The Night Inside

by The Night Inside (epub)

  Be sensible, her reason told her, stay away from here—where Sara could see you. But the remembered taste of Peterson’s blood in her mouth, the remembered feel of Roias’s mouth on her thigh, told her otherwise.

  It was early evening and, even though it was Monday, the warm weather kept the street crowded with people. In the city’s often careful divisions of neighbourhoods, this was the home of the artistic and the left-wing, where appearance became a statement of purpose and the graffiti had a decidedly political bent. It was home to some of the city’s coolest clubs and to a number of musicians, artists and designers. Or those with aspirations—or pretensions—to any of those callings.

  Ardeth recalled Sara complaining that the second-hand clothing stores were vanishing in favour of expensive designers (albeit ones to whom black never went out of fashion), the used-book stores had gone, victim of rising rents, and the restaurants were attracting as many slumming yuppies as the genuine avant-garde. Ardeth had restrained herself from asking how one told the genuinely avant-garde from those who merely had the right clothes.

  She smiled at the memory as she glanced down the street. The difference between the pose and the person, the artistic and the artificial, held little interest for her now. What mattered was the ever-shifting population of the street, by nature transient, and the loud darkness of the clubs, where people pretended, with pale faces, black-lined eyes and a carefully cultivated boredom, to the state in which she now found herself. Hide, Rozokov had told her. What better place to hide could there be than in a crowd of vampire wanna-bes?

  And . . . a secret voice whispered, they’re the ones who used to look right through you in your safe, dull little life. Will they look right through you now, now that you’re their darkest dreams?

  The wail of a distant siren brought her out of her reverie. She wasn’t ready for the street yet. There were still a few important steps left in her transformation, to ensure that no one would look at her and see long hours of study in libraries in her bones.

  She spent some of her cache of money. It got her two black mini-skirts, a pair of flat black shoes, a black, narrow-strapped cocktail dress from one of the remaining vintage clothing stores. A trip to the drugstore added make-up and black stockings. Finally, she bought two black T-shirts from a sidewalk vendor. The shirts had fluttered behind him on ropes, the bright colours smeared against the sky. There were shirts with surrealistic representations of England’s punk stars, fetishistic images of a 1950s bondage queen, and T-shirts with bats and salamanders printed on them. She was swayed by one bearing spiderwebs and bats, with the slogan “Sex Vampires” scrawled across the poisonous yellow background. But, though it made her smile at the irony of it, she turned away and settled instead for two in black, one with a gothic cross in pale grey emblazoned on the front and the other with wax-screened red lizards slithering up the chest.

  She still had to do something about her hair. Something radical that would cause any eye seeking a fair-haired graduate student to slide right over her without a second glance. She could dye it herself, she supposed, using any brand available at the drugstore, but where would she do it? A public washroom seemed risky, too likely to draw attention to herself. Could she rent a room in a cheap hotel where cash would buy the blind eyes of the clerks and no names need ever be exchanged? Of course if she botched it, she might end up making herself more noticeable instead of less. She wanted to blend in on the street where flamboyance was the rule. A bad dye job might not be the best way to do that.

  She still had money—why not do this right? Ardeth thought suddenly. The salons on Queen Street were open at night. Having decided, she headed down the street and entered the first salon she passed. Luckily, there was someone free to do her hair right then. When the woman at the desk asked for her name, Ardeth paused for a moment, then smiled. “Lucy,” she said at last, “Lucy Westenra,” and obligingly spelled the name of Dracula’s first English victim.

  “So, what are we having done tonight?” the hairdresser who introduced himself as Doug, asked as she settled into the chair. Ardeth looked at herself in the mirror, grateful she still had a reflection.

  “Something different. Something so that no one will recognize me.” He raised one eyebrow in curiosity but when nothing further was forthcoming squinted at her reflection for a moment. At last he smiled. “I’ve got just the thing,” he announced and, before she could speak, swept her up into the ritual of transformation.

