by Unknown
He studied her for a moment, uncertainty wafting off him, before he waved the guard back.
She nodded in approval, preferring not to interfere with mortals if there was no compelling reason. It only complicated matters. She resumed where they’d left off. “So you know your lack of a reflection is conspicuous. Why do you allow it then?”
As he fixed his gaze on her, a little of his insolence slipped back in. “You make it sound like I have a choice.”
“Of course you do. Look at me.” He followed the movement of her hand and saw her replicated in the dark glass.
He opened his mouth, made hesitant by wonder again. “But … how?
“A misconception, as I told you.” She hooked his gaze with hers. “You, like so many of my children, seem to be even better at deluding yourself than mortals. Bram Stoker popularized the idea that our kind has no reflection and now many of you don’t.”
“But we’ve always been this way…” His voice trailed off as his eyes slid back to her reflection in the glass, apparent proof that he was mistaken.
“You haven’t always looked the way you do either,” she continued, pressing her point now that he was actually listening to her. “Mortals once thought our kind should be red in the face and plump from all the blood they believed we drank. If they saw you, they’d think you were one of our victims, thin and pale. Look up Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary sometime. He blamed us for consumption or tuberculosis, as the mortals say today.”
“What happened then?” her son asked, half challenge, half true curiosity.
“The perception the mortals had of us was reversed in the nineteenth century. The consumptive look became fashionable. Our kind did too. You can thank the Romantic writers for that. Mortals like Lord Byron, the poet, and John Polidori, his friend and doctor, put the two things together and the mortal fascination with our kind began.”
He was shaking his head vehemently. “No, I can’t believe it. It makes no sense.”
“Yes, my son, it does,” she replied, just as forcefully. “You, like many of my children, have changed depending on what the mortals believe. It’s a consequence of taking their blood.”
He tore his eyes from the window at last and barked a humourless laugh. “I knew it was going to come down to this. You’re going to tell me drinking blood is wrong. The others warned me about it.”
“Not wrong,” she repeated firmly, “just unnecessary. It’s not healthy for you.”
He forgot his fear of her in a rush of cold anger. “How can you say that? It’s what we need to live.”
She felt like he hadn’t heard anything she’d said and it shredded her patience. “You only think that because you’re born of blood. It’s not how I intended my children to come into this world.”
“I read about that in your book,” he acknowledged, but was still scornful. “You claim you made the first of us with your ‘breath of fire’. It sounds like what a mortal has after eating too much spicy food.”
She narrowed her eyes at his tasteless joke, but refused to react any further. She sensed he was baiting her as a way of avoiding having to think too deeply about what she’d said. She’d shaken him. Her words had gotten through to him. That realization made her keep talking. “It’s your heritage. It’s how you should have been transformed. Instead, you were born in blood and so you crave blood. I thought that was a mere superstition of mortals until I began this tour.”
“What’s wrong with blood, Mother?” He was openly sneering at her now. She couldn’t really blame him though. She was questioning his birth and, as he saw it, slighting it. This would be so much easier if he could sense her emotions. Then he would know she was only trying to help him.
“Because you don’t just get the blood, my son. You get everything that’s in it. I don’t mean potential disease; obviously, you’re immune to that. What I’m talking about is a taste of the mortal soul. The flow of blood binds a mortal’s soul to his body. His blood is thus influenced by his soul. What he feels but, more significantly, what he believes. I suspect this is how and why the misconceptions about our kind have spread.”
“What do you expect us to do,” he demanded, “stop drinking blood?”
“It would be better for you, yes. You don’t need it. Emotion is purer and safer. You’ve just become dependent on blood. You’ll realize that if you let me help you—”
“What about sunlight?” he asked suddenly. “Are you going to tell me that’s yet another misconception?”
She paused, tasting something sharp and bitter in his abrupt change of subject. It made her respond carefully. “Yes, a rather recent one. Stoker only had his vampires weakened by sunlight, not harmed by it. We have the movie Nosfertau from 1922 to thank for the idea that sunlight can kill us.”
If she didn’t know what he was feeling, she might have thought he was considering what she’d said. As it was, she tensed when he went still as ice again and braced herself for the explosion that was coming. Shards of his anger stung her when it did. “You call it an idea! A misconception! As if we believe sunlight can hurt us so it does. Mother, it’s not like that. It’s real.”
She almost embraced him with her will. It would have made things simple. No more arguing, only acceptance. But she’d vowed she wouldn’t use it on her children except as a last resort. She thought they’d suffered enough because of her not being there for them. “Now, my son, listen to me. I know this is hard to accept—”
“No, Mother, you listen to me. Some of my people have accepted what you say. They’ve read your book and taken your words to heart. They’ve stopped drinking blood. They’ve gone out into the day. I tried to tell them you were the first of us and maybe the same rules don’t apply to you. But they didn’t believe me. They believed you.”
He stopped and stared at her with agonized eyes. The despair his anger had been concealing rose like a wave from the sunless depths of the ocean and broke over her. “You have no idea of the chaos your book has caused. There have been deaths, Mother.”
