by Jonah Hewitt
Before Nephys had a chance to consider what this all meant the Great Master’s whole body began to shake from a racking cough that shook the entire chamber. The lanterns and candles flickered tremulously in the exhaust of its hacking, wheezing breath. It arched its great neck upward as if struggling for breath, its feet clawing away desperately on the floor. The man instantly stood up and raised his arms to placate the beast, as if it were only a rearing animal he was trying to calm and not the Great Master, but the flailing and struggling for breath continued.
The candles began to sputter and fade until the room was nearly dark. Nephys felt something terrible pull on his insides. It was like the tug on his soul when he had angry thoughts, only worse many times. Instead of pulling him in the direction of the Pits of Punishment, it was pulling him everywhere and nowhere. It was pulling him apart. He gasped for breath. Then slowly, slowly, the coughing fit subsided. Nephys could breathe again. He looked up. The candles had stopped flickering and began to burn steadily once more. The man stroked the neck of the great beast like he was stroking the neck of a favorite old horse that was very near the end of its life. The Great Master was lying on the floor, its chest heaving slowly as it composed itself. Suddenly, the face of the man turned towards him, followed by the shrouded head of Death himself.
Nephys forced his eyes to the floor and trembled. Even though he had thought he had long ago lost all faith he couldn’t help but call on the names of the gods of the black land, “Anubis! Isis! Osiris! Gods of the Underworld! Hear me!” he frantically whispered. He heard the clattering of a dozen clawed and horny feet scrape across the floor as the monster struggled to get up. It was coming for him. “Horus farsighted! Savior! Protector! Protect me! Amun, Hidden One, All-Father! Spare me!” He considered calling out to the gods of the Greeks and Romans too, and his Uncle’s favorite, Mithras, but then the amber light faded to a narrow sliver and then disappeared entirely. Then he heard the sound of footsteps. Not clawed, gigantic feet but simple sandals on stone. The door had closed. The Great Master had not come. The sound of the footsteps came closer slowly until Nephys saw the toes of simple silver Egyptian sandals stop directly in front of him.
“Arise, Nefer,” the voice spoke in his own language with a dialect older than even the one his grandmother used. The speaker’s voice was dead, calm and toneless, and strangely he had used the more ancient form of Nephys’ name. “Arise Nefer. We have been expecting you.”
Nephys slowly looked up. Before him was a tall man wearing a silver visor like a hawk’s beak over his eyes. He was dressed as one of Nephys’ own countrymen, but in a more ancient style.
“I am the Grand Chamberlain, High Vizier and Chief Lieutenant, Second only to the Great Master, Lord of all his Servants and High Priest of all his Mysteries.”
Nephys gulped. The man reiterated these titles without a trace of vanity and spoke them as if they were nothing more than a grocery list that had to be gotten out of the way before he could get on to business. He said the next thing just as monotonously, but it fell like thunder on Nephys’ ears.
“And I pray that you can help us.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
A Shirt
“What on earth are you two mouth-breathers doing?” Schuyler’s exasperated voice came unexpectedly from behind Miles. Miles and Tim turned around slowly only to see Schuyler leaning against a lamppost nonchalantly. He had snuck up on them without them even noticing while they were hiding in the bushes across the street from the hospital. He was looking at them as contemptuously as if they were a pile of dog crap stuck to his shoe.
“What does it look like were doing?! We’re hiding!!” Tim whispered back hoarsely.
Schuyler put his face in his hands and massaged his temples as if he was trying to forestall the onset of a stroke. “You two don’t have the brains God gave a doorstop,” he said at last. Then he dropped his hands and walked over to them shaking his head in subdued rage.
“NO! You are not hiding. You’re crouching in the bushes like a couple of low-rent peeping toms! That’s what you’re doing.”
“Well, you’re the one who told us to hide and wait for you!!” Miles shot back.
“I did not tell you to hide. I told you to stay out of sight!”
“So that’s what we did!!”
“Yeah, but not like THIS!” After yelling at them, Schuyler tried to calm himself. He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth and held out his trembling hands as if he were wringing the thick neck of some invisible person.
