Urban Fantasy Collection - Vampires

by Adrian Phoenix

  The vampires examine the image on the wall without comment, their eyes holding a guarded curiosity.

  “Is that supposed to be us?” Jim asks finally.

  I regard them one at a time, with more confidence than I feel. “We’re going to tell the world that you are all vampires. That’s why you know your era so well—because you were born and raised in it, because you live it. We’re going to tell the truth.”

  I continue before they can interrupt. “You’ve spent your whole lives—your whole unlives—trying to blend in. But the only place you’d blend in is a Halloween parade. You dress differently, you speak differently, you have the facial structures of gods on Earth. I say, let’s not hide it. Let’s flaunt it.”

  “Wait a second, honey,” Spencer drawls. “You want us to go on the air and tell everyone we’re vampires? That’s kooky.”

  “Not just on the air. Live. In public. Show the world your magnificence. They won’t believe you’re vampires, because that’s insane, but they’ll believe you’re special. They’ll believe you have something they want.”

  After a brief pause to let it sink in, I slap up the next transparency. “Let me tell you how they’ll get it.”

  I detail the marketing plan, from the live gigs to the media interviews to the podcasts (the last one requires a lot of patient explanation and a certain amount of “trust me on this”). At the end, out of breath, I flip the original transparency—the one with the logo—onto the projector.

  “If this campaign works,” I remind them, “ratings and ad revenue will go up, the station won’t get sold to Skywave, and you all get to keep your jobs. How does that sound?”

  They stare at me a few moments longer, then everyone but Shane looks to Regina to begin. She clears her throat.

  “So we could be like rock stars?”

  “Exactly like rock stars,” I tell her, feeding off the eagerness of her ego.

  “Why would anyone come to see us?” Jim asks.

  “Have you looked in the mirror lately? Wait—can you look in the mirror?”

  “Of course we can.” Noah strokes his smooth brown jaw. “How else would we look so good?”

  Regina snorts. “Yeah, if you can see us, why can’t a mirror? Is it because we have no soooooul?” She rolls her eyes and basks in the derisive laughter of the other vampires— Shane excepted. He still wears the stony, pensive look that claimed his face the moment I unveiled the original slide.

  I focus on the other vampires as their laughter fades. “I’m sure you have questions, all of which will be useful if and when we go ahead with the campaign.” I lean both hands on the table. “But you need to tell me, is it an ‘if or a ‘when’?”

  Another long, silent moment.

  Finally Spencer shifts in his chair and toasts me with his Big Bloody Gulp. “I think the sunnyside’s got something here.”

  “Yeah.” Jim taps his car on the table and bobs the top half of his body. “Sounds like a trip.”

  Noah agrees reluctantly. “Anything that helps us survive, we should try.”

  Regina regards them all, then nods. “We like it.”

  I let out a breath and give David a triumphant look.

  “I don’t like it.” Shane straightens up from his trademark slouch. “We’re not rock stars. We’re DJs. Most importantly, we’re vampires.”

  “Wow, thanks, Senor Grasping the Obvious,” Regina snaps. “Will you write my resume for me?”

  “This campaign is dangerous,” he says. “We’ve always kept the truth hidden. Now you want to announce it to the world?”

  “No one will believe it,” I point out. “Sometimes the best way to hide the truth is to tell it.”

  He shakes his head. “There are people out there wacked enough to believe it, and they’d come after us. We’d be in danger for the same reasons we’d be popular. People would want to get close to us.”

  “And they can, by buying our merchandise.” I reach into a bag at my feet and with a grand gesture unfold a black T-shirt featuring the logo. On the back it says, FEED THE NEED. A chorus of oohs and ahhs greets the unveiling, with one exception.

  “This crap trivializes what we do,” Shane says. “Haven’t we always resisted commercialization?”

  David moves next to me. “Like it or not,” he says to Shane, “the recording industry has always been about money, and money comes from images and marketing.”

  “That’s bullshit.” Shane glares at David. “It’s not what we’re about. We’re one of the few places left that’s still about the music.” He gestures to the T-shirt, and me in the process. “This corrupts our mission.”

