by J. R. Rain
One of the tourists took out a magic marker and added three big Xs to those already scrawled there. “If you do this, she’ll grant you a wish,” she said, and handed the pen to one of the vampire-hunters.
After the bright lights of Bourbon Street, it seemed a lot darker in the graveyard. Not that it made much difference with my vision, and it was a full moon. I could feel the presence of the dead, even above the noises of frogs and crickets.
“This was the last place Wendy was seen alive?” I asked Chaz, but he was in the middle of his routine about Marie Laveau and waved me off in the direction of Kathy.
She and Piggott stood apart from the others in the darkness, and when I joined them, the police detective said, “I’ve been over this a hundred times with Chaz, and his story’s always the same. Also I’ve interviewed about a half dozen witnesses who were present at the time.” Her voice suddenly didn’t sound so friendly, but maybe she noticed this, because she smiled at me again. “Come on, hon, I’ll show you the spot. Over here.”
We walked back through the alleys between the crypts, some of which towered nearly two stories high or had little pyramid roofs or white statues of angels on top of them. Everything looked old and decrepit, like a scale model of ancient Rome; a few had collapsed into bricks and rubble. Kathy and Piggott stopped and waited for me in one of these clearings. When I caught up to them, they backed away from me like I smelled bad. Or had Ebola.
Before I could ask if my breath stank, I noticed a ring of dark hooded figures had emerged as silently and stealthily as cats from between the tombs and surrounded us. I’d been too busy with my thoughts to become fully aware of them before it was too late.
In that moment, I also realized something else. Like me, they were vampires.
I’d been set up.
Chapter Six
Rage surged through me, which is never a good thing in my case. I only just barely kept it together on the verge of fight or flight. A single bound could take me atop one of the crypts; from there, I could call on Talos to fly me the hell out of here if necessary. I could already feel the prickling of the change in my nerves and muscles, could almost see the single flame now.
Simple curiosity kept me earthbound. I wanted to know who my enemies were.
Even as I watched, frozen with shock and fury at this betrayal, one of the vampires handed Piggott a wad of cash, and he and Kathy Bordelon took off in the direction of the rest of the tour group. I was alone.
At least I knew why Kathy hadn’t busted her ass looking for either of the missing girls; she’d probably sold them down the river, too.
Transform… a voice inside me said. Transform, Samantha, and then kill them all. Let me help you…
I knew exactly whose voice it was. Not mine, not even my own subconscious or long-lost guardian angel, but that of my inner demon. Literally. She was a demonic spirit who, once loosed, would take me over and never let go. Recently, I’d even learned her name—Elizabeth—I’d Googled around and I strongly suspected her of being the notorious Countess Elizabeth Báthory, the vampiress who bathed in the blood of young women, disciple and beloved of Vlad Dracula.
Something about the figure who moved forward to confront me triggered a reaction in her, thrilled her more like. He threw back his hood. His skin was pale, the whitest I’d ever seen in my life; it almost seemed to glow in the dark, like his heavy-lidded golden eyes. Bedroom eyes, Mary Lou would have called them. He could have been any age, but something told me this guy was old—ancient, even though his hair was jet black.
It couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds, but it felt like hours that we stood there staring at each other. A smile passed over his weirdly feminine lips, and for the first time, I consciously found him almost attractive instead of just, you know, plain creepy.
“I sense inside you a thing even older than my own inner daemon,” he said in a rich musical voice with a thick accent; Spanish, maybe, or Italian. “The spirit of someone once very dear to me. Am I correct?”
I just shook my head. Whoever—whatever my inner demon was—I didn’t want to know anything more about her. Or have anything to do with her at all. If that genie ever escaped her bottle, I knew I’d never have control over my own body or thoughts again. At least, not total control. Just how much I would lose, I didn’t know—and I did not want to find out.
“You should be more grateful to your Elizabeth, my dear.” He sounded amused. “She is the reason I will allow you to live on in some form or other. Do you not know me? I am Leopold-George Rákóczi, the Count Saint-Cyr. These are the chief council of my creation, the Têtes de Morts..”
