by J. F. Lewis
There was no answer. I tried Tabitha’s, Bea’s, and Eric’s cell phones in sequence and left each of them a message asking them to call me.
22
TALBOT:
ANYBODY’S GUESS
Around 10:30 a.m. the downstairs phone rang. Everything seemed huge, too big, and that was when I realized that I’d changed shape in my sleep. Dezba’s visit had gotten to me more than I wanted to admit. The last sweet memories of what I’d been dreaming slipped away from me. I shook off the cobwebs of slumber and glanced at my clothes dangling from their hanger on the door back.
“No time.” I left them hanging and darted out of the room and down the stairs, where I reluctantly shifted forms to answer the phone behind the concession counter.
“Hello.” I spoke brusquely, trying not to yawn into the receiver. You learn to keep strange hours when you live with the dead.
“Talbot?” The connection was bad, but the voice on the other end of the line sounded panicked and hurt. “Talbot, is that you? Damn phone. Hello?”
“Who is this?”
“Talbot! It’s me, Tabitha.” She sounded like someone trying to keep it together and act like everything is all right when it clearly isn’t.
“What are you doing up? It’s what, five-thirty over there?” Oh . . . right. She’d probably had Eric force her awake.
“Would you shut the hell up and listen to me.” More crackling interrupted her speech. “My cell is broken and it keeps hanging up. Is Rachel there?”
“I haven’t seen her since you guys left for Paris. Is Eric there? I need—”
“I don’t give a fuck what you need, Talbot. Shut up and listen to me. Lisette is headed for you guys. She may already be there.”
I glanced around. Through the akasha, people walking by outside or driving in their cars became visible, even through the walls. There was no sign of Dezba or any other eavesdroppers. “Where’s Eric?”
“The fucking immortals lost him. And they made me do a lousy three-day initiation.”
“I’d have thought Phil would have called ahead, cleared things—”
Tabitha interrupted. “Eric was kidnapped by someone with cinnamon-scented magic and a female Vlad.”
“Damn. So you think Rachel—”
“Well, don’t you think Rachel?”
“Probably.” I sighed. “And Eric would want me to stay here and help Greta with Lisette.” I hissed. “Do you know what the Vlad looked like?”
There was a jostling noise, audible even over the crackle of the bad connection. “Describe the other Vlad,” I heard Tabitha say as the phone was passed to someone else.
A deep, yet female, German-accented voice obliged. “She was petite. Attractive. She’d been turned in her early twenties. The way she moved was distinct, as if she had trouble moving slower than her maximum vampiric rate. Eric seemed to recognize her.”
Shit. Irene.
“Put Tabitha back on,” I ordered.
Less jostling this time. “You know who it is?” Tabitha asked.
“It could be Irene,” I said. There was no point in beating around the bush. Tabitha needed to know who she was up against. “She’s one of Eric’s children. He tried to kill her after El Segundo. She was involved with the demons there. To her it was a game.”
“What was? El Segundo?”
“No. The end of the world,” I said seriously. “You can’t let him be around her, Tabitha. She’s not right, and he’s different around Irene. He’ll kill for the fun of it, just because it turns her on.”
“He’d do that for me,” she said. Yeah, but the two of them were like apples and oranges. But how to get that across over a really bad phone connection?
“He lets her bite him,” I said.
“That b—!” The static vanished along with the connection.
A dull throb settled in behind my eyes and I reached behind the concession stand, feeling around for a bottle of analgesic.
Something crossed the threshold of the Pollux. I felt it. It wasn’t a nice something and it hadn’t come to bring me breakfast. “Fine,” I said softly to the dead line, as I hung it up. “Shenanigans went on a world tour.”
I hopped over the counter and found the bottle of pain pills for which I’d been looking. After a brief fight with the childproof cap, I tapped two red and yellow capsules out into my palm and dry-swallowed them. “So . . . I’m going to Paris then. Guess I’d better take Greta with me.”
