Tantalize

by Cynthia Leitich Smith

  Small balcony outside the sliding glass door, also empty.

  Back inside, it was a typical bachelor’s room. Nondescript brown-and-gold striped bedding. Mismatched furniture, ’50s stuff. A red lily in a vase on the dresser.

  I rummaged. Lots of Hawaiian shirts, boxers, cutoff jeans. Not that it mattered, but Uncle Davidson hadn’t given Ruby a drawer.

  I wasn’t sure what I was looking for until I found it in the top of the nightstand. Along with the strawberry-flavored condoms and the blindfold and cheap handcuffs, I discovered a box labeled “.45 Colt Silver Bullets.” In the next drawer down, I discovered Grampa Crimi’s gun. The thief had been Uncle D.

  Was I a gun person? Hell no, I was not a gun person. I was a desperate, on-a-life-or-death-deadline person. No, worse, I supposedly wasn’t even a person. Not anymore.

  The antique Colt Peacemaker was worth a fortune, which was why my peacenik parents had never gotten rid of it. A gift to Grampa from a fellow Marine whose life he’d saved in Korea. Like the restaurant, it was part of my family legacy.

  I took the gun and the ammo box, knowing better than to leave them for my uncle.

  Moving on, I saw the master suite was vacant, though a single red lily rested in a bud vase on the chest of drawers. I kept reminding myself not to hurry so much that I missed something. I leaped into the master bath, unloaded gun drawn. Empty.

  Glancing at my reflection in the mirror, I froze like I’d been struck by rigor mortis.

  Lacking a better idea, I closed my eyes, counted to ten, and then looked again.

  Fangs, red eyes, pale skin, pointy long nails, my hair curly and clean. Had it been washed by Bradley himself? Ruby and my uncle? Ian and Jerome? That had been a violation, too, the way they’d treated me like a cadaver. Not that the hair was what mattered. Not like the thing staring back. Another vampire.

  It was real. It was monstrous.

  And it was me.

  The word “corpse” crossed my mind, and I hated how it sounded.

  I remembered having seen Bradley look perfectly human once, that evening we’d met. Plus, Uncle Davidson had passed as human with beachcomber aplomb. And so far, Ruby had confined her Princess of Darkness persona to hair, makeup, and wardrobe.

  Did they get manicures? I wondered. Flesh-colored base?

  In the medicine cabinet, I found clippers and cut each of my pointy nails, wondering if it was one of those mind-matter scenarios. This time when I closed my eyes I tried to achieve some sense of inner tranquility. I wished I knew a calming chant or happened to be a Catholic, what with the self-crossing. Something ritualistic seemed appropriate, and Mama had been Catholic before she got married. But I was still me. Sort of. So after saying a simple Protestant prayer, I opened them again.

  No luck. Maybe God didn’t listen to vampires.

  I grimaced and noticed that my teeth, fangs, had been stained with wine, blood.

  Reaching back into the cabinet, I pulled out a long-forgotten box of baking soda. Daddy had been an occasional red wine drinker, and every once in a while he used to brush his teeth with baking soda to clean them.

  I tore open a toothbrush package, a freebie from the dentist, wet the bristles, and dipped it into the gold box. The baking soda felt grainy and tasted medicinal. I scrubbed hard, harder, losing bristles between my teeth and fangs. Licked the blood from my gums. Filled a Dixie cup with water, swished it around, and spat. Grabbed some floss and ground it into the tender crevices until the bristles were gone.

  My teeth were still brownish.

  Frustrated, I tossed the barren toothbrush handle at the mirror, and it shot back. I caught it on reflex, one-handed. Threw it again, using more muscle. And again, I snatched it from the air without effort. Once more, grabbing the handle before it hit the sink. Flexing, I snapped the plastic. Damn.

  I punched my reflection, the break spreading like a spiderweb. Now, the image looked more the way I felt. Uglier, fragmented, surreal.

  My fangs ached, too, like first-day braces after the Novocain wore off.

  I checked my reflection again in the bathroom across the hall from my room. Same scary, though I could reflect. What else was just mythology? What wasn’t?

