“And that fucker Charles—” The words flew excitedly from her mouth. “He’s bad news, Al. Bad news. He’s into Satan worship, and I think he’s getting Nicole into it too. I’m worried. I think something real bad is going to happen. While she was still talking to me, she tried to tell me stuff, about how he’s able to do more things for her than you, give her more than you can. Do you have any idea what the fuck that means.”
Infernal words echoed inside me. Make me like you. I want to be like you. I don’t want to die. I want to live forever.
Alarms rang. Actions and motives, all crystal clear. Her words had said she was afraid to die; her silence had said that if I would not give her what she wanted, she would find someone who would. Surely, Nicole would not be so foolish to be taken in by a charlatan like Charles, but as Maggie was relating, she was not entirely herself.
A cultivated, icy calm coated my exterior despite what I was feeling inside. “I cannot make any promises, but I think I would be willing to have a talk with this Charles.”
“The hell with talking, Al. Kick his skinny little ass.”
“Oh, I have something far better in mind.”
———
Taking Maggie at face value would have been foolish. It did seem best to seek answers from Nicole herself.
Passing the Crystal Corner in my cab, Nicole and Charles were clearly visible through the glass front door of the bar, thus quickly ending my search. I parked my cab, entered the bar and walked to her side. Nicole said not a word as she turned and faced me, her expression quite blase. Shortly, she turned her attention back to the new object of her affection. Charles turned not his head, his expression still that forced combination of boredom and scorn, his thin lips pressed tightly together.
“We do have to talk, Nicole,” I said quietly. No reply. I stood my ground, noticing Todd hovering nearby, keeping a close watch. Our eyes met for a short moment. He gave me a sympathetic shrug, then departed to fill a patron’s drink order.
“Nicole, we do have to talk. Nicole—”
She turned, fire in her eyes. Charles continued to stare straight ahead. “Talk? There’s not a damn thing to talk about.” Nicole again turned her back to me, but I was not leaving without satisfaction.
“Nicole,” I said after a few silent moments, “it is very important that we talk.”
“Fine!” She jumped off her stool. “You wanna talk? Talk then. Talk ’til you’re fucking blue in the face.”
“Outside.”
She glanced at Charles. He nodded, the movement nearly imperceptible.
“What the fuck do you want from me, Al?” Nicole asked as the door slid shut behind us. She rubbed her arms; covered merely by a long-sleeved T-shirt, Nicole shivered against the chill of this mid-spring night, having left her jacket draped over her bar stool. Her nipples asserted themselves against the fabric, and I caught myself staring at them, a stinging pang of longing searing deep into my being.
“You here to talk or stare?”
Her remark lay unacknowledged. “Nicole, I just want to say, you are free to do whatever you want—”
“Damn right!” Her eyes burned white hot. Of her many moods and her various modes of anger, none seemed so intense. “You don’t own me.”
“I never said I did.” My words rolled softly over my tongue. This was not intended to be an argument. “I would have appreciated a little more consideration—”
“After everything I gave you? After everything you took?” She slapped the side of her neck for emphasis. “What else do you want?”
“Nothing, Nicole, nothing.” By the earth of my homeland, there would be no provoking me, for that certainly had nothing to do with my motivations at this point. “I merely am concerned. Maggie sought me out. We had a conversation.”
“Ha!” Her dry laughter echoed against the brick wall next to the door. Two men across the street turned and stared at us. “Why don’t you ask her out and leave me the fuck alone. That stupid bitch thinks you’re the best thing since sliced bread.”
“You should not be talking such about your friend. She is concerned about you.”
“Let her mind her own damn business.” Nicole made a move for the door. I grabbed her arm. She twisted away and slapped my forearm hard. “Don’t fucking touch me!”
