Annie of the Undead

by Varian Wolf

  “But you tell them about earthvines and witches and magic-fucking-whatnot?”

  Mark looked genuinely troubled.

  “It’s dangerous knowledge. Werewolves are serious trouble. Vampires don’t even mess with them. They’re something you’re safer not knowing about.”

  “I have a hard fucking time believing that. That just what I need, some four-legged fuck walking around in a man-suit, biting me on the ass because nobody bothered to fill me in on his existence. Why the hell didn’t that dead fuck I’ve been fucking tell me about this?”

  “He probably wanted to protect you,” said Mark quietly.

  “Protect me? I’m the one who protected his ass. I ice three fucking witches who have a stake jammed up his cold ass, and he can’t wise up enough to warn me about things like werewolves prowling around –things vampires don’t even mess with? How fucking bright is that?”

  Mark didn’t know what to say. He looked really uncomfortable.

  “I really shouldn’t have said anything,” he said.

  “Maybe not,” I said, glaring. “But now you’re going to tell me everything –everything there fucking is, every last evil fucked-up thing, or I am going to go back in there and start screaming about hairy-dicks at the top of my lungs and get somebody fired.”

  Vampires, eternal unlife, slaughtering witches in hotel rooms, insane trips south to a city that was right off its rocker, shacking up with every bevy of gay men this side of the Mississippi –all that I could handle, and I thought I had done so admirably. But werewolves…shapeshifters…howling at the full moon in your hair shirt –that was just too much.

  “I’ll tell you what I know,” said Mark unhappily, “but I’m really sorry you had to find out like this.”

  “So am I,” I assured him. “So am I.”

  Miguel did not return that evening or all that night, which was probably the only thing that saved his undead ass, because I wanted to kill him. How could he not tell me about werewolves, the ancient secret societies of immortal shapeshifters who could change themselves not only into wolves, but, occasionally, into other people, making themselves look old or young, Asian or Irish at will? How could he not tell me about their power and influence in the world, their vast wealth, or, best of all, their strong dislike for the undead? How could he not tell me that no vampire ever lived in the same city as a werewolf, or that a powerful werewolf could make a mockery of a vampire like Andy’s strength? How could he not tell me that a werewolf could fight a vampire matched in all other things and win because, unlike the vampire, the werewolf could heal a severed arm in seconds? How could he not tell me, the one to whom he’d promised eternal unlife, that witches were bad, but that werewolves were badder, and that it was only because vampires stayed out of their way that the blood drinkers were allowed to unlive at all? How could he not bother to let me know these crucial facts so revealing of the true quality of eternal unlife before he trapped me in it forever?

  The devil’s in the details.

  So what about the common myths? I had learned some of the truths about vampires: they didn’t sleep in coffins. Crosses were about as threatening to them as junior high cheerleaders, unless they were made of wood, and even then getting stabbed through the heart was only an inconvenience. The sun was genuinely threatening, as were witches and fire and going without blood. But what about werewolves? Were silver bullets useful in their deterrence? No, Mark said. That was a myth. What about the full moon? Did it make them crazy? No, that too was a myth, though werewolves had a way of going crazy all on their own. What about the biting thing? If one bit you, would you become a werewolf? The biggest misconception of all, Mark said. Werewolves were born, not made.

  “So if they were born, where did they come from?”

  “It’s just like with vampires,” Mark said. “If anyone knows, they’re not telling.”

  “So what’s this business about lots of werewolves in China?”

  “Just that. There are lots of them. It’s one of their places.”

  “Where else are their places?”

  Mark replied with extreme reluctance.

  “Canada.”

  “That figures.”

  “They prefer cold places –the equatorial regions not so much. That’s why vampires are better off in low latitudes.”

  “Supernatural fucking map of the world. So, let me get this straight: Vampires in the tropics, werewolves,” I shook my head at myself actually saying that, “at the poles, and witches –where the hell are witches?”

  “Wherever, I think.”

  “Witches next door. Werewolves hate vampires. Vampires avoid werewolves. Witches hunt vampires. Do they hunt werewolves?”