  Finally, he stepped back to let her look closely at herself for the first time. He had chipped her hair off at the jaw line, curved it delicately forward—an effect she knew she’d never be able to quite duplicate. Her part was gone, replaced by the sharp slash of bangs just above her brows. The colour was rich, glossy black. When she tilted her head, the light caught veins of blue in the sable. The dark colour did not look natural, but that didn’t matter. The contrast turned her skin from ivory into alabaster and the cut altered the shape of her face, emphasizing the hollows under her cheekbones. “Well?” Doug asked.

  “I look like that old movie star. . . .”

  “Louise Brooks. Very hot look right now.”

  “I like it,” Ardeth decided and smiled at her reflection. “It’s me.”

  In the salon change room she dug into her purse and pulled out the make-up she’d bought. She lined her eyes with Egyptian extravagance, and painted her mouth with a red that held the blackish hue of blood.

  Ardeth stepped back and put on her sunglasses. Her features dissolved behind them until all that anyone looking at her would remember was their black line, balanced by the smaller red line of her mouth. She could walk by Sara on the street and her sister would never look twice. But others might.

  Be careful, be anonymous, be safe, Rozokov had instructed, before he abandoned her in the night. The black-lipped demon in the mirror smiled grimly. What had safety done for her but given her this chance to be powerful, to be dangerous, to be reckless? Fear and caution seemed unsupportable by the new fire she felt pulse through her. Images flickered in her mind of late-night movie vampires, all sleek and stark in black and white, even when the films were in colour. This was what vampires were supposed to look like.

  As she turned towards the door she realized, with a kind of relief, that she was still hungry. Everything was starting to fall into place.

  She walked through the crowd with dizzy anticipation, her excitement showing in the faint smile that curved her lips, in the confident sway of her hips as she walked. She felt the eyes on her, felt them linger as she passed the sidewalk cafes and stores. The weight of those gazes was instinctively intoxicating, like a caress.

  Still, even in the thrall of her new self, she knew that she could not completely abandon caution. And that she had not completely abandoned fear. Beyond the image she had created for herself, beyond the secret knowledge of her power lay the hard reality of her state, the price that would have to be paid over and over again. She had to feed. Blood must be taken, willingly or unwillingly, from the people who passed her on the street. They were not Peterson or Roias. Now there was no righteous hate to guide her—or to justify what she had to do.

  She must be selective, Ardeth realized, as her black-lined eyes lingered on an attractive man sitting alone in one of the sidewalk cafés. It had to be someone who would not know what was happening to them—or would not tell. At least until she could master Rozokov’s trick of hypnotism. That eliminated the man in the cafe, she decided, and moved on.

  Johns, she thought suddenly. Surely a prostitute’s customers would not be inclined to say anything if the woman engaged in an unusual practice. She paused at an intersection, watching the red light and considering the option.

  It had its advantages: anonymity, a silent population of victims, and even payment for her actions. But there were dangers too—pimps, the increasingly vocal community groups in the “track,” and, most importantly, the police. She dared not even imagine what
would happen if she were imprisoned.

  Besides, she thought, I never wanted to be a prostitute. I won’t be anything I don’t want to be, ever again.

  She crossed the street before the light turned and was considering heading up one of the side streets when she saw him. He was no more than twenty, she guessed, with close-cropped dark hair and a gaunt, hungry face. He was panhandling, hand stuck out towards the crowd as he chanted his unending request for spare change.

  Ardeth eased back from the passing crowd and watched him for a moment. Something in the monotonous voice and the lowered eyes suggested such weary resignation and despair that she almost kept walking.

  But the sight had reminded her of her own hunger, which had turned into an insistent throb deep inside her. She shifted uneasily on the corner. He’s been victimized enough surely, part of her mind suggested. Then once more won’t matter, the cynical edge replied. Besides you don’t intend to hurt him (but you might). You don’t intend to kill him (but you might).