“You said you were willing to listen to what I had to say.” My tone shifted from soft to commanding. “I will talk, and you will listen. If you choose to burn in a hell of your own doing, so be it. I will not stop you, but do not say I did not point it out as the hell that it is. Maggie is a good friend, and she is worried about you. She told me how your father—”
“Don’t talk to me about my father you goddamned, bloodsucking freak!” Nicole slapped me hard in the face. A hint of something putrid tickled my nostrils. I grabbed her wrist and shoved the sleeve up to her elbow, revealing the jagged outline of a pentagram, the tattoo so fresh that it bubbled with plasma and pus, the flesh around it red and puffy.
The design bore not the style nor artistry of a tattoo done by a professional. The pentagram was obviously homemade, and each of the five points was punctuated by circles of reddened and blackened flesh, the crusting skin oozing more plasma and more pus.
“He is a danger, a menace.” My voice was a near-shriek. “Maggie is right about him. You should listen to your friend. Please, Nicole, please. You must end this insanity. This fellow will be your ruin.”
“You had your fucking chance, Al. I wanted something, and you wouldn’t give it to me. Charles can. And will. And he really loves me. And he can make love to me like a real man, unlike some people I know.”
Laughter drew my attention. A pair of pool-players—the tall, muscular, rather masculine woman with the professional caliber game and the immense fellow with the long beard, cowboy hat and rattlesnake-skin case for his pool cue—tittered their way toward the door. My grip loosened around Nicole’s wrist. She calmly let her arm fall to her side, pushed down her sleeve and returned to Charles.
From outside, I watched her kiss him hard on the lips with great ardor. Upon breaking from her embrace, Charles turned and looked at me through the glass door. For the first time, he smiled.
———
There can be little doubt that jealousy provided at least a modicum of motivation for my following course of action, even if this Charles fellow was clearly a menace and had to be stopped. However, that did not mean I could not enjoy myself in the process.
Finding and stalking Charles proved to be of little difficulty; for such a would-be creature-of-the-shadows, he maintained a reasonably high profile, his presence ubiquitous all over Madison ’s near east side, easily recognizable, always wearing the same black shirt and trousers. Did he not possess any other garments?
On a night when Nicole worked, I decided to take action, following him home from the Crystal Corner to his apartment on Johnson Street above Mildred’s Sandwich Shop, a small restaurant quite popular with my fellow drivers.
From across the street, I watched electric lights snap on one by one, then off one by one as candlelight illuminated his apartment. Through the open window, his head and shoulders were visible in the flickering amber light as he sat, his chanting audible to my ears.
Listening to whatever psuedo-occult gibberish he was chanting, I dematerialized, then rematerialized inside his apartment, next to a crude altar fashioned from a wooden crate and strips of unvarnished pine before which Charles knelt. Cloying incense hung thickly in the air, unsuccessfully masking the stench of pestilence.
Charles gasped loudly. He lunged for a bloody dagger that lay on the altar next to a gutted hamster and jumped to his feet. Holding the dagger with both hands, he stepped back a couple paces. “Stay back, Al,” he said, his voice wavering.
“Shocked to have actually succeeded in summoning forth a demon, Charles?” I grinned broadly at him and took a step forward. Despite my anger, I fought to maintain a most sardonic tone of voice.
He took another step
back, then stopped, his face twisting with irritation. “She’s mine. You can’t have her.” He edged toward me, anger dissolving his fear, giving him resolve.
“Pathetic fool,” I replied. “Nicole is her own person, not for you, I or anyone to possess.”
Charles lunged at me. I turned away from his thrust, grabbed his wrist and squeezed until his grip loosened. The dagger to slid easily through his fingers. I shoved him until he was pinned against the wall, then took a pensive moment to study the dagger. It was lovely—high carbon steel with a pewter hilt of three intertwining vipers. And sharp too. With a short thrust along the top of his arm, a line of blood came to the surface. I licked the blood off his quivering flesh, then flung the knife at the poster of Aleister Crowley that hung on the opposite wall beneath a jagged pentagram of dried blood. The knife struck the number 666 in the middle of the magi’s forehead. Laughter escaped my lips as a recollection of meeting Crowley crossed my mind. The fellow, so revered by bewildered youths like Charles, was little better than a snake-oil selling flimflam man; this was clearly obvious.
