Sallow House

by Phil Malone

  Caligula ignored them all, and continued on. “Two: that no vampire shall take their prey without first inducing in them a state of hypnotic euphoria that causes them to forget the attack. Three: that no vampire shall drink so deeply from their prey as to cause permanent harm.”

  “What?!" One member of the council, Opechancanough, rose so abruptly from his seat that his heavy antique chair toppled over backwards. He was the only council member not dressed in fine clothes, instead opting for a wide brimmed cowboy hat and a weathered brown duster jacket with his long hair spilling over the collar. His aide rushed forward to set his chair upright.

  So far, Sanger had never seen anyone display more than mild irritation at these gatherings. But Opechancanough was livid. He glared at Caligula. “Are you saying we ain’t even allowed to kill?”

  “Sit down, Opechancanough. These measures are meant to keep us safe.”

  “Don’t sound that way.”

  “I find myself forced to agree,” Gudit said. “These rules would make our very existence a chore.”

  Caligula scowled at her. “If these rules had been in place already, this vampire hunter Lucado might never have been able to track those three vampires to their nest. They would still be alive.”

  “You don’t know how he found them,” Opechancanough growled.

  The representative from Chicago, Ghiyasuddin Balban, stood, took Opechancanough by the arm, and gently pulled him back down into his seat. “Perhaps a parliamentary compromise,” he said. “Why not separate these rules and vote on them one at a time?”

  Caligula shook his head. “We vote on them as a package.”

  “You know what happens should a tie occur,” John Hawkyns warned. “The existing law stands.”

  “All those in favor?" Caligula raised his hand, unafraid.

  Wu Zetian, Catherine de Medici, and Adronicus raised theirs as well, quickly followed by another council member, Moctezuma. That gave Caligula five. His eyes swept across the remaining voters, looking for two more hands.

  Opechancanough folded his arms and glared at Caligula, making plain his refusal to budge. Gudit stared at him as well, her face blank and inscrutable. Still, she didn’t raise her hand. Hawkyns and another member, Chelchel, looked as if they might waver. Even when Caligula eyed them, though, their hands remained on the table.

  Another council member, Herod, was not so firm. Under Caligula’s withering glare, he finally gave in and put up his arm.

  “Coward,” Opechancanough huffed. Caligula only needed one more vote.

  “My territory contains more vampires than any other,” Ghiyasuddin said, glancing at Napoleon. “Including Gudit’s, down in New Orleans. They would detest these rules. If it keeps them safe, however, it may be worth a try." His hand crept into the air. “If not, we can always vote to undo them.”

  The meeting erupted. Hawkyns started shouting at Ghiyasuddin, Chelchel and Herod arguing with Moctezuma and Adronicus. Catherine de Medici giggled as she watched the uproar. Napoleon tried to catch Opechancanough as he marched out the door, but for his efforts only got shouldered roughly aside. Gudit sat quietly, as did Caligula.

  Caligula allowed the cacophony to continue for a few minutes. Then he struck the table with his fist again, so hard that it smashed through the wood and reduced that end of the table to splinters. The rest of the council grew just subdued enough to give him their attention.

  “The motion carries,” Caligula said, and the room erupted once more.

  With Opechancanough gone, Caligula adjourned the council until the following night. They needed all twelve voices, it seemed, or else they did nothing.

  The council members dispersed. Very few of them were inclined to stay behind and socialize, but Sanger noticed, as he lingered, that Caligula remained seated. Adronicus took the chair next to him, the two of them leaning their heads close together and speaking in voices that didn’t carry even to Sanger’s ears.

  He hurried outside, hoping Napoleon wouldn’t leave without him. To his relief, the limo was still there, engine idling, Hugo Head behind the wheel. Darkened windows hid the limousine’s rear seats from view.

  Sanger climbed in, seating himself next to Napoleon. His boss was fuming. “Why the voice votes?” Sanger asked. “Why don’t they just have secret ballots?”

