Sunglasses After Dark

by Nancy A. Collins

  By this time the men from the Amphitryon were either trying to pry the Swede off his victim or they were fighting the bouncer. The girls fled to the safety of their rooms. I didn't move a muscle; I was basking in the Swede's homicidal frenzy.

  The riot was in full swing. The men arguing with the bouncer were now brawling among themselves. Furniture was trashed. Bottles were smashed. All I could hear was men swearing and women screaming. The smell of blood was sharp and brassy. I felt wonderful.

  The Swede finally succeeded in killing his foe. The big man lay prostrate on the floor like a Muslim at prayers. However, this obvious conquest didn't appease the Swede's blood lust. He grabbed a chair and renewed his attack on the corpse. He screamed and laughed at the same time. His mouth was fixed in a rictus grin and tears streamed down his face.

  There was a loud noise and something warm splashed my face.

  The Swede let go of the chair. He stood for a second, staring at the hole in his middle and the loops of shiny pink intestine dangling around his knees, before falling to the ground. The hate was gone; it was as if someone had thrown a switch, allowing me to move and think again. I looked at myself. I was covered in the Swede's blood. I had to fight to keep from licking my hands.

  Madame Foucault held a smoking shotgun, her face unreadable. The fight was over as suddenly as it'd begun. Everyone gathered around and stared at the dead men.

  Madame Foucault finally spoke. "He went crazy. That's all there is to it."

  I felt her looking at me. I stared at the blood congealing on the floor. I left the next day.

  I realized there was more to being a vampire than simply drinking blood. I had been one of the undead for nearly four years and I had yet to understand my powers and their corresponding weaknesses. My knowledge of vampirism was incomplete; it was shaped by popular fiction, old superstitions, and other faulty attempts to mythologize a reality imperfectly perceived. I was trying to divine my true nature in a funhouse mirror.

  According to folklore, vampires have their own set of rules, just like cricket or Monopoly. Vampires drank blood and only came out at night. They couldn't stand daylight or the sight of crosses. They were repelled by garlic. Silver was anathema. Holy water had the same effect as battery acid. They could be killed by a stake through the heart. They could not enter a church. They never aged. They turned into bats and wolves. They had powerful hypnotic powers. They slept in coffins during the day.

  I was confused by these rules and fearful of testing their validity. It had been over three years since my birth in the backseat of Sir Morgan's Rolls, but I had yet to make an attempt to explore my dark heritage.

  Some things didn't need much in the way of proving. I didn't like going out in direct daylight; it made my skin itch and caused headaches that threatened to separate the lobes of my brain. However, I did not burst into flame or crumble to dust the moment I set foot outside. As long as I wore heavy clothing and sunglasses, I could function with only a minimum of discomfort.

  The only noticeable effect garlic had on me was bad breath.

  I did not experience revulsion or pain in the presence of crucifixes. However, visions of Christopher Lee, the flesh of his stigmatized forehead bubbling like molten cheese, kept me from touching one.

  Silver did not bother me, whether in the form of crosses, flatware, or coin of the realm. As for the stake through the heart bit, well… I didn't consider it a feasible test.

  I was still ageing, although my years of hard living did not show; there were girls in the business younger than myself who could have passed for my older sisters. My stamina was incredible; I was rarely sick and I healed quickly. Too quickly. I was strong, although nowhere near as powerful as I would become. I had nothing to fear from even the roughest trade.

  I ventured into a church and was not seized by epileptic fits the moment I crossed the threshold. Half-expecting to be struck by lightning, I approached the altar. Old women, their heads covered with babushkas and dressed in widows' weeds, knelt at the prayer rail. A priest dressed in a long, flowing cassock moved about in the shadows, tending the votive candles flickering at the feet of wooden saints.

  The baptismal font was built into the altar rail. The lid pivoted to expose a shallow silver basin. I stared at the holy water. I'd intended to immerse my hand, but my resolve faltered at the possibility of my flesh being stripped to the bone. I noticed the priest, standing by the image of St. Sebastian, was watching me.

  I hurried from the church, the holy water untested.

