She looked down, but I was focused over her. From my higher vantage point I could see him out in the dark, watching and listening. Not trying to hide himself.
“What we have is all it's ever going to be. Know that.”
Margot nodded. “Fine then, I don't love anyone, either.”
I only looked to her for an instant — a very quick vampire instant— but it was an eternity for our kind.
It had given old Uncle Priest enough time to vanish.
I didn't look to her when I said it. I was too busy scanning the horizon for any clue as to where the bastard had crept to. “Then you're already just like me.”
VI.
I went walking to the abandoned hotel I'd found near that Salton Sea. I was far removed from the emptiness and the little maid's dress I'd stolen my first night out of the water.
If the priest was tracking me, he'd be there before I got there. That's just how good the dead old buzzard was.
The woman was standing on the second floor balcony that ran the length of the rooms. She stood proud and straight, had her hands resting on the decaying iron which had been assaulted for years by the salt air.
Her gown was as simple as the one I'd taken from this place, more earth tone and longer: flowing, tattered, broken. It wrapped itself around her because she was divine and it wanted to be close to her, the laws of physics and fashion be damned.
She had long dark braided hair and coal eyes. The antlers that sprung from her temples, just forward of her pointed ears, gave away that she was not one of my kind.
“Why are you still here?” This is what she asked me.
“Because I could not drown.”
“Did you try?”
“Yes.”
She was unmoved. “You laid on the floor of that dead sea and pretended you were part of it. That you were dead too. You knew all along that you were not. You are a creature who doesn't die as they do. But it is fully within your power to end it, if that is your choice.”
“Life stopped being about choices for me long ago.”
“You never put out the effort to choose.”
“Did you trick me?” I asked. “You stink of dirty gypsy magic.”
“Did I make you think you saw something in the darkness that you didn't want to see? Is that what you're asking?”
“Is he really here for me?”
She raised an eyebrow and an antler lifted with it. “Who is the ‘he’ we are speaking of?”
“The Priest.”
She didn't care about my answer. “Why did you not slay the deer I sent for you?”
“I didn't want anything to do with that filthy beast.”
“You felt it was not a worthy sacrifice?”
I turned up my nose at her, which was a feat considering she was fifteen feet higher than my proud stance in the hotel courtyard. “I can hunt just fine all on my own.”
“Except for the one who got away.”
I was enraged by the mention, and surely that was her purpose. I fell right into it, even though I knew better. “Curse you and curse him. I'm glad he's no more.”
“He lives.”
She didn't seem to be studying my face for the reaction, but those eyes told the tale. She was always probing.
“You lie.”
“You survived the monster. Did you not?”
“I wasn't going where he desired to go. What he did is forbidden, whether we're speaking of the old ways or simple common sense. You don't goad a monster into taking you to those places.”
“Where would you have taken him?”
I looked away from her. I didn't mean to, didn't want to. I looked away all the same.
“Your time in this place is short-lived, Anastasia. You should get whatever affairs you have in order and prepare to move on.”
“I will not leave this place.”
She raised her arms from the railing and opened them wide. “Why would you stay?”
“Because it's mine. It's the first thing that's ever been all mine.”
“Selling debauchery to the humans and breaking their bones when they have exhausted their means. This is your kingdom now?”
“Yes. I care even less for the humans than your kind does.”
“You, Anastasia, are the liar.”
My fangs clicked into place.
“Oh, here we go. That is what I've been waiting for. Come run at me and show your savage nature.”
“I will protect what I'm building.”
“You will escape like a coward while your keep burns. Then you will move on and find someone else to use. It's your nature.”
I spoke, baring fang-wrath. “You know nothing of me.”
“I know everything about you, and I know everything about him. He has upset the order of the universe. And you are caught squarely in the middle of this imbalance.”
“I know nothing of what he has done, or where he is now. I know nothing of what else he's planning to wreck, what other blasphemes he has left in his playbook.”
“They know who you are. Who do you think they're coming for to find him?”
“The Five?” It still sounded ridiculous to me, after all these years. “They're not real. The Priest made them up to manipulate me.”
“Tell that to your dead sisters.”
I only cared for one of them, but I cared deeply for her, and I would not let this goddess abomination see me cry for her.
“Augusta.”
She nodded, crossing her arms back to grasp the railing. “She saw you in visions. Poor Augusta, the mad one.”
“She told them where I was from visions? She told the Priest?”
“If he is here then they cannot be far behind him.”
“I still don't believe The Five are real.”
“Neither did we, Anastasia.” The goddess and her leaf-stained dress were shadow before I turned from her words. “Neither did we.”
VII.
“I want you to run away.” I was stern, and tried not to join her in her tears. I was still heartsick over the possibility that someone had actually gotten to Augusta. My only sister who wasn't vile and wretched, saved by her own insanity from turning into the greedy, blood-soaked, princess-whores the rest had become.
Margot shook her head. “No.”
“The other vampires have found me…”
“You told me there weren't any other vampires.”
