“For starters we all calm down.” It wasn’t a suggestion when Virginia said it; it was a command. “The worst thing we can do right now is panic.”
Count entered the room. “I think the solution is simple. Let Steve go back to his parents.”
“What if I don’t want to go back to my parents?” I screamed. “What does this have to do with me anyway?”
Virginia handed me the paper then. “High School Girl Killed by Local Vampire Gang” was the headline. I read on. Basically it was pretty much what we had expected.
Till you got to the third paragraph.
Steven Johnson, a 16-year-old friend of the deceased, walked up to the murder scene and was taken hostage by the gang. The authorities suspect… My parents were offering a reward for any information leading to my safe return.
I didn’t read on. Obviously, my father had used his clout to turn my running away into a kidnapping. There was only one thing to do and I knew it, but I didn’t do it.
“He’s got to go back,” Stewart said. “You can see that, can’t you, Virgi?”
“It’ll be bad enough over Janet’s death, but add kidnapping to that and they won’t be happy till they hunt us down and kill us all.” Surprisingly, Count’s voice was calm.
Virginia’s voice was even cooler. “He’s one of us now. He belongs to us.”
“To you, you mean!” Count’s calm shattered. “You don’t give a damn what happens to him. Or any of us, for that matter. If he goes back…”
“He needs blood.…”
“It’s not too late for him, yet. He could break free. He could remain normal.…”
“I’m sure he doesn’t want to, Count. Who in their right mind would choose to be normal when they could be immortal?” Virginia held up her hand as he started to continue. “Count, you’re just hungry. We’ll feel better after we eat.”
“And just how are we going to feed?” It was Larry who came to Count’s defense. “Count’s right. With Janet dead, the heat is on anyway. How are we going to feed with him around? They think we kidnapped him for God’s sake!”
“They’re right.” What they said made perfect sense, and I managed to keep my hormones at bay long enough to figure it out. “I should go back, just to take the heat off.”
“No!” Virginia was adamant. “We all stay together.”
“You’re being unreasonable, Virgi,” Count said, regaining some of his calm now that the tide seemed to have turned his way.
Virginia turned to him and smiled smugly. “Oh, am I, bright boy? Then how about this? Let’s say Steve goes back. Do you really think that’s going to take the heat off? No. The main issue there is Janet’s death. They’ll question Steve.” I watched as Count’s face sank. He knew the words she spoke were true.
“I won’t tell.” I was a little hurt by the accusation, but I didn’t want to go, and I secretly hoped they would find a reason why I couldn’t.
“You wouldn’t want to,” it was Stewart who spoke, “but you would. They would word a question cleverly, and…” He threw up his hands in exasperation. “So, what now, Virgi? I don’t know about everyone else, but I’m hungry.” Larry and Count nodded in agreement.
“It will be dark soon. We are creatures of the night. It will conceal and protect us. We will hunt and we will feed.”
At night, we dressed all in black and took to the streets: the dark ones on the old side of town, where only hoods, hookers, derelicts, and politicians—around election time—go. We found a willing donor right away. We all went into a dark alley and then the tube and bags came out. Now, I was the kid that passed out the one time in my life I had a blood test, so I was a little shocked at my reaction to the blood-taking ritual. I watched the blood flow into the bag from the tube in the man’s arm and felt no nausea. Instead, there was a strange feeling of satisfaction. When the bag was full, we paid the man and went on hunting.
“Just a little now, Virgi,” Stewart begged. “I’m starving.”
“Don’t be a fool, man,” Count said hotly. “Last thing we need is to have someone catch us feeding.”
Thirty minutes later we found another willing donor. With both bags full, we went “home.”
I’ll never forget that first time. I had to force myself to drink the first few drops. The next thing I remember, Stewart was cussing me and taking the bag away. It was the total fulfillment of all I had ever dared to dream. I felt like I could do anything, go anywhere. I realized that to be a vampire, blood isn’t just a food—it’s a drug. It becomes your way of life, and then you can never go home.
