Night Road

by A. M. Jenkins

  Cole made a deliberate sweeping glance around The Poop Deck. “This isn’t a good place,” he said.

  The stray hesitated. Then he gave that odd little bow of his head again, an almost courtly gesture. “Would you care to accompany me to my lair?”

  Cole felt a sudden desire to laugh. Lair? he thought, but he let his face show nothing. “Where?” he asked.

  “Not far.”

  “How far?”

  “Across the street.” The heme raised one hand in a languid pointing gesture that was useless, because The Poop Deck had no windows.

  Cole saw now that the guard on his index finger was a shining metal claw, clear up to the knuckle, that bore an animal head of some kind, a wolf or a boar. Cole had been right; the point was filed needle sharp.

  He didn’t agree to go to the “lair,” and he didn’t move. He’d met strays before, but it had been a while—the last one had been living off rats and squirrels and pigeons. The one before that was in…Las Vegas? Somewhere in Nevada—that one had set herself up as the goddess of a love dungeon.

  He did not want to go to this guy’s home. But he didn’t want to talk to the stray here in plain view and within earshot of omnis. Nor did he want to take him anywhere—he didn’t want this heme to get into his car.

  “I won’t harm you,” the heme said. “I don’t foul my own nest.”

  So he didn’t know that he couldn’t harm Cole. But he knew enough not to feed where he slept.

  That was promising, wasn’t it?

  And if he was managing to survive alone—that said something too.

  But the look in his eyes—it was off somehow. Sly, or…or…something.

  This was such a strange situation—and no time to think. No plan for this.

  “You have nothing to fear,” the heme added with a slight frown, “unless you’re human. And you’re not, are you?”

  Of course I’m human, you nitwit, Cole thought. “Very well,” he said. “Let me just tell my friends I’ll be stepping out.”

  “They may come, too, if they wish.”

  “Thank you, no.” He went back to where Sandor and Gordo were sitting. “I’m going to accompany our friend to his lair. He says it’s across the street. Will you come to the door after a moment and make sure you see where we go?”

  “Of course,” Sandor said.

  Cole nodded. “If I’m not back in forty-five minutes, you might come looking.”

  Sandor checked his watch. “It’s one thirty. I have to say,” he added, “I’m rather hoping I’ll get to see a lair. I never have before, you know.”

  “I’ll tell you all about it,” Cole said.

  He returned to the heme, who turned without a word and walked out the door.

  Cole followed. Now he must find out as much as he could, then choose what to do. He would have to decide: Should he offer this stray the option of meeting the others, of learning from them? Offer to take him to New York?

  He had a sudden mental picture of the four of them making their way back to the East Coast in his car.

  Two uncouth, untutored hemes in his care.

  The thought made him feel sick.

  The heme’s “lair” was in an apartment building across the street—visible from The Poop Deck’s front door, Cole was glad to see—a long two-story with lines of doors top and bottom like holes punched in a shoe box.

  The lair itself was on the second floor, up a metal staircase—an efficiency with an ancient, muddy-colored carpet. The only furniture was a mattress with a brown sleeping bag heaped at its foot.

  Poor and dirty—just like it used to be in the early years, before the Colony. Cole had spent too many days shivering in his sleep in places like this.

  If the guy wasn’t a total loony, it would be nice to show him that there were other ways to live.

  Once inside, the heme removed his jacket with a flourish. “What’s your name?” he asked, dropping the jacket onto the counter that opened into the kitchen area. At first glance an omni might think that his arms were a little thin, but Cole saw muscles flex under the skin and knew that they were absolutely toned and fit.

  The stray slowly pulled off his finger guard. Cole noticed that the fingernail on his right thumb was filed to a point. Perfect for grabbing a throat and piercing its jugular.

  “You can call me Zeke,” Cole said. Just a precaution.

  The heme did not introduce himself. “Where do you come from?” he demanded. He set his finger guard carefully on top of his jacket, but he never took his eyes off Cole.