  “Because the only way he can intimidate anyone into changing their mind is if he knows which way they are inclined to vote." Napoleon turned towards him. “Make no mistake. Caligula has that council running just the way he likes. I am of half a mind to follow him to his home and hack off his goddamn head.”

  The car door next to Sanger opened suddenly. He whirled around, half expecting Caligula or Bleda to grab him and drag him outside. Instead, Gudit squeezed in and sat next to him, sandwiching him between her and Napoleon.

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Napoleon,” she smiled. “Have you seen Caligula’s home? He has more security than most European monarchs.”

  Napoleon’s eyes widened, then he looked away. “I was speaking rhetorically,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

  “You were speaking impatiently." She turned to Sanger. “Is it true you were a politician in a former life?”

  “I’m a congressman.”

  “Then tell him! Tell him how long it takes to successfully overturn some of the bedrock principles of the society in which you live.”

  “She’s right, Napoleon. There was an abolitionist movement in this country before it even was a country, and it still took eighty years and a bloody, destructive civil war to get rid of slavery." Too late, Sanger realized what he’d just suggested. There were some ideas he didn’t want to put in Napoleon’s head. “Maybe that was a bad example.”

  Gudit reached across Sanger and patted Napoleon’s knee. “Civil war or not, the only reason it got that far was because enough people were ready for the change. You have to get enough of us on your side, Napoleon. That takes time.”

  Napoleon brushed her hand away. “What are you suggesting? That I bring it up in meeting after meeting, year after year until enough of the other council members are sick of hearing it and vote my way?”

  “Not at all. Becoming an annoyance would only drive them away. Talk to them in private. Not constantly, but from time to time. Every time some event happens that makes your ideas seem like good ones, pick up the phone and call Hawkyns, or Chelchel, or one of the others.”

  Sanger nodded in agreement. “When the momentum starts to move your way, you’ll know it. This will be a project of years, maybe decades. You have to chip away at their resolve, a bit at a time.”

  Sighing, Napoleon slumped back in his seat. “To overturn so much established law, I need eleven votes. You saw Adronicus in there. No one is more Caligula’s creature than he.”

  “There are other vampires in the Hudson Bay region. You do not have to focus all your efforts on council members. Find out who else has influence and try to sway them. That goes for the rest of the regions, as well.”

  Despite the discomfort of being squeezed between two council members, Sanger’s mind raced with the possibilities. “Especially once everyone hears about these new rules Caligula just imposed. There’s going to be a lot of disaffected vampires ready to rebel. Their representatives on the council will either have to listen, or face open revolt in their territories.”

  Gudit mussed Sanger’s hair. “You shall surely be a force to be reckoned with, once you are no longer Napoleon’s thrall.”

  Irritated, Sanger smoothed his hair. “I’m not a thrall." He gestured towards the driver’s seat in front of them. “Hugo is a thrall.”

  “Of course he is." Gudit smiled. “Just think twice if you decide to rebel against your maker during the next century or so.”

  “Enough, Gudit." Napoleon shook his head. “How does Caligula expect to even enforce these new ordinances? Vampires everywhere will make the murder rate skyrocket out of spite. Most especially anywhere within Opechancanough’s vicinity.”


  “That is a dilemma for Caligula to settle." Gudit threw the car door open, climbed out, then hesitated. She turned around, leaning her head back in. “I look forward to your vote again next session. In the meantime, I expect it to be a beast of a year.”

  She slammed the door shut, finally giving Sanger room to spread out. They heard her hand bang three times on the roof of the limousine. Hugo Head took that as his cue. He revved the engine, backed down Adronicus’s driveway, and carried his masters off into the night.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  An unmarked police car sat outside Congressman Sanger’s house, with two men in the front, drinking coffee and snacking on packaged junk food from a nearby convenience store. If he didn’t know better, Sallow might have feared they were stalking the same family he was. He could hear the occasional chatter from their radio, though, so he knew who they were.

  Police didn’t bother him anymore. Once, he would never have tried to snatch a victim from under their noses. Now, they’d never know he was here until after he finished.

