Jhojie Selangor had been born in Malaysia back in the early 1960s. She had immigrated to the United States as a young woman—the result of one of the Internet's "foreign brides for American men" services. She had listed on her application form that she wished to marry a "nice, clean American man who needed plenty of care and loving."
Even though she was less photogenic than some of the other Malaysian brides-in-waiting she had her pick of responding pen pals. She didn't mention that her main reason for leaving the country of her birth involved persecution. Or that she had been driven out of three different villages by the time she was nineteen.
Jhojie Selangor was a Pênanggalan.
The undead of Malaysia fall into five groups derived from three different species. There are the Langsuyar and the Pontianak, who are distant relatives of the Greek Lamiai. The Polong and the Pelesit, who are small, animallike blood drinkers. And the Pênanggalan, who are as unique a creature as you are likely to find in the vampire kingdom.
A Pênanggalan is always female. By day she appears to be a normal woman and has no fear of the sun. At night, however, her true nature is revealed as soon as she finds a secluded spot for her body to rest. Her head then separates from her body and flies off, trailing its entrails like some horrific jellyfish, in search of prey. The head must return and rejoin its body before sunrise or it will be destroyed. Granted, not your typical East European undead profile, but it made her an ideal clan leader and representative for the Morlocks.
Not to mention our little guerrilla theatre during tonight's reception.
Other immigrant undead had largely folded themselves into the ethnic communities of their human origin: the Mamuwaldes were based in Morningside Heights and Harlem, the Tlahuelpuchis in El Barrio and Jackson Heights, the Aluka on the Lower East Side as well as Borough Park and Williamsburg, the Chiang-shih in Chinatown and Flushing while the Kyuketsukis favored the more exclusive Riverdale area. Then there were the Bavas in Little Italy and Bensonhurst, the Dearg-dul in Hell's Kitchen and Five Points, the Rakshasis and Vetalas in the East Village with some encroachment on Flushing, the Nachtzehrers in Yorkville, and the Upír who had moved from East 97th Street out to Brighton Beach. The Loogaroo, Sukuyan, and Asema clustered along Eastern Parkway between Grand Army Plaza and Utica Avenue; the Gronnskjegg in Bay Ridge and Sunset Park. The Vjeszczi preferred Greenpoint while Atlantic Avenue and Midwood was home to the Oneidas. Astoria, Queens was overrun with the Vrykolakas.
The "family" clans varied a little more in ethnicity and, to some extent, species. The Polidoris' turf was the Upper East Side. The Le Fanus slept in penthouse coffins in Upper Midtown. The Szgany were Gypsies and had spread throughout The Village and Soho. The previous Doman had called the Szekely Clan to be her pit bulls of the damned and their kennels were now on the Upper West Side.
And then there were those clans who did not identify themselves by a particular ethnicity. There were the gangs like The Deads and The Hammers. And The Ladies of the Night who were actually, as you might suppose, "ladies of the night."
And, of course, the Morlocks.
Jhojie Selangor presided over a microcosmic melting pot of those immigrants and cast-offs that had no single ethnic, cultural, physical, or metaphysical tribe with which they could find fraternity or commonality. With no single neighborhood in which to blend, they had taken their place beneath the streets of the city, dwelling underground much like H.G. Wells' fictional troglodytes from which they took their name. At once feared and scorned for their differences, their leader explained that they most longed for a sense of legitimacy. They wanted recognition from the other clans that the Morlocks had equal birthrights among the families of the night. She hoped that the new Doman would make a place for them at the big boys' table.
It seemed a reasonable request, an agenda I would push regardless. But it didn't hurt that I owed her one for the head-popping turn at my coming out party.
My next appointment, Silvanio Malatesta, had trained most of his life to become a monster. He just spelled it with a b instead of an n.
As a kid he had run with a succession of street gangs until he was old enough to attract the attention of the mafia (which, like vampires, doesn't really exist either). He worked his way up through the ranks until he became an underboss for one of "those families." Back in the heyday—the Forties for Silvanio, when he was still Warm—he had discovered the inhabitants of another underworld.
