Knock: A Void City Novella

by J. F. Lewis

  “Whatever,” she said back, meaning, “I probably would have let you if you’d asked, asshole,” as she went about opening the containers from Carl’s Diner and divvying up the food into two disproportionate meals. My share wound up with no pancakes and hers with three orders of them. I laughed, then so did she and we were back in friend land again as if nothing had happened. Everyone needs a friend like Bacon. She’s a miracle. Unfortunately almost every Bacon has a friend like me and all of them would be better off without us.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Kyle: Errands at the Irons

  We cruised along the winding road in the Sanguine Hills area at the non-state park side of Bald Mountain in Bacon’s little ragtop Jeep. Bacon drove slower than even the rattlesnake curves of the road required, taking in the multimillion dollar homes which served as second residences to the truly powerful who spent most of their days (and nights) in the Highland Towers plotting and scheming against one another. Me, I just enjoyed the sun on my skin and the wind.

  She’d regret having the top down if it started raining, but I thought she’d be okay for a bit. It was nice to see her so unguardedly smiling even if it was at the impressive-looking homes of vampiric monsters.

  “They aren’t worth the price,” I told her.

  “Beautiful, though.” Bacon eyed them wistfully, chewing on her lip. “Hey. You ever try doing your knock and fade thing here?”

  “Most of them know better than to answer a door on the first knock.” I gestured at a home with a stylized “P” on the mailbox. “And some of the most impressive ones are empty of all but staff.

  “Lord Phillip, for example, he sends Thralls who are out of favor to do the upkeep on his place and they all know they’ll be there for years. Banished until he misses them, if he doesn’t just forget about them completely.

  “A surefire way to make him remember, though, would be to mess with one of them. Then I’d be slighting him, challenging him. He basically is Void City.

  “No vampire lower than a Master is allowed to own property here and more of them are Vlads than you might guess. I’m already in dutch with the Irons Club. And Duke Gornsvalt is bad enough without angering Lord Phillip, Ebon Winter, or Gabriella.”

  Past Lord Phillip’s manse came a long expanse of cherry trees, a crew of gardeners going over them with magnifying glasses and scissors to ensure the trees, the grass, everything was as perfectly manicured as inhumanly possible.

  “The grass is cut with fucking scissors?” Bacon scoffed.

  “Why not?” I said as boxwoods joined the arboreal canvas. “The vampires don’t care how long it takes and the Thralls get immortality out of it. Some of the Thralls will even get ‘promoted’ to vampire themselves after a period of indenture.”

  When the granite-hewn guard shack came into view, the trees and bushes become topiary: lions, tigers... predators of all types presented in glorious display, each (at night) carefully lit so those arriving after dark would be able to pick out, appreciate, and judge every detail.

  Coming to a stop into front of the massive iron gates, Bacon looked over at the security guy in his immaculate burgundy suit. I’m sure my hair was a mess- Bacon’s certainly was- but it was worth it to flaunt my ability to be out in the sun and besides, the weather was great. Enough cloud cover to keep the temperature from creeping higher than the eighties and at mid morning, it was already smelling like we might get a little rain.

  I squinted at the guard to check his master. Duke Gornsvalt’s symbol (a V within a V overlapping slightly and intersecting at the lower right of the leftmost V) appeared in lines of neon blue hovering in front of his brow. All Thralls have their owner’s symbol plainly visible to those who know how to look for one. The guard looked every bit the part of a Central Casting Befuddled Security Guard, but with sharp hawkish eyes which missed nothing. His name tag dubbed him Oscar. I hadn’t seen him before, but from the way his nose crinkled as if he detected the faint scent of excrement, it was clear he knew me.

  They have to be careful how rude they are because of Eric (“Pops” is as close as I can make myself get to calling him “Dad” even though it annoys Greta) Courtney and Greta, but riding the edge of the line was a hobby more and more people seemed to be taking up.

  “Master Kyle.” He inclined his head a fraction of an inch. “And... pet. Do you have an appointment?”

  I rolled my eyes. Taking potshots at Bacon was just plain stupid. She may not run with a herd or a pack, but she’s still an Alpha. Werewolves treat that like a position of authority rather than a measure of power, but an angry Alpha wereboar is still an angry Alpha wereboar and poking one in the snout is stupid if you’re not a dear friend.

