“Be fair to the boy, Withrow,” said a voice I hadn’t heard in a very long time. “You’ve had decades to learn about yourself, and a maker who was willing to teach.”
Dog and Smiles both began to growl with the deep, bone-rattling intensity of Hellhounds who know an enemy when they smell one.
We all three turned at the fourth presence standing there, one that hadn’t been there before: Ross, the “demon” who played a flirtatious game of cat and mouse with me once before, and the source of all the elders’ magic thus far.
Ross was tall, athletic, and shapely in a defined but not beefy sort of way. His body was covered in silver-tinged blue scales that reflected the light of the moon and the stars, and his eyes were a cloudy shade of amber-yellow suggesting fool’s gold in a cup of curdled milk. He had no hair and he was wearing a t-shirt for a band I never heard of and a pair of swim trunks that showed everything in them – everything – in obscenely perfect detail. The last time I saw him it caused something deep inside me to well up by surprise: a kind of physical yearning I hadn’t felt in decades. It was the sort of lust I left behind when I let Agatha turn me into a vampire. Back then I wanted to escape a world in which I was not considered a sexual object and until Ross came along I succeeded.
I was a little surprised to realize it was not happening this time.
“Hello, Withrow.” Ross’s voice was deep and smooth and sounded like a peanut butter cup selling a used car. He looked at Roderick – who froze mid-button of his shirt so he looked like a statue – and nodded. “And Roderick. I should have known you wouldn’t be far behind.”
Roderick normally has a saucy retort ready to ship at a moment’s notice but he didn’t say a word. Instead he went back to buttoning, his eyes never leaving Ross’ handsome features. Something like a smile was on Roderick’s face, but note how I said like. I knew my cousin well enough to recognize murder in his eyes.
Ross looked over at Old Shoe. “Hello, Brodie.”
I blinked and finally found my voice. “Brodie?”
Old Shoe didn’t say anything. He just stared at Ross. A vampire like Old Shoe, who didn’t even know how to run fast, must’ve never seen anything like Ross before. I told him and Beth that the elders had supernatural powers at their disposal beyond what we would normally expect but I maybe didn’t go into a ton of detail with them about things like blue-scaled demons who made you horny. It just sounded so fucking crazy whenever I said it. Roderick had this crazy idea the demon was a tulpa, a thing people make real out of nowhere by believing in it real hard, and that didn’t help summarize things at fucking all. Besides, I was a little embarrassed by the way Ross made me feel. I didn’t want to have to go into explaining they should stay away from the thing I made out with so hard I wrecked the stockroom of an ÜberBargains.
Ross turned to me with a smile. “That’s your friend’s name.” He arched an eyebrow. “Isn’t it? We have a knack for knowing these things.”
I harrumphed at him and shifted my weight, folding my arms across my chest. “Don’t waste our time standing around looking pretty, Ross. What the hell do you want?”
He smiled more broadly this time. “Tsk tsk, Withrow. Life would go so much better for you if you became a little more sociable.”
I heard a sound come from Roderick, way down, and I realized abruptly he’d started to growl just like the dogs. Dog started shaking his hips, but my cousin put out one hand and his Hellhound fell silent. This was Roderick’s squirrel to chase, not his pet’s. Roderick had a real hate-on for Ross and I’ve never totally understood why. He claimed he destroyed one before but he wouldn’t tell anyone how. I just figured it was a story he told to sound like a badass, a vampire’s version of having a girlfriend in Canada.
Ross laughed lightly at the growl Roderick was working up, and looked back at me. “My… clients know you are here. They also know your mortal friends are here. It’s odd, don’t you think? A vampire who would work with humans to destroy other vampires? You so recently fancied yourself a loner with no need for human interaction at all and here you are working with them to betray your own kind?” Ross shook his head. “Anyway, your little friends aren’t the only ones with something like magic on their side. I mean, if you want to sully the word magic using it to indicate what pathetic little mortals can do. Terribly weak compared to what my clients have at their disposal.”
“Get to the fucking point,” I snapped.