“How. In. The. Heck!! Did you survive this long as a vampire, Miles?!!” Schuyler’s frustration was palpable. “Seriously!!! How did you get this far without learning the FIRST THING about being a vampire!! You do NOT hide in bushes!! People who hide in bushes attract suspicion. Muggers and perverts hide in bushes!! Not vampires!!”
“So where were we supposed to hide?” Tim asked innocently.
“You hide in plain sight, morons!! You blend in!!” Schuyler could tell he wasn’t getting through to them, so he went over to Miles’ shoulder, leaned over and pointed down the street. “Look, you stand at the bus stop where people assume you’re waiting for a bus, OR, you find a park bench and take a seat and fake a conversation like ordinary people, OR, you stand on the street corner opposite a pub or a coffee shop where people figure you just came out and are waiting for a cab, OR, you stand out in front of the hospital doors where people assume you’re on a cigarette break!”
Schuyler pointed out each of these locations in turn as he spoke. Now that he pointed them out, Miles had to admit they all seemed like far more obvious and plausible choices than bent over in a patch of scraggly park bushes, but Schuyler wasn’t finished.
“But whatever you do…” Schuyler went on, “You don’t hide in a bush under a streetlamp with your butts hanging out in full view of a jogging path!!”
Miles and Tim craned their necks behind them to see the clearly marked jogging path. Neither of them had seen it before, and Miles hadn’t even thought about the streetlamp! They exchanged embarrassed looks. Then they slowly stood up, shuffled their feet and stuck their hands in their pockets like children caught stealing candy. After a minute with Schuyler’s flared nostrils indignantly staring them down, Tim spoke,
“Dude, it was Miles’ idea.”
Miles rolled his eyes. It was bad enough that Schuyler snuck up on them unnoticed; it was another to be ratted out by a lousy Renfield. Miles punched Tim in the arm.
“Ouch!” Tim nearly fell over. “Remember what Hokharty said!! I’m not supposed to be harmed!!” Tim rubbed the offended arm and launched an accusing glance at Miles.
“Yeah, well don go an’ make me regret tellin’ ya Hokharty said that!” Miles shot back.
“Miles, don’t touch Tim,” Schuyler intervened.
“Why are ya takin’ his side?!”
“Because he’s a lousy Renfield and YOU’RE the vampire! You should know better.”
“Thank you!!” Tim said. Then thinking it over, “Hey, wait…”
“If you girls are finished?!” Schuyler interrupted them. He was staring upwards as if wishing he could be anywhere else. “We have some work to do.” He trailed off and started walking off towards a darker section of the park along the riverfront. Miles and Tim elbowed for position for a moment before following sheepishly like a couple of whipped puppies.
Miles put his hands into the pockets of his denim jacket and stared at his shoes dejectedly as Schuyler led them to a less conspicuous spot away from the street opposite the hospital and closer towards the riverbank. It had been a miserable trip. The first half had been endless arguments of the route and the music selection, but amazingly, the second half was worse. Somehow, Tim and Sky had bonded over their favorite 70’s music. It turned out Schuyler didn’t hate everything about the 70’s after all. It started with the Eagles and then eventually ranged to the Steve Miller Band and some early Cars, but Miles never would have pegged Schuyler as an Earth, Wind and Fire guy. Along th
e way the two talked cars, music and even women. Listening to Tim earnestly seeking Sky’s sage advice on romance had to be lowlight of the trip.
Miles tried to point out to Tim the fallacies of Sky’s approach to women. “How desperate do you have to be to take advice from a bloodsucker?” or “Hey mate, you do know that Sky treats his women like meat…LITERALLY!” or “Isn’t this a bit like asking advice on roadkill from a vulture?” When that didn’t work, Miles tried a more subtle approach, “Excuse me, Miss, but me fangs seem to have gotten stuck in your neck” or “Pardon me, but Miss, but would you happen to be AB negative? Because O+ is a bit too common for me.” But all of Miles’ interjections from the backseat were ignored.
Thankfully the arguments returned once they hit the outskirts of Harrisburg. Tim was certain he knew right were the hospital was until he got them lost on the wrong side of the river. After the first fifteen minutes of arguing, Miles had to physically lie down in the backseat of the Impala and pull his jeans jacket up over his head to shut out the bickering. While the two sorted out the directions something really odd had happened though. Miles dozed off.