  “I don’t know much about that.”

  “Do werewolves hunt witches?”

  “I hear they’re not really fond of them.”

  “Boy, werewolves sound real neighborly in general.”

  “They didn’t seem to bother anybody in China.”

  “So werewolves like humans.”

  “I don’t really know.”

  “How can you not know this stuff? You protect a vampire for a living.”

  “We’ve never had any problems. They pretty much leave us alone. Andy’s over two hundred years old, and he said he’s only had a scrape with a werewolf once or twice.”

  “But you train for them?”

  “We train, yeah, but werewolves don’t bother people who stay out of their business, and no witch has ever come after Andy. The guys he had before us all retired never having even seen a witch. The bad guys don’t come after guys as old as Andy if they don’t make any trouble.”

  Don’t they? Apparently he didn’t know about Miguel’s little encounter.

  “So what else is there, Mark. What else do I need to worry about going bump in the night?”

  “There isn’t really anything else. There’s vampires who defend their cities, the packs up north, and witches who mostly deal with people – they are people. That’s it. That’s everybody.”

  “No weretigers?”

  “Nope.”

  “No wereorangutans?”

  “Not that I’ve heard of.”

  “No weresea cucumbers? Because if I find out that there are weresea cucumbers…”

  Mark looked officially ass-whipped.

  All right. So it wasn’t just Miguel and Andy and some other nameless dead folk out there running around in the shadows slitting throats. There was this whole other world with its own weird rules, where a pine two-by-four does more damage than a fifty caliber bullet, where werewolves teach martial arts, and where tattoos offer as much protection as a bullet proof vest, if of a different kind.

  Yep, Annie, you’re in deep now, kid. You’re going to have to start thinking about this whole undeath thing a little differently. It’s not just going to be bloody fun and games for all eternity. It was going to be bloody fun and fighting, which, to that kid from the smoky boxing rings and seedy streets of Detroit, was even better. We are talking about me here.

  There was one more thing beleaguered Mark could do for me, and I was pretty sure it was going to take a razorblade.

  I might have been smiling when I said, “So Mark, let’s talk about tattoos.”

  I spent the next few days taking it easy, exploiting Andy’s begrudging hospitality, peddling lazily on his stationary bikes, watching martial arts movies with his boys, and refusing to wear the clothes he’d had bought for me.

  It was fun watching Andy avoid me. I had figured out which was his hall, and had also figured out that he had started using another door to escape after meeting me strategically positioned in the hall one evening, as much a camo-wearin’, half-trash, gender-confused, para-military eyesore as ever.

  Then I figured out something that bothered him even more than ghetto chic. I started leaving things in places they didn’t belong – little things like bottle caps in little places like the sink drain. It was great fun. He’d made the mistake of complaining to the boy
s about a single blade of grass I’d left on the carpet, and that was the absolute end of his pristine white peace. I moved pillows from one room to another. I switched the arctic-white lampshades from the hall with the ultra-snow lampshades from the den. I unfolded the throws and refolded them crooked. I left toenail clippings in the carpet. Miguel had left me here waiting for him with nothing to do. I could not be held responsible for my actions. It was only the forces of nature at work.

  Mark was exceedingly helpful in all possible ways. He cooked me breakfast, lunch, dinner, and even linner if I wanted it. He answered my questions about vampires, werewolves, and other domestic issues. He returned the pillows and lampshades to their proper homes, picked up the blades of grass, and never even mentioned the aggravation he must have been feeling. He would never complain, and he would never stop helping. It was his nature. I am convinced that if he had not been Andy’s bodyguard, he would have been a physical therapist or a special education teacher or a guide dog – when he wasn’t cooking gourmet meals, winning kung fu competitions, or impeccably styling unruly half-breed hair.

  His skills as an artist, on the other hand, and the viability of the very unique commission I had, more with belligerence than a silver tongue, coerced him into doing for me with only rudimentary tools on the bathroom vanity? Only time would reveal how effective an earthvine in scarification would be, or if it was worth the cost in blood.

