There were other words, but I’ve never been able to recall any of them. The lavender fog closed over me, pushing me down, down, ever fucking deeper, it felt, into myself. Here was the demonic equivalent of having been slipped a Mickey Finn. The room around me dissolved as I sank, and when I bobbed back to the surface I was naked and tangled in the satin sheets of a bed on the brothel’s third floor. Never did learn who or what I had spent that time with, or what it might have cost me. Then again, there’s shit you can glady go forever without figuring out.
• • •
It was twilight—and snowing again—before I made it to Babe’s. I found B in his usual booth in the back of the bar, sipping his usual Cape Cod. There was no one with him, none of the arm candy, which was a relief. Whatever had gone down at the whorehouse had left me queasy and disoriented, and I was hardly in the mood to play polite and sociable. Hell, I was hardly in the mood for B, but I knew I didn’t have much choice. He’d left two messages on my phone, each one equally terse. Apparently, news of my impromptu field trip to speak with Drusneth had reached him sometime during (or maybe even before) my long blackout.
I sat down across from him, and he stopped filing his nails and gave me the sort of look you might give a pet who’d just taken a dump on your floor.
“You’re playing a dangerous game,” he said calmly. “And normally, love, well, that would be all your business and none of mine. However, as you’re perfectly aware, in this instance you’ve involved me in your gamble.”
He lit a baby-blue Nat Sherman and watched me expectantly through the smoke.
“It was stupid,” I said, realizing I hadn’t bothered to check my makeup after leaving the whorehouse, and for all I knew, my Madame Tussauds skin was on display for all to see. Then again, no one ever seemed to pay much attention to what went on in B’s booth.
“No. Stupid is crossing against the light. Or drinking the tap water while vacationing in Morocco or Guadalajara. Poking around in her affairs—to her face—that’s damn barmy. In fact, I would go so far as to say it’s suicidal.”
“Yeah, well. It’s all I had to go on, and now it’s done. Besides, I’m pretty sure I’ve already paid for my fuckup.”
“Also,” he said, wrinkling his nose distastefully, “you smell like pussy. You smell like pussy and lavender.”
I was getting tired of him stating the obvious.
“B, she said you should drop this whole thing. Stop trying to find Amity Maidstone. Truth is, maybe I agree with her.”
“Of course she did, and of course you do.” He tapped his cigarette on the rim of the tiny glass ashtray on the table. “But it seems to me we owe poor Mr. Lashly more than that, and what’s more, I’d prefer not to disappoint Ms. Maidstone.”
“She’s a cunt,” I sighed, and glanced at the bar, wanting a beer and a shot of tequila.
“Now, now, kitten. A sage fellow once said, ‘With the rich and mighty, always a little patience.’”
“That was Jimmy Stewart in The Philadelphia Story.”
“Yes, and he said it was from an old Spanish proverb. I have met many a sage old Spaniard.”
“I want a drink,” I sighed, then sniffed my hands. He was right. I smelled like pussy and lavender.
“Then you’re in luck. I believe that’s the house specialty.”
I went to the bar and ordered a Narragansett and a shot of Jose Cuervo Black. As usual, I told the bartender to put it on B’s tab. When I got back to the booth, I saw he’d produced several lottery tickets and was busy rubbing at them with a quarter.
“Speaking of gambling,” I said, pointing at the Powerball tickets.
“You are well aware I am sometimes seized by the inclination. Besides, I lose this game I’m only out a few dollars, not my immortal soul.”
“Touché.” I downed the tequila in a single gulp, then began nursing the beer. I’d briefly considered a trip to the restroom to scrub away the stink of sex and fake flowers, but thought better of it. So long as it annoyed Mean Mr. B, it was probably worth hanging on to.
He frowned and blew a silvery cloud from the scratch cards. Some of the stuff stuck to the condensation on my beer bottle and I wiped it away.
“Okay,” I said, “so you go and indulge Berenice Maidstone, even though Drusneth warns you to back off, and even though indulging her has already gotten Lashly murdered, and even though Edgar Maidstone’s gonna be infuriated if—no, when—he discovers you’ve had a hand in keeping his daughter’s disappearance from him.”
“At least you have a firm grasp on my present intent.”
“Jesus. And here you’ve got the fucking nerve to call me stupid?”
