Everything seemed to be done to death in basic black. (Perhaps “done to death” is an unfortunate turn of a phrase. Whatever.) Mind you, when I say everything, I mean everything Cobblestones, walls, roof tiles, everything had the same uninspired color scheme. Maybe by itself the black overtones wouldn’t have seemed too ominous, if it weren’t for the architectural decorations that seemed to abound everywhere you looked. Stone dragons and snakes adorned every roof peak and ledge, along with the inescapable gargoyles and, of course, bats. I don’t mean “bats” here, I mean “BATS”!!! Big bats, little bats, bats with their wings half open and others with their wings spread wide ... BATS!!! The only thing they all seemed to have in common (besides being black) was mouths full of needle-sharp teeth ... an image which did nothing to further the confidence of my already nervous party. I myself felt the tension increasing as we strode down the street under the noses of those fierce adornments. One almost expected the stone figures to come to life and swoop down on us for a pint or two of dinner.
“Cheerful sort of place, isn’t it?” Massha asked, eyeing the rooftops.
“I don’t like to complain, Boss,” Guido put in, lying blatantly, “but I’ve been in friendlier looking graveyards.”
“Will you both keep your mouths shut!” I snarled, speaking as best I could through tightly pressed lips. “Remember our disguises.”
I had indeed turned on my disguise spell as we entered town, but in an effort to conserve magical energy, I had only turned our eyes red. If any of the others on the street, and there were lots of them, happened to spot our non-vampirish teeth, the balloon would go up once and for all. Then again, maybe not. We still hadn’t figured out why the couple we met on the road had been so afraid of me, but I wasn’t about to bank the success of our mission on anything as flimsy as a hope that the whole town would run at the sight of our undisguised features.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to do any magical tinkering with our wardrobe. If anything, we were a little drab compared to most of the vampires on the street. Though most of them appeared rather young, barely older than me, they came in all shapes and sizes, and were decked out in some of the most colorful and outrageous garb it has ever been my misfortune to encounter as they shouted to each other or wove their way in and out of taverns along the street.
It was night now, the clouds having cleared enough to show a star-studded night sky, and true to their billing, vampires seemed to love the night life.
“If everybody here is vampires,” Guido said, ignoring my warning, “how do they find anybody to bite for blood?”
“As far as I can tell,” Massha answered, also choosing to overlook the gag order, “they buy it by the bottle.”
She pointed to a small group of vampires sitting on a low wall merrily passing a bottle of red liquid back and forth among themselves. Despite our knowledge of the area, I had subconsciously assumed they were drinking wine. Confronted by the inescapable logic that the stuff they were drinking was typed, not aged, my stomach did a fast roll and dip to the right.
“If you two are through sightseeing,” I hissed, “let’s try to find this Dispatcher character before someone invites us to join them for a drink.”
With that, I led off my slightly subdued assistants, nodding and waving at the merrymaking vampires as we went. Actually, the goings on looked like a lot of fun, and I might have been tempted to join in, if it weren’t for the urgency of our quest ... and, of course, the fact that they were vampires.
Following the instructions I had gleaned from the couple on the road before their panicky flight, we found the Dispatcher’s place with no problem. Leaving Guido outside as a lookout, Massha and I braved the stairs and entered the Dispatcher’s office.
As strange as Blut had appeared, it hadn’t prepared me for the room we stepped into.
There were hundreds of glass pictures lining the walls, pictures which depicted moving, living things much like looking into a rack of fishbowls. What was more, the images being displayed were of incredible violence and unspeakable acts being performed in seemingly helpless victims. The overall effect was neither relaxing nor pleasant ... definitely not something I’d want on the wall at home.
I was so entranced by the pictures, I almost missed the Dispatcher himself until he rose from his desk.
Perhaps “rose” is the wrong description. What he actually did was hop down to the floor from his chair which was high to begin with, but made higher by the addition of a pillow to the seat.
He strode forward, beaming widely, with his hand extended for a handshake.
“Hi there Vilhelm’s the name Your problem is my problem Don’t sit down Standing problems I solve for free Sitting problems I charge for Reasonable rates Just a minor percentage off the top What can I do for you?”
That was sort of all one sentence in that he didn’t pause for breath. He did, however, seize my hand, pump it twice, then repeated the same procedure with Massha, and then grabbed my hand again ... all before he stopped talking.
All in all, it was a little overpowering. I had a flash impression of a short, stocky character with plump rosy cheeks and a bad case of the fidgets. I had deliberately tried not to speculate on what the Dispatcher would look like, but a cherub vampire still caught me a little off-guard.
“I ... ummm ... how did you know I have a problem?”
That earned me an extra squeeze of the hand and a wink.
“Nobody comes in here unless they’ve got a problem,” he said, finally slowing down his speech a bit. “I mean, I could always use a bit of help, but does anyone leap forward to lend a hand? Fat chance. Seems like the only time I see another face in the flesh is when it means more work for me. Prove me wrong ... please! Tell me you came in here to take over for an hour or so to let me duck out for a bite to drink.”
“Well, actually, we’ve got a problem and we were told ...”
