by Marta Acosta
Edna took a long, lingering look at Thomas and said, “Young man, put on some clothes and order breakfast for us.”
Thomas grinned cheerfully. “I am at your service…”
“Edna Grant,” I said. “Edna, meet Thomas Cook, the actor.”
“Edna,” he repeated before hurrying off to get dressed.
Edna walked outside to inspect the patio. “Oswald called me and was beside himself about you. How are you going to explain your addled paramour to him?”
“Thomas may be addled, but he isn’t my paramour. He’s my ward,” I said. “You have some explaining to do yourself.”
“How so?”
I pulled up my sleeve. “Look, Edna.” I put my finger to the edge of the shiny pink scar. “This is where Silas Madison’s underling slashed me.”
And, for the first time since I’d met her, Edna was speechless. She sat down in a chair and gazed at me, her eyes wide and full of sympathy.
“It happened the night of Nancy’s wedding. I went with Ian, just as a friend. Silas sent this guy after him, but I was the one who got cut.”
“Was it serious?”
“Serious enough that Ian gave me some of his blood to help me heal.” I saw her shocked expression and said, “There have been some side effects.”
“Tell me…” she began, and then Thomas returned. He was dressed in a blue button-down shirt, a tie, and slacks. His sleek black hair was brushed neatly back and he was wearing cologne.
“Breakfast will be here soon,” he said so cheerfully that I wondered if he’d been replaced by an alien replicant.
“Thank you, Thomas,” Edna said, pulling herself together. “I believe I recognize you.”
“You look very familiar to me, too,” he said dreamily. I waited for him to launch into his filmography, but he was busy gazing at Edna.
Breakfast was delivered, and she directed that it be set up in a shady spot on the patio. Thomas held out a chair for Edna, and she said, “Run along now. Milagro and I have some personal business to discuss.”
He chewed disconsolately on a lemon-oatmeal scone as he walked away from us.
When he was inside, she said, “Tell me everything.”
Until now I had been trying to hold myself together. But now Edna was here and when I looked at her, I trusted that she loved me. I trusted that she would help me.
I didn’t bother to wipe away my tears as I told her everything that had happened. I felt an enormous relief as I confessed about the visions. “Edna, it’s horrible. Every time someone touches me I see these things, blood and internal organs, and they seem so real. It’s awful and I’m awful because under my revulsion is some sick desire.”
“Oh, Young Lady,” she said gently.
She reached for my hand, and then pulled back. “Except for Thomas,” I said. “He’s anemic so I don’t have that reaction to him. What is it like for you? What do you see?”
She shook her head. “I don’t experience anything like that.”
“So it is just me. I’m the only one like this. How can I be with Oswald when I’m like this?”
“Oswald loves you deeply, Young Lady.”
“He loved a girl who was affectionate. He won’t love a girl who can never touch him or be touched by him.”
“We will figure things out,” she said. “You will survive, Milagro.”
I thought about Mercedes’s words. “I know how to survive, Edna, but maybe I don’t know how to live.” I closed my eyes and did a breathing exercise. “What do you know about the neovamps?”
“There’s no such thing as—”
“Yes, Edna, yes, there are vampires and they tried to capture me and drink my blood in a primitive rite. They could have killed me, so please, please don’t tell me there’s no such thing!”
“You’re right.” She gave a nod. “Gabriel discouraged Winnie and Sam from inviting Willem and Silas, but the baby’s grandparents insisted on having the traditional ceremony. There’s a big division regarding the group. I didn’t know Silas would go so far as to try to unseat Ian on the council.”
“Silas mentioned the council. Tell me more about it.”
“It’s an international council of family representatives. Ian is a member. The jurisprudence branch officiates on matters that we prefer not go to other courts.”
“Matters like assault with a deadly weapon?”
“Yes, criminal matters,” she said. “Silas has been gathering followers, but I’m astonished they could do this.”
“Yours is a blood-based culture.”