  He spent half an hour watching, just to be sure there were no other surprises. Normally he’d take longer, but with Bleda’s ultimatum hanging over his head, he had to accelerate his usual timetable.

  Emerging from the cloak of shadows under the trees in a neighbor’s yard, Sallow vaulted a high brick fence and slipped in amongst the shrubbery hugging the side of the Sanger house. He listened for any sign that he’d been spotted. The sounds of a quiet night continued on, unabated.

  Inwardly, Sallow smiled. He could move more quickly than the human eye could follow, if he tried. He remembered the woman he almost kidnapped the night before, remembered how placid she became when they made eye contact. He wondered what else he could do.

  No one had discovered the broken lock on the window overlooking the family’s laundry room. He could see why. The window seemed too small for anyone but a child to slip through.

  Sallow managed it easily. Even when he felt the cold metal dig into his ribcage, his bones squeezed together inside his body. One arm thrust through the open window, shoulder twisting in the socket. His pelvis tucked into his gut, and he didn’t so much climb through the window as slither.

  The palms of his hands pattered onto a cold tile floor. No matter how dark it was in the room, he could see the washer and dryer stacked next to him. He smelled lint and fabric softener, heard the quiet clack of empty plastic clothes hangers brushed by the humming breeze from an air vent overhead.

  With the door closed, he couldn’t see anything in the house beyond. He pressed his ear against its smooth, cold wood, listening. Nothing stirred. He heard the electric tick of a dishwasher in its final drying cycle. Distant, gentle snoring. Circulating air. The whole world might have been asleep.

  He eased the door open, emerging into a darkened kitchen. But Sallow saw the world clearly in hues of silver and blue. A woman’s light snoring reached his ears, though it was barely worth the name. He could envision her in bed, lips slightly parted. Sanger wouldn’t be with her.

  Upstairs, one of the children shifted in a restless sleep. Blankets rustled, and one corner of a quilt swished as she rolled over. Her hair swept across the pillow beneath her head. Sallow could use that. Her mother slept too deeply, but the girl might just wake up.

  Sallow strolled over to the sink. A bottle of dishwashing liquid stood next to the faucet, its nozzle sticky with the residue of old soap. Like a poorly behaved house cat, Sallow nudged it with his hand. It tipped over drunkenly, thumped in the metal sink and bounced, rolled, heavy enough to make the sink rattle.

  Above him, he heard the girl stir, heard the rumple of her comforter and whisper of her sheets as she pushed them back, sitting up in bed. Pretty soon, Sallow would find out if she was brave enough to come investigate the noise. In the meantime, he never got to eat the night before, and the mother snoozed on, oblivious. Easy pickings.

  He moved through the living room, threading a path around sofas, tables, freestanding lamps. The black, yawning opening of the hallway beckoned. Unafraid, he plunged through the darkness to the closed door of the master bedroom. When he’d gone in there, several nights before, Sanger’s wife never woke to discover him.

  That night, he’d only been there to take a look around, to get a feel for the place. This time, he was hungry. And he wanted Sanger to know someone had been there.

  The door swung open beneath his fingertips. Sallow strode to her bedside, and gazed down upon her. Her hair was tucked into a silk sleeping cap that shimmered with a silvery light in his eyes. In her sleep, she’d kicked off the heavy comforter but pulled the sheets up around her chin.

  Gently, Sallow slipped them over her shoulder, exposing her neck. He brushed the backs of his fingers across it, savoring the warmth of her smooth, soft skin.

  She was a small woman, and Sallow was famished. He thought he could probably drink it all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Something woke her up in the middle of the night. Melody sat up in bed and stared blindly around her room. She reached out, fumbling at the bedside table for the light switch on her lamp. Once she found it and switched it on, a warm yellow glow banished the darkness around her bed.

  She sat unmoving, listening for further bumps in the night. The only sound she could detect was the silence pressing on her eardrums.

