Monster Stalker

by Elizabeth Watasin

  She watched the Vampire Alliance Network’s video as it listed Shen’s injuries and shared the long-term effects of weird matter disruption on a vampire’s regenerative ability. They showed a photo of Shen before ey was harmed, a beautiful youth with a soulful gaze and wispy beard. The accompanying photo Vampire Alliance chose of Shayla looked cold and cruel. Nico cut away to search for recent photos of Shen. Ey and Shy had a gang in Shayla’s sector, and judging by the recent news, they were quite active. Shen looked fully recovered, despite facial scarring.

  Nico increased the sound level on her music and walked on, her repulsion at the sight of Shen’s injuries giving way to another feeling as she thought of Shayla in the slaughter pit.

  Death machine.

  Nico’s own death spirit rose and responded. Shen shouldn’t have made Shayla’s sister a vampire.

  Nico’s fangs elongated, remembering a maker killing her beneath moonlight.

  ***

  While reading further about Shen, Nico found herself in another plaza, one Dorothy identified as having a landmark sculptural fountain. But the fountain was more unattractive than any Nico had ever seen, even more than the one in San Francisco’s Embarcadero. A huge tangle of serpentine forms, it reared two storeys high in a great shallow pool. The sculpture’s viperine ends formed torrential spouts, sitting low or high, spewing up or vigorously vomiting down. The air was filled with the sound of fresh, flowing roaring water. Nico thought the fountain might be an orgiastic Hydra, playing Twister with itself.

  She put her Id away and walked around the fountain while office workers and visitors lounged in the surrounding eateries, and thought about carrying a brolly, because an open plaza held few shadows. She considered having one with a hidden sword like Mr Steed’s. Children ran, and she ambled over to a small group of street vendors with display tables and opened blankets, hawking cheap jewellery and Again NewYork souvenirs. Vampires stood by a little table, pocket booklets in hand. An Id sat on the tabletop, projecting a holo donation jar, and more booklets plus snack blood packets were laid out for sale. Nico looked at the eclectic vampire bunch in curiosity. One male in a shabby coat smiled and handed her a little booklet. Nico accepted and looked at the cover.

  The title said: This Was Your Life, Again Walker!

  “Oh no, a Zick tract?” Nico exclaimed. If she still had a comic book box, she’d file the awful evangelical booklet away for the sake of novelty. When she flipped it open, it was indeed a black and white inked comic strip, very much in the style of Jake T Zick. A quick peek near the end showed the protagonist, a risen vampire, being held in account before the celestials of Darqueworld—who were drawn suspiciously like the angelic host. Nico looked at the cover once more.

  “Again Walker,” she said, recalling paperback girl’s pacifist, non-biting friends.

  “That’s you, sister,” the vampire said, grinning happily. He held out his hand for her to shake.

  “Don’t touch me,” Nico said, and walked to the pool’s edge. Vampires had entered it, splashing, and were wading to the fountain sculpture. Nico tucked the tract behind Bear and stood by a lanky African woman in tank top, bright wrap, and culottes, her natural hair tied back with a scarf. Her hands and feet were hennaed with Senegalese patterns, and Nico admired her dangling earrings. She wondered if the woman was a magic wielder; along with her necklaces and bracelets, she wore amulets and white sai sins. Then Nico looked to where the woman watched the wading vampires. One male with sideburns wore nineteenth century uniform trousers and a torn shirt. He and another male went to stand under fountain spouts, the water pounding on their heads, and raised their hands.

  “What are they doing?” Nico asked.

  “A purification,” the woman said. “A renewal. You might call it baptism.”

  “Teh,” Nico exhaled in humour. “Vampires getting baptised.”

  A vampire girl backed into a pouring spout and stood beneath, palms offered up. As the water inundated her, she shook like one sobbing, and vampires came by her sides to steady her. A fervour seemed to rise from them, the ecstasy of praise to the invisible. Nico glanced up, wondering if any gods might show.

  “This New York,” she said, “the spiritual intensity. Sometimes it’s like Jerusalem or something.”

  “Jerusalem,” the woman mused.