Ross smiled and he had dimples in his cheeks. “They’ve asked me to inform you it’s not too late to join them.” He initially stood with his hands folded together before him and now he brought them up and apart in a slow-motion gesture of pleading, like a lawyer addressing the jury in his closing statements on a bad courtroom drama. “Give up this quixotic quest to preserve your maker’s rebellion. Give up this uninformed notion the eldest of your kind are your enemy. Withrow, the two examples of the elders you’ve actually met were, frankly, poor representatives: a redneck on a power trip and a fetishist bogeyman courting mad science in faded suburbia are not exactly the center of the bell curve. The eldest of your race are not monsters. They are survivors. You have a lot in common with them. The elders just want you to hear what they have in mind. Give them a chance to persuade you. Don’t assume your maker wants what’s best for you. Don’t make the mistake of thinking the elders want to harm you just to harm you. They only want to retake their rightful place at the top of the food chain. They have no intention of interfering in your life once you’ve shown them proper respect.”
That word, respect, landed like a kick in the stomach. It felt like being bitten in the neck. I balled up my fists and had to work hard to keep a handle on the monster that lives inside. It lunged at Ross, deep in the cage of my soul, and it was an act of willpower to keep it in check. “Let me tell you what your clients can do with their proper respect,” I rumbled, but Ross put up his hand and there was something in his eyes – some evil sparkle, some hint of iron and stone – that touched an ancient human part of me, deep down, and made me shut my trap. Whereas the last time we met, Ross made me feel a desire I’d thought long gone, this time he made me feel fear in a way I hadn’t in decades. Even the monster inside whimpered in fear.
“I think now might be a good time to let you know the fate of your friends relies on your answer.” Ross grinned with perfect teeth and it could have curdled fresh milk.
“Ah,” Roderick said in a very quiet voice. “Of course.”
Old Shoe had been standing there adjusting his coral bracelet with the opposite hand nonstop, a nervous gesture, and he said, “Boss… what’s he talking about?”
Jennifer cranked the mini-van’s engine and threw it in reverse. “They know we’re here,” she said to the car in general.
“Where are we going?” Dan’s voice shook.
“One of them just pulled out a pistol and pointed it at Xi,” Ramon said, “But another made him put it away and picked up a rock… and threw it? Xi’s been hit.” Ramon was still hunched over the tablet.
“Xi is returning to his point of origin.” Sheila’s voice was flat, no more emotional than text on a terminal screen. She didn’t sound worried because she didn’t sound anything. She was still locked into the meditation.
“Without his complete pattern, our surveillance rune is shot,” Dan said.
“We’re aborting,” Jennifer said. It was an order, not an opinion. She stepped on the gas and the engine roared. The back wheels of the mini-van shrieked and kept shrieking. The van didn’t move. Marty and Beth, seated in the last row, looked backwards.
“There is a woman,” Beth said. “She is holding the van in place.”
Marty noticed, just at the edge of his vision, Beth’s eyes widen slightly in fear.
Jennifer looked in the rear view mirror. A lone woman, looking to be in her 60’s, stood there with one hand on the back gate. The van’s engine was at maximum revs, roaring like it was about to throw a rod, but it couldn’t move an inch.
; Marty licked his lips. “The force exerted by the engine of this van at maximum output, expressed in pounds per square inch across the surface area of an average human hand is –“
Jennifer shifted to drive and gunned it again, but the rear axle of the van merely lifted off the ground as the woman behind them picked up the whole thing using the back bumper.
Another pair of figures, a man and woman, melted out of the darkness at the edges of the parking lot and moved in. One approached the driver’s door and the other walked slowly toward the passenger door.
Jennifer reached down and hit the automatic lock.
Dan laughed at the mechanical clunk noise and he sounded a little hysterical.
“Jennifer,” Ramon said, his voice very quiet. “Are we about to die?”
“No,” Jennifer replied. “We are not.”
“Boss,” Old Shoe said to Withrow, a mile and a half away and infinitely further in terms of his ability to affect anything about the situation. “Boss, maybe we should listen to this ugly asshole.”
Ross’ eyes flashed at Old Shoe – a searing burst of hate – and the kid just shrugged.
