“I am a doctor,” replied Alcander.
“Alright, kids.” Crimson came strolling back from the desk with two sets of keys twirling on his finger. “The bad news is I could only get the one room, so now I’m stuck with the two of you. Good news is, the keys are actually keys instead of those little card things.” He dropped one into the breast pocket of Alcander’s lab coat, then flipped the other back into his palm and put it in his own. “Oh, and the lady at the front desk says that your, uh… cosplay is really good. Am I sayin’ that right? Cos-play?”
“I would really like to lie down,” said Alcander.
“We’re on the twentieth. You need me to carry you?”
“I can make it the twenty feet to the elevator,” replied Alcander.
“Oh.” Crimson looked uncomfortable. “I’ll meetcha up there, then.”
The two went their separate ways. Jasper didn’t feel like climbing twenty fucking stories, and he couldn’t understand why Crimson would either, so he opted to go with Alcander. The elevator had to stop several times, letting passengers on and off at almost every level. When they made it to the room, the door was already cracked open, and Crimson was already inside, sprawled out on the furthest bed and sipping a small bottle from the minibar while he channel-surfed.
The room was like the majority of hotel rooms. The matched double beds were covered in navy blue comforters with lighter blue sheets and pillowcases. The walls were a bland, inoffensive beige, beset above each wooden headboard with pictures of pale sunflowers. A varnished nightstand with nothing more than a grayish phone, a pad of paper, and a menu stand separated the beds, a double-headed light fixture just above it. There was a small mirrored closet beside the bathroom, near the door, and a long dresser at the head of the room, upon which rested an old tube television. In the corner, a slightly dusty air-conditioning unit labored next to a small lumpy love seat, its back to the drawn vertical blinds of a large, long window roughly the length of the room.
Jasper thoughtlessly dropped his bag on the free bed, but then felt peculiarly guilty when Alcander limped past him and collapsed on the love seat.
“Not even gonna take a shower, Al? Wow, you really must be sick.”
The vampire didn’t respond, his entire focus seemingly consumed by clumsily attempting to undo the laces of his shoes with hands that shook too hard to keep a stable grip. Crimson’s smile faded. He grabbed one of the pillows off his bed and dropped it on the arm of the couch. “I’ll keep watch. You get some sleep, yeah?”
“Yeah,” mumbled Alcander. Without another word, he lay back on the love seat, then rolled over so that he was facing in towards the upholstery.
“So,” said Crimson, throwing himself back on the bed, “drinks and movies?”
“I think I’m actually gonna have a shower,” said Jasper. “And, uh… I’m kinda beat, so…”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. I’ll just sit here in the dark. Alone.”
Jasper sighed. “You’re so dramatic.” He grabbed a fresh change of clothes out of his bag. “I’ll watch one movie with you. One. And zero drinks. Then I’m going to bed.”
#
The next day, Alcander did not wake.
He was still curled up on the couch where he fell asleep. When Jasper gently prodded him to try to wake him, he felt stiff and cold, and he did not stir in the slightest. Crimson tried the same tactic (a little less gently) and then swore. “He always does this to himself. I hate it.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Jasper immediately wished he hadn’t asked. He already knew the answer, after all. He’d seen it in the holding cells before. After the bloodthirsty animalistic rage, the next stage of blood dehydration involved a comatose state resembling death. The professors called it “suspended animation” or sometimes “emergency hibernation.” In this way the vampire could continue to survive even though it was on the cusp of starvation.
“This is what happens when an idiot vampire decides he’s too noble to spill human blood,” replied Crimson. “I told him that synthetic blood was a lousy idea.”
“But that’s a great idea,” insisted Jasper. “If a vampire could survive on synthetic blood, it wouldn’t be nece—did you just say Alcander doesn’t drink human blood?” He couldn’t believe this. A demon could wear many different masks, from the friendly to the monstrous. Some were more mild-mannered, and others more cautious, but when push came to shove, the demon in them always won out. “At all?”
