Vampires Don't Cry: The Collection

by Ian Hall

  “But we don’t have much time,” I protested.

  And of course, she didn’t pay the slightest attention.

  Greyish light covered the campus when we got outside, but the lawns still looked deserted.

  Thankfully the last location proved to be just a bunch of storerooms, non-refrigerated.

  We got off the campus without further incident, and were back in the hotel room by five-thirty.

  Mandy lay fast asleep, Tomas’s journal on her chest. Her mouth lay open slightly.

  I couldn’t help staring at her. I went to sleep as hard as iron, thinking of Mandy putting her finger in her mouth.

  So much for sleep.

  The next day, as I sat in class, Finch and Valérie did their invisible photo shoot.

  And I got more facts, more teaching, and more and more bored.

  That night, our objective had changed again. Now we had to figure out exactly who seemed to be in charge, and work out a pecking order.

  So we all sat with photos covering the carpet, names written on most of them. Howard Weeks at Unicorps had supplied many after receiving the photos by text.

  “So this is big,” I said, when we took a break.

  “Much bigger than we thought.” Valérie studied the photos. “We need to find out what’s going on.”

  “And we need to find out who’s boss around here,” I said.

  Valérie tapped Angela’s photo. “I’m hedging my bets. It’s either Angela McCartney or this one, Judy Miller. They’re the only two that I recognize as being Blanche vampires; maybe the last two in the world.”

  “And you think only Blanche vampires would scheme like this?”

  “Amos was very single-minded; power, even if it was just for its own sake. Somehow the lust for power is at the root of all this; we just don’t know exactly how at this point.”

  I felt great, but tempered my high with the needs of the mission. When I got back to the hotel, I slipped into bed to grab a couple of hours before classes began.

  Lyman gave me a sour reception the next morning. Phone switched off, big brother looking after me kind of thing.

  Next night, back at base camp, things progressed a bit. Dozens of pics lay on the floor, and we took some time talking to Howard to get names for most of them. I stayed on the fringes of any conversation, my nose tucked into Tomas’s writings.

  Then back to class, to learn more about medical stuff. Veins, arteries, blah, blah, fricking blah. This University kick had got under my skin slightly. I had nothing in common with the rest of my class, other than we all drank blood. I hated them, despised almost every one of them, yet had to pretend all the time to be on their side.

  To make matters worse, Finch and Valérie actively encouraged me to chat to my classmates and learn the real mission. Yeah, as if they’d tell me.

  We dug around for a couple of days, looking for the vampire’s main plan, but turned up nothing.

  Even the vampire ninjas came back empty-handed. Whatever the Alucard geniuses had planned, they had a tight lid on it.

  “So, maybe we rock the boat,” I proposed.

  Valérie rounded on me. “You’ve said that before.”

  “And I’ll say it again. We shake the tree and see what falls off.”

  Finch looked excited. “Maybe we do a Căluşari strike. We’ve not done one for a while. I’m getting all tingly just thinking about it.”

  Valérie grinned condescendingly at her. “Okay, cool down, miss itchy heels.” She looked at me. “But who do we take out first?”

  Lyman held up a picture. “We take the low-hanging fruit first, the easy pickings. Steven Barber is playing the part of a janitor, he’s often found tending the grounds, or in the cellars. Let’s try him.”

  Valérie looked at the rest of us. “Any other takers?”

  I shook my head, not particularly caring anyway. Any vampire seemed as good as another, but one word had tripped off their tongues that seemed out of place. “Căluşari?”

  Valérie grinned in her ‘know-it-all’ way. “Old bunch of Transylvanian vampire hunters from back in the old days. They do a double strike with long knives, one sticking from the front, one from the back.”

  Finch remained passive as Valérie demonstrated the moves with pens. “The Bãtrane knives are meant to cross inside the heart for it to be called a perfect hit.”

  I made an ‘icky’ face. “Sounds a little… ‘Conan the Barbarian’ to me.”

  “Oh, when it’s done correctly, it’s a piece of art.”

  “Almost a ballet,” Finch added.