She sat back in her chair, stunned. Now she understood why he’d been so stubborn, so resistant to her words. “I didn’t know. I’ve met with skepticism before. Anger. Even hate for my neglect. But I didn’t realize anyone had died. I’ve never wanted to see my children hurt.”
“Then you don’t want us to starve? Turn to ash? Die out as a race?” He leaned forward, as if to give her a better taste of his sarcasm.
“Of course not!” she snapped and then forced herself to be calm. “It seems I may have presumed too much.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to make you understand.” he said emphatically, meeting her gaze. “You need to stop selling your book. Publish a retraction, even. Then I can tell my people you were wrong and they’ll believe me.”
“But I’m not wrong.” She held his gaze and let him see her eyes flame. “My children still need to know the truth. I was intending to write about the lives of my first children in my next book. But I can see I should write something else. A book of manners. It’ll tell my children how to free themselves from their bad habits.”
“But, Mother, think about it,” he pleaded with her, clearly feeling the heat emanating from her but not backing down. “That’ll only make things worse. My children will believe you and even more and more of them will die…”
The bleakness in his tone touched her heart and she knew then he cared for his children as much as she did hers. Ultimately, it was what she’d been hoping to learn from their meeting. To know he was worthy of the gift she had to give.
“You may have been born in blood, my son,” she whispered, “but you are a true child of mine.” Then she cupped her hand around his head and pulled him close to her. She opened her mouth over his and gave him the breath of fire.
He shuddered as it scorched through him, hot as a desert storm, and almost fell off his chair, spasming violently as the fire merged with his body.
The girl behind the counter looked like she was about to
scream. One of his bodyguards took her by the arm and kept her at their end of the coffee shop. The other guard rushed toward his employer — his father, she realized — and wasn’t stopped by the warning hand his mother raised. He only stumbled to a halt when he felt the heat flowing off her son, her true son now.
Her kiss would complete his transformation, but it wouldn’t be easy for him. It should have been done when he was a child, a baby even, before his body had become accustomed to what it was. But it was never too late. She regretted the pain he had to go through, but it was his birthright, well-earned, the immortality of wind and fire.
Although it probably seemed like an eternity to him, the first phase was over in seconds, so quickly the girl behind the counter was blinking, uncertain of what she’d seen. The bodyguard released her and joined the other, both hovering close to their father to protect him from the girl’s curious gaze.
He straightened in his chair and the guards gasped, shocked by the faintest of colour seeping into his face. He saw it in their eyes and turned to the window. A reflection gazed back at him, still blurry with his disbelief, but much more than he’d had before.
He seized a breath and let it out slowly. Then his eyes widened as he had his first taste of the emotions all around him. He turned to her, his mother, sensing her pride and her love. She smiled back at him.
“It’ll take time for you to adjust, but you will,” she assured him. Then she rose smoothly to her feet and he tried to follow her, only to find his legs too weak. Without a word, each of his sons took him by an arm and gently helped him up.
She smiled at them too but brought her eyes back to him. “I should be finished my signing soon. Then I’d like to come home with you and meet the rest of your family.”
He nodded in perfect compliance. “Yes, Mother.”
A Puddle of Blood
By Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Six Dismembered Bodies Found in Ciudad Juarez.
Vampire Drug-wars Rage On.
Domingo reads the headline slowly. Images flash on the video screen of the subway station. Cops. Long shots of the bodies. The images dissolve, showing a young woman holding a can of soda in her hands. She winks at him.
Domingo waits to see if the next news items will expand on the drug-war story. He is fond of yellow journalism. He also likes stories about vampires; they seem exotic. There are no vampires in Mexico City: their kind has been a no-no for the past thirty years, around the time the Federal District became a city-state.
The next story is of a pop-star, the singing sensation of the month, and then there is another ad, this one for a shoulder-bag computer. Domingo sulks, changes the tune on his music player.
He looks at another screen with pictures of blue butterflies fluttering around. Domingo takes a chocolate bar from his pocket and tears the wrapper.
He spends a lot of time in the subway system. He used to sleep in the subway cars when he was a street kid making a living by washing windshields at cross streets. Those days are behind. He has a place to sleep and lately he’s been doing some work for a rag-and-bone man, collecting used thermoplastic clothing. He complements his income with other odd jobs. It keeps him well-fed and he has enough money to buy tokens for the public baths once a week.
He bites into the chocolate bar.
A woman wearing a black vinyl jacket walks by him, holding a leash. Her Doberman must be genetically modified. The animal is huge.
He’s seen her several times before, riding the subway late at nights, always with the dog. Heavy boots upon the white tiles, bob cut black hair, narrow-faced.
Tonight she moves her face a small fraction, glancing at him. Domingo stuffs the remaining chocolate back in his pocket, takes off his headphones and follows her quickly, squeezing through the doors of the subway car she’s boarding.
He sits across from the woman and is able to get a better look at her. She is early twenties, with large eyes that give her an air of innocence which is quickly dispelled by the stern mouth. The woman is cute, in an odd way.
Domingo tries to look at her discreetly, but he must not be discreet enough because she turns and stares at him.
“Hey,” he says, smiling. “How are you doing tonight?”