“Margot, I lied. There aren't many.”
“We can take them.” She was spinning a knife in her fingertips, and I watched the blade make lazy loops in the air. She kept them razor sharp.
“There are worse things than vampires. They might be coming too.”
“Worse than vampires?” She rolled her eyes at me.
The slap I gave her across the face was much harder than I'd intended it to be. The knife tumbled from her hands and stuck into the floor of Wanda's room.
“Wake up, little girl. I told you we're done and you have to go. Throw some things in a bag, grab your toys, and leave.”
She jumped up on the bed, landing on her knees and staring at me. “I'm staying to fight.”
“Then you'll die alone, because I'm not staying.”
She wasn't ready for this to come out of my mouth. I was running and I had just admitted it to her.
“What are you so afraid of that you'd run, Ana?”
“I'm scared of what he did. I'm scared of whoever is coming to blame me for it.”
“What who did?”
“I'm done talking to you.” I had warned her and done my part. If she was stupid enough to stay here, then it was all on her and had nothing to do with me.
“The one you love?”
I spun around at the doorway. “We've been over this.”
“What's his name?”
“I don't love him, and I don't speak that name any longer.”
“What could one man possibly do that would cause so much trouble that you're shaking in your boots and running out of here like you are
? What could he have done, Ana? Tell me, and then maybe I'll believe you.”
I stared a hole into her, and it was she who shivered from the gaze alone. There was no way she'd be able to wrap her tiny mind around the actual words.
“He broke the universe.”
I left her staring out her window into the night.
When I reached the living room, Calvin was under his computer desk and showing me far too much of the crack of his ass. I was too frantic and frazzled from the events of the night and the failed talk I'd just had with Margot to be properly disgusted.
Still, it was a sight that made me stop just long enough.
“What the hell are you doing?” I demanded.
“Security camera monitors are all on the blitz.”
“It's fritz.”
“Yeah, just like that.” He tried his best to pull himself out of the space he'd shoved himself into that was barely big enough, under normal parameters, to contain his enormous knees.
“You need to go.”
He pulled himself up. “Go?”
“They're coming for me.”
His face went into panic. “Who? Why didn't you tell me? Who's onto you? Hell, who's onto us?”
“Grab some things and get in that truck and don't ever come back. Take Margot with you.”
“You know Margot isn't going anywhere with me. She says I smell.”
“You do smell. Knock her in the head and kidnap her.”
He only considered it for a half-second, “She'll have me sliced into bologna before I get anywhere close to her.”
“Use pepper spray, it worked on your sister. She overcompensates, so her right side is actually the weaker.”
“Is it sheriffs? Oh shit, it's the ATF.”
“It's neither.”
Calvin ran his fat fingers up his face and pulled on those big greasy sideburns. “I knew the government was coming after me. It ain't the metha'lizing that done me in. They know I know what they're planning for the end times.”
“It's not a conspiracy theory if it's real. You should have been gone five minutes ago.”
I yelled for Margot and got no answer. I was going to make her leave with this dullard that I should have drained for easy blood months ago.
“Margot!”
My answer came from outside.
“She's out here, pretty.” The voice of Uncle Priest. “Come and talk with us, Anastasia.”
A chill ran up the back of Calvin's spine — I watched him shudder. The Priest's voice was powerful in its creepiness. Even creepier when he wasn't trying to be that way.
“Get out of here, or die.” I tried to make the point clear as possible to Calvin.
I looked at the assault rifles leaning against the wall on the front door. I knew it pointless to grab one.
“Why am I so fat?” Calvin started to sob. “I'm way too big to shit myself out a window.”
VIII.
Anastasia's cowboy boots hit the trailer house steps at the exact second the lights went down across the compound. Calvin, in his mania, had at least gotten that order right. Her heightened vision kicked in without pause, and the night was as visible to her eyes as they would be to a human's eyes at high noon. She sailed off the steps and landed in a brisk and determined walk towards the bird bath at the center of the yard.
Uncle Priest was holding Margot in front of him like a shield. He had his arm locked around her neck. Margot struggled, but as bad news as the little pissed-off devil was to humans, she was no match for the strength of an aged and pure vampire like the Priest. Her kicking and screaming was a distraction that Anastasia didn't need right now.
The old vampire had a very quiet and stoic expression, so very unlike him. “Anastasia, I expected more from you and the hillbilly. You pulled the plug on all his electronic toys.”
“Like any of them matter.” She kept walking. “Let her go.”
“She gave up that chance.”
“She'll be happy to run now, I'm guessing.”
That's when the Priest finally got that twinkle in those black eyes of his. “You with a student, it's so endearing. She goes against what she's told with even more abandon than you.”
“She's not my student. She's just a blood bag.”
Margot kicked the vampire hard in the shins. It was like kicking a bulldozer.
“And I always did everything I was told,” Anastasia added.
“You were never told to murder one of our Masters.”