“As is yours, Young Lady, but I don’t expect you to capture enemies and cut out their beating hearts.”
“It would be nice to have that option,” I mused.
The edge of her mouth tilted up, but she looked tired.
I said, “You must have been driving all night. Why not get some rest and we’ll figure out what to do later. I wish we could ask Gabriel for help.”
“We will. I’d heard he was considering a conversion attempt, and I’ve been very saddened that he felt the need to go ahead with it.”
“He said he wants to be normal,” I said glumly.
“Young Lady, the longer I live, the more I am aware that there is no such thing as ‘normal.’” She tapped her foot on the patio. “Is he here with his parents?”
“I think so, and some dreadful girl who looks as if she was raised on milk and broccoli and has had a subscription to Brides magazine since she was twelve.”
“You paint a damning picture,” she said. “Is Silas here?”
“I haven’t seen him, and I’ve been in and out of the spa and snooping around,” I said. “I don’t know how much Skip Taylor knows, and I have a feeling that Thomas doesn’t have a clue.”
She glanced in through the windows. Thomas was wearing shorts and a tight T-shirt and making a great show of exercising. “An extremely good-looking man.”
“Yes, but incredibly self-centered. I’m surprised he hasn’t asked me to walk backward in front of him holding a mirror.”
“I’m sure you’re exaggerating,” she said. “In the evening, we’ll talk about how to bring Gabriel back to his senses.”
Edna said good-bye and walked back to the Paragon. Thomas watched her go and said, “Now, that’s a woman.”
So that’s what he meant by “less like a girl.”
I completed the first draft of “Teeth of Sharpness” while waiting for Edna to call me. I printed it out and put it on the corner of my desk. I stared at the clean type on the pages and felt a squiggle of pride because I thought the result was very good. I would let it stew in my brain before looking at it again.
Edna summoned me to her room at cocktail hour, and I walked into the main building feeling anxious yet optimistic, as unpleasant a mixture as coffee and blood. I ran into Charles on the landing of the wide staircase and said, “Charles, come meet a friend who’s just arrived.”
“I’m just signing out for the evening and—”
“No excuses. I’ve been very understanding about the slow repairs to my truck, so you can take a minute to say hello and make sure my friend is comfortable.”
“Yes, of course. Is this your friend’s first stay here?”
“I think so. She’s more of a city person.”
“A college friend?” Charles asked politely.
I led him to a corner suite and he looked nervously at his watch. “I really…,” he began as I knocked on the door.
Edna opened the door and took a look at me and my companion.
“Hi, Edna. I wanted you to meet Charles, who works here as a concierge. Charles, this is my friend, Mrs. Grant.”
“Come in,” she said. “Close the door behind you. Young Lady, there’s a bottle of wine chilling. Please open it and serve us.”
Charles stood at the doorway and smiled. “Thank you, but I can’t stay. Welcome to the Paragon and please call our desk should you require—”
Edna turned and glared at the man. “I said, come in and clos
e the door behind you.”
Her brusqueness confused both Charles and me. I wondered if she was going to lambaste him for some hotel crime like having a torn “sanitized for your safety” band on a water glass.
“Edna,” I began as I walked in, “Charles only has a minute.” The room had marvelous windows looking out toward the dark mountains. A sleeping area was visible behind woven reed screens and there was a sitting area with a fireplace and a bar. I went to the bar and took the wine out of the ice bucket.
She pointed to the sofa and said to him, “You sit there.”
He did so as docilely as a trained seal. “Yes, Mrs. Grant. I hope you find your room comfortable.”
She took the glass of wine that I offered her. “I find my room very comfortable. What I find uncomfortable is that you are working here.”
He looked befuddled. “I am well qualified for my job and trained at some of the finest establishments in the world.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.” She sat across from him and said, “Look me in the eye, Charlie Arthur, and tell me what you’re doing here.”
“Edna, really, what has Charles done to offend you?”
“Young Lady, don’t you see? He’s one of us. Isn’t it obvious?”