Two seconds later and I caught the scent; it wasn’t human, but it might have been human once. I couldn’t place it. Whatever it was, it was male and smelled like cheap cigars and expensive cologne. Below the cologne I smelled dirt or maybe stone, faint but distinct.
I reached through the akasha, pulling a little more of the real me through to the material world. Vampires seem to find changes uncomfortable. My kind doesn’t. A white glow spilled over my body as I clothed myself in fur and extra muscle, then vaulted up to the second-floor balcony, watching for the intruder, ready to pounce—if necessary.
The creature showed up through the akasha as sudden bursts of light, visible only when he moved. From the balcony overlooking the lobby, I saw a figure in a dapper brown suit and fedora gently tapping the rain off his umbrella. The suit coat bulged in the back, implying a pronounced hump, but he stood straight, which to me implied wings. He wore brown leather gloves, and his shoes squeaked when he stepped out onto the tile. I cleared my throat. The face that looked up at me was gray and goatlike. I fancied that if I took off his hat I’d find horns.
“Bonjour.” His voice was melodious and gentle, but the eyes were cold and hard: stone—and not in a metaphorical sense. “I hope you don’t mind, but I let myself in. Could you tell me if the owner is in?”
Whoever he was, he took the sight of a battle-ready Mouser in stride.
“Maybe I’m the owner,” I answered. He removed his hat and ran gloved fingers casually along his bald scalp. The horns were small, but they were there. This close, I picked up a new smell: pigeon droppings.
“That could be,” he answered eagerly. He looked into the hat as he continued speaking, “but I was given to understand that the owner of the Pollux was a shorter individual, in his mid- to late thirties and with less fur—a man named Eric.”
“Your information could be wrong,” I told him as I walked down the stairs to meet him. “Perhaps the former owner passed away or sold the property. Maybe I ate him.”
“Just so, I believe he did indeed pass away, some years ago, but if what I have heard about this man is true, mere death even via gastronomic interment would not preclude the requisite of his conversation with my employer. If he has indeed sold the property, however, you could perhaps suggest an alternative method of contact or a forwarding address?”
“Who wants to know?”
“I speak for my esteemed mistress, the Empress Lisette, le Coeur-Démone.”
“I’m afraid that now isn’t a good time.” I flexed my claws, making sure they reflected the emerald light from my eyes. “My employer”—I took the stairs, continuing toward the concession stand where a stack of Post-its sat next to the downstairs phone—“is away on an extended honeymoon.” Pen in hand, I made as if I were about to begin writing. “I’d be happy to have him contact you upon his return, perhaps give him the message should he call the office?”
He gave a cell number and shook my paw without flinching. “I do hope”—he made a point of looking up the main staircase toward the offices—“that your employer returns home soon from his . . . honeymoon, as you say it.”
“I’ll give him the message,” I repeated.
“Merci,” he said softly. I crossed to open the door, but it was unnecessary. It opened as he stepped toward it and closed gently behind him when he left. I watched him through the akasha. He took three steps forward before leaping into the air and flying away into the mid-morning glare. Not taking the time to change, I dialed Rachel’s cell again. And Eric’s. And Tabitha’s. I left me
ssages at the hotel too.
“Get back here now. Lisette came looking for you. She’s in Void City.”
23
GRETA:
WINTERIZED
The next night, I broke one of the cardinal rules of hunting in Void City. It was a warm night out, the kind that only the dead appreciate. The flutter of Void City Music Festival banners flapping against the metal of the lampposts from which they hung mixed with the thrumming bass beat of bands and block parties, vibrating my abdomen and generating an increasing discomfort bordering on nausea. Hungry.
I tapped the underside of Fang’s trunk once and it popped open. All the humidity made my hair completely unmanageable, so I put it up in a sloppy blond ponytail and said the hell with it, grabbed the clothes I’d laid out for myself, and changed in the parking deck. I wanted to head over to the Highland Towers and sense around for Grandma, but my hunger drew me out into the street.
