by Unknown
“I guess black is the color du jour?”
We drove by the House of Usher and checked the front entrance. The usual abnormal crowd was waiting to get in, names being checked by the beefy bouncer. We parked around the corner and walked down the alley behind the nightclub. If I hadn’t been feeling so nervous I would have laughed at the sight of Steve, looking like Marcel Marceau without the white face in skintight black pants, turtleneck, and beret, tiptoeing at midnight behind a dumpster filled with rotting Chinese food. The black metal door I had used in my escape two days before was slightly ajar, just as it had been then.
When we entered I heard mind numbingly loud music pounding down on us from upstairs. Mercifully, it was muted by a set of closed doors. Following Les’s directions we went down one flight and through a dank room filled with cardboard boxes to a door, where a person undistinguishable as to age or gender, in black shapeless clothes, with black shoulder-length hair, was standing. I could hear sounds through the door, chanting or singing and perhaps drums. When Steve hesitated I shoved him forward. This was not something one should think too hard about.
“Look like you know what you’re doing,” I hissed at him.
The genderless person stared at us impassively.
“Requiem.” My voice was a hoarse whisper.
The person opened the door.
Steve pulled back, forcing me to drag him. His expression said: “What the %#*& are we doing here?” I peeled his fingers off my arm and strode in, swallowing the bile my fear was producing.
About fifty people were standing in front of a stage, watching the show in progress. The only light in the large room came from a row of pillar candles near the front, so I dragged Steve with me into the shadows at the side of the room. I opened up my cell phone, trying to hide it under the black shawl I was wearing. I was sure someone would see me recording and throw us out, or worse, but then I noticed that at least two other people were taping the proceedings, one with a phone, and one with a camera. I nudged Steve and pointed. He shrugged and whispered, “They probably have a website. Crazyvampireshit.com.”
At first glance what we were seeing appeared to be the kind of lesbian sex show you can see at certain downtown clubs for the price of three watered-down drinks. Two women dressed in little more than G-strings and leather bracelets were writhing in a theatrical approximation of sex. What was different was the blood. One woman’s neck and chest were covered with shallow cuts in the shape of circles and stars, from which blood dripped in rivulets. The other woman licked the blood and rubbed her hands over the wounds until the first woman’s skin was covered in a red sheen.
We seemed to have come in at the end of the first act because the two women picked themselves up and went behind a curtain. I wondered what they could possibly follow up with, and whether I could stand to look anymore. It helped to be looking through the camera. It gave some distance to the proceedings.
Moravia and several others arrived on the stage, each holding a pendant flag emblazoned with an abstract coat of arms. They were chanting words I couldn’t understand, but it had the rhythmic intonation of a Mass in Latin. It even sounded like Latin, with a lot of the words ending in um or us. Suleiman entered, wearing a black robe with red satin lining embroidered with fanciful patterns. I pulled my shawl around my face just in case he or Moravia happened to look my way.
“Hey, aren’t they your clients?” Steve asked in a loud whisper. I nodded.
“Didn’t they say they wanted you to use people in the club for their campaign?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Great idea. Watching the pig blood scene in Carrie always makes me want to buy cosmetics.”
The music and chanting faded and Suleiman’s voice boomed out over the audience. “Sons and daughters of the night. Is there one among you who chooses to offer themselves as a sacrifice to the Lord of Darkness, who wishes to taste immortality and rend the fabric that divides this world from the Beyond?”
A young woman pushed through the crowd and climbed the stairs on the side of the stage. She was thin and delicate, with long blond hair. I zoomed in on her face and saw it was Lilith. Her eyes had a drugged, glazed-over look and she stumbled as she walked.
Lilith stood at the front of the stage and held out her arms. It seemed she’d done this act before. Suleiman and Moravia unbuttoned her shirt, stroking her arms and shoulders and whispering. Two other men in cloaks stepped forward and just as they did Lilith slumped like she was going to fall down. The men grabbed her arms and held her upright.