Vampires didn’t sleep, not really, but you could fade off a bit. The last time Miles remembered fading off like that was on a train outside Philly back in the thirties, but that wasn’t the oddest bit. Miles had actually dreamed, though it was more of a nightmare really. He saw some strange, pig-like thing that looked like it had been speared with three or four old flutes. Then there was a boy with a shaved head, and he was screaming and clawing his way through white rapids, or fog or something, Miles couldn’t tell. Then he saw what looked like big-eyed kittens in wimples and crowns. Whatever the heck that meant. Dreams were crazy. Then he saw the dirty face of a boy in a cap. The boy’s face was stern and cold and lifeless and he was doing yo-yo tricks of all things. His face morphed into the face of a beautiful woman with grey eyes and long hair. Just as that face lunged at him, Schuyler shook him awake. The three had finally arrived at the hospital. Tim parked down the street a block or two from the hospital and Sky went in to check things out and told them to stay out of sight. That’s when he and Tim had made the poor decision to hide in the bushes where Schuyler had found them.
Now following Sky down the short distance to the river’s edge, Miles scratched the back of his head and tried to remember the dream that was already disappearing from his memory. It seemed like he had seen the boy before, but he couldn’t remember where. Schuyler led them to the edge of the water. The top floors of the hospital hi-rise could still be seen above the trees in the park, but they were out of view of the street and the lobby entrance. Comfortable that they were now safely out of sight; Schuyler began his report.
“Alright, dudes, here’s the deal…she’s here.”
“You found her?!” Tim seemed surprised.
“Yeah, her room’s on the fourth floor, she’s fine physically, but they are worried she’s gone a little coo-coo.” Schuyler crossed his eyes and spun an index finger next to his temple.
“Coo-coo?” Tim asked.
“Yeah, apparently she ran into traffic this morning. They’re afraid she’s a little shell-shocked since the accident, and they’ve been keeping her under a tight watch ever since then.”
“Accident?” Miles asked, but before he got an answer, Tim interjected a question of his own.
“And you found this out…how?”
“The receptionist told me the whole story.”
“And she just told confidential patient information to a complete stranger who walked in off the street…because?” asked Tim.
“Dude…she’s a woman and…it’s me,” Schuyler smiled.
Miles sighed. This was Sky’s answer to everything. How a shirtless seventeen-year-old in a silk blazer with a fake plastic lollipop managed to get the most private information from unsuspecting women was a complete mystery to Miles, but he had seen him do it enough times to stop questioning it.
Schuyler went on, “Besides, she’s been pestered all day long by this orderly who’s been hitting on her and I think she was desperate to get rid of him. That’s when I came in.” Sky ran his fingers through his hair in a gesture of triumph.
“Sweet,” said Tim in admiration.
“I know,” Sky said affirmatively, basking in Tim’s misplaced respect.
After a few seconds, Miles had to jar the two out of this silent reverie. “So what now? An’ow are we supposed to convince ‘er to come with us?!” Miles said, exasperated.
“So now we have to find a way to talk to her,” Schuyler replied as if the matter were obvious.
“But you said she’s always bein’ watched! ‘ow do we…” Miles began, but Tim jumped in.
“Look, Hokharty left me in charge and he said we can’t just grab her, so what do we do? We need to get her alone. We need a plan.”
“No. What we need is an introduction,” Schuyler said emphatically, gesturing with the lollipop like it was a conductor’s baton. “Right now she’s in the coffee shop with some chick, probably a fancy lawyer from corporate judging from the expensive shoes. Manolos. Very nice.” You could always count on Sky to notice things like that. “BUT, they were heading for the gift shop when I left, so the situation’s perfect.” Sky stuck the lollipop in his mouth and fingered the stick. This always meant he was scheming.
Miles’ eyes widened. “Perfect? She’s never alone!! ‘ow is the bloody situation perfect?!”
Schuyler smiled and explained, “Hospital gift shop, public space, lots of traffic, perfect opportunity for two strangers to make a connection.” Schuyler raised his eyebrows at Miles and twirled the lollipop in his mouth.