  Regina croaks a laugh. “Our mission is to stay alive.”

  “Yeah, Shane, it’s easy for you to be idealistic,” Jim says. “You’re young. You can find other work. Hell, you still look human.” He twists the last word into an insult.

  “But I’m not human.” Shane glances at me, then focuses on the other vampires. “None of us are. If we spend too much time in public, someone’ll figure out the truth. Next thing you know, late one night we’ll find ourselves delayed on the way home. Then it’s ‘Good Day Sunshine,’ and they’ll be sweeping us into a dustpan.”

  I squirm at the image. Spencer sees my reaction and tilts his head. “What do you care, honey? Why wouldn’t you be just as happy to see us go poof?”

  They all turn to me. I put down the T-shirt. It takes a moment to decide how much to tell them.

  “It may be hard to believe, but I’m not all that different from you. I suspect that’s why David hired me.”

  He nods with half a smile.

  “I used to prey on people, too, for money instead of blood. It’s how I was raised.” I’ve never said this out loud. “I liked it. I was good at it. I’ve made a career out of it for the last six years.” I look at them, each in the eyes. “So I can’t judge you for taking what you need to survive.”

  “If you’re just as predatory as us,” Regina says, “why should we trust you?”

  “Because I said so.” David steps forward, his posture straight and sure. “I’ve always protected you guys, and I always will.”

  Shane groans and runs his hands over his scalp. “You’re not omnipotent, David, even with the Control at your back. And have you even thought about how other vampires will react? Some of them already think we mingle too much with humans.”

  “It’s none of their fucking business,” Regina says. “We do our thing, they do theirs, we keep to ourselves. That’s the way it’s always been.”

  “This is not keeping to ourselves.” Shane points to the logo projected on the wall. “This changes everything.”

  Spencer taps his cup on the table. “Shane, I don’t see as we have much choice. It’s either this or we end up homeless and out of work.”

  “Exactly,” David says. “So do we have your support?”

  “No.” Shane looks at me. “Sorry.”

  Regina eyes him with disgust. “Then stay out of it and let the rest of us have our fun.”

  He meets her gaze. “I hope you live long enough to hear me say, ‘I told you so.’”

  “It’s settled.” David rubs his hands together. “Ciara and Frank and I will draw up more specific plans and let each of you know where you fit in. Meeting adjourned.”

  I turn back to the projector to gather the transparencies. Several of the slippery little bastards slide onto the floor, scattering out of order. Augh. Why can’t this place use an LCD projector like the rest of the universe?

  “I got it.” A deep, soft voice at my shoulder startles me. Shane kneels and sweeps up the fallen transparencies.

  “Thanks.” Most guys would just stand back and watch me try to bend over in a miniskirt.

  He stands and hands me the transparencies, then holds up the red envelope, the one containing a photo of my CD shelves. “I should be thanking you,” Shane says.

  I shrug. “It’s pure alphabetical for now. Maybe later I’ll subgroup them by genre. I hear
that’s fun.”

  He sits on the table and rests a foot on a chair. “Look, it was nothing personal, what I said about your campaign.”

  “You’re entitled to your integrity. It’ll enhance your mystique.” I start sorting the transparencies. “By the time you come to your senses and join us, the masses will be rabid for the broody, reclusive Vampire Shane.”

  “It’s frightening the way your mind works. And yet I cannot look away.”

  David walks up and hands Shane a three-page list of call letters and frequencies. “I thought you might protest, so I made a list of stations Skywave has bought in the last ten years.”

  Shane’s eyes widen at the size of the list. He rubs his face as he scans the pages, probably alphabetizing the call letters in his head.

  “Listen to their Webcasts,” David says. “Ciara can help you find them on the Internet.”

  “I can do it myself.” Shane sounds less than certain. “But why?”

  I gesture to the list. “So you can hear what this station could become. Let’s say Skywave hires you to do a nighttime show. Which they probably won’t because it’s cheaper just to pipe in someone else’s show from, say, Cincinnati, add a local weather report, and pretend it’s a hometown broadcast. But if they do hire you, you’ll have to play whatever they tell you. You’ll be a human jukebox.”