For about a week, we had to be extra careful, and then everything seemed to cool down. Like any news story, after it’s told fifty times, it loses its impact.
We were able to move a little more freely around town, which is to say that there wasn’t a cop around every corner we turned.
Then the powers-that-be decided that Janet’s death was not a form of murder at all, but a form of suicide.
Vampires were once again free to walk the streets.
Except me. I was still officially missing. Although now they were saying that I had probably run away.
Most nights I got left at the warehouse alone. I felt left out but had to agree that it was an added risk that we shouldn’t take too often.
Except for that, I couldn’t complain about my life. I had my friends, I had Virginia, and I had plenty of blood.
Then some stupid jerk went berserk. He used his teeth for more than show, and chewed some poor hooker up. Then he killed a wino.
Then a cop.
After that, no vampire was safe on the streets, and the blood supply dried up. No one was willing to give blood if they thought they might be chewed up. Even the derelicts wanted a stiffer price, and we were running out of money. Some of the other groups were resorting to violence. They would abduct their donors, tie them up, and take the blood.
For all practical purposes, they were mugging people for their blood.
Virginia refused to do this, so we went hungry a lot.
I watched the sunrise through the tears in my eyes. My path was clear. I turned on the radio, and the morning news confirmed my fears. My life had been shattered. I dug around till I found my old clothes. The clothes that weren’t black. The ones I had been wearing the night my life had begun. It was appropriate that I should wear them on the day that that life was destroyed.
“The young woman was shot seventeen times before she fell dead.…”
I slung the radio into the wall. I found a pair of sunglasses. I dried my tears and put the glasses on. It had been a long time since I had been outside in the daylight. I didn’t like it.
I now see the light for what it is: the enemy of man. For nothing can hide in it. All that is ugly in man can be seen clearly only in the light. The dark hides man’s ugliness and, for that matter, his beauty. In darkness, all men are equal. No one can judge you if they can’t see you. That is why so many fear the dark.
They fear what they cannot judge.
When I got to the house, no one was home. I showered and changed into the black garments I had brought with me. I sat down in the living room and turned on the TV I watched soaps. The news came on at 12:00, and I damn near turned it off.
I should have.
They were saying that Virginia, Larry, Stewart, and Count were the “Killer Vampires.” I suppose that cleaned things up for them for a while, till the killing started again. I wanted them all dead. The cops, the newsmen, and the killer vampire who had ruined everything.
But all that would have to wait. First, I had to get some money. If my parents had taught me one thing, it was that you can’t get anywhere without that. Then I had to make everyone believe that I was a normal, mundane person. My parents had always been great at that. No one would have ever guessed that they harbored all those hidden neuroses. Once I had money and had proved I was “normal,” then I could take everyone down. One at a time.
I smiled and waited. It was all so simple
. If only I had thought of it before. It was too late for the others. For Virginia.
I couldn’t think about them. If I did, I would be dragged down into despair and become unable to avenge their deaths. I thought this all out in the hours that I sat waiting for my parents to return.
When I heard the key turn in the lock, all I could feel was a sense of anticlimax. I heard someone enter, and a sack of groceries hit the floor.
“My God… Steve, is that you?”
“It’s me, Mom.” I stood up and turned to face her.
“My God, you’re one of them.” I heard the disgust and disapproval in her voice. They never had approved. Not once. Of anything.
I smiled, showing my fangs. “Tell me, do you and Dad still have that giant life insurance policy naming me as beneficiary?” Her eyes grew large as I approached. “Did you ever think of how ironic it is that they call it life insurance?”
About Jennifer Roberson and “Never Look at a Gift Sword in the Horse’s Mouth”
Jennifer is another of the writers whose first story I published, in the first of the Sword & Sorceress anthologies. She went on to a very successful—and busy—career, but still managed to find time to write the occasional story for me, including one for the first issue of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine and this, the cover story for issue 16.
