by J. E. Cammon
The car squealed in reverse and then smoked down the street, lights coming alive with the siren. Jarvis watched the officers go. He did know where the barrow was. It was the area of the Moguls’ rivals. Their name changed several times over the years; infighting over failure at seizing more territory led them to destroy each other. It was always the same with people; they were never content, not even with stability. Jarvis retrieved the doll, unsure as to why, pondering at the vacant space on the rooftop across the street.
His feet took him directly to the Moguls, faster than normal. The apartment building they used was in a frenzy of activity, but everyone still moved around mechanically as if they weren’t unsettled. The Big Man’s presence didn’t help. He was greeted in much the same manner as normal and shortly after he arrived someone sprinted off to inform Bethel of his visitor. It would probably be of concern that he wasn’t summoned. Surprisingly, Bethel came outside to meet the vampire. He wasn’t outwardly agitated, but his heartbeat betrayed his worried strain.
“Big homie,” he said, pulling them both away from the others. As they walked, he took temporary interest in the doll.
“What’s happened?” Jarvis asked directly.
Bethel looked up into the vampire’s face. “You don’t know? The barrow got hit. Folks is dead, lots of folks.” He paused. “Look, man, some freaky stuff is going on, and I remember…”
“It wasn’t me,” Jarvis replied.
Bethel rubbed his neck. “I didn’t think it was. I mean, hell, I don’t know. We got rules, you know, there’s just stuff you don’t do.” Jarvis stared at him, hopefully conveying his lack of understanding. “We ain’t enemies, really. We all in it bad. We’re just different, you know? I’m goin’…we goin’ to show support and whatnot, so they know it wasn’t us. I mean, I ain’t got a problem killin’ somebody, but the stuff I been hearin’…”
“What happened?” Jarvis asked again.
Raymond Bethel was not a terrifying man. He created an image to substantiate the illusion of him being a horrible monster, but compared to Jarvis, Bethel was a novice child. Now he was afraid, though not of the vampire.
“Dudes I sent over there said folks’s been chopped up, slashed, chewed on. Some Elm Street nonsense, man.” Bethel was finally at the place all the many villains Jarvis knew over the years, and in his own way helped or hindered, eventually came to. His eyes pleaded with the vampire, wishing for him to empathize. A line was crossed, Bethel’s eyes said, an important, human line.
Jarvis let the moment in which he could be comforting pass. “This was left on the stoop of my house,” he said, holding the doll up.
“The hell?” Bethel said. “The world’s gone crazy.”
“People die, Raymond,” Jarvis said. “Sometimes in unsettling ways. Go to your brothers. I came to ask if you needed anything.” He was several steps away when Bethel called out. The Big Man turned again, curious.
“Look, man.” Bethel struggled with his newfound powerlessness. “I know it ain’t no never mind to you, but find who did this?”
Their agreement had the vampire utilized as a tool to strengthen the Moguls’ position. This was not that, because the man was begging. He was still Raymond Bethel, however, and despite it being a plea, he did leave it hanging on the air and turned to walk back to his followers. He lived in squalor, but he was a king nonetheless.
Jarvis looked down at the doll, pondering the request. He supposed that if Bethel was a king, then that made him a dragon.
He watched the Moguls leave in a procession of recently washed and painted cars. It looked all at once like a funeral procession and a war band. The police would be there, too. They seemed indifferent to the problems of the barrow in the past, but a massacre was a massacre.
Jarvis were not tasked; he was asked. He walked slowly back in the direction of the house he dwelled in, wondering how obligation worked in cases when he was given a choice. He wasn’t sure what Bethel thought of him, if he considered the vampire someone he could beg assistance of. It would be useful to find the offender, whoever they were, and destroy them, because they had the chance to unsettle the situation.
Things progressed well for some time. The city changed and grew, but really it was the same seaside village. It maintained its spirit. Again, Jarvis pondered simply leaving. Perhaps that’s what the Mistress’ statement ultimately meant; that she couldn’t leave, for a reason she could not describe or understand. Why didn’t anyone leave a clearly deteriorating situation? What made it worth dying under or suffering beneath?
The vampire stopped in front of the door to the house, hearing shuffling within. It was never his house. It was a building he stayed in; he possessed no key. People never came around either, to his knowledge, except when he was there. However, someone being inside without his permission seemed wrong, and Jarvis acted without thinking. He moved so quickly that objects and structures he moved past were only visible in retrospect. He collided with the figure as it was moving up a central hallway. It was flung backwards as if by a strong wind, crumpling in a corner of a far room.
Jarvis felt his hand almost pass through the soft tissue of the chest, pushing the bones of the ribs inward—many of them broken. It was an injury beyond fatal, the flesh beneath the bone would be torn and ruptured. It was a wound he delivered before. When he unfolded the figure of an elderly man, however, the body coming uncompressed as the arms and legs unfolded where they could, the eyes rolled into consciousness and a weird mouth etched into a grin.
“Magnificent.” The stranger lifted his head up slowly, spying down at his own body. “You’ve broken me. My spine, even reinforced, is broken as a twig.” His eyes looked back up at the vampire. “You are a fantastic creature, and I am inspired to make your acquaintance, my sir.” His right arm slowly rose from the floor and extended up in Jarvis’ direction in a gesture of greeting.