“He’s been clean for ages. Course, all that means is that he’s no longer capable of taking care of himself. One little skirmish and he’s a fucking potato.” Crimson jerked the comforter off the bed and threw it angrily over him, tucking it tightly to the contours of his small frame and pulling the hem up so it covered his hair. He was muttering under his breath the whole time, but not in any language Jasper knew. He only caught the last bit. “For a genius, you’re sure pretty dumb.”
Crimson lit a cigarette as he rose. “Keep an eye on Al for a little bit. I’ll be back.”
Jasper immediately did not like the sound of this. “Where are you going?”
“To solve the problem.”
“We passed a hospital on the way here.” He and Charlie had spoken numerous times about how Jasper was going to have to deal with the demons’ vices in order to stay in their good graces, but now that he was faced with actually doing it, he felt like he had undergone no preparation whatsoever. It was one thing to talk philosophically about the “greater good,” another to look it dead in the eye and then stand aside to let the smaller evils go unnoticed. “You could probably steal a few units of blood and—”
“We’re a little past that. Al hasn’t had a drop of real human blood in, like, ten years. He’s dying. If he sleeps much longer, he won’t wake up.”
“Vampires sometimes hibernate for hundreds of years,” argued Jasper. “Besides, it won’t be any faster to—”
“Alcander is not Dracula,” said Crimson flatly. “Healthy vampires can survive in hibernation for a long, long time, but Al isn’t healthy, and Sid and Ivory did a lot of damage. He needs warm, fresh blood. Not some lump of goo that’s been stagnating on ice, in a plastic bag.”
“But—”
“Jasper, this isn’t a debate. Al has to feed. I am going to go get him food. End of story.” He made for the door but paused with his hand on the knob. “I don’t have to tell you that if ya hurt him, I’ll hunt ya down and kill ya, do I?”
The werespider was a great deal more dangerous than he let on, and a great deal more reckless than seemed maintainable. Jasper suspected it would be wise to take the threat seriously. “I’ll keep an eye on him until you get back, but I don’t want anything to do with this afterwards.”
“Deal,” replied Crimson, and then he was out the door.
#
Crimson stood on the other side of the door, just out of view of the peephole, listening carefully.
The half-blood had come out of nowhere, and he asked an awful lot of questions. The werespider was more than a little suspicious about his motives: why he was here, why he had chosen to stay, what his stake was in all this. He claimed to be a mercenary, and he had the battle prowess to back up that claim, but not the disposition.
Yet he seemed harmless. Hell, better than harmless. Helpful. Nice, even.
Nice was never a good sign. Crimson would know. He was nice, after all.
Crimson waited outside the door for several more minutes, poised for the other to cut and run, to make some telling phone call, to give himself away.
He finally did hear the sound of Jasper’s voice, but it didn’t take the form of the panicked phone call he was expecting. Brow furrowing, he leaned closer and listened more carefully, certain he had heard incorrectly. “Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired, old town.” He knew this from somewhere. A book? He remembered the copy of To Kill a Mockingbird he had seen the half-blood carrying or reading on numerous occasions, and the pieces clicked into place.
He’s reading to him.
Crimson chewed the inside of his cheek, thinking. If it was a ploy, it was an elaborate one. Unlikely, but not impossible. He shook his head. Whether he was on the level or not, Jasper would have to be crazy to do anything to endanger himself right now. That included harming Alcander.
Still, it would be better not to stray too far, just in case.
He made for the stairwell.
It was late in the evening, and on a weeknight besides. Even if it weren’t, he doubted he would have encountered anyone on the stairs. The mortals had gotten so lazy that many of them couldn’t climb two flights, let alone twenty, and certainly not voluntarily.
When he reached the ground floor, he opened the door and looked out across the lobby.
The receptionist at the desk was different than the one who had checked him in. He found this a relief. The other had been too nice, her smile too sweet, too genuine. Maybe this one was nice too, but he didn’t plan on finding out. Now was the time to clear his mind, not clutter it up with nonsense questions about whether the woman on the other side of the room was the best candidate for prey. A fox may as well debate which hen deserved to live or die.
