A Taste for Red

by Lewis Harris

  "It was her." I had no doubt. "You know what I said on the Ferris wheel, about monsters? She's one—a vampire. A killer."

  Foote looked embarrassed for me.

  Fumio let out a long whistle. "I think you've suffered a psychic break, kiddo." He said it trying to be funny, but it wasn't.

  I walked over to where my bike had landed and righted it. The rubber grip on the handlebar was shredded and the mirror was bent and shattered. Seven years bad luck for someone. But otherwise the bike seemed intact. The sun was a dying coal on the horizon. Orange streaks lengthened across the sky. I had to get home. "It doesn't matter if you believe me or not," I said, almost in a whisper. "But you'd better watch yourself around her."

  Fumio shook his head. "'Cause she's a monster?"

  Down the street, a black sports car growled out of the school parking lot. The car eased up the road, coming to a stop alongside us. The engine purred. It was a convertible with the top up. The windows were tinted dark, the driver invisible. We stood watching and waiting, reflected in the black glass—three kids huddled around a bicycle.

  The passenger window glided down with an electronic whirring, and a beautiful face leaned out from the shadows, green eyes glinting. I felt my heart squeezed, as if an invisible hand had reached inside my chest. "Are you kids all right?" Ms. Larch asked. Her face seemed to glow, floating like a mask.

  "Yes, ma'am," Fumio said, shaking his head and looking at me.

  The science teacher's smile flashed in the darkness, and then was lost as the tinted window whirred closed. The sleek car glided away like a shark.

  We watched it turn at the corner and disappear. No one said a word until Foote said, "I'm sorry, Svetlana."

  He was staring down at the grass. I followed his gaze and found the clear plastic bag broken open and empty. The goldfish lay on its side, as still and lifeless as the poisoned redbird.

  Fifteen

  That night I tried sleeping on top of the bed, but it was unbearable. The mattress was comfortable enough, but I felt completely exposed. The ceiling seemed so far away. After tossing and turning for nearly an hour, I grabbed my blanket and pillow and crawled beneath the box spring. I needed the closeness all around me, the firm reassurance of the hard floor beneath the folds of my comforter. I curled up in the darkness with a flashlight and a Sherlock Holmes adventure, reading until I finally fell asleep.

  I was awakened by a half-heard whisper. Had someone called my name? The book was still in my hands, the flashlight still on. I clicked it off. I scooted out from beneath the bed and sat cross-legged on the floor, listening. Moonlight fell through the window, casting a rectangle of milky brightness across the floor.

  Svetlana...

  The whisper was not in my ears but in my head.

  Svetlana...

  I crawled on my hands and knees and knelt at the windowsill, peeking down onto the front yard. There was a soft glow coming from inside the tree house.

  Svetlana...

  The plastic rooster on the dresser was also a clock; the hands across its belly showed 3:11. I slipped a flannel shirt over my pajama top and crept quietly from my bedroom. Dad's faint snoring came through the closed door across the hallway. I heard his heart beating, and my mother's heart, too, softer and slower. They were both sound asleep. I crept down the stairs, carefully skipping the seventh and twelfth steps, the ones that squeaked loudest. The refrigerator hummed. The clock on the kitchen wall ticked. Razor looked up from his sleeping pad on the floor. I lifted my finger to my lips and breathed, "Shh." He rested his head back on his crossed paws, his eyes shining in the darkness. I tiptoed through shadows to the front door, and then outside onto the moonlit porch. Leaves whispered in the trees.

  Svetlana...

  All right, all right, I thought.

  I crossed the yard. Stiff grass tickled the bottoms of my bare feet. I climbed the wooden slats up the Oak of Doom and into the hideout. The room was thick with the smell of warm cookies. The Bone Lady was seated in the lone chair before the makeshift table, her eyes closed. She paid me no mind as I poked my head through the opening in the floor and pulled myself up into the tiny space, taking a seat on the floor against the wall. I pulled my flannel shirt closed against the night chill. The old woman had a dark housecoat wrapped tight around her knobby shoulders. A candle glowed on the tabletop, the naked flame shivering.