She is the author of two fantasy series: “Chronicles of the Cheysuli” and the “Sword Dancer” cycle, as well as a historical reinterpretation of the Robin Hood legend, called Lady of the Forest, which emphasizes Marian’s point of view. Her newest historical fiction, Glen of Sorrows, is due out about the same time as this anthology, and she has done a fantasy collaboration with Melanie Rawn and Kate Elliot, The Golden Key, due out sometime in 1996.
In addition to writing, she trains and exhibits Labrador retrievers and Cardigan Welsh corgis. She lives near Phoenix with four dogs and two cats.
Never Look at a Gift Sword in the Horse’s Mouth
Or: The Horse Who Would Be King
Jennifer Roberson
My master had a problem. He knew it. I knew it. But nobody else knew it. And we needed to keep it that way.
“You’re a magician,” I told him comfortingly. “Use some smoke and mirrors, a little sleight of hand, a pinch of razzle-dazzle—no one will even notice.”
The morning, for Britain, was bright: the halfhearted sun was a tarnished, brass-colored splotch in the haze of reluctant day. Birds chirped. Bees buzzed. Mice rustled. Down the hill, a camp dog barked.
My master slumped disconsolately against the broken tree stump in the hollow of the hill, rump planted precariously near an anthill. The ants, as yet, were oblivious; unfortunately, so was he.
“Magician,” he muttered disgustedly, “I’m bloody Merlin, you fool!” I considered polite ways of pointing out the anthill and the potential consequences of taking up residence, however temporary, in its immediate environs, but decided the topic at hand was more immediate. My master was touchily proud of his position as the most exalted, learned, and powerful magician Britain had ever known, and protected that reputation with a fervor verging on obsession … any challenges to his authority, intended or no, required delicate attention.
“I know that,” I reminded him, implying mild reproof; a long and peculiar acquaintanceship allowed me great latitude in familiarity. “You’ve taken great pains for some years now to establish exactly who you are, with commensurate reputation. No one in all of Britain doesn’t know who you are.”
He cast me a baleful glance from dark, brooding eyes overshadowed with thick, untidy dark hair only infrequently combed or cut. “And there’s the rub,” he complained. “I’m a victim of my own success. I’m left no room for failure.”
I snorted. “There’s no reason you shouldn’t be successful this time.”
“No reason!” The baleful glare reasserted itself as affronted outrage. “I’m supposed to supply Britain with the greatest hero-king she’s ever known, and you say, ever so blithely”—with the soft-spoken, icy precision that cuts the legs out from lesser souls—”there’s no reason I shouldn’t be successful?”
I ignored the ice and derision. “No reason at all. Trust me.”
Merlin glared, surrendering verbal acrobatics; none of them worked, with me. “Trust you.”
“Yes.”
With elegant precision, my master said distinctly, “You are a horse.”
A moot point, and unworthy of discussion. I tossed my head, flopping my dark gray forelock eloquently between upstanding ears. “I’m confident you’ll find someone for the job.”
Merlin ground his teeth, spitting out his commentary with a repressed passion that underscored his frustration. “It can’t be just anyone, don’t you see? It must be someone very special. Someone unique in all respects. Someone perfectly suited to unite all the warring tribes so Britain can fend off foreign invaders.”
I looked down my nose, a posture better suited to me than to him, as my nose was considerably longer. “You just need someone who can kiss a lot of ass,” I told him, “although why anyone would want an ass when there’s a perfectly presentable horse available, I don’t know.”
“Don’t be so arrogant,” Merlin sniffed. “After all, I made you.”
“And I’ll be the making of you.” I gazed back at the encampment some distance away. Smoke clogged the trees, drifting hither and yon. I heard the sounds of laughter, raillery, arguments, mock fighting, weapons practice. The air stank of smoke, burned meat, and unwashed human bodies. “We haven’t failed yet. We’ll come up with a plan.”