There was food. In past years, the festival had never made it all the way down to Thirteenth Street and Eighth Avenue. I’d always thought it was to keep the revelers away from Dad, but the sudden expansion made me wonder if the real reason had been Dad’s strip club.
Build a bowling alley and the norms come around to annoy you. What was I thinking? I imagined Dad might say something like that.
Car after car was parked in the deck, almost filling it. Way more cars than usual. I walked through the deck to the street exit and found Magbidion manning the booth.
“Why are all these people in our deck?”
Magbidion flinched at the question, unconsciously running a hand through his hair. “People kept asking, so I figured we might as well let them in and make them pay. I hope that’s okay.”
“Whatever.” I glanced about. A full deck made me feel claustrophobic. This wasn’t their deck; it was Dad’s. “It’ll make hunting easier, I guess.”
“You can’t hunt during the music festival, Greta.”
“Did Dad tell you to say that?”
“No.” He wanted to lie. I could hear it in the way air caught in his chest. But he didn’t. He wouldn’t. He’s Mags. “But it is tradition.”
“Did Phil get Dad’s permission to include our part of town in the festival?”
He looked down at his feet, but there wasn’t a good lie down there either. “No.”
I gave him a grin, fangs deployed and eyes a bright pretty red. “Oops.” My eyes faded back to normal and I winced as my fangs retracted. “Why don’t you get Captain Stacey on the phone? We’re going to need him.”
“Greta—” I walked away while Magbidion was still speaking. I’m in charge. As my feet hit the sidewalk, I heard Magbidion frantically dialing numbers on his cell.
People were actually swarming downtown despite the heat. Joggers were out in force, and a local jazz band was giving an impromptu concert. The vibe wasn’t a normal Void City vibe. Everything was pleasant and neighborly . . . which just goes to show you that one hungry vampire can fuck things up for everybody.
I hit the sidewalk in a black sports bra, black track pants with a white zipper down each side, and my white Skechers. My whole ensemble was probably manufactured in some Chinese sweatshop by people who knew the value of a dollar more than I ever would. Magbidion was calling my name and saying something about Talbot and gargoyles, but the only voice I heard was the one in my veins chanting “Feed me” in time to the heartbeats of Void City’s human inhabitants.
Two of those heartbeats stood outside the Pollux, looking at the summer schedule. We were supposed to start a summer film festival next week, beginning with Casablanca. Dad would be back by then. One of them touched my arm.
“It’s really cool that you guys are reopening the Pollux,” my potential meal told me. “Casablanca is my dad’s favorite movie. He and Mom are planning a date night.”
The blood was warm and young and there was more food nearby. One of them was a girl, but I couldn’t tell which anymore. The urge to feed wiped out all the details, leaving a mass of veins pushing over a gallon of blood in a convenient, easy-to-open package. One of the food selections took a step back. Maybe it sensed something was wrong, but the other just kept on talking. “Hey, are you okay? You look a little pale.” Forty hearts called my name, and this was number one, the chatty heart.
When I binge, I try to vary it up. Now, I knew I couldn’t go killing a whole bunch of people every night without getting noticed or having to pay an outrageous fang fee, but I was really, really hungry. I was willing to pay the bill. It’s only money, and I knew before I started that I wouldn’t be able to stop with one. It didn’t bother me really, it was just a fact.
But back to the cardinal rules.
Magbidion mentioned not hunting during the music festival, but that isn’t a Daddy Rule, so it doesn’t count. Dad has all kinds of rules about hunting. He even follows some of them himself. When I first turned, he made it clear that I ought to treat each rule like a holy law handed down by a very angry short-tempered god who would not hesitate to stake me and leave me in a freezer for a few months until I’d learned my lesson. The inside of a freezer loses its appeal pretty damn quick, let me tell you. It’s the same kind of thing that Dad or Talbot tell all the new vamps Dad produces. Rule number one boils down to this: Don’t get sloppy.
Rules or no rules, sometimes I got sloppy.