These piazzaiollos were worse than the Sicilians—they had no fear of the gun or the knife and he lost several good men and more than a few street punks before he learned their dark and terrible secrets. Silva did not understand how such creatures came to be but he did understand power. These Bava had it and he wanted it. You gave up certain things to acquire power, everything in life is a trade-off: Non c'è rosa senza spine.
But what would he really be giving up? Silva worked nights and preferred to sleep late anyway. The priests had said he was going to Hell while he was still a young boy and, by the time he became a made man, he had long said goodbye to his own soul. Near invulnerability to bullets, superhuman strength and speed, the power to cloud the minds of the simple and superstitious—why would anyone not accept this Dark Gift? Not that it was being offered, you understand; it had to be bargained for. But Malatesta was a man who had learned how to get what he wanted regardless of the cost or what others wanted. He was brought over.
The Family should have considered him their greatest asset. Instead, they feared and loathed what he had become. Old World superstitions and Catholicism were arrayed against the advantages he felt he had to offer.
But the division ran deeper than that.
The Dark Gift had changed him in ways he had not reckoned. A cataloging of the physical transformations did not take into account the mental and emotional changes that were taking place, as well. He had thought himself a "cold-blooded killer" before, never imagining how the literal version of those words would remake him and all of his future plans. The Dark Gift does not serve humans; it is humans who must serve the Dark Gift. Silvanio Malatesta gave up his position of underboss for La Costa Nostra. He severed his ties to his former Family by severing their jugulars. Now he was godfather for the Bava, gangsters with fangs. Fangsters. The New York demesne had its own mafia now. And Malatesta came to our audience wanting to know if the new Doman was going to muscle in on his turf.
Likewise Dante Inferno (don't you just love the names vamps come up with when they rename themselves?) and Blackstar Sabertooth. Only Dante and Blackstar weren't asking any questions. They had come to do me the favor of explaining how it was with The Deads and The Hammers, the two major vampire street gangs in the city. They weren't looking for anything from me and I shouldn't be looking for anything from them.
I told them pretty much what I told everyone else that night: I was just looking to get acquainted for now. No promises, no pitches, no deals—just a little turn out on the dance floor and we'll do lunch at a later date.
My next appointment was from out of town. The representative of the Northern Wilderness Clans arrived in traditional Native American garb. Her buckskin dress, leggings, and moccasin boots were adorned with beads, bones, and shells. Her eyes were as black as her hair and implied age far beyond her appearance as a maid of, perhaps, seventeen summers.
"Morning Star," she addressed me, bowing low as she approached the throne.
I promised myself to replace the furniture before continuing with tomorrow night's appointments. While the Doman of New York City couldn't very well conduct business from a folding chair or ensconced in a giant beanbag, the throne motif was a little too surreal for my tastes. Eventually I was going to succumb to the growing urge to bellow "Off with their heads!" as the audiences progressed.
But for now: "Greetings," I said, glancing down at the typed itinerary, "Wah—wuh—"
"Please, call me Wendy." She smiled and her teeth were as bright as the moon in her brown face.
I returned the smile. S
he was a delightful contrast to my previous audience with Hackle and Jackal. "And please call me Chris."
She sat upon the chair across from me as her ancestors might have sat around their council fires, cross-legged with her feet tucked under her.
"Tell me of your clan, Wendy."
"My people are the Forest Folk and the Spirits of Water, Wind, and Stone." Her fingers fluttered. "I do not speak for them, I speak on their behalf."
"I'm not sure I understand."
"I am not their leader. Some tribes have their own, others not," she said, gesturing with her hands. "We each have our own ways. In one way only are we all alike." Her hands were eloquent and I wished I could divide my attention between her words and her gestures so that I might attend to both. Unfortunately I was tired and my earlier blood loss was taking its toll.