  Lenora Bones opened her eyes and found me. She lifted the torn newspaper clipping from her black book—the article concerning the three missing girls.

  Do you know these young ladies?

  They're in some of my classes.

  In Ms. Larch's class?

  Yes.

  Her face appeared unnaturally gaunt and pale in the dim light. Her cheeks were sunken, and wrinkles crisscrossed her skin like fine cracks in a china cup. She smiled, but sadly.

  I said before and I say again:You are very young, dear girl. I was well into my nineteenth year before the change came to me—and I was young for it myself, though soon old enough to be a grieving widow.

  Her face had the character of stone. Her eyes, twin gray pebbles, reflected the candlelight. The old woman's thoughts took shape in my mind like thickening smoke.

  My lovely David, my husband of barely a year, lost his life to the indiscriminate evil of a black-hearted ghoul. That was how I first came to know of the Circle of Red—and it of me. David served as a police detective, you see. He and his men had no idea of the evil they were battling. I later destroyed the ghoul myself, working with Daphne St. Simone, perhaps the greatest Olfactive ever to wear the Red.

  She opened the neck of her housecoat to display a crimson stone—red, but almost black in the candlelight. It dangled from a silver chain about her throat. The chain was thin; the stone, flat and the size of a thumbnail.

  An Olfactive? I thought.

  Lenora Bones tapped the side of her nose. Just as we are.

  But what are we?

  We are the ones who know—when no one else knows. We feel it, we see it, smell it, taste it in the very air. Our senses are heightened, attuned to the rhythms of the natural world. We are sensitive to the grotesque and the aberrant.

  I didn't know what to think and finally just said, "Wow." The old woman remained motionless, studying me. I thought, Okay, so there's this group, with people like me, who...

  Why do we eat only red? I asked—thought.

  Well, you can eat anything you like, but red simply tastes better.

  Which was true.

  My legs were growing stiff from sitting on the floor, and I climbed to my feet. The wood floor was cold, and it creaked as I paced to and fro. Outside, crickets chirped in the moonlight. But what do we do? You say ... you say you work for the Circle of Red?

  I wouldn't say I work for the Circle. That's just who we are, dear. We're ... kind of a club, really.

  But you were assigned to destroy the Kensington Vampire?

  Yes. But not like a job assignment. It's like ... a calling, really. It's as if a person had wings, they'd have to fly, wouldn't they?

  Hmm ... I guess. I just couldn't see the upside to any of this. "Well," I started but then thought: What good is it? I mean—sensitive to the grotesque and the aberrant? Who wants that?

  Lenora Bones burst out laughing, and I found myself standing with my hands on my hips, waiting for her to stop, which she did, finally, still shaking her head and grinning. "Svetlana, when you view it like that, I guess there is no upside—other than being able to help those in need. Because of your gift—which you can argue is no gift at all—you have a responsibility. A duty to protect the innocent."

  "To fight evil?"

  "Well..." The old woman didn't say anything more. I could almost see the wheels turning inside her head, feel her thoughts forming. I understood, even without the words.

  "So how do we stop the Kensington Vampire?" I asked.

  Lenora Bones reached for my hand, held it between her ten delicate fingers. "Poor, poor girl," she said, kissing
my knuckles, pressing her lips gently to the back of my fingers. "I wish we didn't have to act, but we do, and soon. We must move quickly to save the missing girls."

  "Then Sandy and her friends are still alive?"

  "Perhaps," she said. "A vampire must have a constant supply of fresh blood, but only a pint a day is required. If possible, they keep their victims alive for days or even weeks, slowly draining them of their life force."

  For some reason, I pictured a demented dairy farm. Which was totally gross. "You mean like milking a cow?"

  "Well ... not exactly. I wouldn't say like a cow. But ... yes—kind of like that, I suppose."

  "But how can we stop her?"

