“Huh. I hope he doesn’t expect me to play Avon lady because fuck that,” she replied. “What the hell is this crap anyway?”
“Hand cream.”
“Seriously? Any reason why?
“He lost his medical license ... again, and I guess he’s just trying to make a living.”
“He’s not still experimenting with...?”
“No idea. Don’t know. Didn’t ask. Besides, it’s just moisturizer.”
She shrugged dismissively. “Not like I care. Never liked him to begin with.”
I wasn’t about to argue. Dave was an ... acquired taste, in that he was kind of an asshole. But asshole or not, he was still my friend, and yet another of the small group who’d survived the events of five years ago.
“So I assume that means you haven’t tried it yet,” I said.
“Why would I?”
I was tempted to point out the anti-aging cream part of the label, but figured that might get me decked. “I don’t know. Everyone needs to ... moisturize every now and then.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Please tell me you haven’t been using it to jack off.”
Rather than answer that somewhat personal question – it was only a few times – I quickly changed the subject. I’d allowed myself to be lulled into a false sense of security by her presence. It was time to get back on track.
I brought her up to speed as quickly as I could – free to use whatever adjectives I wanted now that I was out of earshot of the little girl trying to bankrupt me with a swear jar.
“How the fuck is that even possible?” Sally replied once I was finished, the kind auntie veneer cast to the side. That was fine, though. This was the side of her I was most comfortable with. “Vamps don’t exist anymore. They were wiped out when we destroyed The Source.”
“Thanks for the history lesson. I was there. I’m also aware that every witch and wizard on the planet has been firing blanks ever since, yet that didn’t stop the little girl out there from nearly incinerating my living room with a goddamned fireball.”
“She did, eh?” Sally asked, a half grin on her face. “Can’t say I’d be sorry to see that shithole burn down. No idea why you still live there, especially after Sheila dumped your...” She trailed off, no doubt noticing the glare o’ death I was giving her. “Anyway, guess she takes after her mother. Speaking of which, what’s up with you two? I’ve heard ... a few things.”
I knew where this was going, but we needed to prioritize here. Save the rumor mill shit for later. “She’s on a business trip and I can’t get in touch with her. I’m getting kind of worried.”
Sally waved a hand. “She’s a big girl. She can take care of herself.”
“I hope you’re right.”
She threw me a wry grin at my note of concern, then asked, “Do you think she noticed?”
“What?”
“That magic is a thing again?”
“No idea. But I can’t see how she could have missed it. Even I felt it, and it’s not like I have any residual hankering for blood in my system.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. Didn’t you? Hell, I was surprised you didn’t try calling me first.”
She shook her head. “Obviously not. Didn’t notice a thing. I was going over marketing proposals before you texted.”
“No ... um, headaches, anything like that?”
“Nope. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“That’s strange.” I explained to her first that weird sense of dread, then that feeling of tiredness.
“Are you sure you’re not just coming down with something?”
“You mean aside from pant-shitting fear?”
“As usual, thanks for the visual.”
“Anytime.” I paused and turned serious. “You do believe me, right?”
She rolled her eyes, a familiar gesture. “I wish I didn’t. I really do. I’d love nothing more than to ask what you’ve been smoking so I know to stay far away from it. But I can’t. After all this time, I think I know how to read you. So, no. I don’t think you’re full of shit.”
“Glad to know I have some integri...”
“That still doesn’t mean it makes any sense.” She stood up, stretched her back, and started to pace. “I don’t know. I guess it’s possible for there to maybe be some sort of ... stutter, I guess, in the fabric of reality. And I suppose I can buy a Magi tapping into it. I mean, who knows how that magic crap works anyway? But vampires? That simply shouldn’t be possible. The things, ex-dimensional spirits or whatever you want to call them, that made us vamps got sucked out of us like a freaking Hoover.”
I couldn’t help but grin, so she pointed a finger at me. “Don’t even think of making a blowjob joke, Bill. I might be old enough to be your mother, but I’d still put money on me kicking your ass.”
I chuckled. “Me too, grandma.”
Normally she’d snipe back, but she merely shook her head and sat down. “I won’t lie. Some days I really do feel my age. I mean, I was okay when this,” she gestured down at herself, “happened. Figured I owed karma for all the stuff I’d done as a vamp. But that was then. Now ... it just sucks to feel old.”
I considered that. When The Source was destroyed, all of the vamps in the world – a not inconsiderable number – had reverted back to human. That wasn’t all, though. Their bodies had quickly deteriorated to match their true ages. It had been a death sentence for most. Within minutes they withered, died, and turned into piles of old bones. For those who hadn’t lived past their normal lifespan, the results were a mixed bag. Vamps like me, Dave, and my ex-roommate Ed – who’d only been undead for a short time – saw almost no change. Sally, however, had been a vamp for about thirty years. As a result, in the space of seconds she went from being an eternal bikini babe to middle-aged. At the time, she’d claimed to be okay with it. My ribbing aside, though, her confession was the first I’d heard that might not actually be the case.
“I do what I can – eat right, work out when I’m able to, but it’s not the same.” She looked me in the eye, sounding weary as she spoke. “Is it wrong to occasionally wish I could have the old me back ... not the bloodthirsty monster, mind you, but the rest?”