  “The one god’s holy city,” Nico said, thinking that like Shayla, the woman might be native to Darqueworld. “Or, at least holy to his followers.” The woman looked at her and smiled.

  “No one city on Darqueworld is holy. All is sacred,” she said.

  “Even what’s evil?” Nico said, sharp. The woman grew grave, then returned her attention to the ecstatic vampires.

  “We can’t recognise good without it,” she said.

  ***

  Nico never had patience with the holistic or spiritual, though Shayla’s embodiment of such drew her like an unerring arrow, and perhaps it had to do with Shayla’s amity coming from a place of loss and pain, which Nico understood. Shayla was a counterweight Nico could bear. But peace, love, beauty, acceptance; those qualities had a hard time seeding in Nico’s darkness. Her intellect would water beauty down to mere aesthetics, its controllable aspects, when it wasn’t meant for such confines but to suffuse, like the water pouring down on born-again vampires. Beauty had the power to prompt a heart’s expansion. Nico didn’t like that. An expansion meant love, which was a frightening concept when it had been killed in her and outside of her, repeatedly. Mr Bear was easier to love.

  Her Id sounded, and Nico looked at it. It wasn’t Shayla.

  Behind you, the message said.

  Nico turned around. At the plaza’s end, by the kerb, Heloise’s shapely legs rested outside the door of her Faering, crossed at the knee.

  The lure of her outsoles’ deep red reeled Nico in from across the plaza. She walked towards Heloise—who grinned—and Nico pretended she didn’t want to stare more at the older vampire’s shoes. Or ask if she could play in Heloise’s closet.

  Nico came to a stop before the vehicle and pulled the booklet from behind Bear.

  “Would you like a copy of the Watchtower?” Nico said, handing it to Heloise. Heloise looked at it, rolled her eyes, and tossed the tract into the seat behind her.

  “If you’re stalking me, you’re really bad at it,” Nico added.

  “I’m not stalking you.” Heloise opened her hands. “Do you see me offering you candy?” Nico noticed something on one of Heloise’s wrists. Red, blessed string bracelets peeped out beneath her sleeve’s cuff. Heloise dropped her hands.

  “I saw the news this morning,” Heloise said. “That’s the second trafficking operation in Again NewYork you’ve destroyed.”

  “Why do you think it’s me?”

  “Because it’s your modus operandi,” Heloise said, and Nico’s interest piqued.

  “I was just looking for something,” Nico said.

  “And you probably won’t stop until you find it.” Heloise’s tone was wry. “Don’t you sleep?”

  “I don’t like the hostel I’m staying at. It’s creepy.”

  “Oh? And where’s that?”

  “You are a really bad stalker,” Nico said.

  Heloise smiled. “Let me treat you and Mr Bear to something from the hotdog stand.”

  ***

  Whenever a Bathory cajoled, Nico would walk away. She capitulated to Heloise, however, because she was curious as to what the vampire wanted. Heloise went in search of blood, striding purposefully amongst chess-playing elderly and lunching office workers dribbling shredded lettuce on themselves, while Nico sat at a Sushi Hut’s patio table and waited. All the Again Walkers had emerged from beneath the fountain spouts and lingered by the pool, dripping and embracing. Nico wondered how long they’d be able to hold on to their peace and ecstasy. The regular world would still assail tomorrow.

  “Faith helps, I guess,” she said to Bear. Heloise returned from the Again Walker’s little table of goods and gave Nico a scrutinisi
ng look.

  “Are you heliophobic?” she asked. “Because we can—”

  “No.” Nico stilled her nervous knee. “You watch too many commercials. And did you buy blood from the religious cult?” she exclaimed. “It might be drugged.”

  “The way your mind works,” Heloise retorted. She stuck a straw into one snack bag and handed it to her. Nico noticed Heloise’s nail colour; a deep, tasty maroon that matched her tie. The straw was in Nico’s mouth before she thought about it and she sucked. The blood tasted like a decent grade of simulated, warmed by the sun. Heloise then offered Mr Bear a Zick tract, one titled: Birds and the Bees for Again Walkers. Nico made a sound of amusement.

