by Roger Keller
“Don’t worry,” she said. “We’re not vampires.”
“You guys are something though,” I said.
“Yes, something,” the man said with an Italian accent.
“You guys here to see the show?” I said. “How did you even know? Never mind.”
“This promises to be a very instructive experience,” the woman said. “I am Fiore, this is my companion, Alexander.”
I looked too long into Fiore’s hazel eyes. She was a lot older than she appeared.
“You guys see things like this before?” I said.
“Over the years I have witnessed experiments involving vampirism, many with mixed results,” Alexander said.
“Experiments?” I groaned and smacked my palm into my forehead. “I thought Marcello knew what he’s doing.”
“Oh, he certainly does,” he said. “Marcello was there at Project Sixty-Four. As a vampire hunter, you most likely know the story of what happened in those bunkers.”
Fiore’s mouth dropped open.
“It does us no good to bring up that debacle,” she said, then motioned elegantly to me. “If it should happen that dear Marcello looses control of the situation, then we will pay you handsomely for your protection.”
“We’ll see how it goes,” I said.
Marcello raised his arms and bellowed in some dead language, ending the conversation.
“Show’s starting.” I sat back down on the steps.
A cold wind blew through the room. The braziers dimmed. Alexander and Fiore sat down on either side of me. I was glad I couldn’t understand Marcello. It occurred to me that I might remember and repeat his invocation in a dream, if it was in English.
Heather’s eyes lit up, first orange then a strange violet-red color that I’d never seen before. One of the black stones split with a sound that echoed through the room. Marcello’s gaze locked on the split stone. His eyebrow raised and he hesitated. Fiore clutched my arm, her long fingers digging in like steel. The coven chanted in the same ancient language as their master.
Heather levitated, as if something else, something massive was moving her in the same way she puppeteered her victims. Her arms and legs flailed wildly. An earsplitting voice called out in an inhuman language. Marcello answered defiantly. A swirling black mist filled the room.
One of the coven members spun around, his feet churning up dirt as the unseen force moved him. He screamed as the bones in his legs snapped. His shattered legs dug channels in the soft earth as he rocketed forward into one of the stones. The room seemed to shake with the impact. His body fell limp to the ground.
“Does usually that happen?” I whispered in Fiore’s ear.
“In cases of demonic possession, it is not uncommon,” she whispered back.
A bolt of lightning struck the dirt in front of Marcello. The coven shrank back behind the stones.
“Stand fast,” Marcello said and raised his hands.
The black mist grew thicker and moved among the stones with malicious purpose. Marcello and the coven linked hands and resumed their chant. Streaks of crimson flowed through the mist. Heather fell to the ground. She tried to stand, then covered her head and curled into a ball. I stood up and threw the AK’s safety lever. Fiore caught my hand in her soft, iron grip.
“Your weapon will do you no good in the circle. Sit.” She pulled me back down.
Marcello raised his arms and shouted his final invocation. The mist came together above the circle, swirling and boiling, like it was trying to take some kind of shape. It surged toward Marcello. An inhuman shriek filed the air. Marcello held up the medallion he’d tried to use on me earlier. The mist split around him, swirling back among the stones, gradually dissipating. Then, whatever it was, was gone. I felt like a weight had been lifted off my chest.
Marcello led the his guests back to the stairs, leaving Heather alone with the fallen member of the coven.
“She will need to feed when she awakens,” Marcello said, seeming so pleased with himself. “Her hunger will be uncontrollable.”
“Then we must leave immediately and bar the doors behind us,” Fiore said.
“But of course,” Marcello said.
“What about Robert?” Miranda threw back her hood. Tears left mascara streaks down her face.
“Leave mister Maxwell’s earthly remains,” Marcello said. “He has passed from this world, but his flesh can still be of use to us.”
“Use for what?” Miranda said.
“To protect us, or rather you and our mortal friends from a ravenous vampire by stating her thirst,” he said. “Need I say more?”