I opened my mouth, but she waved me off. “You don’t have to say anything, I know it’s stupid. Even so, if what you told me is true... God, I hate to steal lines from movies. That’s your schtick. But, I can’t help but feel I’m too old for this shit.”
“Believe me, I get it. I had to fight off two vamps on my own.”
“But how? And no, I don’t mean the fighting part. How could they even exist? The door’s closed. Hell, even if ... and that’s a big if ... it were opened again, something would have to act as a catalyst. You remember Calibra’s story about how the vampire race was created, right?”
Hard to forget. Calibra, known as the White Mother to some and Ib the First to others, had been both a master mage as well as the first vampire, a being over five-thousand years old. In a monologue worthy of a James Bond villain, she’d told us how the undead first came to be – basically a major magical fuck-up on her part that resulted in human souls being merged with the spirits of ... things, I guess, from outside this reality.
Her screw-up soon became a self-sustaining process. These new entities, vampires, required blood to survive. However, by feeding, a vamp could then infect a person – their venom, for lack of a better term, essentially acting as a lure for another spirit to enter our world and merge with the victim.
It was only by closing The Source that we broke the cycle, ripping all of those spirits out of their human hosts and banishing them back to whatever Hell they’d come from.
Sally was right. There were a lot of things that would need to happen, most of them seemingly impossible, for vampires to reappear in this world. That wasn’t even counting the fact that the ones I’d seen hadn’t been normal garden-variety vamps.
“There’s something else, too.”
“You mean that’s not all?�
�� she asked, massaging her temples.
“The ones who showed up at my apartment were neo-vamps. Golden eyes, cool with sunlight, all that shit.”
She actually laughed, but there was little humor behind it. “Then it’s even less possible. There were only two of those: Ed and your creepy wannabe girlfriend.”
“Thanks for the reminder.”
“Anytime. So, about Ed...”
“So far as I know, he’s on a plane right now. Should be landing at JFK in...” I looked at my watch, ready to dismiss it as having plenty of time left, but then remembered I’d left my car back in Brooklyn. “Shit. I gotta leave to pick him up in a few.” I made a mental note to keep track of the time. “But anyway, last time I talked to him, he was just Ed. Not to mention I don’t recall giving him any reason to kill me.”
“He did live with you for several years. Maybe it’s all catching up to him.”
I flipped her the finger, keeping it low so Tina didn’t see me through the window. “Be that as it may, I highly doubt it. Problem is, he was the only person who could make new ones. Gan was sterile, or so she claimed.”
Sally nodded. “More importantly, she’s dust in the wind. Good riddance, too. Wish I’d known which pile of ashes down there was hers. Might have grabbed some as a keepsake.”
“Yeah ... dust.” You’d think, as an adult in his early thirties, I would have developed a bit of a poker face by now. Unfortunately, there were still some subjects that made me squirm.
“Bill?” Sally asked.
“Yes?”
“Why are you fidgeting?”
“I’m not fidgeting.”
“Yes you are. Is there something you’re not telling me?”
Shit! So far as I was aware, Sheila and I were the only members of our circle who knew that Gan was alive. She’d approached us two years ago, just as our relationship was getting off the ground. I wasn’t sure if it was a miracle or curse, but Gan had inexplicably survived where all other ancient vamps had perished.
Not only that, but she’d started aging normally. For three hundred years she’d lived as an eternal twelve year old, but when we saw her, she’d looked to be in her teens. Mind you, our meeting hadn’t been all wine and roses. Her purpose for seeing us was to give fair warning that she’d be coming for me one day and, sadly, not in a revenge sort of way.
Weirded out as Sheila and I had been, we’d both agreed that it was probably for the best to keep it to ourselves.
Why? I don’t know. Maybe because there was nothing any of us could do about it now, We were all human again, not murderous monsters.
My hesitation in answering Sally as I considered this did not go unnoticed.
“Bill, I’m going to ask you a simple question. I hope the answer is yes, but if you’re lying, I’ll know. My hip is a little sore today from Zumba class, so please don’t give me an excuse to put my foot up your ass.” She leaned over her desk and put a sweet smile on her face. For a moment, she looked like the old Sally, meaning the young Sally. Her expression bespoke of innocence and hope, which was complete and utter bullshit. It was the look she usually gave me right before she flipped the fuck out. Oh boy. “Was Ed the only neo-vamp who survived?”
“Um, not entirely.”
“Good. Now we’re getting somewhere. Let’s go for the bonus round. Is that little fucking bitch still alive?”
I glanced out the window. Tina was still happily engaged in the play area. Please want a drink of water or to use the bathroom. Sadly, she appeared quite content for the moment.
Oh well. Time to rip off this bandage and see how much it hurt. “I ... didn’t exactly ask to see her ID or anything.”
There came a scraping sound – Sally digging her nails into the desk. “How long have you known?”
“Two years.”
“Does anyone else know?”
I told her what had happened, all the while watching her nails begin to bend as she put more pressure on them. Safe to say, she wasn’t all too pleased.