A tall man entered, his head covered with a black velvet cloak so that his face was obscured. He was holding a dagger about ten inches long. The chanting started again by the participants on the stage and was taken up by the observers. The man held the knife high above his head, then came forward and raised it over Lilith’s chest, as if he were going to stab her in the heart. There was a collective intake of breath, then silence. I felt like I was at a bullfight, waiting for the matador to deliver the coup de grace. My head swam and I felt I might faint but my feet were frozen to the floor. Steve silently took hold of my free hand.
Chapter 12
The man didn’t stab Lilith. Instead he drew a shallow cut across her chest. The blood bubbled up along the length of it, then slowly dripped down her white skin. Lilith didn’t open her eyes but she arched her back and raised her face to the ceiling. Her expression was one of ecstasy, not pain.
He put his arms around Lilith and raised her up. He bent his head to the wound on her chest and licked it from bottom to top. His mouth caressed her chest, just the way Eric’s lips had caressed me. He lingered over her neck. A spasm went through Lilith’s body, and her expression turned into a grimace, but only for a moment. As quickly as it came, the grimace disappeared and her body went limp in his arms. A rivulet of blood ran down her arm and dripped off her fingers onto the floor. The chanting grew louder and louder.
Before I knew it I had lowered the cell phone and was pushing toward the stage, heedless of Steve and the other people around me, focused only on the shadowy silhouette of the man’s face inside the hood.
Is it you? I think I even said it out loud, but no one answered.
The hooded man raised his arms and beckoned to Suleiman and Moravia and the others on the stage. They approached Lilith while drawing knives from hidden places in their clothes or robes. Several of them made cuts in her body, on her arms or stomach, and put their heads down to drink from her. As this happened the hooded man backed up and slipped behind the curtains on the stage.
I felt Steve’s grasp like iron around my arm. “I came, I saw, I got the fuck out of Dodge. Let’s go, missy, right now.” Steve was now dragging me backward. His hold was like a vise all the way up the stairs and back into the alley. The cold air hit me like a slap in the face. I leaned against the car with my head down while Steve rummaged in my purse for the keys to my car.
While he drove I leaned my face against the cold car window, taking deep breaths. After we had gone a few blocks I felt calm enough to turn to Steve.
“What did we just see, Steve?”
Steve didn’t answer me, just stared straight ahead as he drove along the deserted street. His knuckles, as he gripped the steering wheel, were white.
I’m lying on Lucy’s bed, kissing a corpse. The motionless body I’m touching is as smooth, cold, and hard as stone, yet I kiss it as fervently as any lover, stroke it with the palms of my hands. I think I can bring it back to life with my love, with the heat of my desire. I wrap my legs around it, press it to the length of my body. I try putting my mouth on the corpse’s lips and blowing air into the silent throat. “Lucy,” I whisper, “Come back, you’re not dead, only frozen.” I feel a twitch, hear a sigh, and increase my efforts. It’s going to work, I think, I’ve brought her back to life!
Suddenly the corpse grabs me and sinks its teeth into my neck. The pain is like a reverse bullet, coming up from my heart and trying to exit through my neck. I cry out,
try to push Lucy away, but I have no strength. My cries sound like a dying bird. The vampire lifts its head, and the face has become Eric’s, blood dripping down his chin.
I woke up with sweat coating my body, the bedclothes twisted around my legs. I tried to calm down and straighten out the covers, then nearly jumped out of my skin because by God there really was a corpse in my bed. I pulled the sheet down and there was Steve, still dressed in his black turtleneck, sleeping like a rock. After watching the video twice (and coming no closer to identifying the hooded man) we’d each taken a sleeping pill washed down with a shot of whiskey. Steve wasn’t going anywhere soon.
With my favorite polar fleece robe tied tight around my waist, I stumbled groggily into the kitchen. Kimberley was perched on the edge of her chair, already dressed in a pale green linen dress and a heavy gold choker. She was having her usual breakfast, an oversized mug of coffee with soymilk and a single hard-boiled egg, which she cut up into six equal slices and doused with salt. She put down the third slice when she saw me come in.