Merlin heaved a sigh, picking idly at a snag in his second-best enchanter’s robe. “Not just any plan. It has to be very delicate. Very selective, so there’s no question as to the outcome. I can’t just point at a fellow and say: ‘That’s the man there, don’t you know, rightwise born king of all England.’ ”
I cocked a hoof, standing hipshot. “Why not?”
“It smacks of dictatorship. They won’t like it, from me. These people like signs, and portents, and omens… they’re a superstitious lot, bound up by ritualistic gobbledygook—never mind such things are as easy to arrange as buying a girl for the night.” He glowered at me. “Not that I can buy one, mind you… whose idea was it that Merlin had to be chaste?”
“You had to be something,” I reminded him. “You needed a gimmick. Nobody cares if you sing, or tell stories, or swill wine with the best of them—what sets a man apart in these immoral times is his chastity.”
He flapped a hand at a bee. “You might have picked something easier on me. Or at least let me geld you, so we suffer equally.”
I pointedly ignored the suggestion. “As to signs and portents and ritualistic gobbledygook, you’ve been the one arranging those very things for years now.”
He snapped a loose thread free of his robe, inspecting it morosely. If he kept at it, part of the robe would unravel and hence become third-best. “I have to make them think they’ve something to do with it… or else make it so obvious there’s only one conclusion.”
“Tests are good for that. They weed out the inappropriate.”
The line of his mouth crimped. “I hate to make the kingship of all Britain contingent upon a test.”
“Why? Makes as much sense as drawing names out of a pot.”
I pawed at damp turf, digging an idle hole. We all have our bad habits. “After all, it’s you who’ll be running the realm.”
Merlin thought about it. “I need the right sort of man. A very particular type of man. Stupid enough to be malleable, but wise enough to know his limits. Young enough to be suitably idealistic, big enough to be impressive.”
I plucked a succulent clot of turf from the damp ground, shook it free of mud, ground it to bits between my teeth.
“There’s always Artie.”
Truly taken aback, Merlin gazed at me in horror. “You can’t be serious!”
“He’s pretty good at carrying your baggage around, and he always fe
eds me on time.”
“Artie’s thick in the head.”
“All the better for you.” I smiled, displaying teeth. “He’s young enough, big enough, certainly stupid enough—and he listens to you.”
“Because he knows if he doesn’t I’ll turn him into a frog.”
“No, you wouldn’t. Artie’s an innocent. You’d never hurt him like that.”
Merlin just scowled; he hates it whenever I remind him he’s not the tyrant he pretends to be.
I switched my tail. “It’s a good idea, and you know it. He’s been quiet since we arrived, so no one knows much about him. He looks enough like Uther to qualify as his bastard; and anyway, Uther’s dead. He won’t care.”
Merlin grunted. “Who’s his mother, then?”
I ruminated a moment. “What about that woman living out on the edge of nowhere in Cornwall? At Tintagel. She’s supposed to be a trifle touched in the head, too.”
“Gorlois’s widow?” Dark brows lanced down. “That’s Ygraine. No one’s seen her for years. She lives out there with a couple of servants and a castle full of cats.”
“That’s what I mean. She won’t put up much of a fuss. And if she does, just keep sending her merchants with wagons full of wares. Shopping will keep her mind off things.”
“Uther’s bastard, got on Ygraine.” Merlin chewed a lip.
“It could work.”
“Of course it could.”
“I’ll have to concoct some bizarre tale full of supposed magic and superstitious nonsense to account for the bedding.”
“Uther bedded half the women in Britain.”
“But he’s allergic to cats. He’d never have bedded Ygraine, or he’d have sneezed for a month.”
I waggled dark-tipped ears. “You’ll think of something. You’ve done it before.” With my help, of course, but we don’t always mention that.
“And something to prove Artie’s worthy.” Merlin chewed a ragged fingernail. Very bad habit. “That will be the hard part.”
Best of Marion Zimmer Bradley Fantasy Magazine, Volume 2 Page 14