"We are the Spirit Peoples, bound to Mother Earth in the secret places. We swim in the lakes and rivers . . ." Her fingers were schools of fish wriggling through shallows and rapids. " . . . we creep through the tall grass, lurk at the edges of the glen . . ." she said with a stealthy palm, " . . . we rest between the stones, and leap upon the high places . . ." Her hand swept up and my head lolled back as my eyes tried to follow its trajectory. " . . . we soar with the eagle . . ." My eyes fluttered and then cleared as I beheld the great mountains to the west, beyond the Alleghenies. " . . . we bathe in the fountains of the dawn and move across the land at the speed of night . . .
"Do you see?"
"Yes," I murmured, the outlines of Bokwus, Hino, and Adekagagwaaa appeared in the background as the shadow-shapes of the Ohdow, Chenoo, Nagumwasuck, and Inua passed through earth and tree and brook and stone.
Mother Earth is our flesh and bone, Mother Nature our blood and breath.
We are tied to the land.
We are of the land.
As long as the land is well, we are well.
"Well . . ." I mumbled.
But the land is being poisoned. The land is polluted with a cancer.
Somewhere in the back of my mind—down in the root cellar, actually—a little voice was clearing its throat and suggesting I take a step back. It was also warning me about getting involved in public health concerns.
An enemy has come among us, a fierce and terrible enemy!
High up, among the cloud-wreathed mountain peaks, a castle appeared.
He has brought his dark sorceries upon the land and has poisoned the streams and fields with his potions and elixirs. He has snared the Forest Folk and twisted their offspring into demonic shadow things—just as he has made twisted things of his own shadows.
He destroys in the name of life. He distorts and corrupts the ladders of time and task. He mangles the forms of creation in his unending combat with the Creator.
There were things in the water with extra eyes, no eyes, feelers, and worse.
Things in the forest that gave birth to abominations, things that should not have lived but did.
Things that were kin to Yog-Sothoth and the Nameless Ones.
Things that were hungry in obscene ways.
That mocked God and spat in the face of sanity.
Darkness, once more, was coming upon the face of The Deep.
He is The Mangler, also called Nikidik, whose True Name is nearly forgotten. The inhabitants of his first kingdom have passed through the Gates of Fire or of Time and few survivors remain who remember the horror of his reign, the foul designs of his Master.
We ask you to gainsay him!
His power has grown in the secret years that passed since he was presumed dead. But he did not die! He became fruitful and multiplied!
Soon he will be Legion!
It was as if a great shadow overcast my mind. Through the darkness I caught glimpses of victims waiting in long lines, and of fires and pits and dark smoke dissolving the sun. White flakes falling in a parody of snow on warm summer afternoons. Steel tables and surgical tools and notebooks bulging with data on what the human body might endure and what the human mind might not.
You must withstand him, kith and kin.
You must destroy him in all of his parts so that no portion of his works may remain or return.
Let no hostage deter you.
Do not let Death bind you.
Trust in the unborn and the undying.
Why . . . me . . . ? He seems far away . . . beyond the borders of my demesne . . .
Your demesne lies between the borders of light and shadow. And his hand is stretched out toward you, even now.
Awake . . .
My eyes snapped open and I was momentarily dazzled by the light in the room.
The chair across from me was empty.
The guards appeared to have dozed off. They were on the floor, leaning back against the wall or slumped over on their sides. Deirdre was snoring. Kurt's chin had dropped to his chest.
"I see the Four-fold Man," wrote William Blake, "The Humanity in deadly sleep / and its fallen Emanation, the Spectre and its cruel Shadow." I wondered how Blake would have rendered our little naptime into scansion and verse.
"Can it get any weirder than this?" I muttered.
You'd think I'd learn to keep my big fat mouth shut—even the rhetorical questions get me nothing but trouble. The problem was I didn't even have a clue as to how much trouble I was in before the door opened again.
Two large toy soldiers marched into the room.