“Well, good morning. Look who’s finally getting up!”
Kimberley’s unfailing morning cheeriness had always bothered me, but it seemed especially inappropriate this morning.
“Hi Kimberley, where are you off to so early? Isn’t it Saturday?” I opened the refrigerator, but it was out of habit rather than hunger. The increasingly familiar headache and nausea were upon me again. I’d have sworn I was pregnant if I’d had sex anytime in the last six months.
“Junior League brunch,” Kimberley answered. “Did you and Steve go out last night? I heard you come in about two in the morning.”
“Yeah, we went dancing at Moby Dick’s.”
“Really, Steve brought a girl to a gay bar?”
“It’s not a big deal, Kimberley. Lots of women go. It’s a good place to dance without getting hit on.” Kimberley had made a pot of coffee and I poured myself a cup. Normally I liked Kimberley’s coffee, but this batch tasted oily and bitter. Still, I enjoyed the warmth in my mouth and stomach.
“Oh, by the way, Kimberley?” I tried to sound nonchalant.
“Yes?” Kimberley speared another egg slice.
“Do you know if Lucy was dating anyone?” I made the question as open-ended as possible.
Kimberley put her fork down. “Well,” she said slowly, “Lucy swore me to secrecy, but I guess since she’s dead it doesn’t matter anymore, does it? She was dating Les Banks. I saw them kissing one day.” Kimberley drew a quick breath, her mouth a surprised O. “Oh my God! Angie, are you saying Les had something to do with this? Is that why he wasn’t at work yesterday?”
Something about the way Kimberley was reacting wasn’t right, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“You’re jumping to conclusions, aren’t you, Kimberley? I don’t know anything about Les, I was just curious.”
“But it’s always the boyfriend, isn’t it?”
I sure hope not.
“Did you tell the police about Les and Lucy?” I couldn’t say anything about my own knowledge of Les and Lucy’s relationship, since Sansome had told me to stay quiet.
“Yes, I told that fat policeman that I had seen them kissing, and that Lucy told me they were dating.”
“Why do you think Lucy wanted to keep it a secret?” I took another sip of coffee.
Kimberley wrinkled her nose. “If my boyfriend looked like Les I’d keep it a secret too. He’s so…dirty.”
It was pronouncements like that that kept Kimberley from having a boyfriend in the first place.
She stood up and brushed invisible crumbs from the front of her dress. “So, are you doing anything special tonight?”
I shook my head. “Not really. Why?”
“My parents are having a big party. I had a date but it fell through.”
I occasionally attended Bennett functions with Kimberley, because they always had fantastic food and I often ran into clients there, causing them to believe that I was much better connected than I really was. I’d even snagged two clients for HFB at Bennett soirées. But going to a party tonight was the last thing I wanted to do.
“I don’t think so, Kimberley. I’m wiped out.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Okay. But I think that guy we met at Usher on Wednesday will be there. It seemed like you liked him.”
I clenched my cup so hard coffee splashed over my hand. “You mean Eric Taylor?”
“Yes. Daddy’s doing some real estate deals with him.”
I put the coffee down so Kimberley wouldn’t see that my hands were shaking. “Maybe I’ll come for an hour or two.”
“Meet me here at eight and I’ll drive you.” She put her dish in the sink. “Oh, and Angie. It’s black tie.”
After she left I poured another cup of coffee and carried it to my room. I put my bare foot on Steve’s face and wiggled my toes. His eyes opened and he pushed my foot away.
“What time is it? I feel like hell,” he grumbled.
“It’s ten o’clock. You and me both.” It was true. I felt like I hadn’t slept in days. All I wanted to do was make a nest of blankets and crawl inside.
Steve sat up. “This is novel. I haven’t been in a girl’s bed since I was sixteen. Yours has a lot less stuffed animals than hers did.”
I adjusted the blinds to make the room as dark as possible and lay back down on the bed. “I’ve been thinking about last night.”
Steve pulled the pillow out from under his head and put it over his face.