  “You know what he’s here for, jackass.” Bacon leapt out of the Jeep and when she hit the asphalt, she had grown in height just a few inches. The engine shuddered to a halt (one of the joys of a standard transmission) as she stopped in the entrance to the guard’s booth, another few inches of height making her loom over Oscar, blocking him from my gaze. “It’s Saturday. Now, if you say the Duke is releasing LORD Kyle from his obligation, then we’re out of here, and that’s on you.”

  I love that woman. I couldn’t raise a stink about the disrespect, but Bacon was not my Thrall, so I wasn’t obligated to do a damn thing about her attitude... and while a Master or Vlad might give her trouble, facing someone else’s Thrall would be like a Heavy Weight Boxer fighting a kitten-in-a-sack.

  “If that’s what it is,” I made a show of having to recall his name and deliberately got it wrong, “Mr. Mayer… then I’m perfectly happy to go spend my Saturday somewhere fun. Hanging around the club playing blood donor for the Duke’s sanguine fermentation sorcery is definitely a chore I’d be happy to surrender.”

  “I know.” I pretended to perk up. “Maybe he can use your blood to make his Xinomavro or his Vinsanto? I know he’s said that only the blood of a Vrykolakas will work, for his Greek blood wines, but...”

  Oscar slapped a panel in the booth and iron gates swung open. A more human-sized Bacon jumped in the Jeep and started it back up.

  “You’re a real pal, Oscar Mayer,” I called without looking at him or giving any outward sign I thought it was funny to imply he was a wiener.

  Heh. I know it’s childish, but it would have made Greta laugh.

  “You’re not turning back into a Drone are you?” Bacon steered us along the curving path, to the main entrance. “Because that was lame even for Drone You.” Before I could answer, she cursed as the Jeep skidded off the edge of the road and onto the grass.

  “Ice?!” Last week it had been straightforward enough, but this week, along with the curves, patches of enchanted ice had been added. Vampire High Society is all about oneupmanship. If a vampire got jostled around unexpectedly because his driver didn’t know the Irons Club’s newest driveway hazing, then it looked bad on the Thrall and possibly on the vampire.

  We shoved the Jeep back onto the road and made it to the parking area with only one more minor skidding problem, but Bacon’s mood was still at a low ebb. Low enough to feed on, which I took as a bad sign.

  “You want to bail?” I asked. “If these guys are on your nerves more than usual, I’m cool if you don’t want to hang around.”

  “I’m fine.” Bacon headed across the asphalt to the main entrance which screamed welcome to the Antebellum South. “I don’t trust these guys with you.”

  She didn’t trust them with me, yet I was the jerk who’d jumped her and sucked the life force out of her this very morning. I was the one who took her for granted and used up all her off days and, particularly when I was between girlfriends, most of her free time at night. Well, whenever Greta wasn’t around.

  Getting exsanguinated sucks, by the way. I could regale you with all the gory details, the way the tubing gets set up, the way the sound system for the Irons Club involves real musicians endlessly practicing behind multiple glass partitions... each partition controlled by a volume knob, increasing or decreasi
ng the layers of sound proofing as needed. But the important part is that I owe the Duke one hundred years of Saturday blood donations in exchange for the help he gave me in finding a road back to being a vampire (like Greta), but one that would not keep Eric as my sire, thus obviating the whole Greta-as-sibling nonsense and fixing the damned Drone issue.

  Getting blood out of a vampire of any kind poses a dilemma. All their bodily excretions have basically been replaced with blood, but getting them to bleed steadily is hard. Vrykolakus are even trickier because we’re undead, true, but our bodies don’t care about blood so much. We can drink it, but it’s not optimal... plus too much blood makes a Vrykolakus start to puff up and look bloated in a nasty blood-engorged tick way. It makes me look like a monster, and unlike Greta, I don’t think being a monster is the exciting part about being immortal.