  I wasn't too hot on turning into a bat. Did I need a magic potion or a special incantation to trigger the metamorphosis? And if I did succeed in becoming a bat, how would I reverse the transformation? Cinema vampires changed by lifting their capes and flapping their arms, but that was too damn silly. Perhaps if I concentrated real hard…

  My body felt as if it was covered with ants. I cried out and leapt to my feet, swatting my arms and legs. I was afraid to look in the mirror, but I knew my flesh was dancing again. I rode out the skin tremors, and when they'd finished, I was still human. At least physically.

  The hypnotic powers I'd experienced firsthand, although none of the legends I'd ever heard mentioned vampires drawing sustenance from the emotions of others. Nor did they mention telepathy, as I was becoming increasingly aware of the thoughts of those around me.

  At first it was a mental variant of white noise; thousands of different voices merged into a backwash of unintelligible gibberish. Occasionally a snatch of coherent thought would bob to the surface, but nothing more.

  I thought I was going mad. Then I realized the voices in my head weren't telling me to kill small children or derail streetcars; they seemed preoccupied about what to have for dinner and who stood a chance of winning the football pools. The only time I had problems was when I got too close to drunkards, madmen, or the truly evil. Their thoughts came through all too clear.

  By spring of 1974 I found myself in Switzerland. I was employed in a house operated by Frau Zobel. Brothel-keeping was something of a family tradition for her, stretching back to the Napoleonic era. While Frau Zobel did not pretend to like me, she realized the financial benefits of having an employee specializing in "fancy passions."

  I enjoyed working for Frau Zobel. She ran a first-class house, discreetly located in a respectable Zurich neighborhood. The girls were clean and the clientele genteel. It was light-years removed from my apprenticeship under Joe Lent and my time with Madame Foucault. But despite her grand airs and left-handed pedigree—she claimed to be the illegitimate granddaughter of Napoleon III—Frau Zobel was made from the same stuff as old Foucault; tenpenny nails and old boot leather.

  I had no friends among the girls in Frau Zobel's stable. I'd made it a practice not to get friendly with anyone, for fear of being discovered. Not that I had to actively discourage anyone from making overtures. Most women dislike me on sight. Men, on the other hand, react in one of two ways: either they are uneasy while in my presence, or they want to involve me in a minor sex atrocity.

  I didn't mind being tied up with clothesline or beaten with a bundle of birch twigs, but I rarely played the submissive role. I attracted those who wanted to be dominated and degraded, and I assumed the mantle of dominatrix without complaint. It wasn't a one-way relationship; I experienced a diluted version of the pleasure I'd received from the Swede's berserker rage. I thought I was keeping that part of me in check. Instead, I was nursing it.

  One of my regular clients was Herr Wallach, a pudgy man in his late fifties whose particular fancy passion involved a block-and-tackle and ice water enemas. Herr Wallach was a tenured mathematical theoretician. He also belonged to an esoteric fellowship composed of thinkers, artists, and poets. At least that's how he described it. Every year the group held a party at the home of one of its members. The host for the 1975 party was Herr Esel, a professor of metaphysics. Wallach wanted me to be his guest. The prospect of attending what sounded like a dreadfully dull evening in the company of He
rr Wallach was far from appealing. Then he showed me the evening gown he'd bought for the occasion. It was a strapless dress made of black velvet, stunning in its simplicity, complete with matching silk opera gloves. Wallach told me I could keep it after the party.

  Funny how something as trivial as an evening gown changed my life.

  Professor Esel's estate was located on the outskirts of Zurich. It was an old mansion, inherited from an ancestor who made his fortune with pikemen and timepieces.

  Herr Wallach made a great show of introducing me to his associates. The only time he seemed self-conscious was when he realized I meant to wear my sunglasses during the party. We argued about it on the way over and he sulked for a little while. However, parading around with a beautiful girl on his arm restored his good spirits. There were a few raised eyebrows, but the Swiss are nothing if not polite.

  Wallach introduced me to Professor Esel, a florid little man who resembled a burgomaster more than a metaphysicist.

  "Ah, Herr Professor, I would like you to meet… a friend of mine, Fräulein Blau."