  And if she did, Ardeth realized suddenly, no one would know—or care. The thought should have horrified her, but it seemed that her moral centre had gone too, burned out in the face of Roias’s sadism and Rozokov’s eternal imperative to survive.

  That’s all it is, she told herself desperately. My survival. I’ve paid too high a price for it to back out now.

  She moved to stand beside the boy, who looked at her in dull surprise. “You got any spare change?” he asked.

  “I might.” She saw a spark of life in the dark eyes, then anger at her unclear answer, and his mouth opened to swear at her. Then he seemed to remember that she was a potential source of income and he snapped his mouth shut again. “Having much luck?” Ardeth asked.

  “Some,” he replied warily, eyeing her. “You looking to deal?” he asked suddenly.

  “No, but I know someone who is. What do you want?”

  “What’s he got?”

  “Come with me and find out,” Ardeth suggested. The kid looked up and down the street nervously, as if expecting to gauge her trustworthiness by the signs of danger on the street. “Come on. It’s not far. You’ll be back here in twenty minutes.” He nodded quickly, once. “Look, meet me down at the next corner down John Street in five minutes. Just in case, you know,” she suggested and he nodded again. Ardeth smiled and dropped a quarter in his palm, then walked on.

  Five minutes later she was standing in the alcove of a closed office building, waiting. The kid was on time, slouching with edgy bravado up to her. “Where to?”

  “This way,” she gestured with her head and led him down into the deserted blocks of warehouses and offices several streets to the south. In the shadow of an abandoned building, she drew him into a side alley.

  “So where’s the deal?” he asked uneasily, hands jammed hard into his jeans pockets as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

  “I’m the deal.” Ardeth felt a tremor of pleasure as his eyes widened.

  “Hey lady, what kind of game is this?”

  “An easy one.” She dug a ten-dollar bill out of her pocket and waved it gently. “I’ll give you this . . . if you let me kiss you.”

  “You want to pay to kiss me?” he repeated incredulously, but his eyes were already hooked on the lure of the moving bill.

  “Exactly. That’s all. An easy ten bucks.”

  “Give it to me now,” he said suddenly and put out his hand. Ardeth let him take the bill and then saw his eyes shift between her and the exit to the alley. They lingered on the empty street then returned to her. “OK.”

  She stepped up to him and put her hands on his shoulders. She realized with surprise that he was shaking. The thought set her own muscles trembling. The kid stared down at her, eyes moving uneasily from his own reflection in her sunglasses to her dark mouth. When she kissed him, she watched from behind her tinted lenses as his eyes closed.

  To her surprise, he kissed her back. Her heart was pounding so loudly she thought her ribs would shatter and the hunger, tangled up now with a rush of desire, seemed to have expanded inside her, filling her body with heat. The kid put his arms around her and pulled her tight against him.

  Ardeth thought she could feel his heart beating against her, feel every artery throbbing through their layers of leather and denim. The scent of his life, so close to her, was overwhelming. When he reached inside her jacket and put his hand on her breast, she made a soft involuntary sound of pleasure. “This’ll cost you more,” he whispered.

  “It’s all right,” she murmured against his mouth and his hands on her tightened.

  If he had continued to kiss her, she might have let it go further, might have found the strength to wait. But she was too deep in it now, and too hungry. When his mouth released hers, she sought his throat with the blind instinct of a new-born creature seeking the teat.

  She tasted his sweat, the bitter coat of grime on his skin, then she was in. The blood filled her, blotting out his cry, turning his sudden struggles into mere nuisances that she subdued with iron fingers. They sank to the ground and knelt there like praying lovers while she swallowed again and again. His head fell back in surrender and he groaned.

  She felt the life go out of him, the heart stop with a suddenness that startled her. For a moment she crouched there, holding him, the blood curdling in her mouth. Then she stood up slowly, letting him fall.

  There was a manhole cover at the foot of the alley and she pried it up, then dumped the body down into the sewer. She waited for the faint splash before replacing the cover.

  Then she went back into the alley and vomited blood into a trashcan.

