If Angels Fight

by Richard Bowes

  This was very young love. Their teeth still looked normal; the small bites on his neck had barely penetrated the skin. Fangs and puncture wounds still lay in their future.

  The boy’s smile was blank. He knotted the kerchief over the bites but left one showing. Lilia guessed that his first blood buzz had been last night and that he’d be bitten again very shortly.

  The girl looked at the photo behind Lilia, raised her sunglasses and said, “That’s you!”

  The kid was sharp; Lilia nodded. The picture was from the 1980 Mudd Club Undead and Kicking Party where Lilia and Larry had introduced Downtown Manhattan to Nightwalking.

  She was front and center along with Larry Stepelli, the bisexual boyfriend who designed all her clothes. In black with faces white as bone, they stood out among the graffiti artists, stray freaks, and Warhol Factory stars.

  Lilia knew she should warn these kids where blood sucking was going to lead. She remembered her own addiction and the horrors of Ichordone Therapy. But too many years of marginal living left her unwilling to risk endangering the chance she saw coming.

  Instead she gave them a double discount because they would tell their friends about the place. Then she told the girl that she was hiring sales help and took her name. It was Scarlet Jones (an invention, Lilia assumed). The boy was just plain Bret—too paranoid to leave a last name or so blood-dizzy he couldn’t remember it.

  The phone rang as the kids left and someone with a heavy European accent asked for directions to the store. Lilia felt the good years coming back.

  “Staff called in sick?” Even before raising her eyes, Lilia recognized from long ago the throaty, sly voice that somehow made every comment sound dirty but also chilling.

  The one called Katya must have come in as the kids left. Well over six feet tall, she stood near the door in a jacket and slacks of fierce gray suede and high heel ankle boots of raw leather.

  “Other’s shoes are man-made,” it was said in certain circles, “but Katya’s are made out of men.” Maybe it was her imagination, but Lilia could almost see the outlines of ears and fingers in the heels.

  “Just me alone, tonight,” she said, though that’s the way it had been for a long time. “To what do I owe this honor?” It had been at least twenty years since she’d gotten anything but a fraction of a nod and an amused stare from this woman. And it was a rare occasion when their paths had crossed.

  Katya glanced at the Mudd Club photo and frowned. Lilia knew she’d caught sight of her young self, a supporting player in Lilia and Larry’s big moment. Katya was off to one side with Felice, who had mood swings, and Paulo, who worked part-time as a professional boy. In that intense instant, all five of them were kids without a dime trying to break into the Fashion Trade.

  Katya glanced around, and Lilia saw her registering the somewhat tired capes on display, the costume jewelry necklaces with what on second glance turned out to be drop-of-blood motifs.

  “Happened to be in the neighborhood,” Katya said. “Some intriguing things are to be seen in these quiet little nooks. It’s the essence of our business, isn’t it, keeping an eye on what is being worn on the streets?”

  Katya turned to go as a male couple came in. “I’ll tell Paulo and Felice about all this,” she said. “I know they’ll want to see you too.”

  The time when they were new in the city and broke was well past. Now Larry was the domestic partner of a rich lawyer. Katya, Felice and Paulo ran Savage Design, which had been a power in New York fashion for as long as that scene’s short memory ran.

  People in the business went in such fear of the trio that they called them The Kindly Ones and prayed for their help. Before any enterprise was launched, it was considered wise to offer them tribute. The Kindly Ones were THE arbiters and always hungry for something new and perverse or at least hot and retro.

  Of their little group, only Lilia had failed to make it. Katya’s visit could mean a break for her, one last desperate chance.

  Through the window, she watched Katya take in this dark sliver of the neighborhood. A small, elegant hotel a block and a half north marked the start of trendy Soho.

  Next to Reliquary was a shop that sold spray paint and other graffiti supplies. The storefronts across the street were dark and empty; the building upstairs was a tenement. This gritty little block was a bit of pre-gentrified New York preserved in a new century.

  Next Monday morning, Lilia sat in the conference room of Savage Design sipping coffee. She couldn’t decide whether she was more ashamed or bitter when she compared her current life to those of the Kindly Ones.