  I’d been wrong about Greta when I agreed to let Eric turn me. I’d known that Greta dug her old man, but I’d turned a blind eye to the way she idolized the killing and rage. She’s nuts. If I’m honest, the signs were all there. I just did a crappy job listening to and understanding the woman I love. Women may miss the little things, but men miss the big ones.

  Here’s a secret: I already figured out how to help Greta back when I was looking for a cure for my Drone problem. I haven’t done anything about it because helping her be sane wasn’t going to be as easy as ditching the Drone syndrome that Eric’s vampiric peculiarities inflicted on me.

  Her problems are deeper and less mystical than mine... I mean, I know what needs to happen to start the process, but I’m pretty sure she’d hate me if I did it. So, yeah, I’m too selfish to risk that because, crazy as she is, there’s always the chance she’ll get over the weird ass sibling thing and go back to being my lover.

  If someone else were to start the process, though...

  “Your sire certainly made some interesting mistakes last night, yes?”

  I blinked.

  Okay. During the whole draining process I have a tendency to zone out a little. Not to the extent Eric does- I mean, his brain is broken- but enough to be uncomfortable, like I can remember being smart when I got here.

  For almost a full minute, I just sat there unsure of who spoke or where I was. I knew Bacon though. My eyes searched for hers but not in a feeding way. She sat in an overstuffed armchair reading a battered and well-loved copy of Milton Murayama’s All I Asking for is My Body.

  “Kevin?” I half-whispered.

  You’d have thought I’d shot her in the rump with a bolt of lightning the way she came up out of the chair. She crossed the room in three strobe-like transformations.

  First step: Six feet, muscles standing out. Eyes glowing a piercing yellow-gold.

  Second step: Seven feet or more, tusks jutting out of the corners of her mouth. Neck thick. Skin darkening with the first scattering of rough bristle-like hairs.

  Third step: Full on wereboar, cloven hooved, massive, fully bristled.

  So... picture it.

  First, see the room. The Duke has spared less expense than that dude from Jurassic Park to outfit his club. We sat in a well-apportioned study the size of some libraries, but bedecked 1920’s adventurer-style with mounted and stuffed animals, dinosaur fossils (including an impressive appalachiosaurus fully wired and with custom lighting), ancient idols of precious metals and rough hewn stone, carvings, and (my favorite) a collection of animated wooden soldiers waging constant and futile combat against one another in a massive terrarium.

  Populate both open levels of the room with an impressive array of books and art by both mortal and immortal artists and writers. Add a fully functioning magic mirror, complete with rhyming demon, a comfortable sprawl of eclectic, yet exceedingly comfortable seating, a massive window of sunlight-shielded glass looking into a statue garden tended by a pair of ebony and ivory living statues... and seated in the area closest to a magic hearth, picture one miserable Vrykolakus with an antique silver medical device jammed into his arm. Tubes filled with red liquid trail off into an amber globe drip-filling like some grotesque coffee-brewing ritual overseen by a quartet of assistants: a meticulously attired butler, a magician in flip flops and board shorts chanting the mojo required to keep blood flowing smoothly, a pianist playing Thelonius Monk-style jazz on a baby grand carved of obsidian and dragon bone, and one wereboar in full transformative fury ready to kill everyone but me.

  Eying her with bemused approval, the butler, Piotr, Duke Gornsvalt’s head thrall moved his hands away from the equipment. He was gentile and well-mannered, but he’d approached Thralldom the same way Greta had approached prep for her final transformation. His body was as close to perfection as exercise and grooming could make him, using the benefits of Thralldom to lock him in that form for as long as the Duke held him under his sway and, I assume, he hoped to keep his physical body in the same shape when he graduated to vampire one day.

  Bacon still could have torn him in half and I almost asked her to do it.

  “I believe Master Kyle is having one of his blurry moments Miss Kevin, but by all means...” he gestured toward me.

  “You good, babe?” Bacon asked.

  “I’m...” she leaned in close, eyes open and inviting, searching mine, offering herself if I needed to take from her. There is no better friend than she. “... okay now. Sorry about that.”

  The jazz pianist deserved major coolness points for not even missing a note.

  One wereboar snout kiss to the temple later and Bacon loomed over me in human-mode, right hand protectively on my shoulder. That’s when I realized that she loves me. I put the knowledge aside because I really didn’t know what to do with or about it... other than to continue to use it to get what I wanted from her.

