by Ian Hall
I just hoped “forward” wasn’t taking us - me and Lyman - in two different directions. But, I kept that fear to myself.
It killed me to do it, but I pulled away.
“Your girlfriend doesn’t like me very much.”
The slightest of grins tugged at the corners of Lyman’s mouth. “I think it’s me she doesn’t like right now.”
“You better learn how girls work…you’ve got about five more seconds to go after her or your ass is toast.”
Reynolds looked around the restaurant. It seemed our drama had caught the attention of some employees up at the counter. He stood up.
“I think it’s time we all got out of here.”
Lyman rose from his seat, and he gave me his hand to grip on to. I stood but quickly fell forward into his arms.
“Goddamn you’re weak. You’ve got to feed.”
I opened my maw at him. “How am I supposed to do that?”
“Leave it to me,” Reynolds said. “I’ll come up with something.”
With a lot of help from Lyman, I made it to the car. Mary-Christine leant on the trunk, staring off into some pissed-off abyss. Diplomatically, Lyman deposited me in the front seat and went around back, grabbed Mary-Christine by the hand, and dragged her around the building for a private chat. Man, what I wouldn’t have given to be a fly on the wall during that conversation…
Reynolds, on the other hand, went back inside the Subway, grabbed the yellow pages from the cashier, and brought it back to the car. Silently, he thumbed through the book as I drifted in and out of something I’ll call sleep for lack of a better term. More like some kind of hazy purple state of consciousness.
Couldn’t say for sure how long we were parked there. After a while my eyes just kind of flitted open to the sight of Lyman and Mary-Christine walking back to the car; they were no longer holding hands. When they filed into the backseat, an Arctic wind blew in. Each sat pressed up against the opposite door, a gulf of vinyl between them.
Reynolds acted like he didn’t notice. “You kids ready?”
The motion of the car sent me back into oblivion. Reynolds nudged me awake, offering me a lidded cup with a straw. An empty bag with the bottom rolled up like a tube of toothpaste lay crumpled on his lap.
The smell of fresh blood filled the car. Without even reaching for the cup, I leaned into the straw and sucked up a mouthful. Type-O-negative; my favorite. I drained the supply, feeling the strength return to my body. I mean, it was cold, chilled even, and usually I get my blood at body temperature, but it tasted good. Even my senses started to sharpen, the fog over my brain started to clear. That’s when I saw that we were parked right across the street from a Red Cross Blood Bank.
Lyman leaned up between the two front seats, grinning ear-to-ear. “There’s a cooler in the trunk with a shitload of that stuff.”
I glanced at Reynolds, who just shrugged. “All in the line of duty.”
“How much are you paying this guy, Lyman?”
“I’ll tell you later. You’re dizzy enough right now as it is.”
Even Mary-Christine chuckled.
I lifted the lid, took out the straw and sucked down the drop or two left in the bottom of the cup. Then I sent Reynolds for a refill.
“OMG…he’s worth every cent.”
Once I’d half-downed my second helping, Reynolds paraphrased his question from before.
“Where to, kids?”
Now that I’d gotten my wits about me, I had no trouble coming up with an answer, “Harris.” Then I turned to the backseat and addressed both Lyman and Mary-Christine, “We’ve got a lot of work to do there.”
I pulled gently on Mary-Christine’s hand, and led her reluctantly to the side of the Subway, away from an eye-view of the car.
“We’re all under a bit of stress right now. We need to stick together.”
She whirled on me like a wild thing, tugging her hand out of my grip. “Stick together?” she snapped. “Why don’t you go stick to Mandy, God knows she needs some attention right now!”
I almost hit back, but took a second, and calmed down. “Mary-Christine? We’re not out of the woods here, and although you think you’ve thought of everything, I’m telling you straight, you haven’t.”
“Oh, yeah, mister vampire, what the hell do you know?”
I looked at her with an incredulous look on my face. “What have I done? Why are you so much on the offensive?”
She folded her arms; a little girl’s fit of pique.