The vampire considered simply stepping on the stranger’s face, but there were questions. Jarvis concentrated, remembering. This was not the man from earlier. “Who are you?” he asked.
The stranger let his arm drop to the floor, clawing until he managed to work himself into a sitting position against the wall. His insides limped along in a semblance of life. There were all sorts of other sounds along with the beating of the heart and pumping of the lungs.
“What are you?” Jarvis decided to rephrase.
Again came the alien grin. “Why, I’m like you, my sir,” the man replied. “I am a god of this mortal world, though you may call me Tomohiro. Dr. Tomohiro. I see you received my gift.” He gestured at the doll, still in the vampire’s left hand.
Jarvis lifted the toy into view, holding the image of the broken man in his vision along with that of the small, patchwork doll.
Chapter Eighteen
Looking down at the broken Tomohiro, Jarvis came to realize that he wasn’t going to destroy him. He couldn’t. The vampire made the decision to begin asking questions.
“You haven’t said why you’re here,” he said.
A frown creased the man’s forehead, and he awkwardly cocked his head to the side to stare up at Jarvis. “Why, my sir, I’m here for you.” He waved a hand lazily as if he could erase the statement from the air. “For us. You can help me, and I can help you. We can help each other. You exist, but do you know why? Do you understand what you are, and what you are becoming?” He let his head drift back down again.
Change never occurred to the vampire, but it was a topic that crept often into his thoughts lately. “You have these answers,” Jarvis said, taking a step backwards to give the man room, since he decided not to step on his head.
“Some, my sir. I have some. Other questions can only be answered by you.” The strange Tomohiro put a hand on one of his useless legs and pulled it in such a way as to readjust his seating. His movements were getting slower.
Jarvis co
uld hear the pumping and slurping and sluicing sounds inside the man’s chest changing in rhythm and speed. In the vampire’s experience, Tomohiro was getting closer to death. “You are dying,” he offered, unhelpfully.
The man grinned like a knowing cat. “The driving sentiment of these strange years.” His eyes unfocused for a moment then became sharply fixed once again. “I am, though, as you must know. So are all people, all things.” His smile widened. “Except for you, and those like you. I digress. I need your help presently. I seem to be bleeding in a variety of places, and soon this will expire.”
Jarvis didn’t understand him at first. Over the next few hours, he became more accustomed to the corpse’s manner of expression. The vampire didn’t notice before, but Tomohiro left a bag near the front door. After it was delivered to him, Tomohiro set about opening it, rummaging carefully for various tools and implements, all the while remaining happily engaged with the giant.
True to his word, Tomohiro explained things about history and its recording, and how it was that vampires came to be. “There is truth even in fable. A story constructed from a lie still has to combat some form of unsaid truth. Both the shadow and the light need one another to exist,” he said.
Tomohiro unbuttoned his shirt to reveal scars and stitches. He went about inserting tubes, cutting with knives, and cracking with hammers. He was sewn all over, it seemed. Jarvis could not help but remember the doll and thought about giants’ children that made this man from the parts of other men.
“I have no claim to any throne that exists in the natural order,” Tomohiro said. “Like yourself. You had many names over the centuries: Soul Killer, Spirit Eater, and Sevren are among those I think are most appropriate.” He paused, his working arm pulling on his strange hair, wrenching his neck forward so he could more easily look into his chest cavity. A curious expression darkened his face. “There are less stories recounted about what I’m attempting. I think, maybe, that each case is unique.” Tomohiro made a decision and released his grip, his head flopping backwards and his arm reaching, the hand feeling and grasping. There was a pop, and then a final snap. “In my case, I was simply not done living.”
Jarvis was once again witness to how fragile life was. He saw the insides of a man on many occasions. Every one mostly seemed made of the same parts: a small rounded box resting within a cage of thin bars, hopping along on fragile spindly legs. In between, as was the case with Tomohiro, was a seemingly endless network of humors and liquids. The strange man, however, seemed much drier on the inside, and many of the parts were missing. There was metal too, much more than the vampire thought a person could have inside of them and still live.
When he was done, Tomohiro pushed the small metal pins closed, much like the buttoning of a shirt. “I am afraid I am going to need a wheelchair for our next adventure, my sir,” he said, ashamed a little.
Jarvis thought for a moment. “Does it have to be a wheelchair?” he asked.
Tomohiro looked up at the giant, quirking an eyebrow.
That was how the vampire ended up pushing a shopping cart downtown with pieces of a talking man inside. There were several of the rolling carts in the neighborhood, each of them belonging to a different year and store. A community lived in the depressed corner of the area beneath an underpass, and sometimes the children would go to taunt the people with bags and cardboard houses.
It was strange to find the place in the exact shape it was the last time he saw it, which was back when he asked about the local gangs on the search that eventually led him to Raymond Bethel. Some things changed, and other things did not. There didn’t seem to be much of a way to tell one from the other, though.