  The Kindly Ones’ initial expressions when she arrived left Lilia with no doubt that they found her an amusing curiosity. She kept silent and studied the walls, which were decorated with photos of last spring’s coup.

  An emblematic black and white photo taken at what might have been dawn, but was more likely dusk, showed a blonde figure wearing an ostentatiously plain dark dress and the slightest smile of triumph.

  All was shades of gray except for the handbag. That was in the red and orange tones of an October bonfire. A Satanic Possession of One’s Own! was the caption.

  Around the room, ads displayed belts, scarves, wraps. A photo was headlined, For the One Willing to Exchange a Flawed Soul for Perfection.

  Satan’s Bag, read the caption on the Harper’s Bazaar double page spread, Designer Fashion from inside the Fiery Gates!

  Paulo noticed her interest. He still had the face and body of a kid. But now he had the eyes of an old, bored lizard. He wore a short pants suit of navy blue cheviot wool. A yo-yo spun constantly on his right hand.

  “Last Spring’s triumph,” said an ancient voice from inside him. “As of yet nobody knows what to do about next year.” His yo-yo slept at the end of its string, looped the loop as he spoke.

  Years before, his allowance from a mysterious sugar daddy who insisted he dress like an English schoolboy was often all that kept them in their daily cappuccino and crème brulee.

  “The year hasn’t even begun,” said Felice, whose face today was the mask of tragedy, “and it’s already dreary, tired, lacking a defining moment.” She was whip thin and dressed in black.

  Her mouth appeared to curve even further down. Her eye sockets seemed hollow. It was whispered in the fashion trade that in moments of emotional stress she cried tears of blood.

  Katya yawned and said, “Nothing like the designer suicide followed by the show of his work at the Met last year.”

  “Brilliant timing, yes,” said Paolo as the yo-yo spun through the intricate hop-the-fence trick, “but significant because it was one of a kind. If something similar happened now, would anyone be interested?”

  Katya said, “We’re being rude to our guest. Lilia, darling, understand that we all change over time. With us, Paulo’s Sugar Daddy decided it was easier to become a permanent live-in guest and share Paulo’s youth at first hand. Felice got tired of trying to suppress her feelings and allowed them to come forth for everyone to see. I went from thinking men were useless to finding a use for them. Perhaps you never wanted to reach that kind of resolution.”

  She put her feet with the sling-backs like no others up on the table. “Everyone talks as if we had dark powers. But Savage Design is quite a simple straightforward business. Paulo handles the finances, Felice does the promotion, and I’m the scout.”

  Then she asked, “How’s Larry?”

  Lilia’s answer was careful. “Still hooked up with the rich lawyer. They adopted an Asian child, and are talking about getting married now that it’s legal.”

  She left out the fact Larry and she were talking again and that he’d provided money to keep Reliquary open. Lilia wondered how much they knew about her business or if this was just idle curiosity mixed with bitchiness.

  Paulo said, “I understand he’s breaking up with that lawyer.”

  Lilia hadn’t heard that.

  “I brought Lilia here,” Katya told the others, “because her shop
is still in business and showing signs of life. I’ve seen a glimmer on the street that could go semi-major. A Nightwalker revival,” she said.

  Paulo’s ancient eyes closed. Felice looked away.

  “Round and round we go,” Paulo said. “Remember the Boom when everyone was high on blood and being a vampire was utterly hip? Recall the Bust a few years later? Nobody became Dracula and immortal. Everyone was a blood junkie and went into therapy or jail.”

  “Yes, Katya said, “we’ve all been there and back. But in one afternoon in Tribeca and Soho I saw a couple of dozen people under twenty-five wearing Blood Sucker artifacts.”

  “Cyclical but inevitable,” murmured Felice, but her mouth was now a straight line.

  “Before a look can be revived it must die!” said Paulo thoughtfully. “Or at least be presumed dead!”