I read his name tag again. Charles Arthur, Concierge. “He can’t be. There was no President Arthur.”
“Chester Arthur,” Charles said miserably. “Eighteen eighty-one to eighteen eighty-five. Everyone forgets about him.”
My F.U. education had failed me. I dropped to sit on the sofa beside him.
“The last time I saw you, Charlie, you were three years old at a family picnic shoving cupcakes in your face,” Edna said. “You look exactly the same.”
“Et tu, Chuck?” I asked sadly.
Twenty
Biting the Hand that Bleeds You
C harles broke like a piñata. Instead of delicious candy treats spilling out of him, he gave us jaw-breaking, foul-tasting facts.
Silas had recruited Charles for the neovamp group when he had been flunking out of an MFA program. “He told me we would use our difference to make a difference,” Charles said. “We’d replace the old guard, install our own members on the council, and leverage our power. Some of the ideas he had, like reviving the ancient ways, sounded pretty cool. I didn’t really know what the old ways were, but I’d done a history minor and was interested in that stuff.”
“ ‘That stuff’ like genetic supremacy?” I asked.
“I thought he meant the language and, you know, wood carving and boat making,” Charles said. “I wasn’t paying that much attention because I was partying a lot then. That’s how he usually recruits: he finds guys at loose ends.”
Zave had told me the same thing.
“Where is Silas?” Even as I asked the question, I already knew the answer.
“Here, the man in the wheelchair,” he said. “He’s still recovering from, um…I don’t know the details, but I heard that Ian Ducharme almost killed him. The council’s detained Ducharme and is holding a hearing about his attack against one of our own.”
“Is Silas involved in Skip’s movie?” I asked.
Charles sunk deeper in the sofa. “No and yes. It’s a real movie and Silas is one of the financial backers. They needed a rewrite and he thought he’d kill two birds with one stone, so he asked Skip Taylor to hire you. Skip doesn’t know what we are, but he knows that Silas is up to something.” He gave me an “I’m sorry” look and added, “When Silas was investigating you, he found a short story that he liked, so he thought you’d do a decent job as a screenwriter. A story about a yak.”
“A llama,” I corrected. Actually the story had been about La Llorona, the mythical wailing woman of Latin folklore, but a terrible mistake with my computer’s spell-check had replaced all the “Llorona”s with “llama”s.
“Silas is fascinated with you,” Charles said.
“Yes, I know. He wants to use me to create vampire hybrid babies.” Some things are impossible to say without sounding ridiculous. “He tried to drug me with some vile alcohol and then he was going to have a bloodletting ceremony. I managed to get away, though.”
He looked shocked. “That isn’t what he told me. He told me that you’ve been threatening to expose our people and that you were allied with Sebastian Beckett-Witherspoon and CACA and that’s why we had to keep you occupied here.”
“Edna, please enlighten Charlie.”
“Milagro helped save us from CACA,” she said. “She’s on our side.”
I asked, “Charlie, what’s happening in that locked wing with the blood bathing rooms? Is Silas involved with the shutdown of the Paragon for the Diamond Club event?”
Charles bit a fingernail. “He bought a share of ownership in the Paragon, and he’s been planning a big celebration for our movement. The word is that your blood is, uh, stimulating like an aphrodisiac. According to legend, the blood of a survivor increases our fertility.”
“Charles, Chas, Chuckles, Charlie,” I said, “I can’t express the depth of my dismay that you would want to do this to me. I thought we had a connection, we were simpatico.”
He gulped his wine. “I’m sorry.”
“What will happen at the ceremony?” Edna asked.
“The usual drinks, dancing, and food for most guests. Milagro will be given the ancient drink to make her more relaxed, then there’s that gibberish ritual and blood will be taken, but only enough for our people to have a few drops each. Milagro will be kept sedated in a suite next to the Diamond Club lounge and one of our staff, a registered phlebotomist, will begin regularly harvesting her blood for our new treatments.”
