by J. F. Lewis
As Winter laughed, small curls of vapor poured out of his mouth and around the sides of his face, flowing back into him. He smiled as if reading my mind. “There is beauty in monstrosity, wonder in diversity, and to these simple truths even the gods must confess.”
“And we do,” the others said as one.
“We are the new gods and you are a titan,” Winter explained. “You are powerful, but your ways are the old ways and we are far more powerful together than you are alone.”
These guys were nuts! They thought this was a grand adventure, a game to amuse themselves. They could form a great big circle jerk in the parking lot for all I cared, but they could not fuck with me. I turned back to Winter.
“Look, you pansy little fuck! I came here for some information and I’ll be damned if I leave here without it. Now I know that you’re used to dealing with Roger and other High Society fangs and maybe they buy into this vampires as Greek gods bullshit you’ve been blowing up your own asses, but here’s reality! You’re all overgrown corpses that drink the blood of the living to survive. You’re not gods! God doesn’t want you. If he did, then crosses, Bibles, and holy water wouldn’t burn the shit out of you. You can’t go out in daytime or the sun will burn you to ash. A stake through the heart will still immobilize you.
“What you are is a bunch of namby-pamby, pretending-drinking-blood-is-like-drinking-ambrosia motherfuckers that haven’t come to grips with what sad sacks of shit we all really are! You think being a vampire makes you Tom Cruise in that damned movie, but it fucking doesn’t, okay? It just makes you poor dead bastards that can’t even eat Doritos anymore without puking blood on the kitchen floor. Now, if fucking with me makes you feel all high and mighty, then bring it, but you better get ready to reap the whirlwind, ’cause I guarantee that the first Lost Boys wannabe that lays a corporeal finger on me or mine will not survive the experience. Now, I want some answers. Either you have them or you don’t, but if you do have them, you better give ’em up or I’ll fuck you up. Am I crystal fucking clear?”
They clapped. They actually fucking clapped.
“Okay,” I began. Closing my eyes, I massaged my temples for a moment. “What the hell are you doing now?”
“I won again,” Winter said cheerfully. “You are every bit as amusing as I thought you might be. What was it you wanted to know?”
Rachel looked as confused as I did for once, and since Little Miss Know-It-All was taken by surprise, I felt a lot better about it, too. “Before I tell you,” I said, “are there any other bets?”
“That would be telling.” Winter chuckled as the others applauded. “I win again.”
I laughed in spite of myself. God, I hate vampires.
13
TABITHA: BUMPING INTO PEOPLE
Pulling up in front of the Artiste Unknown reminded me why dating Phillip was so much fun. This would not be like the fiasco at the Iversonian. Vampires and their human escorts wrapped around the club, a band of wannabes waiting to be told no. Two vampires dressed in suits were stationed at the door at the head of an area cordoned off by red velvet ropes on brass stands, extending all the way to the sidewalk as if one were approaching an award show in Hollywood rather than a nightclub in Void City. Dennis rode next to me, and I leaned close to him, not because I craved his touch or because I wanted him, but to soak up the heat.
“Thank you for coming with me, Dennis,” I said as the limo came to a stop. Even though I was pouting, I was glad Phillip had decided to stay in. I could have flaunted my ability to seem alive with Phillip along to protect me, but the more I got to know him, the more he changed from mysterious and cool to short, fat, annoying, and just plain sick.
“Of course, Lady Tabitha. Lord Phillip explained the difficulties making an appearance with Mister Talbot might cause.”
“Winter’s policy says human escort, not just living escort,” I said with a shrug. Dennis’s eyes dipped involuntarily to my cleavage, brightening my mood. My dress was tight, black, and sleeveless, cut to make the most of my assets. The diamond necklace Phillip had given me hung around my neck, throwing little dots of rainbow color on the walls. My shoes had an extra inch on the heel that I’d only been able to wear comfortably since becoming a vampire.
One of the vamps, a smooth, casually attractive man in a sharp gray suit, left his station to open my door. This was the side of dating Phillip that I enjoyed, the glitz, the glam, the not having to dance in some stupid art deco strip club.