Okay, that didn’t sound good. I didn’t know much high school French, but I remembered enough to know that Têtes de Morts meant ‘Death’s Heads.’
I took a wild look around. I guess I was still hoping this was some kind of pre-Halloween prank or that the Vampire Lestat in front of me would turn out to be Tom Cruise and a film crew would suddenly pop out from behind the crypts and tombs. Instead, a couple of the dark figures shifted position and I caught the glimpse of metal glinting in the night. They weren’t carrying film-recording equipment under their robes; those were cocked crossbows—with sharp silver tips. Even if I managed to transform on the spot, they could still bring me down before I could fly away.
A shot through the heart would end my existence forever. An ordinary person could maybe look forward to her soul going to heaven after death or being reborn or something if she was religious, but that totally wasn’t in the cards for me. Vampires don’t have souls. At least, that’s what I’ve been told. So at that moment, it seemed like my only real hope was to play along with these ass-clowns and hope I’d be blessed with a chance to make my escape.
I didn’t even want to think about the alternatives. Saint-Cyr, or whatever his real name was, said he wanted to spare my life because of Elizabeth lurking around inside me—but could I trust that? Somehow, I doubted it. I had spoken to a Saint-Cyr years ago, through automatic writing. I doubted very much this was the same Saint-Cyr.
“I must ask you to come with us now, Madame Moon,” said the Count, pronouncing ‘madame’ the French way. “Quickly! There will perhaps be a chance for introductions to the rest of our crew later. For now, time is of the essence.”
This cheered me up just the tiniest bit. His need for speed meant he was in a hurry to get somewhere. Hurry always means worry. It seemed to me that in a place like New Orleans an armed gang of vampires out after dark didn’t have much to worry about. So something bigger than him lurked in the dark…
Good to know. That’s the kind of thing you want to tell yourself when you’re being kidnapped by a bunch of hooded creeps in dark robes, right? Because other than that straw to grasp at, I pretty much had nothing else.
Things became confusing after that. A couple of the ‘crew’ grabbed my arms and hustled me through a side gate in the high wall that surrounded the cemetery; ordinarily, I could have broken their hold with ease—heck, even before I’d become a vampire, I had enough martial arts and boxing skills to have probably dealt with them on my own. But I knew at least a half-dozen deadly silver-tipped crossbow bolts would be pointed at me every step of the way. So I let myself be bundled into the middle one of three black Dodge vans that sat waiting for us, idling on the side street.
I was half-expecting zip ties and maybe a blindfold or a trash-bag over my head. Instead, they jammed me into one of the back seats between two members of the gang, and as the van took off with a jerk (better yet, a car full of jerks), the pair on either side of me took their hoods down. That made me wish I had been blindfolded. I’ve had a lot of crazy adventures these last few years that have brought me into contact with a whole lot of mean sons of bitches, both human and from the world of supernatural nightmare, but these two were the scariest, creepiest-looking nutjobs I’d ever set eyes on in my life. Seriously. They had faces like devils and eyes as dead as fish. They were also both as big as Kingsley.
�
�My dear Madame Moon, may I present to you Messieurs John and Wayne Carter?” said the Count Saint-Cyr, turning to smirk at me from the front passenger seat. “They are among your greatest admirers. Perhaps you have read of them; they were quite famous in the newspapers in the 1930s. They would keep a half-dozen vessels tied to chairs in their apartments for months at a time to feed on. Until, alas, one of them escaped to tell the police.”
‘Vessels’ seemed to be Saint-Cyr’s name for blood donors.
He wagged a finger at the two brutes. “Careless, careless boys, but always a little good luck comes from bad, yes? Our chauffeur tonight is none other than the equally famous Monsieur León Felipe, who was one of those fortunate vessels freed from the chair. In his case, however, he had been ‘turned’ by our naughty friends—and went on to become the greatest serial killer in the United States.”
The driver said something in French, and Saint-Cyr added, “He says he was number one on your FBI’s most wanted List.”
