The Vampire Sextette

by Marvin Kaye

  without publicity, working at his own pace, underwritten by the last of

  his many mysterious benefactors. His final script combined elements

  from Stoker's fiction with historical fact made public by the researches

  of Raymond McNally and Radu Florescu—associates as far back as D

  Is for Dracula—and concentrated on the last days of the Count,

  abandoned in his castle, awaiting his executioners, remembering the

  betrayals and crimes of his lengthy, weighty life. This was the project

  Welles called The Other Side of Midnight. From sequences filmed as

  early as 1972, the director culled footage of Peter Bogdanovich as

  Renfield, while he opted to play not the stick insect vampire but the

  corpulent slayer, finally gifting the world with his definitive Professor

  Van Helsing. If asked by the trade press, he made great play of having

  offered the role of Dracula to Warren Beatty, Steve McQueen, or

  Robert DeNiro, but this was a conjurer's distraction, for he had fixed

  on his Count for some years and was now finally able to fit him for his

  cape and fangs. Welles's final Dracula was to be John Huston.

  Gates, ibid.

  She parked on the street but took the trouble to check out the Shadow Bay

  High teachers' parking lot. Two cars: a black Jaguar (OVRLKER1), a beat-up

  silver Peugeot ("I have a French car"). Geneviève checked the Peugeot and found

  LAPD ID on display. The interior was a mess. She caught the after -whiff of

  cigars.

  The school was as unexceptional as the town, with that faintly unreal movie-set

  feel that came from newness. The oldest building in sight was put up in 1965. To

  her, places like this felt temporary.

  A helpful map by the front steps of the main building told her where the library

  was, across a grassy quadrangle. The school grounds were dark. The kids

  wouldn't be back from their Christmas vacation. And no evening classes. She had

  checked Gorse's address first and found no one home.

  A single light was on in the library, like the cover of a gothic romance

  paperback.

  Cautious, she crossed the quad. Slumped in the doorway of the library was a

  raincoated bundle. Her heart plunging, she knelt and found the Lieutenant

  insensible but still alive. He had been bitten badly and bled. The ragged tear in his

  throat showed he'd been taken the old-fashioned way—a strong grip from behind,

  a rending fang bite, then sucking and swallowing. Nonconsensual vampirism, a

  felony in anyone's books, without the exercise of powers of fascination to cloud

  the issue. It was hard to mesmerise someone with one eye, though some vampires

  worked with whispers and could even put the fluence on a blind person.

  There was another vampire in Shadow Bay. By the look of the leavings, one of

  the bad uns. Perhaps that explained Barbie's prejudice. It was always a mistake to

  extrapolate a general rule from a test sample of one.

  She clamped a hand over the wound, feeling the weak pulse, pressing the

  edges together. Whoever had bitten the detective hadn't even had the

  consideration to shut off the faucet after glutting themselves. The smears of blood

  on his coat and shirt collar overrode her civilised impulses: her mouth became

  sharp-fanged and full of saliva. That was a good thing. A physical adaption of her

  turning was that her spittle had antiseptic properties. Vampires of her bloodline

  were evolved for gentle, repeated feedings. After biting and drinking, a full tongued lick sealed the wound.

  Angling her mouth awkwardly and holding up the Lieutenant's lolling head to

  expose his neck, she stuck out her tongue and slathered saliva over the long tear.

  She tried to ignore the euphoric if cigar-flavoured buzz of his blood. She had a

  connection to his clear, canny mind.

  He had never thought her guilty. Until now.

  "Makes a pretty picture, Frenchie," said a familiar girlish voice. "Classic

  Bloodsucker 101, vamp and victim. Didn't your father-in-darkness warn you about

  snacking between meals? You won't be able to get into your party dresses if you

  bloat up. Where's the fun in that?"

  Geneviève knew Barbie wasn't going to accept her explanation. For once, she

  understood why.

  The wound had been left open for her.

  "I've been framed," she said around bloody fangs.

  Barbie giggled, a teen vision in a red ra-ra skirt, white ankle socks, muttonchop short-sleeved top, and faux metallic choker. She had sparkle glitter on her

  cheeks and an Alice band with artificial antennae that ended in hobbling stars.

  She held up her stake and said, "Scissors cut paper."

  Geneviève took out her gun and pointed it. "Stone blunts scissors."

  "Hey, no fair," whined Barbie.

  Geneviève set the wounded man aside as carefully as possible and stood up.

  She kept the gun trained on the Slayer's heart.

  "Where does it say vampires have to do kung fu fighting? Everyone else in this

  country carries a gun, why not me?"

  For a moment, she almost felt sorry for Barbie the Slayer. Her forehead

  crinkled into a frown, her lower lip jutted like a sulky five-year-old's, and tears of

  frustration started in her eyes. She had a lot to learn about life. If Geneviève got

  her wish, the girl would complete her education in Tehachapi Womens' Prison.

  A silver knife slipped close to her neck.

  "Paper wraps stone," suaved a British voice.

  "Barbie doesn't know, does she? That you're nosferatu?"