  I got to know Max and Mark pretty well. I learned that Max’s grandfather had been a sort of witch doctor or priest down in Haiti – practicing voodoo, and that Max had actually seen a zombie once. I had been about to give Mark hell for not telling me about zombies, but Max explained that zombies were sort of a local phenomenon, one that Mark couldn’t really be expected to know about. Max wouldn’t give me any more details on the matter, though he did not escape my pestering for further knowledge. I learned that Mark was born on Tonga, a sovereign island nation of western Polynesia, the whereabouts of which I only really got when he got on Google Earth and showed me, to a Chinese father and a Tongan-Scottish mother. He’d lived in Fiji, Hawaii, China, and several countries in Europe before coming to the states to hold down the fort for Andy. His father was kung fu master, and his mother was an architect. He had an ass-kicking kung fu sister who was attending the University of Paris.

  I learned almost nothing about Monty, the so-called ex-British Secret Service guy, which probably had something to do with the fact that he was an ex-British Secret Service guy. He was polite enough to me, but did not seek out my company. He seemed to read a lot.

  I finally met Marvin. I think to date the man has said ten words to me. What I got out of him during that first introduction was a terse hello before he went on his way. He was of medium height and sandy-haired, with a rough, unshaven face and an extremely vertical and capable posture, made all the more capable-looking by the iron in his muscles. He was beasty for sure, and I was immediately jealous of Andy for having such a man in his corner.

  It bothered me that Miguel was still gone. I know that now, but I never would have admitted that at the time, especially not to myself. If I had known about the trouble I was about to have, maybe I would have worried a little more about myself and a little less about my vampire.

  The day the trouble happened, Mark and I had just finished working out. I’d taken a shower and emerged to find my clothes missing. In their place was a skinny pair of leggings, a slinky shirt with no sleeves in some insane swirl of colors, and a pair of boots –not the workin’-hard kind of boots, the hardly-walking, fuck-me-please kind of boots. I knew immediately that I’d been set up. Max had been prowling around looking suspicious all morning, and after three days of vain efforts to get me into some of the clothes Andy had bid him put me in, he had finally resorted to dirty pool.

  I wasn’t, as an ass-kicking brute, about to be forced into what I considered cross-dressing. I slipped on a house robe, and dropped my pistol in my pocket out of reflex rather than any prescience for what was about to happen. I went in search of Mark, who had headed to the indoor Zen garden – yes, Andy had one. Mark’s mother had designed it, with a glass ceiling, a shallow pool populated with rocks, a trickling fountain, and a sandbox with rakes – the whole shebang. Mark had this idea that he was going to teach me to meditate. I had this idea I was going to take a nap – unstoppable force meets unmovable object again.

  “You oughtta do something about that damn islander.”

  “What?” Mark said, turning around. He was already in crocus position or chrysanthemum position, or whatever that contortionist’s fantasy is called.

  Mark knew nothing about Max’s little scheme.

  “Oh, I forgot our hydration,” he said suddenly, popping up from his bamboo mat, “What do you want. Gatorade? Vitamin water? Fiji?”

  “I can just stick my face in the pool…”

  “Oh, please,” he begged, putting out a hand. “I’ll be back.”

  He left the room with as much vigor as he had greeted my sleepy head with that morning. He was the battery bunny.

  It’s no trouble. That was Mark’s tagline. If he was an action figure, which he kind of already was, you’d press a button on his ass and he’d happily say, “It’s no trouble!” and cook you breakfast, kick your ass, show you some new moves, talk supernatural shop, fix your hair, and like every minute of it.

  And yet he was Andy’s. All of them were Andy’s. How was that possible?

  I didn’t have time to give myself a headache over it, because my phone rang, and the real headache, the splitting migraine-cluster-fuck headache that would last for the next two weeks, suddenly began.

  “Annie! Annie! I need your help,” came a harried whisper from the other end of the line. “I’m scared. A man followed me home. I thought I gave him the slip, but…”

  The voice trailed off.

  “Yoki, is that you? Yoki?”

