by Raven Hart
I swore and snapped the lid closed on the flip phone. Had he read my mind remotely? Nah. I hollered over to Rennie that I had to go out and might not be back before closing. He waved from under the hood of a Buick, and I hopped in my Corvette.
Whatever William wanted, I hoped I could get it out of the way and get on with the nasty business of telling him how his life was about to get a whole lot more complicated. I couldn’t stand the burden of the awful truth much longer. I just hoped he wouldn’t decide to bite the messenger.
“I’m here for what, now?” Werm took a seat on the leather couch in William’s den. I handed him a blood cocktail in a highball glass.
“Voodoo lessons,” I said. “Just watch and listen. Remember what I was telling you the other day?” I sat beside him and stretched my legs. “We’ve got these special powers because of the mambo blood. Powers other vampires don’t have. Even William doesn’t know everything we can do, and it’s about time we all found out.”
“In case the big, bad European vampires come for Reedrek,” Werm clarified.
“Yeah. We’re going to need every tool in the shed.”
“What about all those other vamps coming for the big meeting? Do they have special powers, too?”
“William gave them only a little voodoo blood when they came over, and it was diluted. They’re some stronger than your average Eurovamp, but not a lot. Not like us.” I could tell Werm was getting all excited about the big vampire powwow. Making the arrangements was such a big to-do that we had to round up all the help we could get. Every last one of William’s employees, from the boys at the warehouse to the staff at the plantation, were helping with travel and accommodations.
Melaphia had put Werm in charge of just enough to make him feel important, and he was chomping at the bit to meet more of “his own kind,” as he put it. I hated to burst his bubble, but if those high-falutin’ yankee vamps looked down on Werm as much as they did me, he was going to be made to feel like a third-class denizen of the dark—kinda like the folks in steerage on the Titanic. And with that weird getup of his, it was a lead-pipe cinch they would do just that.
Eleanor sat opposite us on a love seat. Deylaud lounged in his oh-so-lean-and-elegant human skin at her side. She sipped at a drink, her other arm draped lightly across Deylaud’s back. Her long, slender fingers stroked his shoulder absently. Deylaud looked as if he was in heaven itself and didn’t take his eyes off her face. He had scooted so close to her, you could barely pass a penny between them. I half wondered if he would jump onto her lap, as he sometimes did with his favorite humans, when he was in a playful, doggy mood. That would be quite a sight.
Werm propped his black leather boots on the coffee table and I gave his legs a backhanded swat. He put his feet back down on the floor.
“Were you born in a barn? I can’t believe your society mama didn’t teach you any manners.”
“That’s all she ever taught me,” Werm complained. “We’re vampires, for cripes sake,” he said, pouting. “We’re tough guys, badasses. Who needs manners?”
“We’re gentlemen,” William said suddenly. He swept into the room with Melaphia following close behind. William scowled when he saw Deylaud hip-to-thigh with Eleanor. “Out,” he said, inclining his head toward the door.
Deylaud stood up and slowly walked out of the den. If he’d had a tail in human form, it would have been between his legs. He gave a final, mournful look in Eleanor’s direction before disappearing around the corner.
Turning his attention back to Werm, William said, “Just because we’re blood drinkers doesn’t mean we’re animals. We’re an ancient, noble race. There are those of us who choose to live no better than four-footed carnivores, but that doesn’t mean that we must.”
“You mean like Reedrek?” Werm asked.
“Him and his ilk, yes.” William crossed to the bar and poured himself a glass of blood out of the decanter. In his black turtleneck and sport coat, if the man had had a martini in his hand he could’ve stepped right out of a damned James Bond movie. “We will behave like well-bred southern gentlemen.”
I thought about the dream I’d had the other night. The guy I fought was no well-bred gentleman blood drinker. I thought about telling the others about the guy, but why bother? It was only a dream, and my dreams never came true.
“Gentleman vampires?” Werm said. He drained his drink and sprang to his feet. He wore his favorite goth getup—black leather everything, rows of silver earrings in both ears, severe-tire-damage hairdo. “This is just the kind of bourgeois bullshit I wanted to get away from when I begged you guys to make me a vampire! I want to kick some ass!”