  To reassure herself, she climbed out of bed and peeked between her window blinds. The car containing two policemen sat by the curb outside her house. It hadn’t moved. At night, she couldn’t see anything behind the windshield. She strained, searching for any hint of movement, but the car windows remained implacably opaque. She just had to hope the cops were there, watching, guarding them against intruders.

  “We should have bought a dog,” she muttered.

  What was the sound she heard? Melody tried to remember. It had startled her from sleep, so it was impossible to be sure. She didn’t think it was the sound of glass breaking. It wasn’t incredibly loud. Not for the first time, she wished she wasn’t such a light sleeper.

  Annoyingly, she’d never get back to sleep without satisfying her curiosity, and assuaging her fears. Resigned, she slid from her bed and padded out into the hallway.

  Her first instinct was to check the upstairs landing where she’d initially seen their intruder, a few nights previously. This time, there was no one there. Ever since, she’d felt uneasy about using the bathroom after dark, as if the man might spring up from the carpet and attack her.

  She could discern the outline of the stairs, the landing, and the balcony. Light from a streetlamp outside streamed in through the big windows above the front door, where the foyer stood open to the second floor.

  Using her cell phone as a flashlight, she saw nothing in the other direction either, in the hallway leading to her brother’s room. She wanted to turn on all the lights, but didn’t want to wake anyone else. She couldn’t face another round of Chase’s childish taunting, especially if she really was jumping at shadows this time.

  Muffled and distant though it was, Melody had a good ear for noises. She was pretty sure the thump had come from below. Barely remembering to breathe, she started downstairs.

  As she wandered through the kitchen, she passed the sink and spotted a bottle of dishwashing soap in it. She hesitated. Did her mother leave the bottle in the sink for some reason? Not likely, she decided.

  Melody picked up the bottle and set it upright next to the faucet. Then, as an experiment, she nudged it with her fingertips. Something like that wouldn’t just fall over on its own. Maybe their house was haunted, she hoped.

  On the other hand, the bottle toppling into the sink might not have been what reached her ears at all. It was tempting to throw in the towel and go climb back into bed.

  When she came out into the living room, she thought she heard another small noise. Taking a few steps down the hallway towards her mom’s bedroom, she waited and listened. There it goes again. A muffled moan, a gasp, thrashing bed sheets. All quiet eno
ugh that most people might never hear it unless they listened for it, even surrounded by all that oppressive silence.

  She was pretty sure that her dad wasn’t even home. He’d been gone all night, every night, since his two day disappearance. His car was absent from the driveway. The police were outside, true, but inside were only Melody, her mother, and her little brother.

  Her mother’s door was open, she saw as she drew closer. Not all the way, only by about a foot. Just enough for someone to squeeze through. Her mother never slept with the door open.

  Melody stopped just outside the door. The sound of whispering bed sheets subsided, then fell silent. It was pitch black inside the room, impossible to see. Heart pounding, she knocked, pushing the door open a few extra inches.

  “Mom?”

  Another noise tapered off at the sound of her voice. She hadn’t even noticed it until it died away. Something like a wild animal at a water hole, gulping down its fill.

  “Mom?” she said again, voice quivering. Her mother should have answered. She didn’t sleep so hard that she couldn’t hear someone call out a scant few feet away from her.

  She raised her cell phone, shining its timid white light into the room. It passed over carpet, a pair of shoes, a discarded blouse, a thick quilt slipping down over the foot of the bed. Then it reached her mother, a few stray splatters of blood, and the man clutching her to his chest, bent over her, face nuzzled in the crook of her neck.

  The man was dressed all in black. Bent over her mother, Melody couldn’t tell how tall he was. But he had long, stringy hair that she remembered well.

  Her gaze drifted from the back of the man’s head to her mother’s face. She stared back at Melody without blinking. Her head flopped loosely to one side. Melody dropped the cell phone and screamed.

  The room plunged into darkness. Melody felt herself shoved against a wall, a man’s hands gripping her arms mercilessly. His breath fogged in her face, hot and reeking of old copper. A metal tang that made her want to retch.