it was, I stuck it in my waistband and checked in the mirror to make sure my shirt covered the weapon sufficiently. You never know who’s going to jump you in a hotel hallway in Detroit.
Taking the firearm with me would turn out to be one of the most fateful decisions of my life.
I limped down the hall in a semi-mindless state. It was pure providence that I found what I sought, around a corner in a little alcove across from the elevators. A western window told me that it was almost nightfall. The last of the sun’s orange glow was fading on the snowy world outside; soon there would be only the violet of dusk. I wondered if my vampire would wake then or if he had to wait until all sunlight was gone.
A vending machine taunted me with cool beverages I had not thought to bring change for. But there beside it, humming merrily, was my blessed savior, the Great Giver of Ice, the Ice God. Why do birds suddenly appear…
I lifted the stainless steel lid and shoveled out a scoopful of ice. I plucked forth a cube, put it in my mouth. Ooooohhh. I leaned against the machine in a state not of bliss but of blessed cessation of agony. All too soon, my ice cube melted. Oh, the gifts of the gods are fleeting! I popped in another. Then I melted to the floor.
Who knows how long I sat there, trying to melt into icy oblivion?
I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Several pairs. My brain slightly rejuvenated by my nearness to God, the approach of other humans made me suddenly realize how unusual was my appearance. I was still dressed in the battered camo that had been through so much hell. I had given the hotel receptionist something to stare at. Thus dressed and sucking cubes on the floor, I would probably look like a person on drugs or crazy or something. It probably wouldn’t do good to draw that kind of attention to myself.
But the footsteps did not continue into my nook. I turned and peeked around the snack vender with habitual nosiness –You can call it alertness if you want to be gracious. Two men and a woman passed with purpose in their stride. They were wearing bland business wear: dark suits and hansom leather shoes, even the woman, who was also carrying a large leather bag. They looked and acted like the heat to me. Their presence immediately set me on edge.
I watched the trio gather in front of a room door down the hall. The woman withdrew a strange long object, like a pointed stick, from her coat, which didn’t set off any alarms in my brain, but what the men drew out did. The two men drew pistols. The bigger man of the two raised his leg, and, in very professional style, he kicked the door in. It was then that my fevered brain realized whose door they were kicking in.
Then the adrenaline hit. I was still dizzy and hurting, but my awareness sharpened up in an instant. My thoughts raced. They were going after the vampire, and they knew he was a vampire.
But they didn’t know that he was my vampire.
I remembered the gun in my waistband and drew it. There was no one else in the hall. No one had been drawn by the noise of the door breaking in –smart people avoid moving toward violent noises. I guess I wasn’t smart. I limped fast to the door, leaned against the wall, clutching the pistol. They had turned the light on in the room. I would be able to see them just fine coming in from the bright hall. I took a breath and moved. I swung around that threshold with one mean thought in my head: my vampire.
None too soon. They had the covers off my vampire, two-foot stakes in hand. He wasn’t moving, still daylight. The woman, a cool brunette, doused him with water from a flask, murmuring something in another language. Then, to my horror, she plunged her stake deep into his stomach. Miguel moved a little, like a man too drunk or stoned to respond to pain. He was helpless.
The shorter man raised his stake.
I aimed my gun at the biggest man’s back and fired twice.
Everything else happened in the space of a minuscule number of seconds. I turned my gun to the other man’s midsection even as the big man was falling. The surviving man ducked and turned and the woman dove out of the way as I fired. And fired. I did not see where I had struck the second man right away. I kept firing. He dropped his gun, surprise and pain in his eyes, and collapsed, blood oozing from several places.
I turned my attention to the woman as she dove for cover behind the bed. I pulled the trigger. Empty. Shit. I went to the floor both for cover and for the other man’s gun. Neither of them were moving. There was blood everywhere.
I knew in the action that there was a possibility that the woman had not heard where I had gone. I’d been in my share of tight situations. I knew how easy it was for the sounds of your adversary to be muffled by your own heavy breathing, your own movements. I hoped, and I froze. I held my breath.