“Beer and whiskey,” I said, releasing him, spitting the blood onto the carpeted floor, amidst the collection of dried stains and splotches. “You had best be careful, Charles. Summoning demons while intoxicated is quite the dangerous endeavor. If they appear, it is only because they know they can take advantage of your altered state.” I backed away from him and took a seat in the wing chair next to the alter. A sharp kick to the apparatus scattered plywood splinters all over the room.
“What the hell do you want?” He glared at me, his anger an expression of false bravado, for whatever pallor he actually possessed had been flushed from his face.
“I am merely here to tell you to stay away from Nicole.”
“It’s a free country. She wants to be with me, that’s none of your business. Read my fucking lips. She wants me, not you.”
“Read my lips and heed what I tell you.”
“Funny, she never told me you were the jealous type.”
“You were misinformed.” I smiled inwardly; he talked so bravely while backing himself against the wall.
“Actually, she said you were kind of a wuss.”
“Again, Charles, there is a great deal of difference between reality and another person’s perception. Be that as it may, you will stay away from Nicole.”
His bravado exploded. “Hey, get off my fucking hoof!” Charles sprinted toward the poster of Aleister Crowley on the other side of the room, an arm reaching upward toward the dagger.
Great hoofed one indeed! Enough of this pathetic, Satan-embracing child! I leaped to my feet, dematerialized, then instantly rematerialized in his path, too abruptly for him to stop. He collided with me full force and would have tumbled to the floor had I not grabbed his shoulders. Quickly, I spun him around, wrapped a hand around his throat and slammed him against the wall.
Pressing hard against his larynx, I lifted him in the air until the top of his head touched the knife blade. When I pushed upward against his chin, he winced as the knife slit open his scalp, then his eyes opened wide as his dark hair soaked up the blood from the wound, quickly reaching saturation. A single thread of crimson slowly dribbled down his forehead, dripping one droplet at a time upon the tip of his nose.
My nostrils opened, letting the aroma of the blood waft inside. My mouth opened. Fangs dropped from their retracted hiding place, saliva dripping from their sharp tips.
I licked the blood from his face in long, slow strokes, then pulled my face away so he could look at me, mouth open, fangs dripping with his blood, but hungry for more, eyes open wide, glazed and wild with animalistic passion.
“Child! You will listen to me. It is of no concern to me what you do, but I will not allow your poison to infect Nicole. Do not give me cause to have to visit you again.”
For a moment, I held him there, staring into his face, relishing his utter terror. Ammonia wafted into my nostrils, indicating that the message had finally been fully grasped, thus allowing me to dematerialize, knowing he would crash to the floor once my grip had ceased.
———
There is a problem with such petty, negative emotions like jealousy. One can seek wickedness as a diversion, but the effect does not last. Thus, after only momentary satisfaction, it seemed time to resume my purpose and concentrate on making money.
It was time to go fishing.
Kern had said playing the airport is like fishing; in order to catch the big fish, one must be patient. Indeed. The following Tuesday, I sat at the airport, last of six cabs, knowing three planes would land within the next twenty minutes. Perhaps the big fish would be a lucrative fare going all the way to the far west side, or perhaps the Cab Gods might be so kind as to provide a four-way split, the biggest of the big fish.
Nicole pulled behind me. She got out and marched to my taxi, raw anger registering quite clearly on her face.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” she shouted, arms flailing in front of her.
“I beg your pardon?” I replied, as calmly and blandly as possible.
“Don’t give me that Old World shit! You know damn well what I’m talking about. You went and talked to Charles, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, he’s gone. He split town and didn’t even say good bye.” She stood arms akimbo, chest heaving. I gave no reply. Tense silence hung in the warm night air for a few long moments. “What right did you have to interfere? What was it? Jealous? Jealous that I found a real man, a man who could actually get it up?”