“See! What did I tell you? All right. What have you got? A standing or a sitting problem? Standing problems I handle for ...”
He was off again. In a desperate effort to keep our visit short, I interrupted his pitch.
“We’re looking for a friend who ...”
“Say no more! A friend! Just a second!”
With that he vaulted back into his chair, grabbed the top off a strange looking appliance on his desk, diddled with it briefly, and then started talking into it.
“Yea Darwin? Vilhelm. I need ... sure ...”
Leaning back in his chair, he tucked the gadget under one side of his head and grabbed another.
“This is Vilhelm. Is Kay around? ... Well, put her on when she’s done ...”
The second gadget slid in under the same ear as the first and he reached for yet another.
“I know I shouldn’t ask this,” I murmured to Massha, “but what’s he doing?”
“Those are telephones,” she whispered back as a fourth instrument came into play. “You talk into one end of it and whoever’s at the other end can hear you and talk back. It beats running all over town to find an answer.”
By this time, the little vampire had so many instruments hung from his shoulders and arms he looked like he was being attacked by a nest of snakes. He seemed to be handling it well, though, talking first into one, then another, apparently keeping multiple conversations going at once like a juggler handles a basket full of balls.
“Gee, that’s kind of neat!” I exclaimed. “Do you think we could get some of these for our place at the Bazaar?”
“Believe me, they’re more trouble than they’re worth,” Massha said. “In nothing flat you find you’re spending all your time on the phone talking to people and not accomplishing anything. Besides, ever since they broke up the corporation ...”
“I think I’ve got it!” Vilhelm announced, jumping down to floor level again. “I’ve got one friend for you definite, but to be honest with you he�
��s only so-so. I’ve got call-backs coming on two others, so let’s see what they’re like before you commit on the definite. Okay?”
“Ummm ... I think there’s some kind of mistake here,” I said desperately, trying to stop the madness before it progressed any further. “I’m not trying to find a new friend. I’m trying to locate a friend I already have who may be here in town.”
He blinked several times as this news sank in. He started to turn back to his phones in an involuntary motion, and then waved a hand at them in disgusted dismissal.
“Heck with it,” he said with a sigh. “If they can come up with anything, I can always fob ‘em off on someone else for a profit. Now then, let’s try this again. You’re looking for someone specific. Are they are a townie or a transient? It would help if you gave me a little something to go on, you know”
He seemed a little annoyed, and I would have liked to do or say something to cheer him up. Before I could think of anything, however, my apprentice decided to join the conversation.
“This is quite a layout you’ve got, Fast Worker. Mind if I ask exactly what it is you do?”
As always, Massha’s “people sense” proved to be better than mine. The little vampire brightened noticeably at the compliment, and his chest puffed out as he launched into his narration.
“Well, the job was originally billed as Dispatcher ... you know, as in Dispatcher of Nightmares. But anyway, like any job, it turned out to involve a lot of things that aren’t on the job description. Now it’s sort of a combination of dispatcher, travel agent, lost and found, and missing persons bureau.”
“Nightmares?” I questioned, unable to contain myself.
“Sure. Anything that comes out of Limbo, be it dreams or the real thing, comes through here. Where’re you from that you didn’t know that?”
Obviously, I wasn’t wild about continuing on the subject of our place of origin.
“Ahhh, can you really help us find our friend? He’s new in town, like us.”
“That’s right. You’re looking for someone. Sorry. I get a little carried away sometimes when I talk about my work. New in town, hmmm? Shouldn’t be that hard to locate. We don’t get that many visitors.”
“He might be in jail,” Massha blurted out before I realized what she was going to say.
“In jail?” The vampire frowned. “The only outsider in jail right now is ... Say! Now I recognize you! The eyes threw me for a minute. You’re Skeeve, aren’t you?”
“Screen 97B!” he declared proudly, gesturing vaguely over his shoulder. “There’s someone a dozen dimensions over from here, runs a hot dog stand, who features you in his most frequent nightmares. You, a dragon, and a Pervert. Am I correct in assuming that the current resident in our fair jail is none other than your sidekick Aahz?”
“To be correct, that’s Pervect, not Pervert ... but except for that you’re right. That’s my partner you’ve got locked up there, and we aim to get him out.”
I was probably talking too much, but being recognized in a dimension I’d never heard of had thrown me off balance. Then again, the Dispatcher didn’t seem all that hostile at the discovery. More curious than anything else.
“Well, well. Skeeve himself. I never expected to meet you in person. Sometime you must tell me what you did to that poor fellow to rate the number one slot on his hit parade of nightmares.”
“What about Aahz?” I said impatiently.
“You know he’s up for murder, don’t you?”
“Heard it. Don’t believe it. He’s a lot of things, but a murderer isn’t one of them.”
“There’s a fair amount of evidence.” Vilhelm shrugged. “But tell me. What’s with the vampire getup. You’re no more a vampire than I’m a Klahd.”
“It’s a long story. Let’s just say it seemed to be the local uniform.”
“Let’s not,” the dispatcher grinned. “Pull up a chair ... free of charge, of course. I’ve got time and lots of questions about the other dimensions. Maybe we can trade a little information while you’re here.”