Okay, okay, I got it. I was being held captive by some majorly badass dudes. Escape was not an option.
Yet, anyway…
Chapter Seven
Any hope of me getting away came down to seizing the right opportunity—if I ever got one.
We traveled fast on a highway, so overpowering my guards and leaping out a door was pretty much out, and this thing didn’t have a moonroof, though honestly, I could’ve made one. Through the windshield, I caught a glimpse of glowing green traffic signs mounted overhead in the dark: Interstate 10 and Exit 239A—Louisa Street. Then we crossed a canal. The Carter brothers weren’t exactly brilliant conversationalists; they just stared hungrily at my body. In fairness, it would have been hard to get a word in edgeways, anyway; the Count was a real motor mouth. In fact, he wouldn’t shut up about the disgusting careers of his minions and the history of the swampy subdivisions we were driving over. Finally, I’d had enough. I admit that I’d been pretty scared when I’d first been forced into the van, but the more he kept blabbing on and on, the more impatient I was just to cut to the chase.
“Look,” I said finally, “Either shut the hell up—or for Chrissakes just shoot me now!” I braced myself for the shock of transformation—it always begins as a kind of flickering candle-flame image of my altered winged and clawed state—but to my surprise, Saint-Cyr laughed.
“My apologies, Madame. Of course, we don’t wish to harm you in any way.”
Right, which is why you kidnap people in the first place, to make them feel all warm and fuzzy.
“Then what do you want?” I almost said, ‘what do you wish.’ His formal accent was sort of contagious.
“You, Madame Moon. We desire you to join us. You are a legend!”
“I am?”
“But of course. It was you who defeated our order a century and a half ago and allowed the heretics to escape. Now they are our most bitter enemies, but I believe that once they know you are with us, they will lose hope and surrender.”
Whoa—a century and a half ago? Obviously, the dude was either totally delusional or seriously math-challenged. I was certainly not one hundred and fifty years old. To be honest, I was starting to become a little sensitive about my true age, which was still south of forty, especially since I had no way of looking in the mirror or snapping selfies. Kingsley (not to mention several other very interested parties) had assured me I looked more like twenty-five, which is one of the bennies of being a vampire.
On the minus side, undeath seemed to make a lot of people go slowly crazy over time, like Rachel Hanner—or that crusty old vampire, Dominique, who had nearly killed me in Riverside, and whom Kingsley had dismembered under the Los Angeles River. Or, for that matter, Count Saint-Cyr, or whatever his real name was…
“And if I don’t?”
“Then, of course, we must kill you. Surely even you can see that. It is simple logic. Let us not talk of such unpleasantries, my dear. I’m sure you will see reason. You know, in your time, all this land about us”—he waved to indicate the neighborhood we were passing through, which appeared to be called Village de l’Est—“was wild swampland and belonged to les loups-garous. The werewolves. They owned all the lands outside the city and were constantly at war with our kind. It was you who made the treaty between us. The vampires of la Nouvelle-Orléans called you ‘l’amante de loups’, not entirely a compliment. But of course, you remember this far better than I. I was still in Germany in those distant days.”
O-okay…
I could tell it was about to be do or die time very soon. Vampires like me are hard to kill, but it can be done. The silver-tipped bolts, glinting in the striped highway lighting coming through the van windows on either side of me, had the power do it if shot straight through my heart. Some people say I would then have to be burned, too, and have a brick stuck between my jaws, but I wasn’t anxious to test either of those theories.
Our little convoy turned off the interstate onto Michoud Avenue and plunged into marshland. The vans picked up speed, passing pinpricks of light through the darkness of the trees. Overhead, the night sky looked like a giant Rorschach test, darkness bleeding into green-orange clouds lit by moonlight and the glow of the city.
“Who is this guy Rorschach and why does he keep painting pictures of you people?” I muttered.
“Pardon?”
“Nothing. Dumb old joke.”
Out to sea, lightning flared.
“Just heat lightning,” said one of the Carter brothers beside me, sniffing the air. “There will be no rain.”