Eleanor arched a black brow. “You need someone to keep you in line.”
Werm looked like he didn’t know whether to get a hard-on or run for his life. “And she’s just the one who can do it, son,” I said.
William took a drink and pinched the bridge of his nose. If he’d had any notions of building a refined southern “family,” his efforts weren’t getting off to a good start.
“Don’t forget your place,” I said to Werm. “Now pay attention. You might learn something that could save your hide.”
“I should go hang out with my real friends,” he muttered. “There’s a new guy who hangs out at the club and he’s way cooler than you, Jack.”
“Does he have a set of these?” I said, and thrust out my fangs. Werm’s own fangs hadn’t finished growing in yet. They were what we call baby fangs.
“Well, no,” he admitted.
“Then he’s not cooler than me.”
Werm was cowed and looked ready to do whatever I said. When we’d all settled back down, William said, “Werm—” he paused. “Lamar. You’re in a unique position. As a fledgling vampire you have a chance to learn from a master vampire and a mambo priestess. If you only knew how rare an opportunity that is, perhaps you would appreciate it more. Now, if you want to be civilized, you may stay and learn. If you want to be feral, then go out on the streets and do the best you can. Until I come for you.”
“I—I want to stay,” Werm said, and meekly added, “Sir.”
William smiled benevolently and turned to confer with Melaphia—I suppose about what they were going to teach us.
I couldn’t believe how patient William was being. On the rare instances when I sassed him as a fledgling, he opened a can of whup-ass on me until I learned my place. I knew what had caused his leniency. He’d gone all “love is in the air” because of Eleanor. William finally had a mate, a companion, a true intimate, and his attitude had changed for the better, even though he was still under stress because of his new political responsibilities.
Ordinarily, I’d be as pleased as a dead pig in the sunshine for the guy. But William’s newfound happiness only made what I had to do that much harder. I squirmed in my seat, thinking about his potential reaction when I told him that Olivia had informed me that Diana was still alive. Talk about opening a can—what a can of worms this would be. He had just what he needed in Eleanor—a woman vampire who fascinated him, challenged him…and loved him. At last he had someone to share eternity with, someone who made him want to continue to exist when just a few months ago he was ready to pack it in for good and all.
I agreed with Olivia on one thing. I didn’t have any doubt that William would drop everything he was trying to build, both with Eleanor and with the Bonaventure organization, and go to find Diana, even if he had to run off to the ends of the earth to do it.
Poor Eleanor. She’d given up her very life for him. I thought about that old saying: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Along with that heapin’ helpin’ of scorn, toss a fledgling vampire who didn’t know her own strength or how to wield her considerable unholy power into the Mixmaster. Lord have mercy on us all.
I had to get William aside as soon as possible, as far from Eleanor as I could get him. They’d been joined at the hip since he’d made her, and I briefly thought about asking Melaphia to help me tell him. But she a
nd I were already butting heads over Connie. Better to poke my own head into the fire.
“As you know—” William began.
“Jack can fly,” Werm blurted.
William froze in midsentence. He, Melaphia, and Eleanor looked at me as if I’d grown a second head.
“What?” William said finally.
“Only a little,” I said.
“I saw him!” Werm was on the edge of his seat. “He hovered over the river and fell in.”
“What?” William asked again.
“I thought about what you said that night you were making Eleanor,” I said. “Werm and me were talking about how some movie vampires can fly.”
“Like Anne Rice’s vampires,” Eleanor pointed out. She seemed to be getting kind of excited about the idea, too.
Werm got a mushy look on his face. “I just looove Anne Rice.”
“Me too,” Eleanor gushed. “And many of my clients really love her work. I mean, a lot. And not just the vampire stuff, but, you know, her other work.”
I leaned forward. “Tell me more.”
“Focus, people!” William closed his eyes and sighed. “What happened. Exactly.”