Dennis climbed out after me and took my arm just quickly enough to steady me when I sensed Eric. When Eric and I were together, I didn’t get a strong sense off of him; maybe because he sired me. Now, though, he felt powerful and strong, way more powerful than I am…which shouldn’t have been possible since we’re both Vlads. His “announcement” made Phillip seem small and not just in a wow-that-thing-is-tiny way.
Eric stepped out the front door and I froze. God, he looked gorgeous! I’d never seen him with his natural hair color before. He had always dyed it black, but tonight it was blond. Maybe he hadn’t noticed yet. When had he come back? Why hadn’t I felt it? The tux he wore looked like it had been tailor-made for him. I’d forgotten about those true-blue eyes, but they pierced me briefly before taking in Dennis. Eric weighed Dennis with that gaze and found him wanting. I looked away, embarrassed.
Eric glanced over his shoulder and said, “C’mon” to someone behind him. A woman stepped out of the doorway wearing a smirk I’d seen a thousand times. The witch!
“It’s customary for a man to open the door for a lady,” she bantered in my dead sister’s voice.
“I was distracted.” He nodded in my direction and the woman who wore Rachel’s body looked over at me with the exact same glint of mischievousness in her eyes Rachel’d had when I caught her making out with Martin Coleberg in the bleachers at my senior prom. Martin had been my date.
“Hi, slut,” she teased. “Where you been?”
Those were the same words she’d used at prom. It was impossible. This woman could not be my little sister. I’d discounted it ever since I’d seen her for the first time at the Demon Heart, but suddenly, seeing her standing with Eric, the innate possessiveness she showed, I knew. It was her, but it couldn’t be.
Rachel was dead. She’d died of cancer, wasting away to nothing, and she had not been brave. She’d been angry, hateful, and mad at the world. At her funeral I’d watched Dad, Uncle Tommy, her boyfriend Paul, and three of Mom’s friends from church carry her coffin to the family plot, watched as the funeral-home people lowered her into the ground and buried her next to Grandma.
“I don’t want a scene.” Eric sounded bored with the exchange before it had even really started. “You broke up with me, remember?”
“But—”
“Did he really tell you that you were a moist warm tightness?” Rachel taunted. “I’m his thrall now. He doesn’t need your cold dead cunt anymore.”
“His what?” I was at a loss, still not wanting to believe that it was really my sister Rachel, still wanting, needing, it to be a trick, an illusion. “He what?”
“Leave her alone,” Eric interrupted. “She’s still your sister.”
Words that I wanted to say, questions that I needed to ask, ran through my mind and bounced off, overcome by the same thought over and over again. It can’t be her. It can’t be her. It can’t be her. “You’re dead!” is all that I could get out.
Rachel deliberately misunderstood me. “You’d kill your own sister?”
I looked to Eric, pleading with him to understand what I wanted to say. Our eyes met and his mind touched mine. Shut the fuck up, before you make an even bigger ass out of yourself, Tabitha. My mouth snapped shut. Eric was my sire, the one vampire whose mental compulsion I could not resist. “Go inside with Toy Boy there…What’s your name?” he asked my escort without breaking eye contact with me.
“It’s Dennis, Lord Eric, but I’m not—”
“If I want to hear more from you, I’ll ask
you another question. Now shut your yapper.”
Only Eric would say “yapper.”
“Yes, milord.”
“Tabitha here may not be my girlfriend anymore, but she’s my spawn, get…”
“Offspring,” Dennis inserted.
“Thanks. Offspring, and she hasn’t tried to kill me yet, so if anything bad happens to her, I’ll find you and…you’re not somebody’s thrall, are you?”
“Not at this point in the competition, milord.”
“Good. Then I’ll find you and kill you. You savvy?”
“I savvy, milord.”
Savvy? Eric had been watching too many pirate movies.
“Now. Tabitha, go inside with Dennis and have your fun.” His hand touched my cheek. “I’ve got to go get Marilyn’s soul back from some demon. Swing by on Christmas Eve if you want. I’ll have something for you.” He pulled away. “I’m not mad at you. Now, go.”