  “This isn’t about me,” Shane says. “It’s about the music.”

  “Exactly.” David taps the papers. “Listen for a week, then tell me if those stations are about the music.” He pats Shane’s shoulder, then heads over to talk to Regina.

  Shane rubs his eyes, which, I just realized, are looking kind of sunken. “You want to get a drink?” he asks me.

  “Not really.”

  “Of alcohol, I mean. In public.”

  Seems safe, at least in the physical jeopardy realm. “One condition. You answer all my vampire questions. Honestly.”

  “Didn’t David give you the field manual?”

  “It’s written in bureaucratese. Besides, I get the feeling most of it is propaganda.”

  He considers the ceiling for a moment. “I’ll answer general questions, but reserve the right to protect my personal privacy.”

  “Deal. Meet me at the Pig in half an hour.”

  When all the vampires are gone, David comes over to help me clean up. “Four out of five. Not bad.”

  “Four out of six. Don’t forget Monroe.” I take a last admiring look at the T-shirt before folding it. “Monroe does exist, right? He’s not just a recording?”

  “Of course he exists. But he won’t talk to you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Think about it. In his day in Mississippi a black man could be lynched for having a conversation with a white woman that wasn’t bookended by ‘Yes, ma’am.’”

  “But that was then.” I switch off the projector’s fan. “I’m not saying racism is dead, but—”

  “It’s still ‘then’ in his mind, Ciara. He’s old. Fossilized.”

  “And he can’t change?”

  “None of them can.”

  I look at the chair where Shane sat a minute ago.

  “Including him,” David says.

  “I refuse to believe that.” I stuff the transparencies in the folder. “You saw the looks in their eyes just now. They want to do more than survive, they want to have fun. Does a fossil crave fun?”

  He shakes his head. “Remember, they’re not human.”

  “I’m not only remembering it.” I grab my bag and head out the door. “I’m milking it for all it’s worth.”

  The Smoking Pig is nearly deserted, which makes the music seem louder than usual. Shane is already waiting at the bar, chatting with Lori.

  “Ciara, look who’s here.” Lori grins as if she personally dug him up for me.

  “It’s just a business meeting.” I point to the brown ale he’s drinking. “Give me one of those.”

  “Our very own microbrew.” Lori reaches for a pint glass. “One of my boss’s basement experiments, but I swear it’s safe. This batch didn’t explode hardly at all.”

  I climb onto the bar stool. “Hey, Lori—Shane and I have a secret.”

  “Cool! What is it?”

  Shane turns to me. “You’re kidding, right?”

  I pat his arm, which feels cold through his shirtsleeve. “Don’t worry, everyone’ll find out in a couple weeks. But Lori should get the best-friend scoop.”

  “Scoop on what?” Her brows pop up as she fills my glass at the tap.

  “Shane, along with all the other DJs at WMMP, is a vampire.”

  She gives a little laugh and flicks her glance between us. “I don’t get it.”

  “It’s our new marketing campaign. You know how each of them has a radio show based on a certain time period? The idea is, each of them actually lived in that time. That’s how they know the music so well.”

  Lori sets my beer in front of me. “Cool idea.”

  “It gets better. Have you ever heard of the 27 Club?”

  “Isn’t that the weird thing where all these famous singers died when they were twenty-seven? Like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin?”

  “And Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain—”

  “Robert Johnson, the Stones’ Brian Jones, Al Wilson from Canned Heat,” Shane adds, his voice low and reluctant. “Pigpen of the Grateful Dead, Badfinger’s Pete Ham, Wallace Yohn from Chase, Uriah Heep’s Gary Thain, Helmut Koellen of Triumverat, Jimmy McCulloch from Wings, the Minutemen’s Dennes Boon, Mia Zapata of the Gits, and Hole’s Kristin Pfaff.”

  “Wow.” Lori seems impressed and a little disturbed at his knowledge. She steps away and picks up a rag to wipe the sink. “So what about it?” she asks me.