We pulled in to a huge abandoned parking lot and sped through it diagonally, hitting potholes and bouncing up and down. The silhouettes of roller coaster rides and a big Ferris wheel slid across the sky to my left; we were in an abandoned amusement park. ‘Six Flags New Orleans’ read the crumbling sign on the big entrance arcade. All three vans stopped in front of it, and my ‘escorts pushed and pulled me out onto the filthy pavement.
I was getting tired of this treatment—and again, I almost made a break for it. Something kept me from cutting loose, a kind of sixth sense, I guess. I had the weirdest feeling that somebody I cared about waited inside those arcade gates, and for the first time that night, pure terror pierced me. Surely, they couldn’t be holding Anthony or Tammy somewhere in there…?
We passed a wrecked turnstile. This place didn’t come close to Disneyland for size exactly, but it still had a big layout. Only, half of it had become overgrown or filled with rotting debris. Boardwalk signs and building walls had been covered with gang graffiti, spray-painted ghosts, and grinning skulls.
“All this flooded after the hurricane,” said Saint-Cyr. “The wreckage is an irresistible lure to foolish human youth to play in, and therefore a constant source of fresh blood for us. Those who explore it at night are rarely missed if they do not return.”
A rumble of thunder preceded the sudden smell of approaching rain. Obviously, the Carter brothers weren’t exactly professional meteorologists. Their silent, black-clad shapes, along with those of the rest of their crew surrounded me as we walked down a darkened and vandalized replica of Bourbon Street, its wrought-iron balconies and faded window awnings spattered with splashes of color from paintball battles. I noticed that some of my captors carried empty plastic gallon jugs. We turned and approached the starkly silhouetted hulk of a spinner swing with dangling chains. Another group of robed figures stood beneath it, dwarfed by its height.
I felt a raindrop, and off in the distance, I could have sworn a dog howled.
“You will have heard of Madame Marie Delphine Lalaurie, of course, and this is Don Francisco Galvez and his daughter Michaela…”
My gaze had already strayed past them. The naked body of a pale human girl dangled upside down, unmoving from one of the swing chains overhead, her black hair hanging down to brush the ground. At first, I thought her dead, but then a faint moan escaped her lips. As I moved closer, staring in shock, I saw that a spigot tap, the kind you see at a campus kegger party,
had been embedded into her jugular vein. One of the vampires filled a wineglass from it; as I watched, he turned the tap off and held the goblet out to me.
“Thank you, Charles,” said Saint-Cyr. “Won’t you join us in a libation, Madame Moon?”
I stared in horror at the girl, and it hit me: Wendy Lo, the young missing person I’d come to New Orleans to find for her parents, dead or alive. Was I already too late to save her? My heart raced in anticipation of what I knew I had to do…
Chapter Eight
Lightning flashed, illuminating the scene for a second like a Hollywood set. A near-simultaneous crack of thunder shook the ground. In seconds, sheets of rain came down all around us, the canopy of the spinner acted as an umbrella.
“We really must have an answer from you, my dear. We would prefer to have you as one of our family, but if you will not, then you will share the fate of this young vessel.” He shrugged. “It is said you can transform into a desmodo gigas sapiens, a gift that is given to very few of us. Perhaps your blood will confer that power; therefore, it is a precious commodity. I look forward to sampling it myself if you remain stubborn.” That explained the empty plastic jugs.
More howling echoed in the distance, and several of the vampires exchanged glances.
“Surely they would not dare to come ‘ere!” said Madame Lalaurie in a high-pitched French accent. She wore an expensive Chanel outfit and looked nothing like Kathy Bates, who played her on TV, by the way. She was more like an unattractive version of the Kardashians’ mom.
Almost unnoticed in the storm, I became aware of several car headlights swimming toward us through the pouring rain. My kidnappers raised their crossbows; one of the Carters shot at a dark shadow flitting in front of the oncoming lights, and another howl came from the dark, this one from up close. Then I spotted other shapes through the curtain of water.