“Do you want to know what I was thinking?”
He removed the pillow and sighed. “Yes, Angie, what were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that it was all a performance. Performance art, for the pleasure of performer and audience alike. I’ve seen shows like that before. Well, not the blood part, but the rest of it. And who knows, maybe even the blood was fake.” I lay still, staring at a crack in the ceiling. Steve’s face appeared in my peripheral vision, his head propped up on one elbow.
“Angie, maybe you can convince your mother with that shit, but this is Uncle Stevie you’re talking to.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He got up and opened the blinds. I groaned and tried to cover my own face with a pillow, but Steve jumped on top of me. He straddled my legs and threw my pillow on the floor.
“First you are attacked by some guy at a vampire club, then your boss ends up dead, and Les says she was killed by a vampire. Not only do you not tell the police,” he paused for emphasis, “but you go see the guy again and you start lying to yours truly.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. “Then we go see this ‘performance,’ or whatever you want to call it, which sure looks real to me, and you start telling me that it’s all faked.”
“Steve, come on. There’s no such thing as vampires, you know that!” I squeezed out from under him and sat up.
“What’s a vampire?” Steve asked, but again he didn’t wait for an answer. “A person who drinks blood. Ergo, those people are vampires. I’m not even going to get into any supernatural shit. We’re taking your video to the police. And I hope your new boyfriend gets arrested, because I’m afraid it’s the only way to keep you away from him.”
The San Francisco Homicide Division was located in the optimistically named Hall of Justice, a gray boulder of a building dropped by the side of the freeway, surrounded by bail bondsmen and cheap furniture outlets.
It was Saturday and the place was operating with a skeleton crew. The security guard was sitting with his feet up reading a newspaper. Steve and I passed through the metal detector and headed up to the fourth floor for our appointment with Inspector Sansome. We found him sitting behind a metal desk so old it was in style again, eating a sandwich that smelled like pastrami. Trujillo was nowhere to be seen, but at other desks an attractive, middle-aged white woman in a bright red suit typed away on a computer and an older black man in a nylon sweat suit talked on the phone and shuffled papers. The woman took off her jacke
t, revealing a gun strapped to her hip and handcuffs over her butt.
Sansome waved us into two metal and vinyl chairs and finished the bite he was working on before he spoke. “Hello, Ms. McCaffrey, nice to see you again. Beautiful weather today, isn’t it?” Room 450 in the Hall of Justice had only one window, with opaque scratched glass. I wondered if he was being facetious.
“Inspector Sansome, I’d like you to meet my friend, Steve Blomfelt.”
The two shook hands.
“I do have some questions for you, Ms. McCaffrey, but perhaps you should begin, since you called me.” He took another bite.
“Les Banks called me yesterday. I don’t know from where. He told me he was innocent, that he believed ‘the vampires’ had killed Lucy.”
Sansome coughed and banged his chest with his fist.
“We’ve been working on an ad campaign for some clients who are ‘living the vampire lifestyle,’ and sell cosmetic products. Lucy had been to this club with them, but I hadn’t, not before last Wednesday, anyway. Les told me that she participated in rituals where they drank blood. He said he thought they killed her, and wanted me to record a ritual so that you could see what they do.”
“And you complied?”
I nodded, holding up my cell phone as evidence.
“Do you think that was wise?”
“I don’t know. It seemed like the thing to do at the time.”
“Well, why don’t we take a look at the video?” He took my cell phone and surprised me by quickly and competently transferring the video to his computer. I had expected to find him typing with carbon paper on an Underwood typewriter. We watched the video in silence, which included a minute of violent shaking and views of my feet as Steve and I ran up the stairs and out into the alley.
When it was over I sat looking at the floor, fear and panic churning my stomach. On the larger screen of Sansome’s computer, I had noticed something I hadn’t seen the other times I’d watched the video. The hooded man had elegant hands, the fingers long and tapered. On the pinkie finger of his left hand he was wearing a gold signet ring with a worn red stone in it.