None of the scratch cards were winners, and he swept them off the table and into the shadows.
“Aren’t you curious why the madam of a brothel is so emphatic that we cease trying to find the girl?” he asked.
“Not especially,” I replied. “Besides, I’m guessing Amity’s luck finally ran out, and her kinks and Drusneth got the best of her.”
B brushed silver shavings from the lapels of his seersucker suit. “Possibly,” he said. “Possibly, you may have hit the nail on the head. And I’ve never made a habit of crossing our Miss Dru or men as influential and powerful as Edgar I. Maidstone. Lashly, yes, that’s a bloody shame, and would this enterprise not have been his untimely undoing. Yet I’ve received a curious bit of information from down New Amsterdam way.”
I took a swallow of beer and set my glass down.
“Which you’re going to share,” I said.
“In time. When it proves more than a rumor. If it proves more than that and will allow me to send you on an errand less foolhardy than marching into—”
“Can you please just fucking drop that? I screwed up, and I’ve said I screwed up. Give me a goddamn break.”
He was silent for a full minute, maybe two, and there was only the chatter from everyone else crowded into Babe’s, all those voices mingling into one. A Rolling Stones song was blaring from the speakers mounted above the bar. The clink of glasses. The blat of a car horn out on Wickenden.
Then B laughed softly and smiled a strained smile I could tell was forced.
“You mean all the world to me, Quinn,” he said. “Well, no, not quite as much as that, but I have developed an attachment, all the same.”
“Ever tell Shaker the same thing?” I asked him, never mind how, saying that, I knew I might as well have punched myself in the face.
Mean Mister B’s smile didn’t fade, though it did become considerably more strained. He reached across the booth and seized my throat. Now, understand, here’s this son of a bitch who—despite whispers that he might have a tiny dash of demonic blood somewhere back in the twigs of his family tree—is, so far as I’ve ever known, little more than a mundane knows how to smooth-talk and schmooze the nightmares. But in that instant, his grip was good as iron, and I knew it was nothing I could break free of, if I was stupid enough to try. I knew he could tear my head off my shoulders, if it suited his fancy. It hurt, sure, but at least I didn’t need to breathe.
When he spoke, the syllables crawled out from between clenched teeth.
“It’s like this, kitten. I’m a right fickle gent. Today, you’re useful, which puts you in my good graces. But . . . I am a fickle gent, and if you fuck with me, if you tug too frequently at your leash, my good graces will turn sour. And should that happen, sweetheart, by hook or by crook, I’ll see you take your place in Hell well in advance of my own arrival.”
No way I could have nodded, what with his fingers digging into the flesh beneath my chin. But B must have seen the submission showing through my contact lenses.
“There we go,” he said. “Always good to see we’re on the same page.” He released me and leaned back against the red Naugahyde upholstery.
I rubbed at my throat, waiting to be dismissed. Or whatever was coming next.
“I’ll be in touch,” he said. “Don’t stray far. And, in the future, try to avoi
d the instinct to display too much initiative.”
He didn’t have to tell me to get lost.
• • •
Sometimes it feels like there’s something ironic about my having had more friends when I was alive and living on the street—alive and shooting smack and eating out of dumpsters and sleeping in abandoned buildings—than I have now. Then again, I write that down and consider how I probably have the whole thing backwards. Dead girls who turn into werewolves get more friends than homeless living girls who happen to be junkies? How’s that, Quinn? You think the filthy smidgen of infamy you’ve “earned” as a corpsified, bestial hit woman is ever gonna be rewarded with anyone’s gratitude? Ha-ha and ha. The nasties mostly hate me. A handful fear me. And what passes for rules down here in Hade’s little half acre in earth say I don’t go mixing with the living. Leastways, not unless the living are in on the secrecy. The ones who are, mostly who’d want to spend time in their company? The Maidstone girls, just for an example.
Anyway, Quinn, shove the pity party up your derriere. But that afternoon, after Drusneth and the talking-to by Mean Mr. B (never did find out what his name was that day), I found myself needing a friend. Which put me shit outta luck. Clemency Hate-evil, she was gone, bye-bye, and so was Aloysius, a troll who’d lived under the 195 overpass at the end of Gano Street, near my old apartment. At the time, I believed he’d been murdered by a trio of vamps gunning for me, trying to draw me out. I never had figured out who they were working for, and in the end, the end of my being caught up in the Bride and Evangelista’s little catfight, I’d just chalked his death up to . . .