  "Guten tag, Fräulein Blau." Esel bowed smartly. I received a mental image of myself tied naked to a canopied bed, surrounded by frisky dachshunds. Esel spoke to Wallach, although his eyes never left me. "You'll never guess who has shown up tonight, Stefan. Pangloss is here!"

  Wallach was genuinely surprised. "Nein! You must be joking. After all this time? It must be ten years since he last attended one of our gatherings."

  Esel shrugged. "See for yourself. He was in the music room, the last time I looked. The bastard hasn't changed at all."

  "Come along, Sonja. You simply must meet Pangloss." Wallach led me away, unmindful of Professor Esel winking me auf Wiedersehen.

  Pangloss was in the music room, seated on an antique sofa, flanked by two lovely women who listened to him avidly and laughed at his witticisms. There was a feverish gleam in their eyes as they followed his every movement. Their laughter was synchronized; it reminded me of the clockwork toys the Swiss are so adept at creating. They did not look away from Pangloss when Herr Wallach introduced me.

  "Herr Doktor Pangloss, I would like you to meet Fräulein Blau."

  Pangloss halted in midanecdote and gazed at Wallach. My first impression was of a man in his early fifties, his longish black hair randomly streaked with gray. He wore an evening suit and wire-rim glasses tinted dark green. He smiled frostily at Wallach, then focused his attention on me.

  "I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Fräulein."

  Wallach cried out as my fingers bit into the soft flesh of his upper arm. I was close to fainting, but I could not look away. Wearing Pangloss's clothes and seated between the twin automatons was a… a dead thing, resembling an unwrapped mummy, its flesh the color and texture of parchment. There was enough nose left to keep the wire-rims in place, and I caught a glimpse of banked embers deep within the sockets. A few strands of silvery hair clung to the yellowed, flaking scalp. The creature lifted a skeletal hand—its fingers capped by filthy, splintered talons—and fitted an ebony cigarette holder in its lipless mouth.

  "What is the matter with your lovely companion, Wallach? It is Wallach, is it not?" rasped the dead thing. "She seems to have taken ill."

  Flustered, Wallach hurried me onto the balcony. Pangloss followed. His ladyfriends, forgotten for the moment, blinked like mediums emerging from deep trance.

  After seating me on a bench, Wallach babbled something about fresh air and scampered off in search of a glass of water. I caught the odor of dust and cobwebs and found Pangloss standing beside me. He no longer looked like an unraveled pharaoh. I wondered if I was going mad.

  "Perhaps I can be of some assistance, Fräulein Blau. After all, I am a doctor…" He reached to feel my pulse, but his hand was bone and desiccated flesh. I recoiled.

  His features flowed and hardened into a mask of normalcy. "I was right. You can see." He stepped closer. The smell of rot threatened to choke me. "Who's get are you? Who sent you here? Was it Linder? Answer me!"

  I staggered to my feet; I did not want that dead thing near me.

  "You dare?" Red fire flickered behind green glass and a cold something stabbed my brain. I remembered Sir Morgan and how he raped Denise's mind before he raped her body.

  Not again. Never again. I pushed back, desperate to force the intruder out of my mind, even if it meant my eyes popped out on their stalks. I felt Pangloss's frustration boil into rage, then I was alone in my head.

  We stood facing each other, both of us shivering. Pangloss was furious, but I sensed uncertainty in him.

  "How old are you?" he hissed. His image flickered like a failing fluorescent light. One moment he was a well-dressed bon vivant, the next an animated corpse. It was rather distracting.

  I told him the truth. There was no point in lying. "I was born in 1969."

  "Impossible! You could not possibly have such power!" He grabbed my wrist, forcing me to look him in the face. The flesh sloughed away, revealing a death's-head. "Don't lie to me. I don't know whose get you are, but you aren't going to count coup with me. You may have caught me off-guard that time, but I won't make the same mistake twice. Oh, you're strong, that's true, but you don't know what to do with it, do you?"

  "Ah, Herr Doktor! There you are. Herr Wallach mentioned you were looking after Fräulein Blau for him…"

  Pangloss and I stared at the man framed in the french windows. He was a small, slender man in his sixties with a dapper little mustache. Hardly a knight in shining armor, but he'd do.