Miles slouched. “Oh…no…Ya’ve got to be sassin’ me.”
“No seriously, don’t you see? It’s perfect!” Schuyler insisted. “We’ll bump into each other, apparently at random, just a friendly conversation. I’ll get to know her first and then we can slowly ease her into the whole trip back to the vampire den thing.”
“Bloody heck, SKY!! She’s not one of yur ditzy freshman bloodbags.”
“She’s a girl, she’s vulnerable, she’ll want to open up to a friendly ear….” Sky was ticking off his talking points on his fingers.
“She’s just a kid, Sky.”
“Even better. She’ll be working out certain issues…”
“She’s bloody thirteen!” Miles tried to inject some sanity into the conversation.
“No…no it’s a magical age, their bodies are changing, they are uncertain of themselves, they are just starting to recognize boys, perfect time for the Schuyler experience.”
“Ugh.” Miles thought he was going to be sick.
“I’ll be gentle, I promise. Whaddya say, Tim? Hokharty put you in charge.”
“Um…maybe…” Tim said, mulling it over.
“Saints ‘n Angels!! I canna believe ya are seriously considering lettin’ Sky hit on a thirteen year old.”
“All right, smart guy, so what’s your plan?” Schuyler jabbed the lollipop at Miles. “Walk up to her in a crowded lobby and say ‘Hi little girl! Hey, not to freak you out or anything, but we’re two vampires and a Renfield and we’re here on a mission from the Father of all Vampires to take you back to Philly. Come on and jump into our 1970’s landyacht! It’s got a trunk big enough to hold four girls your age!! OH! And did we mention that we have the corpse of your dead mother back at our place and it just might be the end of the world?’ Oh, no! Nothing suspicious about that! You might as well go trolling around the elementary school with a bag full of chocolate bars.” Sky stuck the plastic lollipop into his mouth and folded his arms across his chest and gave them a smug look.
Miles and Tim exchanged embarrassed glances. “Well when ya say it like that…” thought Miles. From their defeated postures, Sky knew he had won this argument.
“Ok, this is gonna take some thought.” Sky took the lollipop out of his mouth and stared out into the distance, lost in contemplation. “Thirteen year olds aren’t like college
girls.”
“No foolin,’ yer gom,” said Miles. Sky ignored him.
“They aren’t looking for excitement or bad boys. No, they want to play it safe.”
“Canya get any creepier?” Miles was disgusted that Sky had actually thought it out this far, but no one was listening to him anymore. Schuyler continued his monologue as if he were pondering some deep philosophical truth.
“No. They want nurturing, they want protection, they want a nice guy, a safe guy, a sorta older brother figure, or the boy next door, approachable, not too pretty, not too weird, not too different.”
Sky stuck the lollipop back in his mouth and moved it from side to side. Finally after a long pause he spoke.
“This is gonna take all of my skills…THIS…is gonna take…a shirt.”
“A shirt?” Tim asked, nervously feeling his own t-shirt.
Schuyler turned to look at each of them in turn and eyed up his potential wardrobe choices. Miles was first. Miles was wearing a thin, summer-weight, v-neck, navy sweater. It was threadbare and stained. Worse yet, Miles was so short, it probably wouldn’t cover Schuyler’s long lean torso, leaving him with a ridiculous bare midriff.
Miles flinched under Schuyler’s discerning gaze. “Hmmm,” Schuyler mused disapprovingly. Schuyler turned to consider Tim’s couture. Underneath a plain, gray hoodie with “Thomas Jefferson Memorial University Hospital” stamped on it, Tim was wearing a brown faux-vintage, iron-on decal t-shirt that read: “Han shot first.” Schuyler looked up at him and smiled.
Miles breathed a sigh of relief.
“Dude,” Tim protested.
“It’s for the cause. C’mon, take one for the team, Solo, she’s never gonna talk to some boy without a shirt – it’s too threatening.”
“An’ I wonders why any girl would talk to sumun without a shirt,” Miles interjected.
Schuyler ignored Miles again and continued to make the sale to Tim, “You can wear the blazer.”