  “I’m a traveler.” Cole kept his voice carefully neutral. This guy obviously felt himself to be superior, and Cole was not about to disabuse him by demanding any answers of his own. Not yet, anyway. He would play the meek supplicant as much as possible. And he would lie through his teeth about anything to do with his current task. If lying turned out not to be necessary, he would clear it up later.

  “How did you come to be a vampire?”

  Cole didn’t even blink at the word. “I was walking at night,” he told the heme, taking Gordo’s story as his own. “And somebody jumped on me, knocked me out. When I woke up, I was like this. May I ask, what is your name?” he added, as humbly as he could.

  The heme did not answer. “And when did this happen to you?”

  “A little over a month ago.”

  “Yes,” the heme said with a slight look of disgust. “You still dress like a human. And what of your friends?”

  “I created them,” Cole said. “I did not mean to. I no longer feed to the death.”

  “So no one has taught you anything.”

  “No. I’m on my own.”

  The heme leaned back against the counter and folded his arms. No plopping down on the floor for this guy, Cole thought—that would be undignified. “You may call me Royal,” he said, and gave a solemn nod in the direction of the mattress. The meaning was clear: Sit down.

  Uh-huh, thought Cole. At his feet.

  He lowered himself onto the mattress—not too close. A clear shot at the door, in case…what?

  This guy was stronger than he seemed, Cole could tell—but Cole was strong, too.

  And what could he do to Cole anyway? Nothing. Really, there was nothing to fear. It was just that the look in his eyes was a little creepy. A little…unhinged?

  “I do not create others of our kind either,” Royal said. “I take only what sustenance I need.”

  Cole nodded. That was good. He wanted to ask some questions now. He just hoped he could appear submissive while doing it. “May I ask,” he said, “how you came to be?”

  “I was chosen.”

  “By whom?”

  “By the powers of darkness.”

  “Did the…powers of darkness go by any other names, by chance?”

  Royal just stared haughtily down at him.

  “Were they male? Female?”

  Royal did not answer. Finally, Cole understood: This was a staring contest, and Royal wanted him to look away first.

  So he did. He bowed his head and focused his gaze on Royal’s feet. Black boots, of course, with black laces that had silver tips with some kind of design on them.

  “The powers of darkness have no physical being,” he heard Royal say. He didn’t look up, and Royal added, “I am their master, and their servant.”

  Huh?

  “You are the master of the powers of darkness, and their servant?” Cole repeated.

  “That is correct.”

  “How do you serve them?” Cole asked. Still careful not to engage Royal’s eyes, still careful to tinge his voice with respect.

  “I offer them gifts.”

  “What kinds of gifts?”

  “The lives of humans.”

  Oo-kay, Cole thought. “You kill?” he asked calmly, wanting to be sure.

  “Yes. You don’t?”

  “I have.” Cole didn’t mention that he’d only done it once. “But I thought you said you don’t feed to the death.”

&nbs
p; “I don’t. Their behavior gets too erratic when they die like that. I prefer other methods.”

  Cole glanced up. Royal’s eyes were gleaming.

  Surely he was lying.

  Cole must not miss a step. He must take care with every word. “What methods?” he asked, looking down at the carpet again. It was dark brown, and matted with age.

  “There are many methods.” Cole could feel how avidly Royal was watching him. Hoping for a reaction. “For example, if you put your fingers on their throats and press down, you can observe their faces as they die.”

  I won’t be taking him back to New York, Cole decided.

  Beyond that, though, he didn’t know what to do. He’d only been talking to the guy for a few minutes. He shouldn’t rush. Shouldn’t take it at face value, or take it too lightly.

  “Why do you want to watch them die?” he asked, looking up again. His own face, he knew, showed nothing.

  “When you have lived as long as I have, you will understand.”

  Cole didn’t know what to say to that, so he just nodded.