  Sunlight hadn’t seemed to fry Uncle D or Bradley, confirming what Kieren had said about that supposed weakness being wishful thinking on the part of nervous humans. I recalled Bradley mentioning something about it reducing powers, which begged the question of what powers he was talking about. I tried to take my pulse at the wrist, the neck, and came up empty. Though Uncle D had seemed to manage church okay, I wasn’t about to experiment with the holy-water-washed windows — courtesy of Clyde and Travis — in my bedroom or the Bible on my parents’ nightstand. I kept moving.

  Downstairs, I inspected the family and living rooms. Peering, peeking, moving pillows, raising cushions. Falling to my knees to look under furniture. Lily on the mantel, another on the coffee table, the dining room table, the TV cabinet.

  I pushed back to my feet, and that’s when the pain hit. Sharp, brutal, strong enough to make me salivate. Like something with claws had jammed them into my gut and decided to stir. Enjoyed stirring.

  It was worth it, though, because suddenly I could feel again. I could feel everything — the grief, the fear, the remorse and betrayal, the mortification. The shame and love and worry. I could feel in my heart, my bowels, in the marrow of my bones, and the soft tissue of my organs. I was more me once more. Not the drunken, mood-swinging substitute that had been erratically taking over since Bradley had first arrived.

  In the downstairs bath, another lily. I wiped away a reddish tear.

  The Cap City News beside the lily on the kitchen island was dated Monday, September 16. Another unidentified body had been found near the lake. That was the — what? — third murder since Vaggio’s that the police knew of. And — God! — neighbors had been asked to alert police if they noticed any suspicious persons or canines.

  Bradley had been clever. If he didn’t take out the competition, there was always APD. That reminded me, since Saturday night, had Uncle D called the cops? Maybe not. My uncle wouldn’t have wanted the police digging for phone records to investigate the call moments before Vaggio’s death. Especially since it was him or Bradley or one of them who’d . . .

  It might be too late for Vaggio, but hopefully, Kieren was still alive.

  On my wildflowers calendar hanging from the side of the fridge, Tuesday, September 17, had been circled in red ink. Two A.M. was scrawled in the square.

  I’d tried to be thorough searching the house, so it had taken over an hour. I had four and a half left, give or take, before I was due at Sanguini’s with a victim. Or else.

  I left two more messages on the Morales answering system (the home line and Miz Morales’s business number) for Kieren to call my cell.

  Then I found my student directory in the drawer nearest the kitchen phone and left a message for him at Clyde’s, too.

  My laptop was on the table. Within seconds I’d already tried and failed to IM Kieren and was logging on to my e-mail account. He’d sent thirty-some messages. One each time he’d found some reference to Bradley in his research. A few just pleading for me to believe him. Nothing new, though, since yesterday. I hit REPLY to the latest and kept it brief. Apologized. Told him to vamoose. Said if he had to talk first to call my cell. Typed Love You. Erased it. Hit SEND.

  I deleted everything in my SENT folder, then everything in my TRASH folder.

  At something of a loss, I realized I hadn’t eaten in a couple of days and checked the refrigerator. Low blood sugar, fatigue, and cutting my teeth had taken a lot out of me.

  The refrigerator was mostly empty. I’d been dining at the restaurant, eating less and less the past few days, and unless I missed my guess, Uncle Davidson had been on a liquid diet for quite a while. Speaking of which, I snagged the half-empty bottle of Chianti from the top shelf. The label read “Sanguini’s: A Very Rare Restaurant.”

  The wine h
ad soothed. Then the blood had transformed. But now I had to give it up, face the realities I’d been trying to drown.

  A few twists of the cork later, I poured the thick red liquid down the drain. It chugged from the bottle, clung to the stainless steel. Flipping on the water to rinse, I fought the urge to inhale. Quitting cold turkey would be a bitch.

  Trying to stay as positive as possible, I focused on my available choices. A half-empty package of hard salami, a container of cottage cheese that had expired two weeks ago, a bowl of diced red onion covered with fuzzy white mold, and a full bottle of Seltzer water. The cabinets were down to coffee filters, salt, a couple of cans of soup, a box of instant cocoa, and saltines. I checked the freezer and found a package of chicken legs dated five months earlier. I tried a cracker, and the salt was nice. But the texture scraped at my gag reflex, so I choked down some Seltzer, which came back up. The sink was handy, and some blood spilled out with the rest. I shut my eyes against the glory of it.