“Sorry, but it is what it is,” Old Shoe said. Looking back at Withrow he begged for consideration. “Seriously, boss, if they’ve got Jennifer and Beth and Marty and everybody else, and if all they want is for you to give the salute or whatever, I mean, why not?”
Ross’ features settled back into something like placid handsomeness and he turned half-lidded eyes and a very subtle smile at Withrow and then Roderick as he spoke. “Your junior colleague seems to understand the situation. You should take his advice.”
I turned my whole body, very slowly, away from Ross and towards Old Shoe. I wanted him to understand what I was about to say was more important to me than a literal (maybe) demon standing in front of me talking threats. I wanted Old Shoe to understand Old Shoe, himself, was more real to me, more important, and I was more likely to hurt him – to reach out with my hands and break him – if that was what it took to get my point across.
“No,” I said. My voice was very soft. “I will not ever take this thing’s advice.” I hooked a thumb at Ross. “I don’t know what he is or where he comes from. I don’t know whose side he’s really on, or that it matters, or that there are even really ‘sides’ in this. But I know he lies, and betrays, and takes pleasure in the suffering and torment of others. I think he takes his greatest pleasure from getting people to torment themselves. He makes people think there’s an easy solution.” I looked right into Old Shoe’s eyes, blandly brown in a forgettable face. “There are no easy solutions.” I drew a breath. “Do you understand me? There never is. It is always a trap.”
Old Shoe’s youthful and perfectly neutral face was as uncertain as any expression can ever be. He looked like he wanted to object but didn’t know how, didn’t know what to say, what appeal would find purchase with me. After a moment he swallowed some air and started to say something and I shook my head.
“I won’t say it again after this: no. And no one will be permitted to suggest otherwise. Old Shoe, I will let another vampire live her life how she wants any night of the week, no matter how dumb I think they may be, right up until their choices threaten me. Giving this thing a moment’s consideration is that kind of choice.”
Ross sounded slightly exasperated when he spoke. “Do you see, Brodie? This is the sort of rhetoric I hear all the time from fanatics like Withrow. He claims to know the elders’ intentions and that those intentions are sinister. He says his own intentions are…” Ross trailed off. “Actually, have you ever said what are your intentions, Withrow? Have you ever said what it is you want?”
I turned my head to look at him. Roderick was still growling, standing stock still as he did so. Not a muscle in his whole body had moved the entire time. His eyes had not left Ross. He would leap upon the pseudo-demon and rip him into blue confetti if I said the word. Maybe if I didn’t, too. I spoke to Ross with all the calm I could muster. “I want freedom. I want to live my own life without someone else thinking they can tell me what to do just because they’re older than I am. That’s why I quit working for my maker and came here. That’s why I knocked off my predecessor and took power. That’s why I do everything, more or less.” I smiled a little. “It probably sounds too simple, too easy, but it’s true. All I’ve done has basically been to guarantee my own right to live my own life.”
Ross smiled, but at Old Shoe, not at me. “See? He says it himself; or rather, he does not say something important: what he thinks of your freedom. Withrow is full of the importance of his own happiness, his own liberation, his own prerogatives, but never anyone else’s. The gift his maker gave him by turning him into one of your kind? Thrown back at her so he could go have adventures of his own. The previous administration of your state was murdered down to a man because Withrow didn’t want to be bothered with learning to live in the world as we find it the way the rest of us do. When was the last time Withrow asked you if you needed anything, Brodie? When was the last time he offered to help you rather than merely to tolerate you?”
“When,” Roderick said, a dry rasp between lips still practically sealed together, “Was the last time one of your followers didn’t die for having worshipped you?”
Ross chortled aloud, a laugh fighting its way out of his too-handsome face, a smirk wrinkling his so-perfect snakeskin cheeks. “Oh, Roderick,” he said around a chuckle, “Who are you to criticize someone on the grounds of death? Does the world even know how many people you’ve murdered? Do you even remember, yourself? At least I’m honest with those who choose to become my clients. My relationships are purely transactional and above-board. The elders know what they’re getting into when they work with me and they do what is required of them by their own choice. I’ve never compelled a single soul against his own will.”