“And you didn’t think to inform the rest of us?”
I let out a long sigh, one I’d been subconsciously holding ever since that day outside the cemetery when Gan had revealed herself. “She was ... human.”
“That’s not the point. How the fuck did she survive?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t either.”
Sally gave up trying to gouge a furrow in her desk in favor of pounding her hand onto the surface. “Goddamnit, Bill!”
“I’m sorry.”
“You should have told us. You should have told me.”
I held up my hands in placation. “You’re probably right, but tell me this. What good would that have done? Seriously? What would you have done about it?”
She rubbed her hand, glaring at me in silence for several seconds before nodding as if to acknowledge I had a point. “Not too long ago, I would have...”
“Yeah, before. But that’s not you anymore.”
“I might have made an exception for her.”
“And gone to jail for life?”
“Would have been worth it.”
I smiled. “Maybe. But like I said, she was as human as you and I. And even if she wasn’t, it’s not like she could infect anyone else.”
Sally took a deep breath and looked me in the eye again, dead serious. “I understand that. But what you don’t understand is what this potentially means.”
“Fine. Spell it out for me then.”
“If even one, just one, person survived that hell who shouldn’t have, then that means it’s possible others could have as well.”
WITCH WAY IS UP?
I tried to convince Sally to come with me to pick up Ed. Unlike with Dave, she actually liked my former roommate. Hell, they’d even sort of pseudo-dated back in the day, at least when I hadn’t been busy cock-blocking them.
Ah, good times.
Regardless, with the weirdness afoot, I wasn’t comfortable leaving her alone. True, there was no indication that anything that was happening involved her, and there hadn’t been any more of those magical surges since we’d arrived in Manhattan. At least I assumed that was the case judging by how Tina hadn’t blown any holes in the floor yet.
Sally’s response was to direct my attention to the safe beneath her desk, within which sat a nine millimeter semi-automatic. It was a far cry from the hand cannon she used to carry during her fanged days, but less likely to knock her on her ass. For my part, I didn’t bother to ask if she had a permit. I had a feeling it was better if I didn’t know the answer.
Nevertheless, she was adamant that she’d be okay. By then I was running too late to argue. So, with a parting shot about hoping those weren’t famous last words, Tina and I headed out, promising to keep in touch should the day continue to be ... surreal.
Mind you, I might have preferred surreal to the horror that is driving to JFK on a weekend. We rode the train back to Brooklyn, seeing nothing out of the ordinary on the way, then hopped in my car and proceeded to rot in traffic. I swear, we could have walked there faster – not that I wanted to.
Thankfully there was one bright spot in a horizon filled with dipshit drivers.
About halfway there, my cell rang. I quickly glanced at the caller ID on the center display – ah, we’d come so far from the days of driving around in Ed’s old junker – then answered even quicker. “Thank goodness you’re okay.”
Okay, perhaps that was an overly melodramatic way to say hi, but fuck it.
There came a slight pause from the other end, which led me to believe either Christy was giving her phone a weird look or a sinister voice was about to reply, “We have the witch, Freewill.”
Fortunately, it was her. “I’m sorry I didn’t call back sooner. My phone was charging and I was stuck in a planning meeting that went on forever.”
“Hi, Mommy!” Tina called from the back seat.
“Hey, baby girl. Are you in the car?”
“Yeah, we’re going to get Uncle Eddie.”
>
It wasn’t just an honorific title like mine. In a few months, Ed would officially be her uncle, being that he was engaged to Tom’s sister Kara. I still had trouble wrapping my brain around that. He’d never been what I would consider a family man. Hell, during our time living together, he barely qualified as having human emotions ... and this was before the bizarre circumstances that led to him becoming a neo-vamp. But that was neither here nor there at the moment.
“That’s great. Tell him I look forward to seeing him. Let me talk to Bill now, okay?”
“Okay, Mommy.”
“I’ll see you soon.” And just as quickly, her tone changed, indicating she was addressing me. “I’m pretty sure I know why you called.”
“I’m going to venture a guess that you felt it, too,” I replied.
“Hard to miss. It was like someone flipped a switch in my body. One minute, all was normal. The next, the power was back on again. It was...”
“Weird?”
“Wonderful.” Her voice grew wistful. “Like being blind and then given a single glimpse of daylight.”
Wonderful wasn’t quite the word I’d use to describe my day, but I guess I could understand where she was coming from.
Not everyone had adjusted to normal life as well as she had. In the months following the destruction of The Source – basically the portal for all extra-dimensional power, magic, or whatever the fuck in our world – several support groups for ex-Magi had popped up.
From what Christy told me, the suicide rate for former mages was through the roof, made worse by the fact that it wasn’t exactly something they could talk to just anyone about. Witches and wizards had only other former Magi to talk to, and most of them weren’t exactly an upbeat crowd. Despite being labeled a traitor in the waning days of the war, due to siding with us instead of falling in line with her people’s returned messiah, it wasn’t long before Christy started volunteering her time at a local Magi support group.
It was ironic, in a way, because it had inadvertently led to Sheila walking out on me.
♦ ♦ ♦
Strange Days (Bill of the Dead Book 1) Page 4