  Royal seemed to take the nod as a sign of interest, if not approval. “It’s amazing,” he went on, warming to his subject, “to watch the spark go out of them. The eyes go glassy of course, as if they can’t see. But if you watch a few moments longer, the pupils will go, too. It’s like two little black flowers blossoming. Just like little flowers,” he repeated, almost to himself. “Here’s what I think,” he said in a confiding tone. “I think they’re not really dead until the pupils dilate. That’s one or two minutes between the time their body dies and the time they are really gone. And I wonder, What do they think during that time? Can they think? Can they hear? What do they see, inside their heads?”

  Cole felt a chill. What lay behind eyes that were empty, like marbles?

  He’d been wondering about hemes, though, not omnis. That was completely different.

  “That’s an interesting question,” he said from the mattress. Okay, he was thinking, Okay. I’ve got to go back and talk to Sandor. And then he would call Johnny. Johnny would want to come out and see the situation for himself. Johnny would be able to tell whether this guy was for real or not.

  In any case, this would be resolved within a few days at most. All he had to do was disengage, and leave on good terms.

  “I speak to them sometimes, very softly,” Royal was saying. “I ask them what they see. Of course, no one’s answered yet. I wonder if they see a tunnel of light. I wonder what they feel. Do they have souls? What do you think?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I think perhaps they don’t. When the spark goes out of their eyes, they go out, too, like a candle flame. Yes, like a candle flame.” He seemed pleased with his own turn of phrase. “But then, when I think about those moments right before their eyes turn into little flowers, I wonder. I do wonder about those moments between. My,” he added with a laugh, “I am talkative, aren’t I? I think it’s because the same thoughts have been banging around in my brain for so long, with no one to understand. And my thoughts are such good thoughts, such interesting ideas.”

  “Good,” Cole agreed. “And interesting.” He couldn’t quite figure out how to leave. If this guy was telling the truth, maybe Cole shouldn’t leave him at all.

  If he was telling the truth.

  “Listen, Royal,” Cole said. “I have to say that I think it might be in your best interest not to kill om—humans.”

  “Why?”

  Because I don’t want you murdering people while the Colony decides what to do with you. “I was just thinking that perhaps we owe them a certain respect? After all, our lives are dependent on theirs.”

  “They die anyway,” Royal pointed out. “A few years more, a few years less—it’s all the same, isn’t it? I help them. I give them a little intensity. I make them feel something. And it makes me feel something, to watch them. Why should I stop?”

  Ethics aside, Cole thought, and added out loud, “If you’re caught—”

  “Oh, yes—if I’m caught. Do you think they’ll try to kill me?” He seemed oddly excited by the idea.

  Nuttier than a fruitcake. “You’re bound to be pulled into the sunlight if they catch you,” Cole pointed out.

  “I’m afraid of sunlight,” Royal said, looking even more excited. “I’ve battled the sun, you know. Have you?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t. It’s quite painful; you wouldn’t be able to bear it. You would probably turn to ashes and blow away. That’s what happens in the movies—but then, the movies exaggerate so many things. Reflections, for example—can you see yourself in a mirror?”

  “Yes,” Cole told him.

  “So can I. And—have you ever turned yourself into a bat?”

  “No.”

  Royal nodded, looking pleased that Cole had not surpassed him in bat-changing abilities. Cole could see that he was using this opportunity to measure himself, to test the opinion he’d formed about his place in the world.

  That opinion was a bit elevated, to say the least.

  “I’m sure I’ll be terribly afraid if I am forced into sunlight.” Royal was no longer looking at Cole; his eyes had an intense, almost blind expression—similar, Cole realized, to the look omnis had during moments of sexual pleasure. “I’ll scream, too, I warrant. Can you imagine feeling something so intensely that it makes you scream? I’ll certainly feel something then. Oh, I know what you’re thinking, Zeke.” He focused on Cole again. “You’re thinking that if you drive a stake into my heart, I’ll feel something. You’re right, of course. Oh, don’t deny it; I see it in your face. I knew I was courting danger by bringing you here. After all, we are in competition for the same prey, are we not? But when you get to be my age, you’ll have learned a few things. You’ll have learned that it all fades into one big blur. You’ll have to struggle to keep from being dead inside. There will come a point at which you have to make yourself feel.”