To what, Quinn? Don’t they call that being an innocent bystander? Collateral damage? Wrong place, wrong time? Knowing the wrong people, so that gets you killed? Yeah. Like the wise man from Montreal said, “Everybody knows, that’s the way it goes.”
Anyway.
By the time I left Babe’s, it was snowing pretty hard. I never much paid attention to weather forecasts. Who gives a shit if it’s cold when the cold doesn’t cause you discomfort? I’d lost my parka and sweater back at the whorehouse, so there I was, strolling along in my black Radiohead T-shirt. Loved that shirt. It read Kicking Squealing Gucci Little Piggy, which I’d always thought summed up an awful lot about the world. Had it until a few years back, when I lost it in a fight with . . . but that’s another story for another time. If anyone I passed thought twice about the girl out in a snowstorm in nothing but a T-shirt and jeans, they were wise enough to keep it to themselves. Good little piggies. Mind your own damn business, you live longer. Or not. Sort of a crapshoot, that.
I headed over to Eastside Market and bought a few 3 Musketeers bars, ’cause Aloysius had always loved that shit with the passion of the white hot sun. Don’t ask me why. It’s a troll thing, I suppose. I also stopped in a liquor store and picked up a pint of Jacquin’s ginger-flavored brandy . . . another of Aloysius’ fave indulgences. I’d have completed the set with a stack of porno mags, but I didn’t feel like trekking to a convenience store or a newsstand. I had in mind I’d set the crap up like one of those shrines you see by the side of the road, where someone’s died in a car crash or a drive-by shooting. It was odd. Truthfully, I’d done a good job of not thinking about Aloysius over the past six months. No use crying over goddamn spilled milk. But that night, well . . . spilled milk suddenly seemed awfully important.
I went down to the overpass, my offerings in a brown paper bag. Not much of the snow was blowing into that sheltered place, and I sat awhile staring out at the orange sky over Providence. Then I opened the bag and lined the candy bars up along the top edge of a guardrail. I put the bottle of brandy in a scrubby brown patch of grass beneath them. Then I sat down on the frozen dirt and gravel and just stared into the shadows.
And then . . .
There was a deeper swirl of shadows among the shadows. I figured it was just Otis coming to chase me away. Otis was the albino troll took over the spot after Aloysius vanished. Otis was a son of a bitch, in every way a troll can be a son of a bitch, and, what’s more, he’d blamed me for Aloysius’ death. He’d repeatedly threatened me with all manner of dreadful fairy revenge. So I’d stayed far fucking away from Otis.
I watched the oily black swirl and stood, getting ready to make my exit as soon as the pale motherfucker emerged out of his portal between here and the Hollow Hills. Only . . . it wasn’t Otis who stepped out. It was Aloysius.
“Fuck me,” I whispered. “No fucking way.”
Now, for those among you unfamiliar with trolls, just imagine a really big—I’m talking nine-foot-tall—Muppet designed by someone who’s dropped too much acid. These huge ears with lobes that drooped all the way down to his feet, riddled with loops of metal (no iron) and fancy wooden rings and bones. Including human bones. But that should come as no sort of surprise, as it’s hardly a secret trolls have a taste for the long pork. His eyes, orange and almost bright as the setting sun. A face not even his mother could have loved.
“Fuck me,” I said again, and sat back down. Hard. So, maybe it’s more like I fell down.
He scratched at his head and flared his cavernous nostrils. “Quinn girl,” he grunted. “Been pondering when abouts you’d come around.”
“But . . . but . . . ,” I stammered. “You’re dead.”
“Not hardly yet. Sometimes dead ain’t no ways dead, and you ought’a know that much, bein’ Twice-Dead and all.”
“I ought’a,” I said, and then I got up, vaulted over the guardrail, and hugged one of the ugly bastard’s legs. First time I’d truly hugged anyone since . . . well, I don’t really remember, but it had been a while. Aloysius made a gurgling noise I think must have been half laughter, half surprise. Hard to tell with trolls.
“Now, now, Quinn lass . . .”
“Jesus, I’m glad to see you.”