  Ernest Ralph Gorse, high-school librarian, was an epitome of tweedy middleaged stuffiness, so stage English that he made Alistair Cooke sound like a Dead

  End Kid. He arched an elegant eyebrow, made an elaborate business of cleaning

  his granny glasses with his top-pocket hankie, and gave out a little I'm-so-wicked

  moue that let his curly fangs peep out from beneath his stiff upper lip.

  "No, 'fraid not. Lovely to look at, delightful to know, but frightfully thick, that's

  our little Barbara."

  The Overlooker—"Yes," he had admitted, "bloody silly name, means nothing,

  just sounds 'cool' if you're a twit"—had sent Barbie the Slayer off with the drained

  detective to call at the hospital ER and the Sheriff's office. Geneviève was left in

  the library in the custody of Gorse. He had made her sit in a chair, and kept well

  beyond arm's length.

  "You bit the Lieutenant?" she stated.

  Gorse raised a finger to his lips and tutted.

  "Shush now, old thing, mustn't tell, don't speak it aloud. Jolly bad show to give

  away the game and all that rot. Would you care for some instant coffee? Ghastly

  muck, but I'm mildly addicted to it. It's what comes of being cast up on these

  heathen shores."

  The Overlooker pottered around his desk, which was piled high with unread

  and probably unreadable books. He poured water from an electric kettle into an

  oversize green ceramic apple. She declined his offer with a headshake. He quaffed

  from his apple-for-the-teacher mug, and let out an exaggerated ahh of satisfaction.

  "That takes the edge off. Washes down cop cut nicotin very nicely."

  "Why hasn't she noticed?"

  Gorse chuckled. "Everything poor Barbara knows about the tribes of

  nosferatu comes from me. Of course, a lot of it I made up. I'm very creative, you
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  know. It's always been one of my skills. Charm and persuasion, that's the ticket.

  The lovely featherhead hangs on my every word. She thinks all vampires are

  gruesome creatures of the night, demons beyond hope of redemption, frothing

  beasts fit only to be put down like mad dogs. I'm well aware of the irony, old

  thing. Some cold evenings, the hilarity becomes almost too much to handle. Oh,

  the stories I've spun for her, the wild things she'll believe. I've told her she's the

  Chosen One, the only girl in the world who can shoulder the burden of the

  crusade against the forces of evil. Teenage girls adore that I'm-a-secret-Princess

  twaddle, you know. Especially the Yanks. I copped a lot of it from Star Wars.

  Bloody awful film, but very revealing about the state of the national mind."

  Gorse was enjoying the chance to explain things. Bottling up his cleverness had

  been a trial for him. She thought it was the only reason she was still alive for this

  performance.

  "But what's the point?"

  "Originally, expedience. I've been 'passing' since I came to America. I'm not

  like you, sadly. I can't flutter my lashes and have pretty girls offer their necks for

  the taking. I really am one of those hunt-and-kill, rend-and-drain sort of nosferatu.

  I tried the other way, but courtship dances just bored me rigid, and I thought, well,

  why not? Why not just rip open the odd throat? So, after a few months here in

  picturesque Shadow Bay, empties were piling up like junk mail. Then the stroke of

  genius came to me. I could hide behind a Vampire Slayer, and since there were

  none in sight I made one up. I checked the academic records to find the dimmest

  dolly bird in school and recruited her for the cause. I killed her lunk of a

  boyfriend—captain of football team, would you believe it?—and a selection of

  snack-type teenagers. Then, I revealed to Barbara that her destiny was to be the

  Slayer. Together, we tracked and destroyed that first dread fiend—the school

  secretary who was nagging me about getting my employment records from Jolly

  Old England, as it happens—and staked the bloodlusting bitch. However, it seems

  she spawned before we got to her, and ever since we've been doing away with her

  murderous brood. You'll be glad to know I've managed to rid this town almost

  completely of real estate agents. When the roll is called up yonder, that must count

  in the plus column, though it's my long-term plan not to be there."

  Actually, Gorse was worse than the vampires he had made up. He'd had a

  choice, and decided to be evil. He worked hard on fussy geniality, modelling his

  accent and speech patterns on Masterpiece Theatre, but there was ice inside him,

  a complete vacuum.

  "So, you have things working your way in Shadow Bay?" she said. "You have

  your little puppet theatre to play with. Why come after me?"

  Gorse was wondering whether to tell her more. He pulled a half-hunter watch

  from his waistcoat pocket and pondered. She wondered if she could work her

  trick of fascination on him. Clearly, he loved to talk, was bored with dissimulation,

  had a real need to be appreciated. The sensible thing would have been to get this

  over with, but Gorse had to tell her how brilliant he was. Everything up to now had

  been his own story; now there was more important stuff, and he was wary of

  going on.

  "Still time for one more story," he said. "One more ghost story."

  Click. She had him.

  He was an instinctive killer, probably a sociopath from birth, but she was his

  elder. The silver-bladed letter opener was never far from his fingers. She would

  have to judge when to jump.