  “I have to be quiet. I think he’s still out there…”

  It sounded like her mouth was full.

  “…He’s awfully big, and not very attractive. It’s probably nothing, but could you come over? …Quiet, Jesus!”

  I heard her muffle his growling. I also heard her chewing.

  “Yoki, are you eating?”

  “I eat when I’m nervous. I’d call the police, but there’s so much alcohol in my room, and it’s against the rules –I just can’t have them come here…Oh, I see him! He’s still out there,” she said, munching between sentences.

  “Yoki. Lock your door and stay inside. Keep your phone on. I’ll be there as fast as I can. Don’t go outside. Do you hear me?”

  “Yes, yes…”

  “I’ll be right there. Stay on the line.”

  “Annie,” munch, munch, “do hurry.”

  I leaped out of the salon chair. Shit. I was in a bathrobe. My clothes had been kidnapped. Should I go look for them? What if I ran into Mark? Were these guys instructed to keep me here? Would Miguel do that? Would Andy? Shit.

  I couldn’t risk it. I headed straight for the back door. Who knew what devils of security I’d run into if I went any other way, but I knew where that remote was.

  I slunk through the white halls of the white house as fast and as stealthily as I could. I checked for movement around every corner. I made it to the living room without running into Mark, which was some kind of miracle, considering he had just been to the kitchen to get us drinks, unless he had gone to some hidden bar to get them.

  I crossed the living room and snatched up the remote Mark had loosely concealed beneath the Manly Health magazine. Twenty-three. I keyed it and hoped.

  The locks shifted to their open state, and the door released. I shoved it open and slipped into the back yard. I glanced around. There had to be a gate back here someplace. But would I be able to open it? I followed the path around the side of the house to discover a gate. It was tall, iron, and locked.

  I couldn’t climb it. It wasn’t that kind of gate. I looked around frantically. By now, Mark would
have discovered my absence from the salon. He would be walking through the house looking for me. I didn’t have much time.

  If a half-starved guy looking for lawnmowers could make it over this wall, I could. There had to be something, somewhere –unless he had used a ladder…A ladder! There was something else I could use for that purpose.

  I ran back to the patio. My trusty friend the pool skimmer was lying beside the pool. I picked it up and toted it back to the gate. I wedged the top end beneath the high crossbar on the gate and the bottom end of it with a big landscape rock at what I hoped would be the right incline, and used the skimmer the way any good hoodlum uses a drain pipe. I clambered onto the wall, searching for soft ground to land on rather than the pavement of the drive. I teetered at the top, seeing the camera eye staring out at me from under the eave of the house, then I hung by my hands and dropped the remaining twelve feet to the plantings below.

  I landed in sago palms. The stickers got me, stuck in my palms and my legs and my butt, but the stiff leaves broke my fall. I struggled out of the mess and headed down the long, winding drive to the street.

  It struck me then that I didn’t have a car, and maybe I would have been better off trying to find the garage and steal one of Andy’s, but it did not occur to me to ask for help.

  So I stood in the street. Girl in bathrobe. Helpless. Harmless. It was a wide avenue with fancy houses on both sides. There’d be a car along soon. Somebody would feel sorry for the poor, nearly naked girl, held hostage in the mad house of merry men. Someone would offer her a ride into town. Someone…

  No one came. I started jogging in the direction I thought was town. No one. Quiet street. Should I ask to use a phone? Call a cab? I kept jogging, hit a crossroads, kept jogging. A woman drove by in an Escalade, hyperactive kids strapped into the seats behind her. She stared at me like I was a street hooker. Scandalous.

  Finally, there was another car. This one, a Lexus sedan, rolled to a stop just ahead of me.

  I ran up to the window. It rolled down to reveal a slightly soft-looking fiftyish blue hair in a suit and glasses. My first impulse was to stick my gun in his face and commandeer his vehicle, but Miguel’s success with the Banana Boys –not to mention Andy, and all the rest of us who had fallen for his silver tongue, came back to me. This seemed like a good opportunity to try his method out.