He’s more powerful than me and he’s my sire. I had to obey, would always have to obey, even though I didn’t want to go into the club anymore. I wanted to ask how my sister was alive. How she’d come back. Had she really gone to Hell like she’d claimed before, when I’d thought her nothing more than a doppelganger? I wanted to know if I could help with the Marilyn thing. She’d never approved of me, but she’d stuck up for me once when no one had any reason to. I felt like I owed her one, but thanks to Eric’s compulsion, I had to walk into the club, let Dennis escort me to a booth, and sit down before my mouth would open.
Eric announced himself three more times before I felt him drive away—the final time, all of the other vampires in the Artiste Unknown winced.
“What was that?” Dennis asked.
“Eric was roaring. He does that when he gets angry or overprotective. It’s a man thing. You wouldn’t understand.” A waiter brought us blood wine without being asked, muttered something about compliments of the management, and fluttered away. “When we first started dating, I went to see my parents for a few days without telling him, and he went ballistic. God, how he shouted at me.”
“Sounds a little overprotective,” Dennis observed.
I wasn’t sure anymore. Maybe Eric had just understood the dangers of the world better than I had. Maybe he still did.
“Was that really your sister?”
I wanted to answer him, but Eric’s compulsion kept me from talking about it. I was supposed to be having the fun that I’d come to the Artiste Unknown for, before I’d known Eric was here with Rachel. Hell, I had more fun than this at the Iversonian with Talbot, fight notwithstanding. But after a dance and a few drinks, the compulsion eased up enough for me to ask Dennis a question.
“How is it possible?” I asked.
Dennis stared without comprehension. “Lady Tabitha?”
“Rachel was dead, really dead. She died over a year ago. How could she have come back?”
“Maybe it isn’t her.” A server had brought him a sampler platter of hors d’oeuvres. He’d been eating them slowly for the last ten minutes. He seemed to be really tasting each bite, and it was pissing me off. “It could be a shape-shifter.”
“If you take another bite of that food in front of me,” I snapped, “I swear to God I’m going to break your fucking neck!” Dennis dropped his fork the way one might drop a poisonous snake. He accidentally tossed it too far to the side and it clattered to the floor.
“I’m sorry, Lady Tabitha,” he stammered. “Most vampires find my talent for eating quite enjoyable.”
Most vampires aren’t stuck being able to eat food, but not taste it, I thought. That subtle cruelty went along with my ability to seem alive. It emphasized the fact that it wasn’t real life, just a very clever approximation.
“Just don’t,” I said. “I don’t like it and she’s not a shape-shifter. That’s what I thought at first, that it was some kind of spell, but—”
“It could have been a construct, a simulacrum summoned to act like your sister.”
“Simulacrum?”
“A fake duplicate of a person,” Dennis offered.
“Oh.”
Maybe. Which would be worse, to have my sister back from the dead and despising me, or to have a weird creature wearing her face?
“No, it was her.” Or did I just want her back? Yeah. I did. Even though we hadn’t really been friends since puberty…I wanted her back. She was…is my sister and family is family. “Could it be her?”
“Well, it depends on how badly she wanted to be alive, milady, and how concerned she was about what happened to her soul. Did she know that she was dying?”
I couldn’t think about that part too hard. My emotions were too raw. The food I could eat but not taste was still on the table. The music was too loud. Too many hearts were beating all around me. And my mind was filled with lurid images of Eric and Rachel together in bed and on other flat surfaces. “Yes.”
The funniest thing of all was that I wasn’t mad at Eric for being with her. I knew Rachel. She had gone after him. He wouldn’t have pursued her. Eric isn’t a go out and get ’em guy. He lets women come to him. What did she want from him? If she could sell her soul, then she might be capable of anything. This was the same Rachel that had dated three different guys at the same time in high school so that she could make one pay for her lunch every day. What would she be capable of now that she’d wrapped herself around Eric’s…um…
“Dennis?” I wished I’d shown Eric that I could seem alive or that instead of walking out on him at Orchard Lake when he went to kill the werewolves, I’d just waited in the car for him. Didn’t Eric realize that the only reason I became a vampire in the first place was so that we could always be together?