*****
We left Heather, sleeping where she fell, in the center of the stone circle. The Praetorians chained the door handles behind us. Miranda marked the polished wood with some esoteric symbols using a sharpie. I didn’t expect white magic to hold Heather back for long if the dead man wasn’t enough for her.
I felt alone and empty as I followed the coven of bizarre strangers back to Marcello’s study. I ignored their conversations. I was drained, but I didn’t want to fall asleep in Marcello’s weird mansion. The worst part was, I still had to pay Marcello back.
“Does she have to drink human blood, or can we just get her some cows blood or something?” I used the AK to prod a member of the coven out of one of the chairs and sat down next to Marcello.
“A vampire does not exactly need to drink any kind blood,” Marcello said. “They can, in fact, go for long periods of time without, however it weakens and confuses them, sometimes. In my travels I found an ancient vampire reduced to a mummified state. I revived him, of course, for the sake of learning. He was once some sort of Etruscan nobleman. He retreated to a fortified villa during the reign of Constantine and simply lost track of time. The peasants in the nearby village knew well to leave him in peace. After several generations he passed into legend, then I made him a reality again. Unfortunately he was unprepared for nineteenth century weapons. The peasants stormed his fortress. He was destroyed in a hail of musket balls, and burned in a pit filled with tar.”
I blinked a fragmented scene out of my head. I saw a hideous skeletal vampire, outraged Italian peasants running the monster through with bayonets, then the fire pit. Marcello, dressed like a Nineteenth Century explorer, watched from the crumbling castle walls.
“What did you just see?” Marcello said.
“I saw you not answering my question,” I said. “Does she have to kill people?”
“You see a vampire may achieve a human-like state by imbibing blood, human or otherwise, their powers may even be enhanced.” Marcello’s coven hung on every word. I groaned. Marcello continued, looking right into my eyes. “It is not a matter of whether your Heather can sustain herself with animal blood, but whether she would want to.”
“I see,” I said. “You think the body we left has enough blood for her.
“Most likely,” Marcello said. “At least there should be enough to temporarily satisfy her, until we can acquire more. I have met vampires who consider themselves cultured, disciplined and even heroic. They feed only on humans whom they consider evil. I suspect Heather falls somewhere into this category.”
A Praetorian brought a tray of drinks. I helped myself to a glass of expensive whiskey. Miranda approached us, a martini already in hand. The coven members milled around like they were at a party.
“Why are you helping that monster?” Miranda said in a voice that sounded like she was on her third drink, at least.
“She isn’t a monster all the time.” I said.
“Just how well do you know her?” Miranda said.
“I met her a few days ago,” I said.
Miranda’s mouth dropped open. Marcello raised an eyebrow. Miranda placed her hand on my shoulder.
“How does one end up in your profession?” she said.
“I don’t know, I just kinda fell into it,” I said.
“I can’t read you, at all,” she said. “However, I can tell that falling
into things, is how you’ve lived most of your life.”
“Great,” I said. “I’m being judged by a fucking devil worshiper,”
Marcello laughed and slapped his knee. Miranda looked like she wanted to hit me. I couldn’t have cared less. I was getting tired and the last thing I wanted was to do was spend any more time in Marcello’s freaky house.
“Calling Miranda a devil worshiper is an oversimplification born of public school ignorance,” Marcello said. “We are neutral, non-aligned, much like Tito during the cold war.”
“Yeah, Tito was still a fuckin’ commie.” I groaned and took another drink.
*****
I staggered back out to my car with a bottle of Marcello’s Cyrillic labeled vodka in my hand. I put my feet up on the passenger seat and pointed the AK at the window. The safety was already off. I shut my eyes.
I found Heather outside Marcello’s re-purposed pool room. The splintered remains of the door that failed to hold her lay strewn in her wake.
“You have wings now,” I said, as I fell against the wall, trying to hold my intestines in.