  “What do you think, Lyman?” I asked the silent partner. “A pair of ninjas.”

  “Yeah, really.”

  “Enough, you two.” Valérie’s voice raised a decibel or two. “Just be ready with your car after class tomorrow.”

  “Where do you want us?” I asked.

  “Don’t know yet, but it’ll be somewhere on campus, so stay close. And Lyman, get rid of your girlfriend, we don’t need witnesses.”

  So after another day’s class notes on more blood subjects, I sat in the car with Lyman waiting for the call.

  5:30 on the dot.

  “Mandy?” Valérie.

  “Yeah?”

  “Car, now, just outside the tennis courts.”

  “Okay.” The car started the first time. “Two minutes, no more.”

  We got to the tennis courts parking lot, but I didn’t see anything. I wound my window down, and Lyman did the same.

  “Pop the trunk,” Finch said, right in my ear, but of course I turned and never saw a thing.

  The trunk flipped open, and I got out and walked around. Suddenly a body appeared in the small trunk, on top of the blanket I carried.

  “Shut it,” Valérie said, but I still couldn’t see a sign of them. “Drive out of town on Highway 10, head west. We’ll catch up.”

  Man, this invisibility thing sure messed with your head.

  Elena had proven easier to shake than I’d envisioned. A quick mention of ‘family business’, and she shrugged, gave me a huge send-off kiss, then skipped away smug and satisfied, with me tenting in my jeans. A win-win situation.

  We waited like Valérie had asked, and soon we got a double tap on the car roof.

  Of course, we couldn’t see anyone near the car, they’d done the invisible thing, so Mandy sprung the trunk open and got out.

  In ten seconds Mandy sat back down in the car after closing the trunk. “It’s done.” She took off, heading out of the campus.

  “What is?”

  “The body’s in the trunk. They did the invisible thing.”

  “They made the body invisible, too?”

  “Yup; it materialized right in front of me.”

  “Man, that pair are some team.”

  “I don’t say this often, Lyma-bean, but those girls scare the shit out of me.”

  “Yeah,” I replied, knowing exactly her train of thought. “Imagine if they were on the other side?”

  We took Highway 10 west of town, but of course, being the ‘rush hour’, the road remained busy till outside the main conurbation. Once we got past Buckeye, Valérie’s car passed us, and with a wave, she led us south on side roads for a while, until we almost ran out of road altogether. Scrub desert as far as the eye could see, and the sun lay low enough in the sky for all the red desert colors to dance before us. It looked both pretty, and considering what we were about to do, kinda scary at the same time.

  The ninja twins got out of Valérie’s car and disappeared.

  I looked at Mandy next to me. “Scouting around?”

  She nodded. “Probably.”

  I got out and stood, leaning on the side of the car. “You know, it is beautiful here. You know, the desolation, and all that stuff.”

  Mandy make a mock sneeze. “Bullshit!” she grinned. “That Latino thing’s got you getting all soppy, man.”

  “She has a name.”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  The girls r
eturned, seemingly satisfied in the bleakness of our periphery.

  “Careful when we open the trunk, we don’t want him to skip out on us,” Valérie said, taking position at the back of Mandy’s car.

  But as the trunk opened, it seems Steve hadn’t moved much. Still wearing his dark blue coveralls, he had multiple thick white ties around his ankles and wrists, and he spat at us as we lifted him. “I don’t know what you’re doing, kids, but this prank….”

  Finch cut off his ‘holier-than-thou’ speech with a smash of her fists into his temples. Man, that would have hurt.

  He reeled against the blows as we pulled him free of the car and laid him against a slope at the side of the dirt road. Valérie cut the ties at his wrists, and at her nod, Mandy and I took an arm each, and held him against the grassy incline. Finch sat astride his waist, her bottom right on his crotch.

  Wow, I wouldn’t mind being that crotch right then. I looked at her profile. Nice looking girl, Finch. I wondered if her ass felt any movement in his trousers. There would have been movement in mine, I can tell you.

  Mandy cleared her throat, and I got shocked back to reality. She’d obviously followed my looking at Finch. Yup, she’d caught me red-handed.