“Like I said, I told Werm about you saying we need to explore our abilities. And then we were talking about what vampires in the books and movies can do, like fly, for example. So I figured I would try it. I mean, you don’t know if you don’t try, right?”
“Right,” William agreed, watching me now.
“So I climbed onto the roof of the boathouse and jumped off. And, you know, concentrated, sort of. And I hovered for a few seconds. And then Werm yelled or something and it broke my concentration.”
William rubbed his chin. “Continue.”
“And then I fell into the river.”
“You are the man, Jack,” Eleanor remarked.
“I told him he should practice,” Werm put in. “Who knows how good he could get if he worked at it?”
William thought for a moment. “Werm’s right. You should try to develop that skill. You two are on the right track. We need to discover our strengths. And weaknesses.”
When William said the word weaknesses, all eyes turned to Werm.
“Why’s everybody looking at me?” he asked defensively.
Melaphia’s nose twitched. “What about you, Lamar? Have you discovered any special talents of your own?” she asked.
“Yeah, how’s that X-ray vision?” I chuckled. “Were you able to see through any T-shirts on Tybee, lover boy?”
If Werm had still been human, I think he would have blushed, but it’s hard for vampires to blush. Blushing is just not an undead thing. Werm did something a lot more interesting than that.
He turned transparent.
It was a lot like how Shari had looked when she’d appeared in the vault after Eleanor was made. Kind of smoky and filmy. Insubstantial, you might say. “That’s a pretty good trick right there,” I said.
“What?” Werm asked.
Melaphia narrowed her eyes. “We can see through you.”
“Yeah?” Werm looked down at himself. “Cool.”
The instant he decided he was cool, he firmed up. Solidified, that is. “You haven’t noticed this before tonight?” I asked. Werm shook his head.
“This could be useful,” William observed. “I wonder…”
I knew what he was thinking. “If you practiced, maybe you could be completely invisible.”
“Gee, I don’t know. I don’t know what I did to go transparent just now.”
“I do,” Eleanor purred. Catlike, she rose from the love seat and walked toward the sofa where Werm and I sat. She slid onto the sofa, her knees straddling Werm, whose eyes grew to the size of golf balls. Without actually touching him, Eleanor leaned forward, bringing her lovely—and generous—breasts to within millimeters of Werm’s face. Then she whispered something close to his ear. He looked so pale I expected him to swoon like a virgin, facefirst into her cleavage. The boy had no clue what to do with a woman like Eleanor. But instead, quite suddenly Eleanor looked to be straddling thin air.
“Oh, I get it,” Melaphia said. “He goes invisible when he’s embarrassed.”
“It would seem so,” William observed as he took Eleanor’s hand to help her up and away from the invisible Werm. “How many times did we, as adolescents, wish we could disappear when forced to endure an awkward moment?”
“The voodoo blood must help him actually do it,” I said. “Well, I’ll be damned.” I couldn’t see Werm’s silly grin, but William’s expression of disgust proved that Werm was also going to have to learn to hide his thoughts the best he could. Right now even I could pick them up, and I wasn’t his sire. He was thinking about women’s locker rooms.
William
“You’re going to have to learn to control this, Lamar. We don’t want you causing a stir by disappearing in public. This is an even better reason to explore our strengths. Not only to find them but to learn how to use them effectively.”
“Yeah,” Jack added. “Maybe this whole flying thing could come in handy over at the Oglethorpe Speedway. Even if I couldn’t make the car fly, I could cut down on the—” He glanced toward Eleanor. “—pardon the expression, deadweight, by floating above the seat—”
“Jack!” Melaphia interrupted. “The blood of the Vodoun is not meant to be used to win bets at a racetrack. Now hush and let’s get started.”
Jack sat back, but I could see that his mind was still working. I moved over to sit by Eleanor and discovered Deylaud had returned and settled cross-legged at her feet. In human form, he wasn’t much better at hiding his fascination with her than as a canine. Unwilling to set the group off on another tangent, I didn’t comment. I simply gave him a warning look before pulling Eleanor closer to me.
Melaphia shut her eyes and drew in a breath deep enough to straighten her spine. Then, eyes open, she moved to face the group.
