by Rob Cornell
“Focusing that kind of will in your sleep? Maybe hexing the alarm clock into permanent snooze. But not conjuring the level of power you’re talking about.”
Mom started coughing. Smoke burst from her mouth in a jerky torrent.
Sly went over to her side and pulled the lever to let the footrest down. “I got this,” he said, taking the bong from her.
Her bleary eyes watched Sly set the bong onto his workbench. He scanned some glass bottles on what looked like a metal spice rack. He reached for one bottle, hesitated, then grabbed a different one. A dark blue fluid filled the bottle about a quarter of the way.
On his way back to Mom, he uncorked the bottle, and I caught a whiff of the stuff even through the bong smoke. It smelled like blueberry syrup. I was so used to his stuff reeking like wet dog or goose shit—or whatever putrid thing I could compare it to—the syrupy smell took me by surprise.
Despite the potion’s sweet scent, Mom scrunched up her face when he offered it to her.
“Just a sip,” Sly coaxed.
“It won’t amount to anything,” she said. “None of this is doing any good, Sylvester. And you damn well know it.”
Sly sighed and plugged the cork back in the bottle.
“Mom, you’re not being fair.”
Sly raised his hand to quiet me. “She’s right,” he said. “I’ve reached my limit. I’m only guessing now.”
“You went through the same thing when we were trying to get her out of the fugue,” I said. “But you found a solution eventually.”
Mom’s gaze roved to me. “I don’t have time for eventually.”
The pain in her voice made my chest tighten. “I know it’s hard—”
“No. You don’t. You don’t.” Then, once more in a whisper, “You don’t.”
She hung her head and kneaded her hands in her lap.
This time, I looked to Sly for guidance. His attention was on Mom, so he didn’t see me. He absently shook the bottle in one hand, making the blue liquid roll around inside, coating the glass up to the bottle neck. He kept working his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but kept stopping himself.
Mom craned her neck to look up at him “What are you holding back?”
Sly shuffled back a step. He passed his bottle back and forth between his hands like a pitcher warming up to throw a fastball. He realized what he was doing and clamped down on the bottle with both hands.
Nobody said anything.
Mom stared at Sly. I stared at Sly. And Sly stared at the bottle in his hands as if wondering how it got there.
After a second, he turned around, went back to his workbench, and set the potion in its place on the rack. He brushed his hands together, then wiped them on his jeans. Then he looked at me across the bench. “You aren’t going to like it.”
Mom scooted to the edge of her seat and leaned forward. “He doesn’t have to like it. This is my life we’re dealing with.”
Sly kept his eyes on me. I got the impression he wanted permission from me to go on. But how could I permit something I knew nothing about? Besides, Mom was right. Whatever Sly had in mind, it was up to her to decide if she wanted to go through with it. Not me.
I gave him a shrug. I didn’t know what other sign to give him.
He seemed to accept it as good enough. “I think it’s time Judith worked with someone else on getting her memories back.”
A hot prickle collared my neck. Sure enough, I didn’t like his suggestion. “We’ve known you a long time, Sly. I don’t think we need to trust someone else when we have you.”
“Who do you have in mind?” Mom asked as if I hadn’t spoken at all.
“There isn’t an alchemist anywhere near Detroit who can do what you can,” I said. “I have every faith in your skills.”
“It’s not about skills, brother. It’s about knowledge. I’ve exhausted mine.”
“Sylvester,” Mom snapped. “Who is this other alchemist?”
He studied something on his workbench, but as far as I could see from my angle, there was nothing there but the table’s surface. “They’re not alchemists,” he said.
I didn’t miss the plural form he’d used. Not someone else, but several someones. I wasn’t sure why, but that worried me even more.
“Stop being coy,” Mom said. She planted her hands on the recliner’s armrests and pushed up to her feet. She wavered a moment but quickly steadied. “Tell me.”
After a moment, Sly inhaled deeply, pulled his shoulders back, and pivoted to Mom. He had decided to cut me out of the conversation.