  “I can’t believe this,” she said, and opened the tract and laid it flat for Bear to peruse.

  She and Heloise sat and sucked on the straws of their snack bags, watching and listening to the fountain water’s roar. Just when the sun’s continued warmth began to make Nico nervous again, Heloise removed her sunglasses and raised her face, eyes closed. The golden heart that was the floral and woodsy sensual centre of Chasse Geraud Soeurs finally opened on her skin, warmed into being not by an undead body but by the sun, and Nico refrained from scooting nearer to sniff more. But she looked at Heloise’s pallor, concealed by make-up, and thought direct sunlight made the aspect of death brutally clear. Heloise sighed and folded her sunglasses.

  “That was a pretty young lady you were with earlier,” she remarked. “Weren’t you stalking her yesterday?”

  Nico was about to retort when Heloise added, “Darqueworld makes it easier to be with them, doesn’t it.”

  It does. Nico had been feeling very grateful about that. And right then, they were two vampires safely toasting themselves in the sun thanks to such a world.

  “She’s quite a witch,” Heloise said. “It takes fine control to light a cigarette—and not have it blow up in a person’s face. What’s her name?”

  Nico glared. She was quite certain Heloise had already found out Shayla’s full name. Heloise grinned back.

  “They’re interesting, the witches here,” she continued. “They have a quality about them I haven’t seen since the seventies: unconditional faith in change. Faith in evil creatures like us,” she added with an arched brow. She sucked on her straw.

  “Does it bother you, my seeing a witch?” Nico said, curious. She didn’t know how vampires felt about romancing “food.”

  “No.” Heloise smiled, and Nico looked at her beautiful teeth again, wondering when she would get to see Heloise’s fangs. “She’s human, and you’re a vampire, and that’s all there is to it. How does Mr Bear like his comic?”

  “It’s bloody awful. And I think it’s time you stopped flirting with me and told me what you wanted.”

  “I’m not flirting with you. This is small talk. Are you still having memory loss?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then maybe this will help. Back on Old Earth, I ran a global vampire database. I tapped a network of hobbyist observers—like bird watchers, except they watched vampires. They wrote down everything: names, appearances, activities, movements. If a vampire appeared in Paris and the next week, popped up in Mozambique, an observer in either city would record it. I’d gather the rest of the background info, like historical data, photos, painted portraits, passport pictures. Vampires who thought they were completely undetected were recorded.”

  “You’re a blackmailer?” Nico said, incredulous. Heloise gave her a tolerant look.

  “I controlled information,” she clarified.

  “Exactly. Bye, blackmailer.” Nico rose to leave.

  “I can show you what you were up to in 1998.”

  Nico paused.

  “Interested?” Heloise’s tone held a smile. Nico turned back.

  “How far into the future are you from my 1998?”

  “Twenty-two years.” Heloise cocked her head, her regard falling to Bear. “I never saw another vampire like you again. You were unique.”

  Nico made a sound of humour. “Say that last part again, but deeper.” Heloise raised a surprised brow.

  “You were unique,” Heloise repeated, bemused, but she’d deepened her voice as requested. Nico made a mental note to find Star Trek: Voyager episodes on her Id. She’d really enjoyed watching the new female Borg character.

  “So, this database,” Nico said. “You carried it with you—when you were pushed through by the weird matter engine.”

  Heloise gave a rueful exhale. “Those corridor demons. One trip with them was enough for me. Yes, the database came over with me, but having it didn’t speed me through immigration. I was in holding for days. Thank the gods someone had playing cards.”

  “So you and your fellow refugees didn’t get processed through veils.”

  “Veils?”

  “I want to see my data,” Nico said, “but I’m not giving you any sex.”

  “I didn’t ask.” Heloise’s tone was mild.

  Nico gave her a look, and Heloise smiled, her straw pressed against her lower lip. The straw bore the bright imprint of lipstick.

  “I like women who menstruate,” Nico said. “Did your bird watchers observe that?”

  “No. But I’ll certainly enter that observation now.”

  Nico pulled out her Id.

  “A time and place, please,” Nico requested.

  ***

  Heloise had another appointment to attend to, but she had time to meet Nico later—at her apartment.