She ignored me. I reached for one of her boots. The leather had split around jagged talons that were once her toes. Heather’s reddish-black leather wings flapped and momentarily covered the width of the hall. Then she was gone. Everything went black.
The sounds of automatic gunfire and screams brought me back. I didn’t know how much time had passed. The pain was still there.
“Marcello’s finished, move,” Alexander said.
“We survived worse than this, remember Magdeburg?” Fiore said. She pulled a sobbing, nude Miranda behind her.
Alexander carried one of the Praetorian’s M16s. The barrel was smoking hot. Miranda held her bracelet between her blood splattered breasts. Fiore pointed at me.
“Should we save him?” she said.
“The bastard’s dying, killed by his own monster.” Miranda wiped tears from her face, smearing blood over her cheeks. “You brought her here.” She kicked me, unselfconscious about her own jiggling nudity. It gave me a pleasant image to go out on. I smiled at her.
“He is beyond help,” Alexander said. “I am not sure how he is still alive.”
“We should at least put him out of his misery,” Fiore said. “There was something noble about him. He was like a crusader.”
“You never met a crusader, my dear,” Alexander said. “He was more like a landsknecht. At any rate, I cannot spare a single cartridge. We have more than one vampire to deal with now.”
“So be it.” Fiore knelt by me and opened an ivory handled straight razor. I nodded and leaned my head back, exposing my throat. I felt the blade slice into my skin.
*****
The sound of claws clicking on my windshield woke me up.
“What the fuck?” I said.
Heather smiled at me through the scratched glass. I rubbed my throat. Dawn was at least an hour off. The door locks popped up and Heather opened my door. I tried to stand, but my legs went out from under me. Heather stepped over me while I writhed on the gravel and tried to work the cramps out of my leg muscles.
“I feel a lot better now,” she said.
“Great,” I said.
“I don’t remember much of what happened though.” She handed me the half-empty vodka bottle.
“Thanks.” I took a swig.
“Did I like, kill a bunch of Marcello’s cult worshipers, like maybe that British bitch, I hope?” Heather said. “I found one of them laying dead right next to me, like all fucked up.”
“The demon got that guy,” I said. “Nobody else got killed.”
“By the way, what the fuck was up with locking me in?” she said.
“Marcello thought you’d be out of control when you woke up,” I said. “They left the dead guy for you as an offering.”
“A what? I don’t remember drinking his blood.” Heather cocked her head, concerned.
“It’s all over your mouth.” I pointed at her face.
Heather stuck her tongue out. It darted around like it had a mind of it’s own and found the blood. She shrugged her shoulders.
“Well I’ll be,” she said.
“How long was I sleeping out here?” I rubbed my temples, waiting for a headache that wasn’t coming. “Feels like I’ve been out here for days.”
“I think it’s only been a few hours,” she said. “You must have been having like, a really fucked up dream. You were grabbing your throat and thrashing around.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“What happened, in your dream?” she said.
“Never mind,” I said. “How did you get out of the pool room anyway?”
“The same way I just unlocked your car doors,” she said and flashed a bloody smile.
“So magic words written on a door were in no way a means to restrain you.” I tried to affect a half-assed Marcello accent.
“What the fuck?” Heather said. “Are you trying to talk like Marcello? Lame.”
I laughed and took another drink.
“That’s not funny,” she said. “That guy’s fuckin’ weird. We should get the fuck outta here. Are you OK to drive right now?”
“We have to see what Marcello wants. I made a deal with him.” I banged the back of my head against the car door. Marcello’s expensive vodka went down like water. My stomach flipped. “I gotta eat something.”
“What? Why would you agree to give him anything?” Heather threw up her hands. “I thought you just scared them into helping. Can we just give him some money?”
“Look at this place,” I said. “He doesn’t need money.”
“Aw shit,” she said. “Whatever he wants is going to be weird and suck. What the fuck were you doing?”