Dad has his sexy little favorite feeding spot on a human, but I like to mix it up. There are so many arteries available to a vampire, if you’re willing to do the work to get at them and you don’t care what happens to the human afterward. I grabbed Chatty’s right wrist with my left hand and locked my right hand on his bicep. My vampire quickness didn’t give him time to react or even process what was happening when I brought his elbow down on my knee with enough force to tear his arm in two. I held my greedy mouth over the wound the way a child does a drinking fountain, the arterial spray splashing over my face in a sudden wave. Two large swallows later and I dropped him to the ground. Screams came at me slowly, a drawn-out dull, guttural roar. You learn to parse it out in your head, force it to make sense when you need it to, or to let it remain incomprehensible gibberish. This night, gibberish was fine.
My claws lanced out, slicing through the neck of Chatty’s companion when she turned to run, and stuck fast in one of her vertebrae. Blood from her vertebral and carotid arteries flowed around my fingers and I lapped at the wound.
One thing that I don’t envy Dad are his blackouts. When he gets mad enough to totally lose control, he doesn’t remember a thing and doesn’t know what he’s done. All he gets to see is the aftermath, and where’s the fun in that? He misses all the good stuff. I gave a two-fingered whistle, and Fang’s engine roared to life. He wheeled out into the street over the bodies of the two I’d just killed, leaving nothing to mark their passing, not even bloodstains on the concrete. My only disappointment was that, in killing the two as quickly as I had, there hadn’t been time for their cries to be heard over the noise of the band on the corner. I wanted the people to panic and leave, but I’d done it all too fast and ruined things. Still, there was a crowd. I could always cut loose into them. . . .
“C’mon.” I waved for Fang to follow. “I’m still hungry.”
Fang honked.
“What?” I spun to face the Mustang.
Fang responded by hanging a U-turn in the street and popping his driver’s side door open.
“But I don’t like these people being here.” I gestured over my shoulder. “And Magbidion is taking in all kinds of cash for the parking. We can pay the fang fee with that. It’d be like a free buffet.”
Christmas music, completely out of season, began playing through Fang’s speakers. Rolling my eyes, I started toward the car door to slam it shut, but then I heard the words. It was that Elmo ’n’ Patsy song, “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.”
“I know, and we will, but—”
Talbot burst out of the front door of the Demon Heart. “Cockblocker and Buzzkill”—I stomped
to the car door—”the both of you. You’re acting like a pair of old ladies.”
“Damn it, Greta.” Sweat glistened on Talbot’s forehead, and his sweat smelled nice and tangy, like that lion I’d eaten at the zoo. “What the hell? I was clearing a jam on lane eleven and—”
“Don’t worry.” I walked past the open car door and lay down in the road. “Fang stopped me.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m getting all tacky and congealed.” I kicked Fang’s front bumper. “Fang’s going to clean me up so I don’t stink when I go hunting for Grandma.”
Fang rolled backward a few inches as “The Addams Family Theme” interrupted the Christmas music.
“I don’t care how creepy, kooky, or ooky it is, Fang.” I never lose my temper with Fang, but I couldn’t help it. He usually joined in with the fun. “You’ll do it or I’m going to get up and have my Music Festival Massacre.”
“He’s going to what?” Talbot put his hand on the hood. “Now wait a minute.”
“Do it, Fang.”
Talbot stepped in front of Fang, his hands never leaving the hood. “Stay right where you are, Fang.”
“Do it.”
“Greta, get up.” He looked down at me. His eyes showed genuine concern. “It’s not safe.”
“Do it! What are you, a Mazda or a Mustang?”
Talbot went flying as Fang rammed him, coming to a stop directly over me. I’ve crawled under Fang before to put stickers on him or draw, but never when he was angry. And boy was he angry. There wasn’t much space separating me from it to begin with, but I noticed long ago that there seems to be more room under Fang than there should be. My cheek struck the line of smiley faces. It hurt, like a metallic slap. “Ow.” I stretched against the metal, my body against him. “I trust you.” I whispered the words, and as I said them, I felt myself drop a fraction of an inch away from the metal.