  “The database has been secured, so you’ll have to go to it, I can’t bring it to you. I could acquire a chaperone for you, if that’ll make you feel safer?” Heloise’s tone was wry as she and Nico walked across the plaza. Heloise put on her sunglasses.

  “Can my chaperone be the Princess of Wales?”

  When Heloise paused, as if searching for what to say, Nico realised why she hadn’t taken the request as a joke.

  “It’s okay. I know she died,” Nico said. “It was in 1997. I liked her a lot.”

  Nico left the plaza when Heloise did, zooming away in her Faering. Until her appointment with Heloise, she had something else needing her attention. Her time enjoying her good feelings was done. The thought she’d put on hold when Shayla had explained veils returned.

  First Esche, then Tex and Delores; maybe Eton boy. She knew what her maker would say. She knew what was right in front of her face.

  It dead ends right there, at Again Friends. No other trails to follow.

  “I shouldn’t have discounted Iris,” she admitted to Bear.

  Especially when the same dismissive attitude had been given herself when she had been alive, trying to make people believe that the charming young Scotsman pretending to be her boyfriend was really her stalker.

  Nico rode the Five back to the hostel area and stared at the muted Nico in the window reflection.

  “Boogeymen,” she said.

  She typed a request in Dorothy to suggest the strongest, over-the-counter stimulant available that she could purchase.

  ***

  She was leaving a chemist located near puke street when she glanced down the cross street. Re’shawn leaned towards the window of a long-bodied, black vehicle, talking to someone inside. She did not look happy, and the vehicle’s window rolled up, apparently concluding the conversation. The vehicle then sped away, and Re’shawn looked over at Nico.

  “I haven’t seen you at the hostel,” Nico said as Re’shawn strolled towards her.

  “I haven’t seen you at the hostel either, cupcake,” Re’shawn retorted. She activated her Id, showing Nico a news holo of the ranch house bust. “Was that you?”

  “One of those traffickers shouldn’t have touched Bear,” Nico said.

  “That is one cool bear, that is one crazy cool bear,” Re’shawn said.

  “Mr Bear says ‘thank you’.” Nico adjusted him and smiled. “Did you call me cupcake?”

  “Yeah, because you’re smaller than a cake.” Re’shawn began walking in the hostel’s direction
, and Nico kept pace beside her. She pulled out her Id and showed Re’shawn Esche’s holo-picture.

  “Is that the potential girlfriend? No wonder you’re obsessed. Naw, I’m sorry, I haven’t seen her.”

  “It’s okay.” Nico put her Id away. “What are you up to?” She retrieved her energy stimulant purchase, pUff, from her chemist bag and tucked it behind Bear. She tossed the bag into a trash receptacle.

  “Employment. Though my social worker told me about them off-world labour camps, so I’m being extra careful. Figures that you can’t come to a new planet without another race enslaving you—again.”

  “Are you interested in construction or engineering?” Nico asked. “Because at Second Memphis, the present dynasty’s building another pyramid.”

  Re’shawn guffawed. “I saw that ad. But they pay half their wages in beer.” She paused before a Help Wanted sign in a coffee shop window. Beneath it said: No Vampires Wanted.

  “I thought I left that crap behind, sixty years ago. If I could cuss right now,” Re’shawn said.

  Nico looked at Re’shawn with humour, wondering what was preventing her, and Re’shawn pointed skyward.

  “Back when I was alive, I sang in church every Sunday. Seeing as cussing can make stuff reality here, I’ll respect whoever’s watching over this world.”

  Hm. Nico wondered if Re’shawn missed the prospect of heaven.

  “Do you like being a vampire?” Nico asked.

  Re’shawn stopped walking and reached into her back pocket. She pulled out a worn leather wallet and opened it. A small black and white photo sat in the battered insert, of a serious-looking Re’shawn in an A-line mini dress, her hair an afro, while the lean man next to her looked at the camera, trilby tipped back on his head. Re’shawn’s hand rested on the head of a little boy with fists pressed to his mouth. They stood outdoors on grass, as if at a picnic, but someone in the background held placards on sticks: a preparation for protest.