I shook my head. “Mary-Christine, we are now officially on the run; fugitives. I’m guilty of murder and breaking and entering, you of murder and conspiracy, and Mandy of murder. We might think we have carte blanche, but we don’t. The only person who can present themselves at the Helsing front door is you. Daddy will forgive his little girl. But let me assure you right now, unless we negotiate, the rest of us are pretty well fucked.”
“But you keep going back to ‘her’ for acceptance, for comfort; I mean, you even went away with her.”
“Mary-Christine, will you take a look at yourself.” I felt my voice raising. “You came to an execution, and you executed. I’ve fought two vampires, I’m bleeding as we speak. Mandy…” she turned away, but I grabbed her by the shoulders, looked right into her irritated eyes. “Mandy has been with us since I got turned. She came up with the original plan, then when the plan changed, she got thrust into this horror story. She had her fingernails removed, her teeth pulled, almost raped, and you think that you’re the victim here!”
“She wants you, you fucking idiot!” she shook herself loose.
“I give up,” I said, throwing my hands in the air. “Mandy has been tortured! And Mary-Christine is the poor girl here because she feels jealous.”
Mary-Christine turned to walk to the car. I followed a footstep behind. Things had never been worse between us.
So we left the Subway, and Reynolds headed west for a bit. “You got any cash on you, Lyman?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Oh, we’ll need a hundred or so.”
“Yeah, I can cover that.”
He headed off west, then started looking for a numbered building.
“2156,” he said, and I joined him looking for street numbers. He had a weird, kinda ‘I-know-what-I’m-doing’ look on his face, not to mention a Cheshire cat grin.
Turns out that 2156 was a Red Cross Blood Bank. He parked right outside. “C’mon.”
We walked in like we owned the place. There were a few donors sitting around, but we headed straight for the desk.
“Hi,” Reynolds said, and flashed a card. “Look, I’m Lieutenant Fishman, Atlanta PD. I need to speak to the person in charge.”
The lady cursorily looked at the card, then dialed a number immediately. “Lester, got a cop here, Lieutenant, wants a word. Sure.”
She hung up, and flipped the lid of the desk open. “Second on the right.”
Lester’s door opened before we got to it. Reynolds flashed the badge, but the fat man waved it away. “Lester Ziwickis,” he said, and we all shook hands. “What can I do for you, Lieutenant?”
‘Well, we’ve got a problem. I have an undercover cop out of Decatur, and he’s been cut pretty bad. He’s being cared by a friendly nurse, but I can’t risk blowing his cover. Not right now. We kinda need some blood, under the counter, and we need it quick.”
“Type?”
“O.”
Lester’s face went serious for a second, then punched a few keys on the computer. “I can give you two pints, no more. Sorry.” He typed a few enquiries, but came up shaking his head. “Pity it had to be O, we just mislabeled a batch of six, and we can’t do a thing with them. Useless.”
“Hold on, Lester,” I said. “You’ve got six pints of blood you can’t use?”
“Huh, I’ve got six pints of blood nobody can use!” he laughed, but I could tell he was pissed at the incident. “We have to throw it out; regulations.”
“We’ll make a donat
ion,” I said, suddenly excited. “Boss, we would play the best department prank ever, come on.”
Reynolds played the suitably horrified, yet, comically interested Police Lieutenant. “I can’t condone it. Not in the department.”
“Can we buy it?” I asked.
“I’ll leave you to sort out the details,” Reynolds had already got to his feet, shaking his head. “Rookies. Ah well, what I don’t know can’t hurt me.”
“Okay, Lester.” I started counting out twenties onto his desk. “I’m offering a donation to you. And I don’t care if it goes through the books, right?”
Lester got the inference without further hinting. “I got it.”
“Fine, how much we talking? For the six mislabeled ones, and the two bags of type O, of course. A hundred? Two?”
By his tight-lipped grimace, I was getting close to an acceptable figure. “Three hundred?”
And I got the nod. Lester folded the notes, and stuffed them quickly into his pocket. “Follow me.”
Ten minutes later, I walked out with eight pints of blood, a carrier, and a liberal packing of ice.