  My cell phone charge was dead, so I used the house phone to leave one more message with the Moraleses, saying that I was on my way.

  It should’ve been a less than ten-minute run to Kieren’s, even if I had to wait for the WALK sign. But I wasn’t running, not yet. Every time my brain urged my feet to hurry, something distracted me. Mosquitoes on my skin, moisture in the air, the cat lounging on a front step. Fur bristling, he rolled to his paws and darted to the side, jumping behind a bush.

  I spotted an old lady in her picture window, pulling the lace drapes closed. She was shrunken, shoulders bowed. I could hear her dogs barking from inside.

  Two houses south, a family parked and climbed out of a BMW, a mama and daddy with their son. They looked healthy, blue-eyed blonds, practically translucent skin. He had to be about my age, the boy, though I didn’t recognize him from school. Tourists maybe, or some suburban family out for a night on the wild side. The kind of people well networked into society.

  I walked at a brisk pace, turned to cruise down the steep hill. Just ahead, a couple of girls were talking in sign language. They were cute, vibrant and juicy, with shiny black hair and a bounce in their steps. At the intersection, they turned off, heading north.

  I ran the rest of the way. I wasn’t sweating, though the humidity raised the hair on my arms. Wasn’t breathing; I didn’t have to. I slowed alongside a house with ducks and fancy chickens prancing in the backyard, had an unwelcome image of picking feathers out from between my teeth and fangs. At the Moraleses’, Kieren’s truck was parked in the driveway, but his mama’s wedding planner van was gone.

  “Kieren!” No one answered the bell; no one answered when I pounded on the front door. “Kieren!” I ran around the house, dodging Meghan’s oversize red plastic wagon and the smaller antique metal one that Miz Morales used as a marigold planter.

  Brazos’s blue bandanna hung in tribute from a nail on his doghouse.

  “Kieren!” I called, pounding at the back door. “Kieren!” I pounded until my knuckles bruised and bled. Pounded until my voice strained, until I was convinced the chittering cicadas were mocking me.

  Unable to resist, I flattened my hands against the white door. Leaned in. Licked. The silky warmth delighted my tongue, and for a moment, I was somewhere else. Somewhere safe and salty and munchable down to my girl parts. Determined to suckle every last drop. That’s when the door opened, and Meghan stood on the other side in her footie pajamas.

  “Hi, Quincie.” She should’ve been in her wicker bedroom, snuggled beneath her waffle-weave blanket with Otto the stuffed rabbit and Pet Doctor Barbie. It was past her bedtime. “You look funny.”

  I could only imagine.

  “Did you hurt yourself?” she asked.

  “Where’s Kieren?”

  “Not home. Papa’s here.”

  Roberto. “Can I talk to him?”

  Meghan jostled curly pigtails. “He’s in the shower. I was watching the Cartoon Channel, but it’s not funny tonight.”

  No, nothing was funny tonight.

  “You smell funny, too.”

  Dead. Did I smell dead? She smelled scrumptious.

  “Close the door,” I told Meghan.

  Wide eyebrows met, puzzled and far too trusting. The change of expression shifted her scar, made her look broken, breakable.

  “Close the goddamn door!”

  She did. Slammed it shut against me.

  Smart kid.

  I put my hands back, fingers spread, where they had been and bent my head to lick again. When my knuckles were wet and clean, my brain shut down, and my body went on autopilot. I needed more. More blood. Now.

  Back around the house to Kieren’s truck. Locked, but that didn’t matter with the windows rolled down, spare key where it always was, in the ashtray. I was losing, I realized. Losing myself.

  Lost.

  It took only minutes to reach Town Lake, park Kieren’s truck, and join the crowd gathered beneath the Congress Avenue Bridge.

  Too many people, I thought. Too close together, too obvious. A much-tattooed woman glanced at my face and drew her boyfriend closer, slid her hand in the back pocket of his jeans. A couple of gym-buffed boys looked my way, too, but they appeared happy enough with each other, and, besides, they were too young. Too strong. The cop hovering behind the Bat Anti-Defamation League table stood with his arms folded across his chest, somehow managing to seem bored and attentive. The crowd of tourists and locals was lighter than it used to be before the murders. Bats flitted out, one after another from beneath the bridge, ravenous, but the main exodus was over.