Roderick stepped forward and reached out. I thought he was going to grab Ross by the front of his shirt or the scruff of his collar or something, but he reached out and simply held his finger an inch from the center of Ross’ chest. He had stopped growling, had stopped smiling or smirking or anything of the sort. Roderick’s face fell blank like that of someone in deep sleep. The dead usually wear an expression – trust me – but a sleeper’s face wears the emptiness of being a body whose mind has gone somewhere else. Roderick’s face had that kind of emptiness now. His eyes were not totally focused and I thought to myself this was the closest I had ever seen Roderick to going full-on red-mist murderous psycho. I had hunted with him in the past, in Seattle and in Durham. We had killed together: mortals aplenty and occasionally a vampire. All those times, Roderick seemed to gain clarity when he resorted to violence. The moment he moved to take a life was when Roderick seemed to awaken, not to fall away. It was one of the things I found most worrying: the possibility he could only see the world clearly through a fine sheen of someone else’s blood. Now I felt a fear more terrible than that: the possibility even Roderick could become so furious, so livid, he would lose himself to the monster inside. I had always thought Roderick ran neck-and-neck with the animal that lives under the skin of every vampire, but no, now I realized it was possible even my cousin could stumble and be outpaced.
Roderick didn’t look at Ross when he spoke, he looked at his finger, or at Ross’s chest so close to it, as though a part of him were wondering how hard he would have to press to leave a mark. Roderick licked his lips absently, halfheartedly, his tongue having to feel around as though it had never been used before. “I,” he said, and paused, as though he wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence. He tried again. “I am going to destroy you. And it will not be by violence. It will not be the ways you might think it will be. I will not use my teeth or my hands or a knife or a gun. I will kill you with my mind.”
Ross did the worst possible thing I can imagine someone doing, in terms of infuriating me. He looked at Roderick with something like pity before he turned to me to say something. “Withrow, I think your cousin is – “
With a flourish, Roderick produced a shining silver coin. Starlight glinted off its edge and my vampire eyes had no trouble seeing it clearly: it was a Peace silver dollar, the kind we used to have floating around when I was a kid. They were a post-Great-War thing, with Liberty on the face and an eagle on the reverse. It was one of the last coins minted by the United States composed of at least 90% actual silver. Roderick seemed to be looking at the coin, but also through it, past it, maybe into it. He sounded sleepy when he spoke: distant and thick. “I know this will not kill you,” he said. “But it will cause you tremendous pain.” With the speed of a vampire, Roderick pressed the coin to the flesh of Ross’ face, right across those beautiful, lying lips, and the demon’s flesh sizzled like bacon in the pan.
Ross tried to roar but couldn’t, stumbled backwards, and screamed at the top of his lungs.
A mile and a half away, at that moment, Jennifer looked in the rear view mirror at Beth and Marty. The vampires approaching the car stood by the doors at the front and were reaching for the handles. “Vampires down,” Jennifer said. Marty and Beth blinked at her, not understanding, and she shouted at them as she pulled out one of those giant water guns built like a gallon drum made of neon-colored plastic. “No, seriously,” she yelled. “All nice vampires need to hit the fucking deck.”
8
Holy water – the real deal, the stuff that actually works – is a hell of a thing to come by. I have never known where to get it, never was totally sure it would work, but the technopagans had a source for the real stuff.
The stuff you find in a church? That doesn’t cut it. That stuff is just water some guy in a collar talked at. The real thing can come from any religion but the person who makes it has to do more than believe. They’ve got to know. Lots of religions believe in sanctifying water in one way or another for one reason or another. Buddhists have about a hundred different definitions of “holy water.” Shia Islam has a version they drink as a kind of magical cure-all. Christianity’s just lousy with the stuff, of course. Neopagans love it, Hindus literally bathe in it, some religions have rivers or lakes they consider inherently holy, and a million other examples exist beyond those few. Go looking around for holy water and it’s a wonder there’s any left that isn’t.
Attempted Immortality (Withrow Chronicles Book 4) Page 14