After Mandy had drained two of the bags, she looked ecstatic, I even saw Mary-Christine smile. The first time for a while.
Then Mandy said she wanted to go back to Harris.
“Not before we get this Helsing thing sorted out,” I said with some authority. “Even if it’s just a phone call to test the water.”
But like so many times in the last few days, Reynolds came to the rescue. “Number one, we’ve got to get to a safe place for the night,” he looked at each of us in turn as he spoke, “and eat, re-group, rest, have a beer, just chill for a night. Play Monopoly, five-card stud, I don’t give a shit. Tomorrow morning, before Dave Muscat goes nuts, we phone in a negotiation. Right now, we let Mary-Christine call her dad and tell her folks she’s okay. The last thing we need is a police hunt.”
There were no shaking heads in the car.
“Tomorrow,” Reynolds said, “we get the hire car sorted out, get our stuff from the old hotel, and we become invisible.”
I didn’t like this one bit: crawling on our bellies, begging the Helsings for mercy. Pretty damn soon, those bastards would be begging me…
But, I played it cool. For now, at least, being part of the team suited me. Figured once Mary-Christine made her call to Daddy, the rest of them would end up seeing things my way anyhow.
She’d been putting it off; maybe she was afraid of finding out just how deep the shit she’d fallen into actually went.
Mary-Christine and Lyman were still circling each other; like watching a cockfight without the pecking, just a very silent round and round. It wasn’t helping Lyman’s mood any; I knew better than anyone, he was budgeting his meds again and getting edgy.
By the time we got ourselves settled in the new hotel, I just felt glad to get some space away from the two of them. Not a lot of space though; one room with two queen beds and four people. Just enough to keep from crawling on top of each other.
Pretty much as soon as we got there, Mary-Christine threw herself on our bed while Lyman and Reynolds immediately crashed on theirs. Humans were such fragile creatures.
Even I hadn’t gotten back to the old Mandy. Though I’d finally metabolized the knock-out serum the Helsings had given me, I felt sluggish, my energy level a bit low. But at least soft shells were forming over my fingertips, a good sign. I looked in the bathroom mirror; so far no sign of new fangs coming in, that part troubled me. Unless Reynolds could continuously finagle the pre-pumped stuff for me, eventually I could starve.
As they slept, I sank into a hot bath and tried to use the quiet time to my advantage. My thoughts wandered back to the Helsing torture chamber, my mood darkening as the memory took shape.
Miranda - thick, blue eye shadow.
Sherry - black ponytail.
Lansing… just a faceless prick.
I kept running their voices through my mind on a continuous loop. Any detail I could think of, determined not to forget.
The water had just started to turn cold when Lyman rudely barged through the bathroom door. He stopped dead in his tracks as I yanked the shower curtain closed.
“Haven’t you heard of knocking?”
Next thing I heard, the toilet lid got lifted loudly, and then it sounded like Lyman slowly poured about a two-liter into the toilet.
“You’re sick!”
“Sorry…emergency…couldn’t wait.”
I drained the tub, pulled my towel down from the bar, and made no apologies as I slid past the still-peeing Lyman. The door opened before I could get to it. Mary-Christine’s eyes grew to the size of hubcaps.
Of course Lyman still had his dick hanging all out there. I wondered if she’d ever seen it before.
“I was just leaving,” I said, gliding past her. “Thanks, Lyman. That was awesome.”
Ha!
Reynolds slept soundly, so I got dressed without an audience while Mary-Christine’s muffled voice drifted through the door. The toilet flushed and Lyman came bounding out into the room.
“It was an accident. Get the hell over it!”
The outburst stirred Reynolds. He and I both got a front row seat as Lyman stormed across the room and kicked over a club chair.
“Chill out!” I snapped, putting myself right between Lyman’s crosshairs.
“And you!” Lyman’s finger pointed right at me.
Oh, crud…
“You thought you were being cute with that clever little remark?” He came close, his accusing digit nearly stabbing me in the eye. “We don’t have time for that kind of shit!”