Miguel was making a little sound, like a bear coming out of hibernation after having one long, awful dream. His hand twitched lethargically over my head. I heard the woman’s breathing. Ah ha. She wasn’t loud; she was a pro, but I was an animal. She was still behind Miguel’s bed, near the floor.
I guessed the best trajectory and fired under the bed –a whole bunch of times. She fired too. I heard bullets whizzing past my shoulder and head before I heard her cry out. I stopped firing, hoping to save my bullets if there were any left. I could still go for the first man’s gun if I had to, but that would be a risk. I listened. The woman began to cough, first normally, then wetly.
I reached for the other gun. Nothing happened. She didn’t try to kill me. I grabbed it in my left hand and slowly stood up. I could hear her rasping breaths coming from the floor beyond the still helpless Miguel. He was looking at me with eyes that do not see. I stepped around the foot of the bed, gun at ready.
She was lying on the floor in a slump, her legs twisted and her knees bent as though she’d been in a crouch before she fell over. There was blood oozing from her abdomen and her right breast, spreading over her fine suit and into an expanding puddle on the floor. She stared up at me. Blood was coming from her nostrils and mouth. She was bleeding to death, and her lung was collapsed, and yet her fingers edged for the gun that lay but inches from them.
She grasped the gun, started to raise it. I fired. And fired. Then I was out of rounds. It was point blank range. Her head blew apart. Wow, there was nothing left. I looked at the splattered blood, the hunks of cerebral matter and scraps of skull and wondered that this wreckage had been a human being only a moment before.
Then there was a hand on my shoulder. I swung the empty gun like a club, but it was removed from my grasp. A cold hand took hold of my arm. It was Vampire Miguel, eyes alight with green fire, sans stake. Nightfall had come.
“We must go,” he said, “Pronto.”
“No shit.”
There were shouts down the hall, general commotion, people running.
Miguel moved quickly, too much so for me to make sense of all his movements. He moved the bodies, moved the guns. Before I knew it he had set fire to the bedclothes and come back to me. He handed me his briefcase.
“We run. I’ll carry you.”
He scooped me up, and we went straight out the window.
We descended like a cannonball to the little strip of lawn that flanked the parking lot below, but Miguel landed like a cat. With his exquisitely trained muscles he designed our landing so that little of the shock would be transferred to me. Without a pause he swept up the body of the man that he had tossed so casually a moment ago and we were off.
Miguel got in and started the car. Then, in an astounding change of pace, he pulled the car around in the most leisurely manner possible, so slow I thought it glacial compared to the racing of my heart, and guided it out the hotel driveway.
I turned back to watch the hotel as it receded from view. Smoke was going up into the street lamp-lighted night. People were fleeing through the front doors in various states of undress.
I turned to face Miguel as he casually drove down the road. There was blood on his silk pajamas where that stake had been driven into his gut.
“You all right to drive?”
“Yes,” he answered. “I fed well last night. I will heal rapidemente. Watch the blood; you will see something interesting.”
I did, and watched in amazement as the stains lost their wet luster and eventually dehydrated completely, leaving behind on his clothes a substance not unlike ash, which I felt beneath my fingers. Ashes which, I suddenly knew with cold clarity, my old life would have to be. I had killed this night. I had pulled my trigger and put holes into vital, breathing folks –a whole bunch of times. I hadn’t done it to keep from being raped by my mom’s boyfriend, mugged by some rat bastard in the street, or killed by my own no-good father. I had killed for a vampire.
As far as humanity was concerned, the people I’d killed had probably been the good guys –vampire slayers and all. But I wasn’t about to stand by and watch a new associate –even a dead one, get killed in cold blood like that. The brother had been sleeping, for Christ’s sake.
Sleeping and stupid.
“Do you make a habit of almost getting yourself killed in bed?” I asked as he drove.