  I skirted the edge of the thinning group and then inched down the broad, sandy path, uncomfortable around the water, peering into the lush growth. I strayed off the trail here and there, listening for I wasn’t sure what. My hearing was much improved, my night vision even better. Between blowing leaves, a dragonfly hovered over black ripples, exquisite, iridescent — then, with a crunch of rodent jaws, became food.

  On a bench at the next dock, an old man lay sleeping. Cardboard was covering his face, neck, and shoulders. His chest was still, very. . . . But his foot was moving, jerking in its torn and filthy tennis shoe.

  The dock creaked with my first step, but the man didn’t awaken.

  I looked around. No witnesses. These days, none of the eco-tourists or joggers would dare venture this far onto the trail.

  A closer examination of the long-sleeve flannel shirt and pajama bottoms confirmed it. He’d probably strolled down to watch the ducks and fell asleep.

  I slid the cardboard aside, revealing Mitch’s face. Stubbly, bloated by alcohol. The Santa-blue eyes closed, peaceful.

  My gums ached, burned, bled. I moved in, licked my lips. Just a taste, or until I drowned, either way.

  No one would miss Mitch, not for days. I could dump him here in the water. The perfect victim. Unloved. Just another body found at the lake. This was why Bradley had remade me. How could I resist?

  My hair fell from my shoulders, grazing his face, and Mitch’s hand shot out, palming my throat like a football. He opened his red eyes and, roaring, his mouth — sharp fangs and fingernails extending as the cardboard slipped to the dock. The fingers closed, crushing. Then he caught sight of my face, my eyes, my fangs. And released. His mouth dropping into an O of surprise and apology.

  I coughed, realizing I wasn’t the only one who’d been caught off-guard. Raising a hand to my neck, I felt the bleeding, V-shaped marks his nails had left. I’d been foolish, I realized, to cut mine. Bradley had fed Mitch when he’d stopped by the back door at the restaurant, I recalled, and weeks before that. Infected him.

  “Oops, holy crap, Miss Missy. Quincie, girl, I didn’t know you was a vampire, too.” Mitch’s eyes faded back to blue, and his fangs retracted.

  I thought about saying I was sorry for trying to hurt him, for not being the meal he’d hoped, for his having died. I settled for “How’d you do that?”

  He sat up, his head tilting, his expression as kind as ever. “Do
?”

  “Change back. Um, look human again.”

  “Haven’t, you know, you taken a big bite, had your first yet?”

  “No.” Once again I was myself, in control and resolved to stay that way. I hoped I could stay that way.

  What time was it? Ten? God, what if Kieren had tried to call me at home?

  “Ah,” Mitch patted my arm. “You, you gotta get the first one down so the brain, so it lets you go.” He pointed to his head, as if to illustrate. “All that changing . . . You’re a regular girl, oops! Got some good blood somewhere, in the tummy, in the veins, and now you’re, you’re improved and new. But the body, the sys, system, it thinks that way for a while, like a human, but then the feed, it takes over. It takes you, and you’re all good. Once you get the first one. Being a vamp, vampire is all tied up, messed up with um, the, the —”

  “Blood.”

  “Yep, almost. Nope, wait. Spoke too, too soon. Not just that. The feed, that’s what it is. The bite. Once you get past that, you, you’ll get more of a hold on it, Miss Quincie.”

  Was Mitch the one responsible for the lakefront murders?

  I glanced at the hand-lettered cardboard at my feet. It read:

  “Hocus-pocus,” Mitch added. “Spooky me, spooky you.”

  A hair past 1 A.M. Tuesday morning. Kieren hadn’t called me back. The longer I waited, the hungrier I got. The shock of Mitch had brought me back to myself, but it would be so easy to slip again. I hadn’t even realized I’d been on the hunt until putting Kieren’s truck into gear, and by then . . . Christ. Meghan.

  I got up from my kitchen table, retraced my path back across the black-and-white checked tile, and opened the freezer door. Using my fingernail, I ripped open the plastic wrap, set two icy, stuck-together chicken legs on a plate, covered it with a paper towel, slid the plate into the microwave, and hit DEFROST.

  I had just sworn off the sauce, so to speak, but humans consumed animal blood all the time. Hopefully, it didn’t count. And I needed a fix. Quick.