“Judith, I want you to consider this carefully,” he said. “I’m more than happy to keep working with you. Don’t think I’m trying to pass you off.”
“I know that,” Mom said. I could hear the impatience in her voice. She didn’t push, though.
“But I really want you to think about what I’m going to suggest. It may—”
“Just spit it the fuck out,” I shouted.
Sly nodded, took one more second, then said, “I believe the Maidens of Shadow have the best chance of restoring your memories.”
A cold and oily sensation rose from low in my abdomen, up the back of my throat, and filled my mouth with a swampy taste. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
The Maidens of Shadow held the distinct honor as the most powerful black witch coven in the entire Midwest. Key word: black. As in black magic. Dark stuff. The kind of juju that requires animal sacrifices and twenty-four hour orgies with whips and chains. That kind of stuff.
Sending me to a vampire like Toft Kitchens to help keep me from turning had been one thing. A dubious suggestion, but the best we’d had at the time. Sending my mother to a coven of black witches? This was a new, desperate low.
I was happy to see a look of distress on Mom’s face, too. “That’s…” She raised her eyebrows. “Extreme.”
“I know,” Sly said. “But I’ve been doing some research—”
“Shut up,” I said. “Just shut the hell up. Mom’s already said she doesn’t want to do it.”
“I didn’t say that at all.”
I gaped at her and stammered. It wasn’t nice to call your mother names like loony, or daft, or flat out idiotic. I loved my mom too much to insult her like that. So I made incoherent noises instead.
Mom approached Sly behind the workbench, her tan flats scuffing against the tile floor. She put a hand on his arm and looked into his eyes. He stood six inches taller than her, so she had to tilt her head back. “Do you realize what you’re suggesting?”
“I do. And I wouldn’t have brought it up if I didn’t think it could work.”
“What can they do that any other practitioner can’t?” I asked, my voice nearly cracking at the tail of my question.
“I don’t know details,” he said. “But they seemed confident they could help.”
My eyes about popped out of their sockets. “You’ve already spoken to them? Before you checked with us?”
“Like I said, I did not want to bring it up if I didn’t think it a viable approach.”
I ran my hands through my hair. My pomade felt sticky between my fingers. “You cannot be serious.”
“I want to do it,” Mom said. “I’ll go alone if I have to.”
Ugh. She had to throw in a guilt trip. This situation wasn’t torturous enough already. I clenched my teeth, trying to hold back the litany of curses I wanted to spew. I took a few deep breaths through my nose.
Mom and Sly both waited patiently for me to get a grip.
“This is a terrible idea,” I said. “A terrible, terrible idea.”
Mom nodded. “Yes.”
“But you still want to do it?”
The tears pooled in her eyes ran loose down her cheeks. “Yes.”
What could I say? I had tried my best to talk her out of this. I knew any more objections wouldn’t change a thing. That left me with only one other option. I crossed the room, put my arms around her.
“You don’t hav
e to go alone.”
Chapter Seven
We spent the rest of the day laying low at Fiona’s. Fiona took time off work to hang with us. We killed time with some books off Fiona’s shelf, a few games of three-handed euchre at the kitchen table, and Mom’s stories about her adventures with Dad before I was born. She seemed in better spirits than she had in a while ever since we left Sly’s shop with his promise to contact the Maidens of Shadow to set up a meeting with them.
Not usually the kind of thing that cheered a person up, but I’d take it. Mom deserved a shred of hope, no matter where it came from.
After sundown, I reluctantly left Mom at Fiona’s while I made my trek downtown to the Black Rose jazz club on Park Avenue. The club belongs to Toft Kitchens, a four-hundred year-old vampire who had been turned at a young enough age that he didn’t look a day older than thirteen.
The club wasn’t open yet, but I had called ahead, so Toft was expecting me.
His bouncer/bodyguard, Mortimer, greeted me at the door. Mortimer was a troll with a fairly good glamour that passed him off as a squat human almost as wide as he was tall. Despite the high quality glamour, I could still tell from the blackness in his eyes that he wasn’t human. He didn’t say much, but he didn’t need to. Another of his features involved some kind of psychic link between him and Toft, so that Toft could see through the troll’s eyes and give him necessary instructions based on what he saw.
