Everyone thinks it’s the end of the world—and it was supposed to be, but I got it wrong.
Another station is doing street interviews and I recognize a few familiar faces—a few familiarmalevolent faces—fighting to hold back smiles.
“Awful,” they say, shaking their milk white heads, wearing baseball caps to shield their black, black eyes. “Simply awful.” They talk like fish blowing kisses, not wanting their fangs to show.
No one makes the blood connection. Nobody but those air-kissing fish, my nonbenevolent brothers. The mortal media are still busy babbling about the Rapture and UFOs and whether or not there’s a terrorist link. Fortunately for vampires like me, the crime has destroyed its own evidence, but sooner or later we’re going to be forced out of our shadows.
The plan from the beginning was to go public only after we had the numbers in our favor. But my little fuckup put the whole thing in jeopardy. Instead of being “this close” to success, we’re suddenly “this close” to total exposure, and disaster.
Needless to say, I am talked to.
I am advised to “stick to the strippers, Marty,” to take it “one neck at a time.”
“They have to be hand held,” I am reminded. “They need to know the rules.”
Me, I nod. I agree. I swear I’ll do better.
And then I go around, bumping into things for a while. Crying inexplicably. Going blank. Going to the strip clubs, but not to vamp. I go there for the noise, the distraction. A shoulder to cry on.
“What doyou got to cry about?” a mortal stripper asks me one night.
And when I look up, it’s her—the tipping point. I don’t know that, yet. I don’t even know who she is outside of a stripper who’s a little too white for a mortal and too tattooed for my taste.
“Marty,” I say, not interested, but not impolite.
“Lizzy,” she says, sitting her bony ass down. “The pope’s sister,” she says.
I laugh, despite my mood.
She doesn’t.
And she’s not kidding, either. Sheis the pope’s sister. His little sister. They come from a big old-fashioned Catholic family that wasn’t planning on going to hell for using birth control. Over a dozen, give or take, a good chunk of them still in Detroit—a better-than-thou chunk of them wearing funny hats in the Vatican. She’s the black sheep of the family, a junky living on the streets of Detroit, doing a little stripping, then a little prostitution, and then a little dying, when all the bills came due. At the ripe old age of twenty-six, she woke up with full-blown AIDS playing Pac-Man in her veins. At the time I met her, she’d gone back to stripping, hoping to earn funeral expenses, at least.
Like the woman said, what didI have to cry about?
Hey, Petey sweetie. This is Lizzy. I’m kinda fucked. Call my cell.”
That’s the message she leaves on the pope’s—her brother’s—voice mail. I was there to hear it; I was there to make her make it. But evenI didn’t know that crude little message would become the Benevolent Vampires’ “one small step for man.”
My goal was much more modest. I was just trying to do something about another little problem we vampires were having—benevolent and malevolent both—namely, the Vatican death squads. I was just trying to get Lizzy’s brother’s kind to stop killingmy kind. To earn my way back into the good graces of the Benevolent Vampire Society. To help balance out my karma, at least a little. I had no idea it was going to work out the way it did.
I’m with her when the pope calls back. We’ve been waiting on a crumbling door stoop in one of Detroit’s crackier neighborhoods. It’s raining, and windy, and judging from her shiver, probably cold, though it could also be a fever from her disease, or withdrawal. I watch her breathing; it leaks out in wisps. She’s wearing a black leather suit jacket, no padding, no special lining to keep her warm, and so she isn’t, even though she’s got both arms wrapped around herself. Her phone starts bleating in her pocket so she takes it out, flips it open, says, “Hello?” but all she hears is the local wind, blowing in the mouthpiece and coming out in her ear, rewired and staticky.
“I can’t hear you,” she shouts, switching hands because the first one is already freezing. “Let me get out of this shit for a sec,” she says, looking up the street and noticing an old phone booth, the phone long since busted out. The dome light still works, though, backlighting the squiggles and scrawls of gang graffiti. She closes herself inside, but I force it open again. I play windbreak while she slumps to the floor of the booth, still hugging herself with one arm, holding her phone up with the other.
“Hey, Petey. Long time no—”
“No. Yeah. No. Same ol’ same ol’. Like you care. No. No.Money I can get. Like you care. Friends. Justfriends. Yes,guy friends. Listen, I got it. What do you mean, ‘Got what?’ ‘Got milk.’It. The bug. AIDS.” Pause. “Hello? Petey?”
I imagine the pope all alone in his bedroom, brocade this, velvet that, gold everywhere, even on the edges of books, the threads of his clothing, his whole world heavy with gilt. The hand with the ring holds his secure phone, while the other hand—the one that’s just old and heavily veined—cups across his eyes. “Lizzy, Lizzy, Lizzy,” I hear his tinny voice say, all the way from the Vatican to crack land Detroit. She was just a baby when he entered the seminary; he watched her grow up in Polaroids his mother sent him, along with clippings of articles from theWeekly World News, with penned-on notes like “Ain’t this a stitch?” or “Thought you might need a tickle.” The photos and the clippings are what his mother sent instead of letters. He didn’t take it personally.