  Cole had a sudden vision of himself flipping through his photos.

  Or floating in the pool, wondering what it would be like to drown.

  Stop it. This guy is trying to shake you.

  “You either become a blur,” Royal informed him, “or you make a game of it; you walk a tightrope on the edge of oblivion. That’s the choice. And I can tell you that walking the tightrope is delicious.”

  You’re nothing like this guy, Cole told himself.

  “Do you have a soul, Zeke?” Royal asked, looking straight at Cole.

  Did he? How could he? Whatever was alive about him had been sealed to every cell and neuron, entwined and absorbed so that it would never be freed.

  It was an effort, but Cole did not look away. “I don’t know,” he answered.

  “Do you think your eyes will turn into little flowers?”

  Was it a threat? Or a game, a cat-and-mouse game? Was Royal crazy? Or posturing?

  A struggle to keep from being dead inside.

  Talk to Sandor—that’s what Cole had decided to do next. Not sit here listening to this guy jabber. Cole would have to call Johnny—but first he must go back to Sandor.

  Cole stood up, the mattress giving under his feet. “My friends will be expecting me. But I see that I have much to learn,” he added carefully. “I’d like to come back in a little while, if I may. Will you wait here for me?”

  “You don’t have to go at all, Zeke. You can stay with me if you want. Your friends must be quite a burden to you.”

  Now that Cole was standing, he felt more in control. “I’m sorry, I can’t leave them.”

  Royal considered. “Very well. You may bring them, if you want.”

  Cole wondered for a crazy split second whether he ought to bow and back his way out of the apartment. No. Even Royal might see the insincerity in that.

  So he turned and walked across the room, listening for the sound of sudden movement, every muscle tensed for the feel of a hand on his back or shoulder.

  But Royal did not follow.

/>   As Cole reached for the doorknob, he looked back to see the blue eyes regarding him. He’d never imagined that eyes that color could look so flat and frigid.

  “I shall await you,” Royal said, again giving that regal nod.

  Cole nodded back, but said nothing as he stepped out onto the concrete landing. He pulled the door shut, and when he heard it click, that was one barrier between them.

  The stairs were another.

  The cars in the parking lot were a third.

  He didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until it all came out in a heavy sigh.

  The Poop Deck’s sign glowed red and white. He checked his watch. He’d been with Royal for less than thirty minutes.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “I learned exactly nothing,” Cole told Sandor. They spoke in low voices, even though they were outside, standing by Cole’s car in front of the Laundromat, having left The Poop Deck behind. Each watched the apartment building across the street; but Cole also kept glancing behind him, where Gordo was alone inside the Laundromat, shoveling his wet laundry into the dryer. Not that anything was likely to go wrong in a Laundromat. It was just that Cole felt he had to keep an eye on his charge.

  But he did not want Gordo to hear this conversation either, and that’s why they were standing outside. “My initial reaction,” he told Sandor, “is that this guy represents a danger, at least to omnis. But I may just have been creeped out.”

  “If you were creeped out, that says something about the situation.”

  “But he wanted me to be creeped out. That was his intention. I’m betting it threw him off to learn that there were other hemes around. I think at least part of it was an act. But,” Cole added, “it disturbs me to think there’s a possibility he may really be doing the things he said. I made a mistake. I should have figured out something to do with Gordo so that you could come with me. You barely even got to see the guy.”

  “I saw the finger guard though. Loved the finger guard.”

  It took a great deal to faze Sandor. His perpetual good humor was like an anchor. If Sandor had been with him, Cole realized now, he likely wouldn’t have gotten rattled. “I want to get your take on him,” he told Sandor.