  “Then there’s the boutique itself,” said Katya as if Lilia wasn’t present. “Reliquary is so passé it’s almost tantalizing. And it’s on a block that’s this kind of time bubble from the old, bad Manhattan of thirty years back. The sort of place people who weren’t actually there get nostalgic about—all grit, grunge and decay!”

  At the word grunge, Paulo’s reptile eyes lit up with old memories and he used both hands to make the yo-yo do “Buddha’s Revenge.”

  “Delicious decay,” Felice murmured. The others looked away before her face slipped into the mask of comedy pose. It was said, with reason, that none who saw the laughing mask lived to tell about it.

  They discussed what could be done with Reliquary. Lilia stayed very still and alert, determined not to let this opportunity pass her by.

  “Reliquary—Open Dusk to Dawn” read the store’s new webpage headline: “Costumes and Accessories For Long After Twilight,” it promised.

  A dozen customers were in her store at 3:30 AM and Lilia stood behind the counter keeping an eye out for shoplifters, watching Scarlet Jones greet friends. Lilia knew all about history—especially fashion history—repeating itself the first time as farce, the second as camp.

  She noticed that Scarlet’s teeth were changing, getting sharper. Her boyfriend, Bret, worked in the stockroom and looked paler and dizzier each time Lilia saw him.

  The story was unfolding much faster this time than the last. Thirty years back the cult grew little by little. Word was spread in print, “Something REALLY Old Is Very New Again!” a New York Post gossip columnist had said. “They Walk By Night—Creepy and DELICIOUS!” read the Women’s Wear Daily headline as things got underway.

  Suddenly Reliquary’s door opened and the room stirred. Magnetic, wonderfully turned out in an antique black cape and dark red top, seemingly untouched by age, Larry Stepelli entered with an entourage of models, minor celebrities and star bloggers—all young and male.

  Thirty years before, Lilia would have been the one beside him. The flamboyant bisexual guy and plain, serious girl was the perfect pairing of that moment. They were in the vanguard of the trip into the night.

  Now they were distant friends and the arrangement was financial. A few months before, she’d sensed Larry’s boredom. The rich boyfriend, their adorable adopted child, the art gallery in Chelsea, weren’t doing it for him.

  So she’d turned him on to the Nightwalker revival she was trying to create. It only took a couple of reminders of their initial encounters with the dark mysteries. His curiosity and desire kicked in. Larry advanced money to pay off the back rent and restock the store.

  He walked over and they made kissing gestures. “You must have heard?” he said.

  “About your break-up? Sorry.”

  “Inevitable. I imagine it will all be very civilized. I’ll get a settlement and visiting rights with Ai Ling.” He looked around. “Business has really picked up.”

  Lilia said, “Yes. I was even summoned to Seventh Avenue by the Kindly Ones.”

  “My, MY!”

  “Remember when telephone gossip was the fastest news on the planet? Now what any kid posts online, the world knows before the next day dawns.”

  Larry smiled and turned away. She watched him help a pale young man select a ring with a tiny broken crucifix on it.

  Lilia remembered the last Nightwalker scene turning sour. “BLOODY HELL” screamed a Post headline. “Nightwalkers in Rehab,” was a three part series in the The Village Voice. But it was years between those first hints and the morning everyone woke up with hideous addictions to blood and biting.

  This time the turnaround would be quick. And Lilia knew she had to ride the wave or go under for good.

  A few nights later, the Savage Design trio, complete with personal assistants, photographers, a video crew and a special secret, arrived at Lilia’s shop.

  Paulo, in soccer shorts and jersey, repeatedly kicked a ball against the hydrant in front of Reliquary. The kid’s legs did a fast dance step as he stopped the rebound each time then slammed the ball again. Seemingly independent of this, the lizard eyes took in the store and its surroundings.

  Felice nodded to Lilia as she went through Reliquary with her face carefully kept in neutral and examined everything while murmuring notes to herself on a hand-held recorder.

  “Nothing needs to be changed,” she said to the production assistant who followed her. “Treat each dusty corner and gauche display as an asset. Pretend you’re an explorer stumbling on a mysterious if tacky Transylvanian castle.”