She launched her words like slaps to my face. They stung, but I would not react, would not let myself yield to the very human emotions she obviously was trying to provoke.
“People like Charles are dangerous,” I said finally. “I cannot even begin to tell you how many times I have seen people—people like yourself—harmed by people like Charles who so foolishly flirt with dark forces they do not understand. Regardless of what has happened between us, I still care, and that is why I acted as I did.”
“Fuck you!” She ran to her cab and fled the cab stand, tires screeching loudly.
Following her departure, I loaded a four-way. It was unfortunate that she had left; Kern pulled up behind me minutes after her departure, and he too loaded a four-way.
Does this sound callous? Yes, I suppose it does, but what else was a vampire cabbie to do? What else would there be for anyone to do? Even if our relationship was over, I did still care. For anyone in a situation like that, the best, the only course of action would be just to continue to exist and do the best that they can.
I just hoped she could do the same.
———
“Sixty-six,” Dexter’s voice said. “Sixty-six, are you out there?”
I had just unloaded the last passenger from my split-load and was driving back from the far west side. All the calls were downtown, but there was no reason to despair. That four-way had been good for $20 in side money, in addition to what was on the meter.
“Nicole,” Dexter said, “are you out there?”
A harsh feeling of dread washed over me. Cab 66. No coincidence that she drove that vehicle; well, perhaps a slight one, for it was one of the newest cabs in the fleet. But why was she not responding to the dispatcher’s hail? Perhaps because she was angry. Perhaps, she had decided to go calm down someplace and had forgotten to ask for a break.
“Nicole. Sixty-six.” Dexter’s voice began to sound annoyed after about ten minutes spent trying to raise her. “Six-six. If you do not respond within sixty seconds, I’m gonna have the cops out looking for you.”
“Attention all units,” Dexter said finally. “If anybody sees cab sixty-six, please let me know. And a reminder. After dark, I like to keep track of all units, so if you get out of your cab for more than a few minutes, please let me know.”
An unauthorized break. Surely, that was all it was.
Suddenly, a loud rattling, grinding hum filled my ears. Dread washed over
my entire being, a consuming, overwhelming dread that made it difficult to maintain the cab’s position between the white lines. Promptly, I turned onto an access road leading to a yet-to-be constructed industrial park, then hit the 10-7 button, barely waiting for Dexter to respond before getting out of the cab. The world spun before me, the subsequent vertigo making it difficult to even stand. Rather than fight, I surrendered, slowly rotating 360 degrees before discovering that the source came from the northwest.
My eyes closed. The hum grew louder and more distinct, clearly revealing itself to be tires revolving against a gravel pavement. An image congealed before my eyes—darkness surrendering ever so slightly to dim light.
No, not dim light, but bright beams—twin beams—simply overwhelmed by the vastness of the oncoming darkness. Yes, oncoming darkness, black night and—
—And swirling ribbons of road, not approaching, but being approached, at a steadily increasing velocity.
The road disappeared, replaced by a jumble of images: a steel bridge above a black river, its currents and eddies visible in the bright moonlight; the 200-foot sheer cliff marking the far shore; and a patch of sandy gravel just before the bridge, leading to an abruptly dropping precipice.
My legs wobbled. I let myself drop to the soft, dewy grass, sat cross-legged, closed my eyes and brought the image of Nicole’s face to the forefront of this dark consciousness, knowing that I had to help her, that I had to go to her side to stop her from doing what I feared she was about to do.
How far away could she be? These images were not in Madison , but how far? Ten miles? Twenty? Thirty?
The humming grew louder. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. I commanded myself to relax, to think not about the danger of this task. Past experience proved one mile to be within the realm of possibility. Therefore, five miles could be possible. But what were the limits? How long could my concentration be maintained? If concentration lapsed, would my very cells lose their cohesion and be spread as if blown by the four winds of Hades?
Vampire Cabbie Page 30