I said, “Do people in the Diamond Club know they’re dealing with vampires?”
Charles shook his head. “They think the ceremony is just entertainment. They don’t ask a lot of questions as long as they get access to cutting-edge treatments. Some of them might know, but those kinds of people keep secrets for each other.”
“Now, what about my grandson Gabriel?” asked Edna. “How did you lure him here?”
“That was a coincidence,” Charles said. “Silas offers guidance to people who are confused and helps get them on the path. It works. I was like Gabriel, and now I have a girlfriend and everything.”
“So you’re straight and you’re not the least bit interested that gorgeous, smoking-hot Thomas Cook is here at the hotel?”
“I am only interested in Mr. Cook in my capacity as a concierge,” he said.
I was really tired of people denying who they were. A big gesture was needed. I turned to Charles and, pulling him to me, shoved my body hard against his. Gruesome images detonated in my head, but I endured them as I put my lips over his mouth and kissed him deeply and passionately. My hands ran up his meaty back. I wish I could have enjoyed the fact that he was a big, hunky grab.
When I released him, his face was as pink as a peony and his eyes were wide. I looked at Edna and said, “As I suspected, one hundred percent gay.”
Edna’s eyebrow went up. “Young Lady, I could have told you that without the graphic display.”
“Sure, but it wouldn’t have had the dramatic impact.”
Charles composed himself and said, “I am absolutely not gay. I am in a healthy romantic relationship with a woman.”
“Then you won’t care if I tell you that if you come to my casita, you can see Thomas Cook swimming naked.”
“Really!” he said excitedly. Then he hid his head in his hands and said, “How did I get in this mess?”
“Wanton carelessness,” Edna said. “But if you help us, we will try to get you out of it.”
Our first order of business was reclaiming Gabriel.
“I always thought he was okay with who he was,” I said.
“His parents are entirely behind this. They have baby fever,” Edna announced. She turned to Charles and asked, “Are they staying here?”
“No, those are Brittany Monroe’s parents. They come every
year.”
“The Monroes,” Edna sneered. “Social climbers. I’ll take care of this.”
I hopped up and started to follow her.
“You stay here and keep Charlie company,” she said, and left the room.
I watched the door close and then hunted through the honor bar. There were a few bags of organic whole wheat pretzels. I tossed one to Charles. He held the cellophane bag in his hands and stared at it.
“So, Charlie, how did a nice boy like you get mixed up with a group like this?”
He turned the bag over and over in his hands. “I just wanted to fit in somewhere. It sounded like a good group.”
“Tell me,” I said.
He told me that Silas preached an idealistic philosophy of a world led by wise, benevolent vamps. The reality was tawdrier: that the newly indoctrinated vamps were placed in positions where they could collect information in order to blackmail, extort, and influence the wealthy and powerful.
I asked Charlie, “What’s up with Silas’s weird vibe? He doesn’t register on any sexual scale.”
“He says that our leaders shouldn’t be distracted by sexual drive. He takes progestin as a form of chemical castration. It’s a female hormone that inhibits testosterone production.”
We were talking about what it was like being on the outside of mainstream society when Edna returned with Gabriel in tow.
He turned to me and said coldly, “Milagro, I can’t believe you brought Grandmama here when it was clear that I wanted you to leave me alone.”
Edna gave him a look that would reduce most people to mere piles of ash. “Milagro did not ask me to come. Someone in town brought to my attention that she was in a tabloid article with an actor.”
“Thomas Cook,” I said. “He swims in my pool naked almost every day.” When Edna glared at me, I added, “I’m sorry, but it’s really an impressive sight. Thomas Cook. Naked. In my pool. Although Gabriel wouldn’t have any interest in that since he’s now a raging heterosexual.”
“Gabriel,” Edna said, “please sit down.”
He took a chair at a distance from us and sat straight. “I only have a few minutes. Brittany is waiting for me.”
Edna turned to him and said, “Do you know that Silas sent someone to stab Ian, but it was Milagro who was badly injured?”