  "It's a lonely life, isn't it? Ours, I mean. Wandering through the years, wearing

  out your clothes, lost in a world you never made? There was a golden age for us

  once, in London when Dracula was on the throne. Eighteen eighty-eight and all

  that. You, famous girl, did your best to put a stop to that, turned us all back into

  nomads and parasites when we might have been masters of the universe. Some of

  us want it that way again, my darling. We've been getting together lately, sort of

  like a pressure group. Not like those Transylvania fools who want to go back to

  the castles and the mountains, but like Him, battening onto a new, vital world,

  making a place for ourselves. An exalted place. He's still our inspiration, old thing.

  Let's say I did it for Dracula."

  That wasn't enough, but it was all she was going to get now.

  People were outside, coming in.

  "Time flies, old thing. I'll have to make this quick."

  Gorse took his silver pig sticker and stood over her. He thrust.

  Faster than any eye could catch, her hands locked around his wrist.

  "Swift filly, eh?"

  She concentrated. He was strong, but she was old. The knife point dimpled her

  blouse. He tipped back her chair and put a knee on her stomach, pinning her

  down.

  The silver touch was white hot.

  She turned his arm and forced it upwards. The knife slid under his spectacles

  and the point stuck in his left eye.

  Gorse screamed, and she was free of him. He raged and roared, fangs erupting

  from his mouth, two-inch barbs bursting from his fingertips. Bony spars, the

  beginnings of wings, sprouted through his jacket around the collar and pierced his

  leather elbow patches.

  The doors opened, and people came in. Barbie and two crucifix-waving

  sheriff's deputies.

  The Slayer saw

  (and recognised?)

  the vampire and rushed across the room, stake out. Gorse caught the girl and

  snapped her neck, then dropped her in a dead tangle.

  "Look what you made me do!" he said to Geneviève, voice distorted by the

  teeth but echoing from the cavern that was his reshaped mouth. "She's broken

  now. It'll take ages to make another. I hadn't even got to the full initiation rites.

  There would have been bleeding, and I was making up something about tantric

  sex. It would have been a real giggle, and you've spoiled it."

  His eye congealed, frothing grey deadness in his face.

  She motioned for the deputies to stay back. They wisely kept their distance.

  "Just remember," said Gorse, directly to her, "You can't stop Him. He's

  coming back. And then, oh my best beloved, you will be as sorry a girl as ever

  drew a sorry breath. He is not big on forgiveness, if you get my drift."

  Gorse's jacket shredded, and wings unfurled. He flapped into the air, rising

  above the first tier of bookshelves, hovering at the mezzanine level. His old-school

  tie dangled like a dead snake.

  The deputies tried shooting at him. She supposed she would have, too.

  He crashed through a tall set of windows and flew off, vast shadow blotting

  out the moon and falling on the bay.

  The deputies holstered their guns and looked at her. She wondered for about

  two minutes whether she should stick with her honesty policy.

  Letting a bird flutter in her voice, she said, "That man … he was a v-vvampire."

  Then she did a pretty fair imitation of a silly girl fainting. One deputy checked

  her heartbeat while she was "out," and was satisfied that she was warm. The other

  went to call for backup.

  Through a crack in her
eyelids, she studied "her" deputy. His hands might have

  lingered a little too long on her chest for strict medical purposes. The thought that

  he was the type to cop a feel from a helpless girl just about made it all right to get

  him into trouble by slipping silently out of the library while he was checking out

  the dead Slayer.

  She made it undetected back to her car.

  In her trailer, after another day of lassitude, she watched the early evening

  bulletin on Channel 6. Anchorpersons Karen White and Lew Landers had details

  of the vampire killing in Shadow Bay. Because the primary victim was a cute

  teenage girl, it was top story. The wounding of a decorated LAPD veteran—the

  Lieutenant was still alive, but off the case—also rated a flagged mention. The

  newscast split-screened a toothpaste commercial photograph of "Barbara Dahl

  Winters," smiling under a prom queen tiara, and an "artist's impression" of Gorse

  in giant bat form, with blood tastefully dripping from his fangs. Ernest "Gory"

  Gorse turned out to be a fugitive from Scotland Yard, with a record of petty

  convictions before he turned and a couple of likely murders since. Considering a

  mug shot from his warm days, Karen said the killer looked like such a nice fellow,

  even scowling over numbers, and Lew commented that you couldn't judge a book

  by its cover.

  Geneviève continued paying attention, well into the next item—about a scary

  candlelight vigil by hooded supporters of Annie Wilkes—and turned the sound on

  her portable TV set down only when she was sure her name was not going to

  come up in connection with the Shadow Bay story.

  Gorse implied she was targeted because of her well-known involvement in the

  overthrow of Count Dracula nearly a century ago. But that didn't explain why he

  had waited until now to give her a hard time. She also gathered from what he had

  let slip in flirtatious hints that he wasn't the top of the totem pole, that he was

  working with or perhaps for someone else.

  Gorse had said: "You can't stop Him. He's coming back."

  Him? He?

  Only one vampire inspired that sort of quondam rex que futurus talk. Before

  he finally died, put out of his misery, Count Dracula had used himself up

  completely. Geneviève was sure of that. He had outlived his era, several times