  “Get this: each of these DJs died and became a vampire when they were twenty-seven.”

  “Huh.” She looks at Shane. “So how old are you supposed to be?”

  He tries to smile. “I’m thirty-nine.”

  “It was my idea.” I execute a pitch-perfect hair flip. “We even have T-shirts.”

  “That’s brilliant. People will love that.” She gasps and whaps the rag against the bar. “We should have a kickoff party here at the Pig. We’ll dress up all Gothy and serve blood-red beer. It’ll be like Halloween in June!”

  I gesture to her and look at Shane. “Can you tell why she’s my best friend?”

  She high-fives me across the bar, then heads for the phone near the cash register. “I’ll call Stuart and see if he’ll go for it. It is his bar, after all.”

  When she’s out of earshot, I turn back to Shane. “See? Everyone will think it’s a gimmick.”

  He pushes his pint glass slowly against mine, gliding it toward the edge of the bar. “This is one of those moments when I ask myself why I like you.”

  I catch my glass just before it topples. “Do you have an answer for yourself?”

  “Still looking, with hope.” He slides off the stool and heads for the cozy corner table.

  I join him with a basket of popcorn, which I place on the table between us. “You all live in the basement of the studio, right? Past the ‘Keep Out’ door?”

  He nods. “That door leads to our underground apartment. It has a bedroom for each of us, plus a living room and a kitchen. Not exactly a Park Avenue penthouse, but it’s free. Not to mention safe.”

  “Safe from what?”

  “Fire, for one thing. Probably a comet impact. Definitely a nuclear blast.” He tugs on the white threads fraying his sleeve. “But the sun is what we worry about most. That’s why the station’s front door is always locked and the windows boarded up.”

  “Curtains wouldn’t be enough?”

  “Even a little daylight bleeding in around the edges can hurt. So we use civil twilight times instead of sunrise and sunset.”

  I read about that in the primer, but my head is a jumble of facts. “Civil twilight is what again?”

  “It’s when the sun is six degrees below the horizon. Basically, when hu
mans need artificial light to see. The extra half hour makes a big difference.”

  “What happens if you get caught in daylight?”

  He thumbs the rim of his glass as he considers. “You ever get a splinter jammed under your fingernail?”

  I wince. “Ow, yeah.”

  “It’s nothing like that.”

  I give him the appreciative ha-ha that he was seeking, but refuse to change the subject. “Don’t vague out on me. What happens when you’re touched by sunlight?”

  “The same thing that happens when we’re touched by fire.”

  His gaze unfocuses suddenly, and he wipes his hand over his forehead.

  I have to prompt him. “What happens?”

  He jerks his attention back to me. “We burn.”

  “But everyone burns in fire.”

  He shakes his head. “Humans burn like wood, vampires burn like paper. We can heal from brief contact with sunlight or fire, and we can survive more of it as we get older. You wouldn’t believe how many fingertips Regina and Jim have had to regrow because of their smoking habits.”

  “Yikes.” I grab a handful of popcorn, which I notice Shane hasn’t touched. “Do you eat?”

  “If I have to, to fit in. But solid food’s pretty bland when you’re dead. Everything tastes British.” He holds up his beer. “Liquids are good, though, if the flavor is intense, like a rich ale or a dry wine or strong coffee, and the drugs in them still affect us, just not as much as they do humans.”

  “So what’s the deal with vampires and garlic?”

  “Our sense of smell is really acute, so any food that gets into people’s breath and pores can drive us nuts. You can’t get blood without going through sweat.” He sips his beer. “I don’t mind garlic too much. Asparagus, though ...” He makes a yuck face.

  “What about blood from banks? No sweat there, so how does that taste?”

  “Stale, like three-day-old pizza. It’s also not as healthy. But that’s just for when we’re lazy or desperate.”

  I munch another handful of popcorn and ponder last resorts. “Do you ever bite men?”

  “Sure.”

  “Is that after—I mean, when you bit me, we were . ..”

  He looks away like he’s scrambling for a nonanswer.