  Not all vampires are assholes, but most of us... yeah. Scumbags.

  “What were you saying, Piotr?” I asked. “Something about Pops being more of a screw up than usual?”

  “I believe her name is Tabitha,” Piotr continued, his voice sounding as if he were delivering the most delicious gossip imaginable. “Ebon Winter is taking bets on how long it will take for Lord Eric to try and divest himself of her. Plus, there was some apparent trouble in an alleyway...”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Kyle: The One Who Knocks... Once

  A full day of draining left me wobbling, irritable, and stubborn as they come. It always does, but there are some times that are better than others and this one wasn’t. Bacon helped me into the jeep, trying to cajole me into feeding off of her. She doesn’t like to see me this way. Even if I wanted to, and I don’t because there is a magic number with Vrykolakas and a tipping point. Too many feedings too close together and when the donor dies they’ll become a Vrykolakas, too. That’s got to be one hell of a middle finger to those who wake up immortal after dying of old age.

  It even works on therianthropes. I never feed off the same person more than twice in one day, even if it’s just for little bursts of energy. Bacon’s donated to the limit already and I don’t want to make anyone undead who doesn’t want it. I’m an asshole, but only up to a point. You can waste your mortal life on me if you want, but I’m not taking anyone’s eternity away from them.

  “Fuggin’ Duke,” I growled. My thoughts crawled like molasses, close to Drone brain, but not quite as bad. More like a sour whiskey drunk if I had to make a comparison to my living years. “Could have had any day he wan’ed, but he took fuggin Saturdays on fuggin purpose. Fugger.”

  We were half way through the vampire McMansions when I had my horrible idea.

  “Pull over.”

  “You going to be sick, babe?”

  No, just stupid. And, babe? Yeah, I’m babe when I’m all hurt or weak or what the eff ever.

  I was about two seconds from feeding on Bacon again. That’s why I had her stop the car. We stopped in the cherry red of a sunset after a light rain where all the colors pop and the world looks like it’s made of magic. I was absolutely not going to feed on Bacon again this close and I wasn’
t going to face Saturday night feeling like this either. The house we’d stopped in front of had French eclectic architecture, all classical pilasters and Roman arches.

  I sneered at its beauty. As if some leech deserved to own a home that looks like a symmetrical version of Biltmore wrought in miniature in the South. Two types of delineated dormers were set with segmented arched windows, lit from within in what looked like an attempt to mimic soft firelight or candelabrum illumination. I growled at it.

  “Kyle?” Her scent went sour, part concern and part fear.

  “Wait here.” On Saturday nights, Vrykolakas can’t hide their true nature outside their lairs. I don’t know if it’s a Greek Orthodox Sabbath thing or what, but it sucks. I gave into it early and felt my face draw tight, fangs sliding out, ears elongating and going pointed like flesh colored taffy. My limbs grew longer, my body more gaunt, my tan pale and chalky, my eyes black and bloodshot. My hair fell out in clumps leaving me bald in seconds.

  So... more vampire-like than werewolf-like tonight, eh, magic?

  I don’t like to vamp or wolf out, but on a normal night, when I’m well fed, I can pick either. On Saturdays, it’s dealer’s choice and if I knew who was dealing my cards, I’d slap them hard. Crimson tinged my vision. Strength crept back in, too. No magic wasted on pretending to be nice and normal.

  In the back of my mind I’m sure I knew whose mansion this was and that it would have been a better idea to keep on walking, but I like to think this is what Eric feels like sometimes when he’s about to be monumentally stupid, like last night or early this morning when he killed Brian in an argument about football, turned his girlfriend into an undead monster, and then, allegedly, murdered a local werewolf.... not necessarily in that order.

  It’s an impressive list for a single night, but the man does nothing by half measures.

  A new grace slipped into my movements. Bacon cursed under her breath. I heard the intake of breath and she called my name in her head, but not out loud. I felt it, though I couldn’t strictly hear it. In one bound I was over the gates and padding my way right up the front walk. From descriptions my girlfriends have given me, the only thing recognizable when I’m this far gone is my smirk.