  So, with three of us sitting on the janitor/headmaster, he wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Hi, Steve,” Valérie took the lead in interrogation instinctively. Well, I mean, she is the oldest. “We’re all vampires here. When were you turned?”

  He managed a grin. “I’m not telling you kids anything.”

  Finch leant forward. Bam! Same punches again, same place, side of the head. Perfectly delivered, Valérie had even leant out of the way as Finch acted. I started to see the quality of the teamwork involved. These guys had done this before.

  “Steve, you’re going to tell us your fucking life story before we’re done with you.” Valérie inclined her head close to his. “You’re fighting for your life right now, and if you cooperate, you’ll live. If you don’t, then I’m going to slip a sliver of wood, an Aşchie, between your third and fourth ribs, and the Căluşari will celebrate another victory on American soil.”

  Steve’s eyes opened wider at the mention of the name, and he looked at every one of us in turn. “Căluşari?”

  Valérie nodded deeply. “Now tell me when you were turned.”

  “1999.”

  “See?” she flexed away from him. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  But Finch hit him hard. Then at Valérie’s nod, hit him again.

  “Bullshit me, Steve, and I’ll make your death last a year. I’ll kill you a thousand times, each more painful than the other. I’ll cut your limbs from your body, then break them as they grow again. You’ll wish you’d never been born.”

  Steve, his eyes closed against further attention from Finch, slowly settled into the dry grass behind him. I felt all force in his arm relax, but I still held on tight, pushing him into the grass.

  “1963.”

  “Good boy.” Valérie slapped him lightly on the cheek, and Steve flinched, and looked up at her. She held his chin in a solid grip. “I was born a vampire: born as a baby into the world of the Strogoi. I knew the Order before the modern idiots took control of it. I am older than you could ever imagine. Now, who turned you?”

  “The Dean, Elisa Ballantine.”

  “That her real name?”

  He nodded. “She went back to her original name this year.”

  “Where were you turned?”

  “New Jersey.”

  “What are you doing in Phoenix?”

  The two locked stares for a moment. Fear passed over his eyes. “I’m working with Elisa.”

  “Who’s in charge?”

  “Elisa.”

  Valérie shook her head.

  Bam.

  “Who’s in charge?”

  “Elisa.”

  Bam.

  His face started to puff out, cuts appearing at eyelids, forehead. I looked across at Mandy, but she knelt, transfixed. Then Valérie’s hand stayed Finch’s next punches. She went to her car, bringing back a rolled black pouch.

  “Know what this is, Steve?”

  He shook his head.

  Valérie unfastened it on the dirt, and even I gasped at the contents as she unrolled it.

  Knives, metal devices, more knives, small polished wood stakes.

  “The weapons of the Căluşari, Steve.” She lifted one knife, six inches long, its blade thin and polished, shining red in the advancing sunset. “You’ve got about a minute left before I start using them.”

  The whole scene looked really fucking bizarre. Finch was a freaking monster with her fists and had ol’ Stevie scrambling for any lie that would make her stop. No dice. Between Finch’s punches and Valérie’s built-in BS detector, Steve was up shit creek, and he’d lost any hope of a paddle.

  Valérie cut a huge ‘X’ on his chest, the knife slicing through his thick coveralls like the thinnest paper, and then pulled the material away, baring his chest totally. His white skin almost glowed in the sunset.

  “The next cuts will be bloodier.” She ran her fingers over his hairy chest, pushing the material further back. “Who’s in charge here?”

  Even in the tension of the moment, even as she threatened to kill him, I could see the sexual tension in her caress. Her fingers seemed to push the clothing away randomly, but her fingers grazed his nipples repeatedly, his lips quivering each time she did.

  In the face of certain death, I could see the temptation of desire in his expression. For a millisecond, they were lovers, locked together in some sadistic foreplay.

  Effing breathtaking.

  Then I saw Finch moving. Her hips danced ever so delightfully on the man’s dick. I looked at her open-mouthed, wondering if she’d been doing this from the start, and I’d missed it. I caught a flicker of a smile in her smug expression. She was riding him as he lay there. As my awareness increased, I caught the sexuality of the moment. I looked at my own part in this weird theater.