“How did you discover where I lived?” Jarvis asked, nudging the cart along. In most places there wasn’t a sidewalk, so they traveled on the side of the road. Few cars passed them, but mostly their audience was the moon.
“Good question. I knew you were a thinker. The gathering place,” Tomohiro replied, patting the side of the cart to some rhythm the vampire couldn’t know.
“The gathering place,” Jarvis prompted.
Tomohiro squirmed in the cart as if he wanted to move, but he dropped in such a way that he couldn’t move very much. “You do not know? I suspected you were insulated. I forget its specific name, but most cities have them. They are convergences of all the strange folk that make up the periphery of this world, like a crossroads,” he said, which required further explanation.
After several times through, Jarvis began to understand. It was a place to hide if one was not strong enough to make his own hollow. Jarvis was familiar with the concept; hiding was what his kind did. A person could get practically anything, or anything practical, in the gathering place so long as they had something commensurate for trade. The one in Bay City was a place people frequented for libations and conversation. The vampire supposed that was appropriate.
The tangent led to more questions, which in turn led to more of Tomohiro’s stilted answers. Jarvis decided not ending the man was a good idea. He was helpful and informative, like David.
“What did you mean about what I’m becoming?” Jarvis turned into an alley, off of the rough, jarring unevenness of the road. They were nearing their destination; the vampire could tell by the height of the buildings and population of parked cars. Locating it from street level was a new and strange exercise. Everything seemed so closed and impossible.
“Well, I cannot be completely sure, but you are alone in this city, yes?” Tomohiro squirmed again in the cart.
“Yes,” Jarvis responded without thinking. Images of David occurred to him, and then a few of Nick.
“Well, that makes sense. Your kind is territorial. In many cases, when many of you exist in the same area, massacres occur, questions arise, and the hunters come. So naturally, you push each other away, except for spawning.” Jarvis worked his mind around the word and tucked it away. “You, my sir, are alone throughout this entire city. Such a large place, one would have to be very strong, I think.” Tomohiro sounded pleased with himself.
Jarvis had memories of contests with others who came to challenge him. They called it haunting. Jarvis destroyed many of them with the image of the Mistress’ still face in mind. It occurred to him once that maybe he might coexist in peace with at least one of them, but it was always a brief and fleeting thought. He remembered different seasons and weather. Sometimes it rained; sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes the stars shone; sometimes they did not. It seemed that those were the only details that ever changed. The others all demanded, then bargained, then begged, then expired.
“You become strong with age, and with death. Have you seen much death, my sir?”
Jarvis didn’t know how to answer. There was the one time…they called it war. Men lay dying to the horizon in all directions. It was where he retrieved his blade, and where he learned that terror touches even free men.
“Yes,” he decided.
Tomohiro’s head bobbed backwards and forwards in confirmation. “You are old, I think, and you have killed many. Death surrounds you like a protective cloak, a shielding cloud, my sir. Animals flee from you, and carrion feeders await your leavings. Ending life is breath.”
Jarvis pulled the man’s words apart to put them back together in a way that made sense. He stopped the cart, stepping around it in the direction to the mouth of the alley. Looking around the corner, he saw the police station with the matching cars and bright lights out front. He took an extra moment, working through Tomohiro’s words. He turned back to the cart.
“The police building is that way.” He gestured.
Tomohiro remained still, thinking. His insides were beginning to make the disagreeable sounds again. “Excellent. Our destination is nearby, perhaps around the back. Push me closer, please.” He was getting excited.
They resumed traveling, turning right out of the alley in the dire
ction of the police area.
“We will stand out, I think.” David used a word Jarvis could not recall. It meant obvious.
“Something I have learned about the order of man. They are not so different from ants, in many respects,” Tomohiro said.
Motion prevented him from finishing his statement. A large group of constables emptied the station, all heading in the direction of different cars. Distant sirens signaled the presence of fire trucks and ambulances. Some drove past the two of them walking down the sidewalk and didn’t slow, or even look over. It seemed Tomohiro was resourceful in ways the vampire had trouble anticipating. He decided that it was a good thing, the man wanting to be of assistance.
Jarvis turned to watch the last car screech around a corner. “What is the place we’re looking for called again?” he asked. It seemed that every time Tomohiro opened his mouth, the vampire learned something new. Sorting through each statement, though, was taking time.
“It is called a morgue, my sir,” the man replied, sounding pleased again. He resumed his tapping on the rusty framework of the cart.
Jarvis strained to hear this time, but all he could piece together was odd noises and low, distant heartbeats. “Morgue.”
“It’s where they keep the dead.”
The vampire supposed that made sense. Tomohiro had a talent for clarifying things, he was discovering.
“What did you mean by spawning?” The giant asked yet another question and Tomohiro answered.
Chapter Nineteen
David discovered how woefully boring police work could be. He was especially thankful all the waiting around and travel time in crime dramas and cop shows were cut out. Since sunset, he and Vic did laps around Bay City in search of her wild geese.
In the mean time, she told him about her case. A high volume of illegal trafficking of guns and drugs, gang-marked executions, and the death of a number of undercover agents all amounted to some bloody turf war for contested territory in Vic’s mind.