“Yes?” Dennis looked at me across the table, bored but polite, and I wondered what he thought when he looked at me. Did he see a beautiful woman or did he just think of me as a vampire? Worse than that, maybe he viewed me as little more than an errand—a chore. Was that how Eric looked at me now?
“Why do you want to be a vampire?” I asked.
“I’m not certain I understand the question, Lady Tabitha.”
“I mean,” I began, “I’ve always thought vampires were cool. You get to live forever and you get the powers, but now that I have them…I don’t regret anything, really, there isn’t much point to regretting, but it isn’t really…I didn’t expect it to be like it is.”
He was nervous. His heart sped up when I asked him the question, but his eyes didn’t give anything away. What must it be like to be a human looking at Phillip or Eric, or me, for that matter? Was it like the spider and the fly?
It hadn’t been like that with Eric and me. Actually, it felt more like that after I was a vampire than it had before he turned me. He didn’t need me now as much as he did then. I was no longer a source of food and warmth. Life with me had lost its vicarious thrill. Not for long. As a Living Doll, I could eventually provide him almost everything he wanted.
If I hadn’t dumped him, that is. God, was I that weak? Was seeing him again enough to make me ache for him even when it was so obvious he’d moved on? He wasn’t supposed to be able to move on! He was the one who was supposed to be craving me, not the other way around.
“Power,” Dennis answered finally. “Influence. Money. All of those things. Immortality is nothing to sneeze at, but you can still die. You need the money, the wealth, the political influence, and all of the powers just to survive the immortality side of it.”
“But, I mean, I don’t know. Isn’t it…”
“A high price to pay?” he asked.
“I guess that’s where I was going with that.”
He put his hand in mine and the warmth teased my fangs out of their hiding places in my gums. It stung when they cut through the tender tissue, but I didn’t wince. Dennis smiled. “Look. I’m a power guy. I’ve always wanted it, needed it, really, and I’ve always been willing to do whatever it took to get it. Right now that means that I go through Lord Phillip’s glorified hazing, which is fin
e with me. I do my time as an intern and then I get adopted by the most influential vampire in the city, someone who just happens to be one of the oldest vampires in the world.”
I didn’t believe him; I guess he could tell by the look on my face.
“Come on, Lady Tabitha. Surely you realize Lord Phillip is more than he appears.” When he said Phillip’s name he sounded worshipful. “The man is a god. He’s still rising, sure, but he is definitely ascendant. He’s totally incapable of deficit spending. He owns the police, the fire department, you name it, and the beauty of it is that most of them don’t even realize that they’ve been bought.”
Could the same be said of me? Did Dennis think of me as someone Phillip had purchased? Sure, he did, and worse, I thought so, too.
“Are there rules against biting your date in a club like this?” I asked.
“No, milady, but Lord Phillip—”
“Lord Phillip said that I could do what I wanted with you.”
His heart sped up again and a bead of sweat rolled down his cheek. “That’s true, Lady Tabitha. If something I said offended you…”
“Just crawl under the table and lick my shoes,” I ordered. “I’ll tell you if I want you to go higher.” Dennis crawled under the table with a resigned look on his face. How gross. Eric would have told me to kiss his ass. Talbot would have told me off. “Go higher,” I commanded absentmindedly. He did. I missed Eric.
14
ERIC: THE DEMON
We rode to the Pollux in silence and that suited me fine. I’d had enough social interaction for one evening. It had left me tired and frustrated. The last thing I’d needed was to see Tabitha with her dinner or toy or whatever he was. Rachel scooted closer to me in the backseat of the limo, but I ignored her. Talking to Winter and then seeing Tabitha made me want to hit something, break it, smash it on the concrete, and grind it with my foot.
After I turned Tabitha, I’d treated her like crap, because it’s what I always do. It’s a little like when Humphrey Bogart asked Lauren Bacall to marry him. He told her that she had to decide whether she wanted to be a famous actress or be his wife. He told her that if she wanted to be a famous actress, he’d do everything in his power to help her, but if she wanted to be his wife, then she had to be willing to be with him, travel with him, even if it meant that she had to turn down good roles because they conflicted with his shooting schedule.