  Lenora Bones opened her black book, flipping through to Chapter Thirteen: Vampyres and the Corruption of Blood. She ran a bony finger down the page. "A dart tipped with juice from the kalanga berry is ideal, but that's seasonal and found primarily in Madagascar...." She flipped the page. "Decapitation, of course; removal of the heart or stake through the heart; salt water—if the vampire can be submerged for more than two hours, that is. Um..." She turned to the next page. "Burning ... Also, there was a case in Spain where a vampire was destroyed with a laser—"

  "Okay," I interrupted, not seeing the point to any of those suggestions. "Forget about kalanga berries and lasers—they're out. If we were near the ocean, maybe the saltwater option, but..." It didn't seem likely. "And I have to tell you," I said, "I'm not excited about the decapitation or heart thing." Which was a colossal understatement. The old lady definitely had some wild ideas.

  "There's no pretty way to do this, Svetlana."

  "But why not just call the police?"

  "And tell them what? That we can direct them to the Kensington Vampire?" Lenora Bones shook her head."At best we might save the girls, but Diana Frost would almost certainly escape, and many innocent victims would suffer in the future. The police are unable to comprehend the danger of such a creature, believe me. She must be stopped forever."

  "Well, how do you usually do it?" I asked.

  Lenora Bones blinked, and then shrugged. She crossed her arms and fell into quiet thought. After a moment, her shoulders slumped. "To be honest, Sister Marguerite generally handles the vampires."

  "You're saying you've never done this before?"

  Well, no—not this. Technically no ... not actually, she admitted, inside my head, as if embarrassed.

  "So where's Sister Marguerite, then?" I wondered.

  The old woman frowned. "Unfortunately, she's been in a coma since the locust episode last year."

  "The locust episode?"

  "You don't want to know." She held up the flat of her hand. "Just trust me."

  "And no one else in the Circle does vampires?"

  The Bone Lady mustered a defiant look that did little to reassure me. "There aren't that many vampires," she said. "And besides, there is no one else."

  "Well, how were you planning to do this on your own?"

  "I'd planned on utilizing dynamite, but," she wrung her hands, "I just feel so ... exhausted lately. I can't tell you how excited I was to stumble upon you, Svetlana. It's as if—"

  "Dynamite?" Whoa, whoa, whoa! What? What in the world are you talking about?

  "I realize dynamite would be an unorthodox app—"

  "But where would you get it? Where would you find dynamite?"

  "Oh, I have it," she said, nodding. "Quite a bit, actually—from an old contact in Nevada. Sister Marguerite and I closed the Portal to Hell several years ago and—"

  "You have dynamite?" Unbelievable, I thought. But why would I think that? Here we were discussing vampires and ghouls and demonic portals—why should an old lady's secret stash of high explosives surprise me?

  "I made contact with Mr. McAvoy prior to my arrival in Sunny Hill. He assured me the dynamite is completely viable, although somewhat unstable. He stressed the importance of using extreme caution. He retired from mining almost two decades ago, you see, so the material is quite old."

  Unstable dynamite, I thought.

  "It's just an option."

  "And there's absolutely no one else to help us?"

  Lenora Bones scratched through her gray curls with spidery fingers, biting down on her bottom lip in deep thought. "Marguerite's in her blasted coma, and Mrs. Matheson recently underwent hip surgery." She looked to the ceiling. "There's Constance Angelica, but she hasn't been heard from since the Qwerril uprising—"

  "Qwerril?"

  "Very nasty. I don't hold out much hope for Constance."

  "But what about Daphne St. Simone?"

  "Dead ten years now," she said, pinching her lips around a sad memory.

  "But how many are there in the Circle of Red?"

  "Including you..." She rolled her eyes in her head, counting. "Five. Assuming that Constance is alive."

  The Circle of Red: She and I, Sister Marguerite (in a coma), Mrs. Matheson (recuperating from hip surgery), and Constance Angelica—assuming she was still alive. I felt my own shoulders slumping. I was suddenly tired to the bone. I had an urge to curl up on the floor and go to sleep. Instead, I reached into my trunk and pulled out two whips of red licorice, handing one over to Ms. Bones.

  "I know it's daunting, dear," she said, a genuine smile finding its way to her face. She tugged at the licorice and chewed. But it is our privilege to protect the weak. It doesn't seem it, I know, but even as old as I am and as young as you are, we are very powerful, Svetlana. Together we can do this. Her gray eyes had softened and the cookie smell had strengthened around her. I breathed it in, the richness, of it and felt somewhat better. She stood from the chair, wincing against the popping stiffness of her joints. I reached my arms about her and gave a gentle hug, receiving one from her in return.