  Then she said into the recorder, “Time is more precious than blood on this particular project. It’s all a matter of death and DEATH.”

  A team of trimmers lighted and dressed Reliquary’s front windows. Katya appeared outside shortly afterwards, towering in dark, rough leather platform shoes with dizzyingly high heels that seemed to be watching when you stared. She herded a couple of long-necked professional models and half a dozen Nightwalker kids whom she’d discovered around the city.

  The photography crew did shots of them posing on the sidewalk. “They’ll be in here shortly,” Katya assured Lilia when she popped into the shop. She also insisted on using Scarlet Jones and Bret in the promotional shots.

  “We’ll have them behind the counter like they run the place, darling. They exhibit the proper mix of inexperience and incipient damnation.”

  It went without saying that Lilia herself would stay out of camera range—her’s was not the look or age range being aimed for. As the crew began setting up inside, the male model said something to Katya that Lilia couldn’t hear. In reply, Katya looked down at him and pointed to her shoes. The guy wilted.

  Scarlet Jones and Bret wore sunglasses as they basked in the photographer’s lights. Felice had them change into white silk tops that rested off their shoulders. Lilia noticed that the bites on their necks were deeper and thought these new blouses looked somehow familiar.

  Felice turned to her and said, “Of course you recognize the original Herrault design from the last Nightwalker go-round. Maison Herrault itself OK’d these knock-offs.

  “I was afraid we’d have to go to Indonesia for production. Time delay on a fad like this can be fatal. But Hurrah for the Recession! Suddenly there are sweatshops in the Bronx—fast, cheap, and with passable quality.”

  Lilia looked away lest Felice smile. But she heard the other say, “Reliquary will get a six week exclusivity period, after which they’ll be sold at other specialty shops throughout North America and world markets. Then,” her mouth turned downward, “Blooming-dales, Macy’s, and by next summer, Target.” She and the young man adjusting Scarlet and Bret’s clothes both shuddered.

  “Here’s a little surprise,” said Katya, “someone you’ll remember from the ‘good’ old days.”

  Paulo somewhat gingerly ushered in a tiny, ancient woman. As she entered, this woman briskly flicked a cigarette butt on the sidewalk while reaching into the formless smock she wore to draw out and light another one.

  Lilia looked on amazed. This was the legendary Marguerite, “The Seamstress Extraordinary,” as she’d been called back in the old Garment Distr
ict. It was said that Marguerite could, without measuring, without even looking, cut a sleeve or a pant leg to exactly the length needed.

  That afternoon Marguerite smoked one Galois after another. Requests that she stop were met with shrugs, coughs and mumbles in barely recognizable English, “A vice like any other!”

  “Amazed?” Paulo murmured to Lilia.

  “That she’s not dead,” Lilia said.

  “Not in the usual sense anyway,” he replied. “She’s become a sort of curator for Herrault. His emissary in this world.”

  In the old days, Marguerite was employed at the prestigious Maison Herrault’s New York branch and lent out to old friends of the late designer. She would always be brought along on fashion shoots in cases of an emergency.

  One had arisen in Reliquary just before she appeared. The lapel of the top Bret wore wouldn’t lay open at the angle the photographer wanted. Marguerite reached up for Bret’s ear, pulled his head down to her eye level, and with a needle, thread, and scissors from inside her smock, made three stitches and fixed the lapel in place.

  Decades before as a naïve young intern, Lilia had first encountered Marguerite. It was in a room slightly larger than a closet at the Studio Building where all fashion photography was done back in that day.

  There, with fabric fragments thick on the floor, Marguerite stitched buttons onto a waistband while she squinted at the airshaft outside the window and sipped from a small glass of what young Lilia supposed was red wine.

  She had been told to take a pair of women’s flared slacks and have Marguerite turn them into culottes. This was an emergency, a great crisis—the shoot was to feature culottes but the garment in question did not yet exist.

  Marguerite was present for just such moments. She had looked at Lilia with disgust and disapproval as if she was about to send her back to the kitchen with the demand that she be properly braised.