“I’m looking for a friend.”
Domingo nods, uncertain.
“How old are you?”
“Seventeen,” he replies.
“Would you like to be my friend? I can pay you.”
Domingo isn’t in the habit of prostituting himself. He’s done it once or twice when he was in a pinch. There had also been that time with El Chacal, but that didn’t count because Domingo hadn’t wanted to and El Chacal had made him anyway, and that’s when Domingo left the circle of street kids and the windshield wiping and went to live on his own.
Domingo looks at her. He’s seen the woman walk by all those nights before and he’s never thought she’d speak to him. He expected her to unleash the dog upon him when he opened his mouth.
He nods. He’s never been a lucky guy but he’s in luck today.
Her apartment building is squat, short, located just a few blocks from a busy nightclub.
“Hey, you haven’t told me your name,” he says when they reach the fourth floor and she fishes for her keys.
“Atl,” she replies.
The door swings open. The apartment is empty. There is a rug, some cushions on top of it, but no couch, no television and no table. She doesn’t even have a calendar on the wall. The apartment has a heavy smell, animal-like, probably courtesy of the dog. Perhaps she keeps more than one pet.
“Do you want tea?” she asks.
Domingo would be better off with pop or a beer, but the girl seems classy and he thinks he ought to go with whatever she prefers.
“Sure,” he says.
Atl removes her jacket. Her blouse is pale cream; it shows off her bony shoulders. He follows her into the kitchen as she places the kettle on a burner.
“I’m going to pay you a certain amount, just for coming here. If you agree to stay, I’ll double it,” she says.
“Listen,” Domingo says, rubbing the back of his head, “you don’t really need to pay me nothing.”
“I do. I’m a tlahuelpuchi.”
Domingo blinks. “You can’t be. That’s one of those vampire types, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Mexico City is a vampire-free territory.”
“I know. That is why I’m doubling it,” she says, scribbling a number on a pad of paper and holding it up for him to see.
Domingo leans against the wall, arms crossed. “Wow.”
Atl nods. “I need young blood. You’ll do.”
“Wait, I mean … I’m not going to turn into a vampire, am I?” He asks because you can never be too sure.
“No.” She sounds affronted. “We are born into our condition.”
“Cool.”
“It won’t hurt much. What do you think?”
“I don’t know. I mean, do I still get to … you know … sleep with you?”
She lets out a sigh and shakes her head. “No. Don’t try anything. Cualli will bite your leg off if you do.”
The kettle whistles. Atl removes it from the burner and pours hot water into two mugs.
“How do we do this?” Domingo asks.
Atl places tea bags in the mugs and cranes her neck. Her hair has turned to feathers and her hands, when she raises them, are like talons. The effect is disturbing, as though she is wearing a curious costume.
“Don’t worry. Won’t take long,” she says.
Atl is a bird of prey.
The first thing Domingo does with his new-found fortune is buy himself a good meal. Afterwards, he pays for a booth at the Internet cafe, squeezing himself in and clumsily thumbing the computer screen. The guy in the next cubicle is watching porn; the moans of a woman spill into Domingo’s narrow space.
Domingo frowns. He pulls out the frayed headphones wrapped with insulating tape and pushes the pla
y button on the music player.
He does a search for the word tlahuelpuchi. Stories about gangs, murders and drugs fill the viewscreen. He scrolls through an article which talks about the history of the tlahuelpocmimi, explaining this is Mexico’s native vampire species, with roots that go back to the time of the Aztecs. The article has lots of information but it uses very big words he doesn’t know, such as hematophagy, anticoagulants and matrilineal stratified sept. Domingo gives up on it quickly, preferring to stare at the bold headlines and colorful pictures of the vampire gangsters. These resemble the comic books he keeps at his place; he is comfortable with this kind of stuff.
When an attendant bangs on the door, Domingo doesn’t buy more tokens. He has more money than he’s ever had in his life and he doesn’t know what to do with it.
It is nearly dusk when he finds his way to Atl’s apartment. She opens the door a crack and stares at him as though she’s never met him before.
“What are you doing tonight?” he asks.
“You’re not getting any more money, alright?” she says. “I don’t need food right now. There’s no sense in you coming here.”
“You only eat kids, no?” he says, blurting it.
“Yeah. Something in the hormone levels,” she waves her hand, irritated. “That doesn’t make me a Lucy Westenra, alright?”
“Lucia what?”
She raises an eyebrow at him.
“I figure, you want a steady person. Steady food, no? And … yesterday, it was, ah … it was fun. Kind of.”
“Fun,” she repeats.
Yeah. It had been fun. Not the blood part. Well, that hadn’t been too awful. She made him a cheese sandwich and they drank tea afterwards. Atl didn’t have furniture, but she did have a music player and they sat cross-legged in the living room, chatting, until she said he was fine and he wouldn’t get woozy and told him to make sure he had a good breakfast.
It wasn’t exactly a date, but Domingo has never exactly dated. There were hurried copulations in back alleys, the kind street kids manage. He hung out with Belen for a little bit, but then she went with an older guy and got pregnant, and Domingo hadn’t seen her anymore.