“I REALLY DON’T see how you can drink that stuff,” I declared, eyeing Vilhelm’s goblet of blood.
“Funny,” he smiled in return, “I was about to say the same thing. I mean, you know what W C. Fields said about water!”
“No. What?”
“Now let me get this straight,” Guido interrupted before I could get any answer. “You’re sayin’ you vampire guys don’t really drink blood from people?”
“Oh, a few do,” the Dispatcher said with a shrug. “But it’s an acquired taste, like steak tartare. Some say it’s a gourmet dish, but I could never stand the stuff myself. I’ll stick with the inexpensive domestic varieties any night.”
We were all sprawled around the Dispatcher’s office at this point, sipping our respective drinks and getting into a pretty good rap session. We had pulled Guido in off door watch and I had dropped our disguises so my energy reserve wasn’t being drained.
The Dispatcher had played with his phones, calling from one to the other. Then he put them all down and announced that he had them on “hold,” a curious expression since it was the first time in half an hour he hadn’t been holding one.
Vilhelm himself was turning out to be a priceless source of information, and, as promised, had a seemingly insatiable curiosity about otherworldly things.
“Then how do you account for all the vampire legends around the other dimensions,” Massha said skeptically.
The Dispatcher made a face.
“First of all, you’ve got to realize who you’re dealing with. Most of the ones who do extensive touring outside of Limbo are ‘old money’ types. We’re talking about the idle rich ... and that usually equates to bored thrill seekers. Working stiffs like me can’t afford to take that kind of time away from our jobs. Heck, I can hardly manage to get my two weeks each year. Anyway, there are a lot more of us around the dimensions than you might realize. It’s just that the level-headed ones are content to maintain a low profile and blend with the natives. They content themselves with the blood of domestic livestock, much the way we do here at home. It’s the others that cause the problems. Like any group of tourists, there’s always a few who feel that just because they’re in another world or city, the rules don’t apply ... and that includes common manners and good taste. They’re the ones who stir up trouble by getting the locals up in arms about ‘bloodsucking monsters.’ If it makes you feel any better, you human types have a pretty bad rep yourselves here in Limbo.”
That caught my attention.
“Could you elaborate on that last point, Vilhelm? What problem could the locals have with us?”
The Dispatcher laughed.
“The same one you humans have with us vampires. While humans aren’t the leading cause of death in vampires any more than vampires are a leading cause of death in humans, it’s certainly one of the more publicized and sensational ways to go.”
“Is that why the first locals we met took off like bats out of hell ... if you’ll pardon the expression?” Massha asked.
“You’ve got it. I think you’ll find that the citizens of Blut will react the same way to you that you would if you ran into a vampire in your home dimension.”
“I don’t notice you bein’ particularly scared of us,” Guido said suspiciously.
“One of the few advantages of this job. After a few years of monitoring the other dimensions, you get pretty blasé about demons. As far as I can tell, most of ‘em are no worse than some of the folks we’ve got around here.”
This was all very interesting, but I was getting a little fidgety about our mission.
“Since you know we aren’t all evil or on a permanent vampire hunt, what can you tell us about the mess Aahz is in? Can you give us any help there?”
“I dunno,” the Dispatcher said, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully. “Until I found
out who he was, I was ready to believe he was guilty as sin. There’s an awful lot of evidence against him.”
“Such as?” I pressed.
“Well, he was caught with a stake and mallet in his hand, and there are two eyewitnesses who say they saw him kill one of our citizens and scatter his dust to the winds.”
“Wait a minute. You mean you ain’t got no corpus delecti?” Guido said, straightening in his chair. “Sorry to interrupt, Boss, but you’re playin’ in my alley now. This is somethin’ I know a little about. You can’t go on trial for murder without a corpse, know what I mean?”
“Maybe where you come from,” Vilhelm corrected, “but things get a little different when you’re dealing with vampires. If we had a body, or even just the pile of dust, we could revive him in no time flat. As it is, the problem is when there’s no body ... when a vampire’s been reduced to dust and the dust scattered. That’s when it’s impossible to pull ‘em back into a functional mode.”
“But if there isn’t a body, how do you know the victim is dead at all?” I asked.
“There’s the rub,” Vilhelm agreed. “But in this case, there’s a matter of two eyewitnesses.”
“Two of ‘em, eh?” Massha murmured thoughtfully. “Would you happen to have descriptions of these two peepers?”
“Saw ‘em myself. They were both off-worlders like yourselves. One was a young girl, the blonde and innocent type. The other was a pretty sleazy looking guy. It was her who sold us on the story, really. I don’t think anyone would have believed him if he said that werewolves were furry.”
My heart sank. I had wanted very badly to believe the girl who had warned us of Aahz’s danger was somehow an innocent bystander in the proceedings. Now it looked as if …
“Do the descriptions sound familiar, Hot Stuff? Still think Guido and I were being paranoid when we said this might be a setup? Sounds like they framed your partner and then came back after you to complete the set.”
MA05 Myth-ing Persons Page 5