A neat trick, and I had no idea how Toft made work.
I thought Mortimer would lead me back to Toft’s office, but instead he deposited me at the U-shaped booth Toft favored beside the stage.
A couple minutes later Toft appeared in the booth with me. The lights in the club were dim enough to allow him to shadow walk right into the booth without me seeing him.
I started at his sudden appearance, but kept my face stiff to keep from showing it.
As usual, the little boy had his dirty blond hair oiled back and parted neatly on one side. He wore a dark suit and blood red bowtie.
He smiled. His lips matched the color of his bowtie. I wondered if he had fed recently. Tame vamps typically had “willing” donors, humans who offered themselves as food because of some pleasurable high the process supposedly gave them. On the other hand, I hadn’t experienced a single hint of pleasure when I got bit. Maybe the willingness made the difference. But I also happened to know older vamps could use their thrall to compel mortals to heed their will. So, while the blood offerings might have appeared voluntary, the truth was anybody’s guess.
Upon first meeting Toft, I had encountered a pair of his thralls. A middle-aged couple he had set up to look like his parents. Smart. And super creepy.
“All the world’s troubles,” Toft said.
“Say what?”
“You look as though you’re shouldering them.” He slid along the booth toward me, then clapped me on the shoulder. “Ease up, friend.”
He seemed awfully chipper for a vampire.
“I’m glad you decided to come by,” he said. “Your timing is perfect.”
“I need your help.”
“Of course you do. I didn’t expect we’d chat over cosmos.” His smile spread wider. Thankfully, he had his fangs drawn in. He still projected a chilling eeriness, though. Four centuries of experience filled his eyes in stark contrast to his young appearance.
“I was attacked last night,” I started.
“And I want to hear all about it…after.” He was so buoyant, I thought he might float out of the booth.
“After what?”
He leaned toward me and spoke in a low voice. “It’s time, Mr. Light.”
A cold stone dropped in my gut. I knew what he meant. “Look, Toft. This is not a good time.”
His fangs slowly slid down, elongating and sharpening his canines. His little boy grin stayed lodged on his face. It was like Norman Rockwell meets H.R. Giger.
A cold shudder ran through me.
“It’s never a good time,” he said, voice like a slither. “But you swore by your blood, and I’ll have you do as you promised…now.”
I opened my mouth to object and only emitted a wet grunt. Toft had invoked the oath, which meant I could not deny him. The power of that oath physically restricted me from even arguing.
Toft’s smile broke all the wider. He clapped me on the shoulder again. His cheer turned my stomach. Nothing good could come from something that made the undead feel so alive.
He looked out into the shadowed club. Black cloths covered the round tables and each had unlit red candles in black ceramic candleholders shaped like roses. The air was dry and warm. A comfortable contrast to the wet October chill outside. At that moment, I’d take whatever comfort I could get.
“I can still see you,” Toft said into the quiet and, seemingly, empty club. But then I caught movement in a far shadow and soon made out the silhouette of a person.
The person stepped forward into the cast of a shaded lamp hanging above one of the tables nearest him. He looked about eighteen with tangled red hair and a clueless look on his face. He wore a flannel shirt, unbuttoned over a black Nirvana t-shirt, although he probably hadn’t been born yet when Kurt Cobain committed suicide. He had on a pair of jeans with holes ripped in the knees and cuffed over a pair of steel-toed shit kickers.
Since when did grunge make a comeback?
“Good effort, my boy,” Toft said. “But you mustn’t hide in the shadows. You need to become the shadows.”
The teen ducked his head and hunched his shoulders. “Yeah, okay.”
Toft turned his fanged grin at me. “They’re so cute when they’re young.”
The line created a dizzy disconnect in my mind—the twelve year-old tickled by the eighteen year-old’s youthful antics. Vampires sure were good for a head-trip, and Toft had delivered nicely.