Anastasia was already boiling on the inside and starting to tip into dangerous territory. “He is responsible for that murder, not I.”
The Priest considered saying his name, but would hold onto that. Anastasia was becoming reckless and emotional just fine all on her own.
“No matter. You did nothing to stop him. You are as much to blame as he.”
Margot eked out Anastasia's name as best she could. The vampire's grip on her was like a vise. Anastasia had been in the grip of those gnarled fingers before.
“Why didn't you turn her, Anastasia? Why not take her all the way to proper student? If you're going to take the trouble to go through with it…”
Margot's eyes pled to Anastasia for release. The old bat need only twitch and he'd snap her neck.
“Because, she's nothing to me. She was a more than willing dinner.”
Margot's eyes ran with tears and there was blood trickling out of her nose.
“She was buffet.”
Uncle Priest held his ground — Anastasia was so close now.
“If you had no need for a new pupil…” That's when he smiled. “I soon will.”
“You would never.” Anastasia's heart was thumping quickly. She was ever angrier; she had not fed, and she fought against the feral nature which was storming fang-first into her mind.
He laughed, deep and cold. “When you're dead, someone will have to chase Bil…”
The pistol was pulled from the back of Anastasia's jeans with supreme efficiency. The issue wasn't how fast she could draw this night though — it was what she could hit.
Right through Margot's shoulder. The girl screamed and convulsed and would soon black out. Anastasia knew she'd missed the Priest's heart. Anastasia watched the second bullet fly and graze his old neck. Blood sprayed.
“Their bullets are no consequence to me, brave stupid girl.”
“I have thirteen more.”
Margot's abdomen began to cascade blood as number thirteen tore into her and then into him as she counted down.
Her body went bright with fountains of warm blood as Anastasia made the gun barrel hot and let the bullets fly one after another. The Priest kept hold of Margot and the blood shot from Margot and flew in spirals of bright red neon to Anastasia's eyes.
“I won't let you have her.”
Margot screamed and said Anastasia's name.
Anastasia let fly the last three slugs.
Margot's right arm.
Margot's right thigh.
Margot's third left rib.
Anastasia kept clicking the trigger — and realized too late that she had stepped too close. The slice from the claws of the ancient vampire teacher cut her face and took with it the top of her left ear and half the hair on that side.
She reared back with her own nails, but the Priest had dropped the body of the girl and his claws were already in motion.
She was falling again, and when she landed this time, the impact would give her a much better understanding of what it feels like to be dead.
Anastasia blinked. She was staring across the dirt lawn at Margot. Blood poured from the girl. The most beautiful colors imaginable as the many rivers pooled at the desert floor, soon to be hungrily sucked into the parched ground.
“You killed me.” Anastasia thought she heard that. Her head rang and she wanted blood — needed blood — more than ever before.
“You killed me.”
“Margot…” Anastasia had a goofy smile on her face, a delirious one, like a simpleton who h
ad just found something shiny to play with. “Shut up and die.”
All those pretty colors wasted to the earth. Anastasia had never been more ravenously hungry in her life. She had never been more undeserving of the comfort of the relief of pain and hunger in her life.
“Die.”
The Priest fell to his knees behind Margot. He was holding himself up by the bird bath. Anastasia counted eleven holes in him — but she had to count twice.
Margot quivered and convulsed. It wouldn't be long now.
“You are the greatest disappointment the vampire race has ever known.” The Priest said it slow and let the words burn.
Then he grabbed Margot by the hair and pulled her body up to his lips. “There's still plenty in her you haven't wasted.”
Anastasia tried to pull herself up as Uncle Priest's fangs sunk into Margot's neck. He would only need a little, and then he would be just as strong as he was before all the gunfire. She reared up and let out a cry of intensity which matched the pain.
The vampire girl's left arm was twisted and immobile. There was the bone, and it was in the wrong place, and the tip of it threatened to puncture her own skin.
The Priest looked up from Margot's neck and detached to speak. “You've only one option now. Do what you always do. Do what he taught you.”
“I taught him.” Anastasia didn't know what she was talking about or even who she was talking about. “I told him to run.”
The Priest was back at Margot's neck. Her eyes were open and she was still caught in a death rattle. The noise the vampire made at her neck was more revolting to Anastasia than Calvin had been with his never-ending buckets of chicken. The old vampire's wounds were closing and he was pulling all the blood that Margot had left inside her into him. Drawing it to his lips, and Anastasia knew he wasn't going to stop until she was dry as a forgotten flower pressed into an old book.
Margot's mouth opened slowly and she tried to scream. Her pupils had lost all color. She twisted her face like a dead thing disturbed at its own wake.
Anastasia convulsed with Margot and sprayed blood from her own mouth. Hacking and coughing at the horror of it all.
“Why didn't you die?” Anastasia licked her lips to retrieve any of the life essence left on them from her emotions betraying her and causing her body to spit and eject from her precious and fleeting life.
Billy Purgatory and the Curse of the Satanic Five Page 12