  I pushed his forearm into the grass with both hands, his fist balled between my knees, beneath my short skirt. I’m not sure what made me do it, but it seems that instinctively I shimmied forward. I’m sure no one but Steve noticed. I now gripped his bicep firmly, but Steve’s hand now lay squarely under my crotch.

  He gave no glimpse of recognition, but instantly, his fingers relaxed from a tight fist then, feeling my upper thighs against them, began to push through my panties at my sex.

  He swallowed, holding back for a second. “Elisa Ballantine.”

  With astonishing speed, Valérie cut two huge ‘X’ marks on his chest. Steve screamed at the pain, his fingers thrust upwards, pushing the material into me. I gasped, but again, looking around the partners in this strange macabre orgy, it seemed that no one else noticed.

  With a realization that my panties were already soaked, I pushed down on his frantic fingers.

  Finch grabbed at Steve’s coveralls near her crotch, then pulled outwards as she slid down his body, almost to his ankles. As the material ripped, it laid open his belly and groin. Despite his pain and fear, Steve sported a tremendous hard-on.

  A delicious hard-on.

  “Why, what have we here?” Valérie moved her attention downward, eyeing his boner like a trophy. “Has my sister been teasing you, Steve?”

  She cut another ‘X’ below the now bleeding wounds. “Who’s in charge here?”

  Steve’s fingers seemed to have a will of their own. Pushing the narrow strip of cotton aside, he found me.

  With his head straining upward, looking down at Valérie’s work, he closed his mouth tightly. Shaking his head against her questions, he moved a finger inside me.

  The next cuts opened up his belly, and his organs and intestines inside pushed outward, straining against the tendrils of skin that remained intact.

  “Who’s in charge, Steve?”

  He strained against our holding him, pushing his body off the bank.

  V
alérie then looked at me, and gave me a very knowing smile. I think my lip quivered, but Steve’s probing digit led me in a merry dance.

  “Perhaps we can save you after all, Steve.” Valérie grinned. “Perhaps Mandy can help you out down there. Maybe we can all be friends.” She motioned with a flick of her head that I should grip him.

  I shook my head. I mean, it had all gotten far too out of hand already.

  “Mandy.” Valérie’s voice would not take my refusal. I let go his arm with my left hand, not my best, and leaning over the bright red bulge of intestines, I grabbed it.

  Oh, boy, by the reaction of his finger inside me, he liked that.

  “Who’s in charge, Steve?”

  “Judy Miller,” he suddenly said with consummate ease.

  “What’s she doing in Phoenix?”

  “Dunno.”

  Valérie made a pumping motion with her hand, and I mimicked the motion on Steve’s ever hardening dick.

  “Ooh, God.” Steve looked from Valérie to me, then back. His mouth gasped open, his upper lip quivering as I pumped my hand. “She’s here for the election.”

  It seemed that everyone had an immense “What the Fuck?” moment. I mean, we’d expected a lot of things he’d confess to, but an election? Steve, of course, had no such moment. Somehow he’d gotten another finger inside me, and I was having severe difficulty sitting still.

  “The election?” Valérie demanded, her face covered in doubt and confusion.

  “Senator Wilson’s replacement.” His face looked tortured, but I knew it wasn’t from pain. I pumped his penis hard, despite it being my ‘wrong’ hand, I’d gotten a rhythm. “We’ve got our own candidate lined up.”

  This had all gotten so very fucking bizarre. The guy now blubbered about an election, he had two fingers up my twat, and I was crouched over him, jacking him openly. I hadn’t looked at Lyman for ages, ashamed at my actions in the whole mess.

  “Who’s the candidate?” Valérie screamed.

  “Dunno.” He shook his head.

  “Who’s the candidate?”

  I swear my head almost came off with the volume so close.

  “I know who he is!” he shook his head from side to side. “I just can’t remember his name!” he roared, his eyes bulging, stretching his head maniacally at her. “We’ve each got our tasks. I didn’t pay any attention to the election thing!”