“It should be clear to you by now, that I have no idea what I’m doing,” I said. “They didn’t teach negotiating with immortal wizards in tech school.”
Heather leaned on the car and growled. The sound vibrated through the metal panels into my back. It should have scared me.
“So. What do you think you are going to have do for Marcello?” Heather looked down at me, eyes glowing.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Me, huh? I guess somebody should have thought this through. I was too busy trying to save you from becoming a bigger monster than you already are.”
“What? OK, I’m sorry. You did what you could.” Heather reached down and grabbed the bottle. She took a drink and sloshed it around like mouthwash, then used some to clean the blood off her hands and face.
“I need a shower.” She sat down next to me.
I took the bottle back before she wasted any more.
“I think we should kill Marcello,” she said. “Kill ‘em all. We could like, take over the house and live here for a while.”
“You can’t be serious. I can think of a hundred good reasons why that’s a horrible idea.” I turned to her. “You keep saying shit like, let’s kill everybody, but I don’t think you really mean it.”
Heather smiled wickedly and tilted her head down.
“Sometimes I mean it,” she said.
We sat there on the gravel driveway for a while. Heather put her head on my shoulder. We talked about nothing for a while.
*****
“Arise hunter.” Marcello’s booming voice woke me up. “We have much to discuss.”
Marcello kicked my hiking boots. The morning sun burned behind him. I was grateful for the shadow he cast over me.
“Where’s Heather?” I looked around.
“Heather is lurking in the boot of your car,” he said.
“Yeah, that makes sense,” I said. “I should be used to that by now.”
My head spun as I tried to stand. Marcello seized my hand and pulled me to my feet.
“It is generally accepted practice among vampires to only, uh, convert certain humans,” he said.
“What are you talking about?” I said.
“I wonder what Lee was thinking,” he said. “Germans are usua
lly quite disciplined and rational.”
“Lee was German?” I said. “I thought he was a Confederate or something.”
“No,” Marcello said. “Lee is not nearly old enough. There are pictures of a teenage Prussian receiving the Blue Max in 1917, on the Western Front. The resemblance is unmistakable. So he is likely not much more than a hundred years old. As I recall a handful of vampire elders took refuge in my house, sometime in the 1930s. They told me stories of a maniacal young vampire, who used modern weapons, flamethrowers, machine guns and such. The handful of elders were all that remained of hundreds. They were all self-righteously appalled at Lee’s use of non-traditional weapons. These days they all use guns. My point is, that Lee destroyed all those who were a threat to his power and yet he turns Heather into a vampire.”
“I don’t really think she’s that dangerous,” I said.
“Are you mad? Last night I had a vision of my own bloody demise at her hands.” He circled me, his composure slipping. “Now I have no doubt she is capable of killing me, under certain circumstances. Making sure I stay dead is another matter entirely. Creatures far more powerful than her have tried after all.”
“She’s killed me in my dreams a few times too,” I said. “I wouldn’t really worry about it.”
“This was no dream, you fool. It was the shadow of a…” Marcello trailed off. He stared at a line of trees like a shell-shocked infantryman.
“So, uh Marcello,” I said after a while. I leaned on the trunk, wondering if Heather could hear us. “Did you figure out what you wanted us to do yet?”
“I think so,” he said. “Walk with me.”
“Really?” I groaned and threw up my hands.
I followed Marcello across an endless, perfectly groomed lawn. Marcello remained silent until we reached the tree-line.
“Are you familiar with the pagan goddess Diana?” he said, finally.
“Sort of,” I said. “Wasn’t she the goddess of hunting?”
“There was once a group that I allowed to worship Diana, here.” He pointed at the trees. “That was back in 1900. Diana, according to tradition, could be found by mortals in a wooded area. Though I doubt she ever suffered the foolishness of wealthy thrill seekers. What the worshipers of Diana found in this wood was something quite monstrous.”