Toft waved the kid over. The kid wound his way through the tables and to our booth, slouching the whole way. When he reached us, he kept his gaze down.
“You’ll have to excuse him,” Toft said. “He’s been turned for only six months. He’s a bit self-conscious of his change.”
Damn. Six months a vamp. Interestingly enough, I hadn’t run into many that fresh. I always got the impression the vampires kept their new turns heavily sheltered like virgin nuns. I had little idea about what was involved in training (or raising, or whatever they called it) a vampire outside of the texts I’d read when I was younger. Typically, their maker took on the role as mentor. Did that mean Toft had turned this kid?
I didn’t know. I didn’t care.
“This is great. But what the hell has this got to do with me?”
Toft held his hand out to the kid. “Odi Crossman, meet Sebastian Light.” Then he pivoted to me.
“Sebastian, meet your new apprentice.”
Chapter Eight
The vampire kid, Odi, stared at me as if I’d stepped off an alien aircraft in the middle of Ford Field. To be fair, I probably stared at him the same way. I was trying to parse Toft’s last sentence and not having much luck. What the hell did he mean by apprentice?
Toft seemed to revel in our shared confusion. His giggle sounded like what you’d expect from a little boy who had played a prank on his parents. He still had his fangs out, so he looked positively horrifying as he yukked it up.
Odi was the first of us to speak. “You’re really him?” he asked, daring to lift his gaze. “Him, him?”
“Uuuuuh,” I said with my mouth hanging open.
For the third time that evening, Toft slapped me on the back. “If only you could witness your expression. Priceless.”
Odi shifted his weight from foot to foot. His eyes were wide, and he had this dopey smirk. “Dude,” he said. “You are him.”
Toft reigned in his laughter. “Yes, Odi. You stand before the legend himself, the Unturned.”
I jerked at his use of the moniker and glowered at him. “Do not call me that.”
“It’s a title of some distinction among my pe
ople, Sebastian. Although, it’s more likely infamous than famous.”
“I think it’s pretty sweet,” Odi said. His spiky red tangles glistened in the light coming from behind him. He had a lot of product in there. “I mean, you’re supposed to be a vampire, but you’re totally not a vampire. I wish…” He trailed off. His awed expression crumbled, and he looked to the floor again.
I had a feeling I knew what he was going to say, and I had to admit my heart went out to the kid. Despite what all the cheesy, bullshit books and movies sometimes portrayed, not everybody wanted to be a vampire.
Toft didn’t seem to appreciate the sentiment. “Quit feeling so sorry for yourself.” He drew in his fangs, and the frown on his youthful face made him look all pouty, as if his mom wanted him to eat his broccoli in order to have dessert. He folded his arms. “You’ve been given the gift of immortality. You should learn to appreciate it.”
He had all his attention on Odi as he spoke, yet I felt some of his disappointment directed my way. Older vamps like Toft had spent so long undead, I doubted any of them could remember what life had been like as a mortal, or that frightening moment when they had discovered their mortality irrevocably stolen. Then again, Toft could have been one of those who had willingly embraced vampirism. Though I found it hard to imagine any thirteen year-old boy gung ho about the idea. Especially four hundred years before the literary advent of sparkling vampires.
Odi nodded his head like a chastened student. “Yes, sir.”
I twisted in my seat to face Toft. “What is this all about? What did you mean he’s my apprentice?”
Toft gestured toward the empty space in the booth on his other side. “Sit with us, boy.”
Odi wasted no time sliding in next to Toft, the three of us now lined up like a trio of drinking buddies waiting for the next jazz act to take the darkened stage. Toft leaned back so we could all see each other without having to look around him.
“Odi has a fascinating history.”
I thumped a fist on the table. “I don’t have time for—”
Toft held up a hand, and I gave up arguing. No point. Toft would give me his history lesson whether I wanted it or not.
Odi sat quietly, alternately chewing on his lip and scratching behind his ear. If Toft hadn’t said anything, I would have never pegged the kid as a vampire. The undead weren’t prone to nervous fidgeting.