Taking a breath, he centered himself and felt the strange preternatural magic somewhere within radiate up through his vocal cords and onto his lips. “Excuse me? Miss?”
The woman at the desk looked up from her magazine. Her hair was long and curly with unevenly bleached ends that suggested it had once been short and blond. She stood up with a standard customer-service smile already on her face. “Can I help you?”
“Yeah, could you lend me a hand?” His voice was saccharine sweet, neither too loud nor too soft. “My buddy and I were having drinks and he kinda overdid it. I think he’s okay. I just need some help getting him down the stairs.”
She smiled. “You guys should use the elevator next time. It’s dangerous to take the stairs anyways. You never know who could be hiding there.” She scrawled a note that read “back in 5” on a piece of notebook paper, folded it at the base so that it would stand upright, and started in his direction. Her smile had changed. Less customer-service friendly, more genuinely intrigued. “We’ll have to be quick. No one comes in at this time of night, but I still gotta watch the desk.”
“It won’t take long,” Crimson promised. She was within arm’s reach now, but Crimson didn’t reach out or grab her. He smiled his best smile, leaned closer, and looked deep into her light brown eyes. The expression melted from her face. She stared back up at him, frozen, unblinking. Up close, underneath the concealer, her eyes had the tired look that invariably found its way into the gaze of every nightshift worker. “Sleep,” said Crimson.
Her knees buckled. She swayed and fell against him. He scooped her up in his arms and started back the way he had come. “Sorry, sweetheart, it’s nothing personal.”
#
Jasper decided to read to Alcander, mostly to keep his mind off Crimson and what Crimson was doing. It only partially worked, serving to distract him from checking the clock on his cell phone every thirty seconds, but not to quell the uneasy tightness in his throat and chest. It felt like he had wandered into a bad dream. He tried not to think about it.
After what was undoubtedly the longest fifteen minutes of his entire young life, there came the sound of a key rattling in the lock, then a loud, insistent knocking. Jasper set the book aside and went to the door to look through the peephole. Crimson was on the other side. Something was bundled in his arms. Jasper saw long curly hair, ruby red lips, the soft curve of a cheekbone. He flinched.
The knock came again, much longer and angrier. “Coming!” said Jasper, even though he was already standing right in front of the door. It couldn’t be delayed any longer. He grabbed his backpack and shoved the copy of To Kill A Mockingbird inside. Throwing the deadbolt open, he jerked open the door, still taking great pains not to look too carefully at the person the werespider was carrying.
“I decided to go with—”
“Don’t.” Jasper didn’t want to know any more details, feeling like he already knew too much. “I’m gonna go for a walk. I’ll be back later.” He cut around the demon still standing in the doorway and walked to the elevator at the other end of the hall. He didn’t breathe until the doors had pinged shut and the lift was moving downward. Then he breathed fast and hard.
He couldn’t stop imagining the vampire’s fangs sunk in the woman’s throat. She would die right there… and then he would have to go back to the room and sleep right where she’d been murdered, like nothing had ever happened.
He needed to call Charlie.
His cell phone was in his hand and he was dialing the number when it occurred to him he didn’t know what he would say. That the werespider was behaving exactly the way they had expected him to? That wouldn’t change anything, would it?
The elevator came to a stop and the doors whooshed open to reveal the vacant lobby. Completely vacant, he noticed, as there wasn’t even a clerk attending the desk. Head down, Jasper walked quickly out into the street.
Chapter Eight
—
Old Friends
Jasper wasn’t familiar with this part of town, so he picked a direction and went with it, walking until he found a coffee chain with its lights on. He could count the people inside on one hand. Three girls sat at a table on his left, sitting close together and drinking chocolatey frozen drinks that Jasper wanted to try even though his teeth hurt just thinking about it. The girls looked over at him when he entered and quickly turned back towards each other, talking low and fast. On the opposite side of the café was a homeless man, his head resting on his folded arms, a small coffee sitting beside him. He did not stir.