“Most people think Vodoun is a means to do evil, when in fact men have no trouble finding ways to do evil on their own.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Jack added.
Melaphia went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “Deylaud can show you books to read on the history, but I’ll recap since we know Jack hasn’t read a book since the Kama Sutra was published.”
“Not true. I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” Apparently we didn’t look convinced because Jack defensively added, “Well, I did.”
Mel quelled his outburst with a look and continued. “For now, just know that the practice is old, even ancient. It came from Africa and has followers in most parts of the world. Those of you sitting here are not simply followers: You carry the uninterrupted bloodline of Vodoun royalty.” She paused a moment to let that information sink in. “Our first lesson has to be humility—for humility is the way of the Vodoun. There are older, wilder forces in the world, enemies and angels. We can only ask for their help—” She lowered her chin and gazed at Jack. “—not demand it.”
Humility and Jack seldom met. As a matter of fact, both Jack and I had long ago misplaced our humility along with our humanity. When one is immortal and virtually indestructible, it’s hard to be humble. But I had felt humble in Lalee’s presence. I’d recognized her as one of those older, wilder forces on earth. And now she’d been set free into spirit.
As though Melaphia could read my thoughts she said, “The actual word, ‘Vodoun,’ means ‘spirit.’ It has to do with focus, intent, and—as much as you may not like it—faith. We need to find out what happens when spirit meets immortality.”
“Wow, voodoo vampires,” Werm whispered. “Cool.”
Jack appeared as if he might give Werm a thump on the back of his head. But the boy wore a look of complete awe.
Melaphia clasped her hands in front of her. “So, tonight we will begin the first task. We must honor the ancestors who came before us. We must honor Maman Lalee. We are all family now. We must trust and depend on one another.” She took a moment to gaze at each of us.
“Maman Lalee will choose your personal orisha—the force closest to your strengths. When we have done that, I’ll teach you to build an altar.”
“You mean we have to pray or something? Isn’t that kind of sacrilegious for us vamps?” Jack said.
“The Vodoun is a religion like many others. And yes, you especially, Jack, will be spending a good bit of time on your knees. Otherwise, you might never learn to truly fly.”
“Oh,” Jack said, sounding a little disappointed.
“Did you think it would be so easy? Say a chant and take wing?”
“Well…look at old Werm here. He hasn’t hit the floor with those sissy leather pants, and he can go all invisible and stuff.”
“True, that shows a bit of natural talent—but no control. In this case his emotions override his power. It is not a good thing to be out of control. Remember that.”
I’d spent several centuries learning control. Mostly to stave off the inevitable explosion of anger inside of me, and the loneliness. The soul-battering grief of survival without connection. Without love. I felt Eleanor’s hand come to rest on my thigh, interrupting my dark thoughts before I could reach Diana. I turned my gaze in Eleanor’s direction and she smiled. Yes, that is what you offer me: solace, distraction, love. I raised her hand to my mouth and kissed her palm. Nearly lost in her eyes, I was pulled back by Jack’s low expletive.
Before I could divine the cause, Melaphia reclaimed our attention.
“Jack, move this rock over to the fireplace,” she ordered. “Lamar, fetch the water. Captain? Will you bring Renee, please?”
I did as she’d asked and fetched Renee from the bedroom. I held her, sound asleep in my arms, as her mother bustled around the room. The distant memory of holding my own sleeping son called to me. The trusting sleep of the innocent, what some jokingly refer to as “sleeping like the dead.” My son was truly dead, five hundred years dead. I set my thoughts in other directions. Better to let the past flicker and go out.
Soon, Melaphia had composed a makeshift altar, set out with white roses, a bowl of spicy gumbo—Lalee’s favorite food—water from the oldest well in the city, and the vial that had held Lalee’s blood before we’d used it up to bring about Reedrek’s downfall. Next to the empty vial, Melaphia placed a full glass of her own blood and an old miniature portrait of Lalee herself. She indicated for me to settle Renee on a feather pillow at her feet. Then she lit several white candles.