  What are we going to do? I thought.

  Lovely girl, she sent to me.

  I kissed the tiny lady's wrinkled brow. I don't want you sneaking up into this tree house anymore, I insisted. That's twice now.

  Twice that you know of, dear. She smirked, pulling off another bite of licorice. And I'm not so frail as you might think.

  "I have no doubt," I said, pulling the top of her housecoat closed against the night air, covering the red stone at her throat.

  But we must plan our attack, she whispered inside my mind, stooping to look through a window into the night. We must confront the vampire and free the children before it's too late.

  Could she actually mean this moment? Now?

  Certainly now—we have not a moment to waste. She turned from the window, her eyes leaping to life with a glowing resolve.

  But I couldn't do this now. If my parents wake up and I'm—

  We must act, Svetlana! She rapped the table with her closed fist, coming around, reaching and gripping my shoulders. There is nothing else to consider, we must—

  But with the last word, she placed a careless footstep backward and dropped through the opening in the floor. She loosed a surprised cry and disappeared in a blink. I felt her panic inside my mind as she plummeted. Almost immediately, I heard the impact as she hit the ground below. Downstairs, inside the house, Razor erupted into furious barking. I scuttled down the wooden slats to the bottom of the tree and knelt next to the tiny woman. She was crying. I didn't know how I knew that her leg was broken, but I did.

  Well, this is terribly embarrassing, she thought, great goose egg tears coming down her face.

  Are you okay, Ms. Bones?

  She shook her head, eyes squeezed tight. I have bungled this to no end! I'm so sorry, dear girl! Dreadfully sorry! She turned slightly, wincing in my arms. I felt the gasp inside my mind as a sharp pain shot up through her cracked leg.

  I cradled her head in my lap, pushing gray curls from her face. I leaned over and kissed her papery cheeks and breathed in the rich aroma of cookies. Upstairs, my parent's bedroom light snapped on, and the dark silhouette of my father's head appeared in the window and then just as quickly disappeared. Razor barked and barked and a moment later the
front porch light blinked into life.

  This is so terrible, Ms. Bones thought. I have made such a mess of this. She rubbed her bony fingers up and down my arm, her wet eyes glistening in the fading moonlight. I am so sorry, dear.

  "Shh," I whispered. "You're going to be fine."

  I heard my father running up behind us.

  Of course I'll be fine, sweet girl. But what about you?

  Sixteen

  After the paramedics arrived and loaded Ms. Bones into the ambulance, Mom guided me back into the house. I wanted to go with Dad to the hospital, but he wouldn't allow it. He left in his car, following the ambulance, which drove without its siren, blue and red lights strobing through the fading darkness along Cherry Street. Several neighbors stood watching from their front porches, huddled in housecoats and pajamas.

  "I just want to go and make sure she's all right," I told Mom.

  "I know, but your father will take care of everything" Mom gave me a hug and ruffled my hair. The lotion she wore tickled my nose, something cinnamony. She said, "I don't understand why Ms. Bones had to have her journal in the middle of the night." She shook her head and kissed my brow. "I'm sure she'll be fine"

  After Dad had rushed outside and discovered us below the tree house, Ms. Bones stayed mostly silent except to tell him she was okay. She told him she might have injured her leg, wincing in discomfort more than a few times, half of it an act so she wouldn't have to say too much. She suggested a story in my thoughts, and I repeated it. I explained to Dad that Ms. Bones had lent me her travel journal that afternoon. But then she had been unable to sleep and had come for the book during the night, hoping to find it in the tree house, where I had told her I'd keep it.

  "You must think it terribly strange," Ms. Bones said, coughing and wincing, staring with sincere embarrassment into my father's face. "It's just that I recalled an important detail I wished to record in its pages. I was afraid I might forget. I have a terrible memory, you know. I hate that I sleep so little at night. I hate all this trouble I've put you through."

  "No, no," Dad had assured her, although he was obviously confused. "Just—please be still. An ambulance is on its way."