“Have you told anyone else?” he asks, meaning their other, less important siblings, the ones who looked at Lizzy as a good source for black sweaters.
“No.”
“Do you have a plan?” he asks. For as long as he’s known her, his little sister has always had a plan, generally one he disapproved of, but which he could do nothing about. She seemed to specialize in surviving in ways aimed at horrifying and embarrassing her older brother.
Family, it’s a wonderful thing.
“Don’t know as I’d call it aplan,” Lizzy says. “It’s more like the me-not-dying option. It’s kinda the last card in my deck.”
I imagine the pope, her brother, taking his hand away from his eyes. “Meaning?”
“Do you believe in vampires?” Lizzy asks. This was back when belief in my kind was still optional, when the Vatican’s budget for its vampire hit squad was hidden under the line item for landscaping. This was the time when the official answer to Lizzy’s question was no, when mysterious disappearances were just left mysterious, or written off as your run-of-the-mill serial killings.
And let me assure you, we vampires didn’t have to work all that hard, covering our tracks. There were plenty of folks on the other side only too willing to make up excuses for us. So maybe it wasn’t so surprising that no one had made the link to my little goof-up. You don’t generally find what you’re actively avoiding. In fact, the vampire hunters were just about the only reason we had to be careful at all. As far as local law enforcement went, nobody ever lost their job for pulling out the ol’ drug-hit stamp. The Vatican was well versed in this “Don’t ask, don’t tell” charade, having cut its teeth on pedophile priests, lesbian nuns, priests and nuns living together like married couples.
But none of those things stayed covered up forever.
“Are you talking tome, or the papal ‘we’?” her brother the pope asks.
“You, Peter,” Lizzy says. “It’s just me, and I’m talking to just you.”
“No,” her brother says. “I don’tbelieve in vampires. I don’t have to. Iknow they exist. I’veseen them. I’ve seen them explode in the rays of the rising sun. I’ve looked in their dead eyes, touched their crypt-cold skin, listened to their devilish lies.”
If I ever die, I’ll probably go to hell for this, but while the pope’s speaking, I’m making that yackety-yack gesture with my hand. Lizzy rolls her eyes and nods in agree
ment.
“Um,” Lizzy says. “Yeah.” She pauses. “About that, you see. That’s kind of my future you’re dissing.”
“Meaning?”
“I’ve got two choices, brother dear. Dead or undead. And I’m not liking that first one.”
“I see.”
“Which brings me to my reason for calling.”
“You mean you didn’t just call to tell me you’re dying of AIDS, but have decided to become a vampire instead?”
“Well, that was part of the reason, sure,” Lizzy says. “But there’s this other thing.” She pauses. “The guys tell me you’ve got like this special-ops team or something, cutting off heads, torching ’em, chaining ’em up while a boom box plays ‘Here Comes the Sun.’ ”
“ ‘The guys,’ ” the pope, her brother, repeats. “You mean your bloodsucking friends?”
“I don’t recall saying anything about lawyers.”
“Cute.”
“But seriously, Petey,” his sister says. “If these people are gonna be my buds, it’s kinda not cool, you having ’em offed and all. ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ remember?”
“They’rethe killers,” her brother insists.
“Not all of them,” Lizzy insists right back. “There are some good ones. Remember stem cells? Yeah, I know. I know. Sore subject. But, hey, they’re making fake blood now. No need to…you know.”
The pope, her brother, doesn’t say anything.
The junky, his sister, waits for a second or two before telling him she can hear him crossing his eyes—which he doesn’t believe she can, even though, at the moment, he is.
“So, whaddya say, Petey sweetie?” Lizzy wheedles. “Ix-nay on the eath-day ad-squay?”
There’s a pause on the other end. More wind. More static. Finally:
“What death squad?” the pope says.
The short version is, the Vatican stopped murdering vampires forty-eight hours later and a delegation of my benevolent brethren met with His Holiness the following week. And after that, Pope Peter the Whatever became Pope Peter the Last. It seems immortality without killing had a certain appeal to the aging pontiff. Seems there was something in the Bible about drinking somebody’s blood and getting eternal life in return. And if you didn’t have to kill people, then so much the better.
Eventually, the wealth was shared. Arrangements were made, adults-only midnight masses scheduled, and for the next several weeks, Communion was standing-room-only.
A mass distribution system. That’s what we needed, and that’s what we got.
The sick and dying got preferential treatment, followed by the Knights of Columbus, the Altar Society, the ushers, and the rest. Each stuck out his or her tongue, already numbed with oil of cloves, and a deacon drew a scalpel down each, after which the priest offered the chalice and another deacon handed out pamphlets of dos and don’ts.