  Chapter 19

  “Hey Grey Man, you lookin’ for some fun?”

  “Grey Man, you got thirty bucks? You wanna blow job?”

  “Girls, if Gris-Gris had thirty bucks, he’d have done drunk it by now.”

  The women lounged against the bus shelter on the street corner. He knew their names from time spent sitting on the park bench to their right, beneath the sheltering shadows of untrimmed hedges. Sheila was from somewhere far to the north, a ten-year veteran of the street at twenty-five. May was in late adolescence, he guessed, with baby-fat lingering in her round face, round limbs. Carlotta, who called him Gris-Gris, was from Haiti. She was the only one who was afraid of him, though she hid it with her merciless tongue.

  Every night, they would stand by the bus shelter (their “office,” they called it), clad in clothes so tight they outlined every curve, smoking cigarettes, chatting, and getting into the cars that slid in steady succession to a stop at the curb.

  Rozokov didn’t acknowledge their taunts as he shuffled by. He never did. He suspected that there was some rough affection in them, some acknowledgement of the kinship of the lost. Or perhaps it only gave them some pleasure to flaunt themselves in front of someone to whom they could feel superior.

  “You’d do it to Grey Man for ten bucks? Girl, are you crazy?” Sheila said, loud enough for him to hear. “It’d take thirty just to ignore the smell. And who knows when the last time he washed that thing.”

  There was no denying the smell, he acknowledged with a smile he hid behind a bent head and a tangle of grey hair. The derelict from whom he’d stolen the clothing had not believed cleanliness was next to godliness, or had not aspired to godliness at all. The shabby pants, dirty shirt and grubby grey overcoat all reeked of sweat, urine and liquor. Much as the man had.

  It had been Rozokov’s third night in the city. The first day he had spent in a sheltered drainage pipe in the ravine, the second in the dusty upper story of a garage backing one of the mansions that rimmed it. When he woke in the early evenings, he had carefully tried to recover the resources he had secreted away against his awakening. They were all gone—or completely inaccessible to him as he was now.

  His bank accounts had long ago been reclaimed by the banks, the trusts he had so carefully constructed for hi
s “descendants” now required at least three pieces of documentation as proof of his parentage and he had none of the basic papers this age seemed to demand. He did not even know who to contact to obtain forgeries, such as had so often served him in the past.

  And each time he stepped into a bank, he could feel the traces of footsteps before him, could sense traps set up to be triggered by his attempts to reclaim the last remnants of his old life.

  On the third night, confused and angry, he gave up. He retreated to the shadows of one of the landmarks he recognized, a great church that was not dwarfed by the monolithic glass towers that loomed around it, just as it had once reached heavenward over the more modest buildings at its feet. He tried to think.

  In the asylum Ardeth’s stories had been, at first, a diversion, and then an affirmation that some life, some reason to endure, existed beyond the cruelty of Roias and the others. The world she described was both wondrous and recognizable. Despite the many strange and fantastic things she had told him, he had seen the seeds of war and technological development in his own day, had known that the pace of change had quickened over the span of his life. Such was the way of the world, he had thought. He would survive, just as he always did.

  But when he was in it, in the heart of the vast city whose glow obliterated the stars, he found his certainty fading. The weight of the city’s towers hung over him, blotting out the moon.

  Sometimes, in the midst of all the alien glass and steel, he would find some remnant of the world he had known. A carved stone façade of a building, a restored “historical site” that had been new before he began his long sleep, street names that made a mockery of their own familiarity by being set in lighted boxes, or followed by the cryptic glyphs of Chinese or Hindi.

  But more often he could find no echoes of the old city in the noise of the new.

  More than the buildings had changed. The streets thronged with people of every race and colour. He heard Greek and Italian shouted on street corners, sat on a park bench beside two old women who gossiped in a tongue whose accents made him ache for the lost Russia of his childhood. And there were languages he did not know, Chinese, Portuguese, Urdu, and the thick sing-song patois of the Caribbean.