  Pangloss dropped my wrist as if it was leprous. He bowed stiffly in my direction. "I am relieved to hear that you are no longer ill, Fräulein. Now, you must please excuse me." He pushed past my savior, who regarded him with a wry smile, and disappeared into the house.

  "A most unusual man, the Herr Doktor, is he not?" the little man mused aloud. "Ah! But I have not introduced myself. How rude! I am Erich Ghilardi."

  "Do you… know Doktor Pangloss?"

  Ghilardi shrugged. "Let us say I know of him. I fear Herr Wallach will be returning with your drink soon, so I shall dispense with small talk. May I visit you at your place of employment, Fräulein? Ah, do not look so surprised! Your behavior this evening was most proper. It was no failure on your part, I assure you. Everyone in our little clique knows how Wallach locates his companions."

  I smiled and handed him my card. He bowed neatly and slipped it into his breast pocket. "Auf Wiedersehen, Fräulein Blau."

  I watched him leave. Such a polite old gentleman. It was hard to imagine him dangling from the chandelier or groveling on all-fours with a rubber ball in his mouth.

  Wallach frowned when he returned with my glass of water. "What was Ghilardi doing out here?"

  "Simply making sure I was all right. Nothing you need to worry about."

  Wallach continued to fret. "I don't like him paying attention to you. He's disturbed, you know."

  "No, I didn't know. Who is he?"

  Wallach didn't approve of me asking about Ghilardi, but his love of gossip overcame his misgivings. "He's one of Europe's leading scholars on fantasy and the occult. Rather, he used to be. He wrote several volumes on the masters of the genre: Poe, Lovecraft, and the like. Then he went over the edge. In fact, ten years ago he suffered some form of fit while hosting our little event. Most unfortunate. After that, he started claiming werewolves and vampires were real, or some such trash. He even wrote a book about shadow races living in secret coexistence with humanity for thousands of years. Of course, the book was widely ridiculed when it was published. Made himself a complete laughingstock."

  * * *

  Chapter Six

  « ^ »

  It was late when I returned to my room. I stripped down to my skin and sat in the dark, thinking about what had happened at the party.

  I'd finally come face to face with one of my own. What had Morgan really looked like? The thought was enough to make me shudder.

  I contemplated the cheval glass in the
corner of my room. What about me? What did I really look like?

  I'd dismissed the belief that vampires hated mirrors as an old wives' tale, like the inviolability of sacred ground. Maybe I was the ignorant one.

  Perhaps vampires loathe mirrors not because of what they don't see, but because of what they do.

  It was dawn before I mustered the courage to stand before the mirror. I was terrified of what might stare back at me, but too curious to remain ignorant. Although my reflection wasn't that of a withered hag, I was outlined in a faint nimbus of reddish light. It was strongest about my head and shoulders; I was reminded of the corona glimpsed during an eclipse. My reflection smiled at me. I put my hand to my mouth, but my mirror twin didn't. A long, pointed tongue, like that of a cat, emerged from my duplicate's lips.

  "No!" I struck the cheval glass hard enough to make it spin. I backed away, watching the mirror as it flashed reversed images of the room. It came to a halt with its back to me, the mirror facing the wall. I left it that way.

  Ghilardi came to visit me within a week of our encounter at Herr Esel's party.

  I received him in the parlor and, after sampling the house wine, escorted him to my room. He had a black valise, like the ones doctors carry. I didn't think anything about it, since my clients tended to rely on props.

  Once we were alone, I excused myself and ducked behind a screen to change. I told him to make himself comfortable; he nodded politely, glancing about the room nonchalantly. He looked at the inverted mirror for a long moment before moving to the bed. I tried to engage him in conversation, hoping to divine his kink.

  "So, Herr Ghilardi, what is it you like?"

  "Like?" He sounded distracted.

  "Ja. What is it you would like me to do to you? Or you to me? Don't be shy, Mein Herr, there's nothing you could say that could possibly shock me."

  "I see." He didn't sound convinced. "Fräulein Blau…"