Jasper went to the counter and looked up at the menu. The options were a little overwhelming. While he was sure he’d love a large caramel-mocha frappawhatever with whipped cream and sprinkles, he decided to keep it simple. The single barista behind the counter asked him what he wanted, and he ordered a medium vanilla-flavored coffee, taking it to a table near the window.
He dug his novel out of his backpack and started to read, looking up a moment later when the scraping of the chair opposite him drew his attention to his visitor. One of the girls sat down on the other side of the table. She smiled at him, looking nervous. She had long dark hair and a tight white sweater. Jasper smiled back.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi. Um, so, my friends and me were wondering… Well, we come here a lot. Like, a lot a lot. And we’ve never seen you before, so…”
“So… do I come here often?”
The girl laughed, a blush appearing on her cheeks. “Well, when you say it like that, it sounds really lame.”
“It’s not lame,” Jasper said, smiling. “It’s… cute. And no, I don’t come here often. First time, actually. But I think I like it here. Maybe I’ll come back.”
The girl smiled back at him, that blush still coloring her face. She was pretty, and he was thankful for the distraction she offered. “I’m Tiffany,” she said.
“I’m Jasper.”
Sudden movement drew his attention to the other side of the café. The homeless man, who Jasper thought was sleeping, was now standing, and though he was wearing dark sunglasses, Jasper was sure he was looking directly at him. His hair was dirty and lank, hanging past his ears in mats that looked more gray than blond. His clothes were in the same sorry state, looking like they’d been worn for weeks without a wash, faded with dust and filled with tears and holes. He wore a green army jacket that looked far too big for him, with what looked like blood dried on the collar. Jasper’s stomach, which had been uneasy since he left the hotel, twisted horribly, pulling a gasp from his throat. The man—no, no, not a man—smiled, his lips pulled tight against his teeth.
“What’s wrong?” Tiffany asked, looking over her shoulder at the other man. “Do you… know him?”
“I gotta go,” Jasper managed, grabbing his bag from beside his chair and rushing out the
door. Please don’t follow me, please don’t follow.
Jasper was so distracted that he wasn’t paying attention to where he was going and ended up running into someone on the street, shoulder jarring shoulder. He stuttered out an apology and went to turn away, but strong hands grabbed his shoulders, holding him in place. “Hey. Hey, what’s going on?”
Jasper’s rushing mind cleared enough that he finally saw whom he’d run into. Crimson was still holding his shoulders, frowning at him. Jasper wondered dizzily why he was here and not with Alcander. Was he looking for him? Spying on him? Jasper was surprised to find he was relieved more than anything to have him here.
“We gotta go,” Jasper insisted, pulling out of the werespider’s grasp. When Crimson did not immediately follow, he grabbed the sleeve of his jacket, pulling him after him. They rushed down the street and around a corner; Jasper kept looking back to see if they were being followed. Soon they came to the entrance of a park, not Central but one of the little ones scattered around town. Jasper had gotten himself all turned around, but he thought that if they cut through here, they’d be able to get back to the hotel. He wanted badly to get out of the open.
Very little of the city’s light reached them once they were under the dense canopy of trees. Jasper liked that about the parks in New York, that it was almost like stepping into a whole different world, one that could almost be wild if not for the asphalt walkways and well-kept grasses. Of course, he liked that during the day. At night the lack of light left him nearly blind and he had to rely more on his other senses. The sounds of the city were muted but still there, partially blocking any sounds that might come from the park. For the first time Jasper acknowledged the value in having a demon on his side—the darkness wouldn’t blind him, and his hearing was probably fine enough that he would be able to discern any noises Jasper couldn’t hear.
“Okay, hold on.” Crimson came to a halt, and since Jasper was still holding onto his jacket, he had to stop too. “What’s going on? You’re completely freaking out. It ain’t the feeding thing, is it? Because I told you that—” The werespider froze, sniffing curiously at the night air. His eyes narrowed, a hint of red showing through. “It smell kinda like a shallow grave out here to you?”
Strangers in the Night Page 9