You might have read somewhere that vamps can’t cry. Not so. And that night, hanging on to Aloysius, I cried like a fucking baby. He stroked my hair with his huge four-jointed fingers.
“Reckon I’m glad to see you, too. Even if you aren’t truly you no more. Even if you are the Twice-Dead and Twice-Damned they made you into.”
I told him to shut up, and he did. For a while, I just stood there, hugging his leg and crying, hearing the patter of the snowfall beyond the overpass. Finally, I let go and took a few steps backwards. Aloysius wasn’t crying; maybe trolls don’t. I’ve never heard one way or the other. But it at least seemed he was glad to see me.
“Oh, Aloysius . . . ,” I blubbered, and wiped my nose, starting to feel stupid and embarrassed for crying. “I thought you were gone forever. Otis—”
“Don’t you say that name,” Aloysius said, and sat down in front of me. “Not now and not ever. You brought me something? Should hope, this being a reunion and what, you’d have brought me something.”
I went back to the guardrail and retrieved the 3 Musketeers bars and brandy. He grunted in a pleased sort of way and accepted the gifts.
“But Otis—”
“Did I not tell you not to speak that name? Did I not just say that?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Won’t say his name, but since you’re asking and won’t stop, was that ginky, hing-oot scrote tried to still my bridge.”
Don’t ask me to translate that. Aloysius had spent time in Scotland, hundreds of years back, and still visited various Scots relations from time to time, and was a wealth of Scots insults. I could usually get the gist of it from the tone in his voice.
“Was him spread the lies about you doing me in,” Aloysius continued. “Tricked me in a riddle match, what he did, and I got myself caught in a hedge maze. But he cheated, he did. And finally, though, the Court tumbled to his chicanery and set it right. Now it his ass in the maze.”
“Oh, Aloysius, everything is such a fucking mess.”
“Got worse than being dead and gone wolfish?” he asked, and raised a scabby eyebrow suspiciously.
“Shit always gets worse,” I
replied. “Only absolute truth in the whole wide lousy universe, I think.”
And, surprise, that’s the way the day ended. Me and Aloysius sitting under the interstate watching the snow, just shooting the shit like we used to do, back before my run-in with the Bride and Jack Grumet (but after I met Mean Mr. B). Aloysius did still seem as horrified at me being an undead lycanthrope as he’d been when he first heard the news. He talked about how it sucks to be lost in a hedge maze, and I talked about the Maidstone sisters. It was the last good night I’d have for a while.
CHAPTER FOUR
DEATH FROM ABOVE, TEN BULLETS, AND THE DINGUS
Sooner or later, a junkie’s gotta fix, and sooner or later, a predator’s gotta kill. These are words to live by, golden rules, maxims in the great, wide, uncaring shitstorm of life. And undeath. And I hadn’t gotten a red delicious fix since the day I’d been sent off to my meet-and-greet with Berenice Maidstone and Lenore the Goth and their shuffling zombie entourage.
After our reunion, I’d spent the rest of the night beneath Aloysius’ overpass, first listening to him relate the details of Otis’ betrayal and comeuppance, then telling him how everything had turned out with the Bride of Quiet. Finally, I’d dozed off to the sound of the predawn traffic on 195, rumbling by high overhead. It was a little past noon when I woke. The snow had stopped, and there was no sign of Aloysius. My stomach was grumbling and cramping, and I was ravenous as fuck all. Usually, I can go a couple more days between din-din, but the past two had taken their toll, bumping up mealtime. That wasn’t so bad, but here it was, broad daylight, and I’d long since learned keeping my murders nocturnal was far less risky. Still, B expected results, and I wasn’t going to be worth shit until I’d eaten. There wasn’t time to wait for sunset. I’d just have to make the best of it, and try extra hard to be discreet. Inconspicuous, you know.
Hookers are always an easy mark. Hookers and drug dealers. Now, as I have said before, I don’t like preying on the underbelly of society, having once been part of it myself. If I had my choice, there’d be nothing on the menu but upper-crust blue bloods. Newport, for example, would be a veritable buffet. But those are the very people that if they should go missing, the cops actually have to try to find out what happened. Maybe money can’t buy you love, but it sure as hell makes the life of this vamp just a little more difficult to stomach (no pun intended).
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