Mary-Christine came out of the bathroom. Eyes red. Obviously she’d been bawling again.
Lyman made like his hands were scratching at each other in midair. “Mandy said this…well Mary-Christine looked at me sideways…I’m tired of bitch central here! It’s never-fucking-ending!”
Reynolds piped up once Lyman’s rant went up an octave, “Bring it down a notch, son. We don’t need any of the other guests complaining about us getting disruptive.”
To my amazement, Lyman even turned on him. “That’s right - we don’t! Because unless nobody else here has noticed, we’ve got ENOUGH PROBLEMS!”
“Not the least of them being that you need more meds,” I cut in.
Lyman combed jittery fingers through his hair. He sat down hard on the bed but popped back up again like it had been scalding hot. Then, he began to pace. The cool-headed Lyman Bracks looked like a rehab patient going through withdrawal.
“She’s right,” Mary-Christine said, then went for her phone with a look of utter determination on her face.
I think all breathing in the room stopped the second she started dialing.
“Yes, Daddy. It’s me. Pause. We’re together. I’m fine. Pause. Nobody forced me to do anything…”
Mary-Christine froze as she listened. Her face paled and her eyes welled up.
“Lyman can’t go much longer without a new supply of meds, Daddy. Pause. No… it’s not like that! I’m not some fucking hostage here!”
Whoa.
Dave Muscat’s responding tirade could be heard a mile away. Mostly a lot of swearing and pointing out how shocked and disappointed he and Mrs. Muscat were. And the arrow hit his mark, too. Mary-Christine looked like she could die where she stood.
Lyman charged at the phone and wrestled it from Mary-Christine’s hand.
“Dave, this is Lyman. You don’t talk to my girlfriend that way, sir. Do you understand me?”
Mary-Christine visibly shook. Even I wanted to run up and hug her.
“What do I want? I want a meeting - just you and me. Face to face. We’ll sit down and discuss this as men. Pause. That’ll be up to her, Dave. Mary-Christine makes her own decisions. Pause. I’ll be there; you come alone. No more bullshit.”
Lyman clamped the phone shut and tossed it on the bed.
“I’ve got a meeting with your father in two hours,” he announ
ced. “He said he wants you there, but I told him it’s up to you.”
Mary-Christine pulled herself together and straightened her back. “Of course I’m coming.”
“I’m coming, too!” I felt like a kid waving to get picked at kickball.
“Of course you are,” Lyman said. “I need you and Reynolds to watch my back.”
Putting Our Trust in Unicorps
My mood wasn’t good, sick of the bull-crap, and the lack of decent meds did nothing to put me at ease. I picked up a few of those vitamin doses at the nearest Qwik-Stop, and took five packs. Together with the Coke I’d had in the hotel room, I still felt a little wired when we turned up at the rendezvous, but I felt determined to sort it all out.
Dave stood on his own, in the middle of the hotel parking lot. I looked around. Blue skies everywhere. From every high building my paranoia could feel snipers’ scopes on us as we walked closer. I stopped ten yards away.
“Mary-Christine?” Dave began predictably. “You can come with us, honey. We’re not mad at you.”
I looked sideways at her. “You’re free to do anything you want.” Mary-Christine stood still. “By that remark, Dave, I take it you’re mad at me?”
“You had no right to interfere.”
“That’s a dumb argument, Dave. If we hadn’t interfered, you’d all be dead. Mary-Christine, too.”
“We had it under control. Amos was being watched.”
“That’s a crock of bullshit, and you know it. If he was being watched, why did you phone him after I challenged you, and tell Amos my story to his face?” That shook him. “I was in the bushes, Dave. I heard the whole phone call. I know you were in cahoots with him. I know about the college fund payoff.”
He suddenly lost some of the composure he’d walked out with.
“You’re running around with a vampire! A known murderer.”
“Yes, I am. And she’s a better person than you are. At least I know where I stand with her. You, however, were being used in some huge vampire plan.”
He turned to Mary-Christine again. “Honey, your mother’s up the wall with worry.”