"Large toy" sounds a little oxymoronic—like "jumbo shrimp" or "military intelligence"—but these apple-cheeked, white-trousered, red-bloused, black-capped automatons were the size of children. Or dwarves.
They goose-stepped in with their spike-bayoneted muzzle loaders strapped across their backs and each carried a small chest in his white-gloved hands. The chests were as identical as the pair transporting them. As they drew closer I could see that they more closely resembled miniature caskets—coffins, about fourteen inches long and shaped proportionally with ancient brass fittings.
The little soldiers came forward and placed the little caskets on the floor just inches away from my feet. They then saluted and turned and marched back out of the room.
I stared after them and then down as the door closed behind them. Someone had used a wood-burning stylus to inscribe the same words in German on the lid of each casket:
Schlüssel zum Erfolg ist verfügbar
Rough translation: "The key to success is at hand." This made a wee bit more—if not complete—sense when I picked one up. It was locked. To prevent someone from getting in? I wondered.
Or something from getting out?
The ceremonial gifts from the clans and families were all carefully X-rayed before being delivered to me so I figured it couldn't be too dangerous. But if the key was at hand, it wasn't immediately evident. I set the mini-coffins aside for later examination: my next two appointments had arrived and I had a roomful of protectors to wake up.
* * *
Kurt was loath to leave me but he needed to find out what had happened to his much vaunted security systems. He particularly wanted to know why his backup team hadn't come running when the hidden cameras showed us passing out.
I waved him off, assuring him that we could fall asleep equally well, with or without him. That neither reassured him nor improved his mood. He muttered into his lapel mic while Deirdre resumed her smirk. After all of his high-handedness, she was enjoying the fact that his security had fumbled the ball twice in one night and both times it had happened on his watch. Kurt was learning that I wasn't an easy guy to protect.
Come to think of it, maybe I should take note of that issue, as well.
The door opened and a young woman entered. She looked like a fresh-faced, well-scrubbed college sophomore or junior reporting for her first internship. She wore a baggy pullover of midnight blue over a pair of tight black slacks and sensible, comfortable shoes. Her chestnut hair was pulled away from her face and dropped into a ponytail of Clydesdalean proportions. She preceded a big, dangerous-looking vampire wh
ose fangs actually curved over his lower lip. Worse, he was a mouth-breather. The tux that barely fit him didn't do anything to suggest an air of sophistication, it was actually counterintuitive. His long black hair hung to his shoulders in twisted greasy locks. He had more hair on his knuckles than I had on my chest.
They were an odd pairing, this vampire and his human servant. Or maybe he was simply bringing his lunch to work.
Kurt headed for the door. "Spook and Carol will take my place until I get back," he said over his shoulder. "Be careful. And don't be a pain in the ass."
Yup, Kurt was finally learning what my security detail really entailed after all this time.
I turned to the big vamp as the door closed behind my majordomo. "So, Spook, huh? I'm guessing you weren't ever in the CIA." I gestured to the empty chair on my right. "Have a seat."
The coed stepped up and sat down. "I'm Spook," she said with a smile, "that's Carol." The big vampire moved to her side.
Oboy.
I turned to the two vampire envoys that were waiting for their appointment to begin. One wore a skullcap, the other a shemagh. Both wore beards. "And you are . . . ?"
* * *
The Aluka and the Oneida were a treat, of sorts. Their numbers were the smallest among the clans as they never sought to bring others to their state of damnation. Vampire Jews or Muslims had to be made by vampires who had no stake in either religion. No pun intended.
The more orthodox Jews and devout Muslims who woke up undead invariably tried to destroy themselves. Their beliefs wouldn't permit them to continue their existence as an unclean thing. Where their doctrines forbade suicide, many found clever and elaborate ways to exploit scriptural loopholes and have "accidents." Sometimes they would force fatal encounters with overwhelming numbers of other unclean monsters. Only a few of those on either side of Father Abraham's family tree found ways to reconcile themselves with their newfound thirst for blood.
Habeas Corpses Page 19