In Safeways across the land, clerks on the graveyard shift wondered at the sudden popularity of tinfoil and duct tape, and when these sold out, spray paint. The blacks—flat, glossy—went first, followed by the darker shades of blue. Followed by tumbleweeds blowing down the empty aisles, followed by flies drawn to the Dumpsters full of rotting produce, followed by customers again, but all wearing sunglasses after dark, all smiling oh so pointedly.
“Pssst, kiddo. Have you heard the good word?”
“No.”
“Excellent…”
Followed by, “Cleanup in aisle six.”
So, yeah, Father Jack’s got a lot of nerve, judging me. And I plan to tell him so, the following evening, after putting Isuzu to bed.
“Where’s Trooper?” he asks.
“Excuse me?”
“Your dog,” Father Jack says.
Oh yeah. “Busy,” I say.
“Busy?”
“Doing dog things,” I say.
“Yeah, same with Judas,” Father Jack says, having come to a halt. He waits as Judas squats on his hind legs, quivers, strains. “Which is generally why we take them for walks, no?”
“Oh, Trooper’s not into that.”
“Trooper’s not into relieving himself?” Father Jack says. “So…Trooper’s been vamped?”
“Um. Yeah.”
“Why?”
“I never really liked dogs, per se,” I say. “No offense, Judas. But I love puppies.”
“Tell me about it,” Father Jack says, and the way he says it so wistfully, it’s clear there are a lot of other things he’snot saying. It’s clear he wants me to notice him not saying these other things. He wants me to ask. I think I probably already know. I guess this really was an invitation to talk, not to be talked at, or recruited back.
“Oh yeah?” I say.
Father Jack nods.
“Occupational hazard?”
“Curse.” Father Jack sighs. “Karma. Or destiny. I was as a kid. And I promised myself I’d never. So, of course…”
I stop. Dead. Isuzu’s still in my ear, keeping me company. And I’m younger, stronger, and bigger than Father Jack.
“Important question,” I say, my teeth and fangs clenched.
“Shoot.”
Yeah, if I had a machine gun, maybe.
“Did you ever,” I say, “and I meanever —practice?”
Father Jack weighs this question. “Almost,” he says. “Which is how I found out. But no. No. I just suffer all the joys of not practicing.”
Wind. Trees. You know the routine.
“I don’t know if I would have stayed that way,” Father Jack goes on. “But then I got lucky, I guess. The world changed. No kids, no problem.” He pauses. “Timing’s everything, I guess.”
More wind. More trees.
“On the plus side,” I say, “I guess I don’t have to kill you or anything.”
“Thanks…,” Father Jack says.
“You’re welc—”
“…for nothing.”
Normally, a semisuicidal, nonpracticing pedophile priest with fangs would not be my first choice as confidant. Surely, there must be less appalling hyphenates to pick from. A Nazi-Quaker shaman, for instance. Or an obsessive-compulsive, anal-retentive hair stylist. Or even a chitchatty mail carrier ticking like a time bomb and committing postal fraud with a fake ID and a rented post box from Mail Boxes Etc. All of these would seem less dubious, less trouble, less risky.
But lately, I’ve been finding myself in the same boat as Father Jack. Notthe same the same. But a sympathetic boat—a boat that can relate to Father Jack’s boat. I’m a vampire living with a mortal I’ve decided to watch grow up, instead of killing, and even though I dearly love my little sports utility vehicle, even though my life would be a wasteland without her, in the right light, I can’t help but notice that vein pulsing slowly in her neck. She’ll be lying on her stomach, coloring, and she’ll brush back some hair that’s fallen in her face, tuck it behind her ear, and there I am, looking at her young neck, exposed.
“Where you going?” Isuzu asks.
“Forgot to get a paper,” I say. “Hold down the fort.”
And then I follow my shadow around to Father Jack’s place. Ask after Judas, whose ears are always up for a vigorous scratching.
“How ya doin’, boy? How ya doin’?
“Attaboy.
“Good boy.”
“Having an urge to gamble, are we?” Father Jack asks.
Gambling. That’s my euphemism. That’s the surrogate addiction I’ve confessed to, the boat that can relate to Father Jack’s boat. No need to make this any more complicated than it is.
“Yep.”
“Have a seat,” Father Jack says. “I’ll warm something up.”
11
The Perfect Pet
Why’d ya give itmy name?”
This is the first thing Isuzu wants to know after the introductions have been made. And it’s a fair question, though not the reaction I expected, bringing home a black Labrador puppy, freshly vamped and wearing a bow. I was expecting something more in the hug department, but she�
��s been rationing those lately—just like her giggles. Nowadays, the only thing she doesn’t seem to be skimping on is sentences that sound vaguely accusatory and tend to end in question marks.
“Because he’s got big feet, too,” I say, letting Trooper’s paws prove my case.
“But it’smy name,” Isuzu insists.
“I swear I won’t get you guys confused. Deal?”
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