“Getting a blood pack sounds messy.”
“It is. But some people are really into it. Half of the vampirism taboo is about fluids, anyway. Fluid bonding. All those things we’re not supposed to do anymore, now that we know more about how disease actually works. There’s always an uptick in vampire stories whenever the next big thing rolls around. Tuberculosis, AIDS, candida auris, whatever comes out of Xinjiang next. This place would be nowhere if antibiotics were still reliable.”
In the end they opted for no further special effects than lipstick and leave-in conditioner. They wore heavy shawls and fur stoles in the carriage. Footmen gave them to ticket agents, ticket agents led them to ushers. Which is how they met the Cawthorpes.
“I’m Reginald,” Mr Cawthorpe said. “This is my sister, Virginia.”
Ashleigh almost asked if they could truly have brothers and sisters in their clades of self-replicating humanoids. Maybe things had changed. As far as she knew, all vN clades sprang from a single stem: you could have an almost infinite number of individuals within the same clade, but infinite variety was something else. You couldn’t mix them, like actual biological creatures. And these were clearly vN – she had seen their clades elsewhere in the park, a striking woman with long black hair and impossible curves, and a tall man with a widow’s peak. So they were playing at being siblings.
“How lovely to meet you,” she said. “I’m Ashleigh. This is my friend, Tiffany.”
“You’re from America?”
“Canada, actually,” Tiffany said. “Vancouver. What’s left of it, anyway.”
“How exciting,” Virginia said, and for some reason Ashleigh knew she wasn’t referring to the Cascadia quake. Maybe in her programming, Canada was still the way it was in eighteen hundred and whatever, and there were all kinds of different threats to worry about. Then again, after Cascadia, the city had felt a little bit like a pioneer town. What with all the E. coli floating around, and the fires, and the blackout.
“Our friends seem to have abandoned us,” Reginald said, casting a glance around the chandeliered lobby space.
“Who are your friends?” Ashleigh asked. “I mean, what do they look like? We could help you look for them.”
“Oh, they’re not here,” Virginia said, a little too decisively.
Tiffany threw an arm around Ashleigh’s waist. “You would know better than we would,” she said.
“But we have two extra seats in our private box,” Virginia said. “Would you like to join us?”
“I would love to enjoy your private box,” Tiffany somehow managed to say, without even a trace of a smirk.
On the stage was a rendering of Faust. Mephistopheles had scarcely arrived when Ashleigh noticed the smallest finger of Reginald’s hand closing over the smallest finger of hers. It was a tiny gesture, the sort of thing Simon used to do under the table when they were sitting in a long meeting together. Once again she wondered how much the vN at the park knew. How much the park’s own intelligence understood about its visitors. How much Tiffany had told them. She glanced over at her friend, but Tiffany and Virginia were whispering to each other, and giggling about something.
Reginald’s hand then covered hers entirely. She refocused her gaze on him. His attention was entirely on her. It was odd, being the object of that unblinking stare. In a human being it would put her off. It would come across as predatory. But in a machine, it was almost calming. What other kind of man was ever going to look at her this way? What other kind of man, but one made of titanium and graphene and polymer skin, would ever look at her and think solely of her, and not how much better he could be having it with someone else? Maybe that was what Simon saw in his mechanical woman. Maybe the knowledge that she would never stray was enough.
Slowly, almost soundlessly, their interlocked hands pushed up the length of her thigh. His eyes remained trained on hers the entire time. She wasn’t sure if the vN had to obtain formal consent, or if they had heuristics for dilated pupils and blush response, but in the moment it didn’t matter. In the moment, she could barely breathe. It was like playing a game of Stop Touching Yourself, only she didn’t want to stop, not ever, especially with the way the vN was helping her grind against the ball of her own hand through the material of her gown.
“I…” she started to say, but the vN said “You can do it, Ashleigh,” in the most gently encouraging way, and his other hand came around just to stroke her neck, just a single finger up and down, and when she looked over at Tiffany, Tiffany was casually suckling Virginia’s breast as she watched the play. They looked so perfect together: Tiffany perched in the other woman’s lap, Virginia’s hand invisible under her voluminous skirts. And that was it. Ashleigh came short and sharp, the force of it twisting her in her seat. It happened so fast and so hard that she didn’t notice the burnt sugar taste of vN skin on her tongue until a moment later. She had sucked his thumb into her mouth at the last minute.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Don’t be,” he said, licking his thumb and smiling. He reached across her then, and she thought he might be moving in for a kiss, but instead he wound up on the floor in front of her. “I want you to put your shoes up on the railing,” he said.
Ashleigh was still coming back to herself. She looked at Tiffany, writhing now in Virginia’s lap. She looked to the stage. No one was watching the performance. As she stared out into the audience, and the other boxes, they were all engaged in performances of their own. There were Reginalds and Virginias everywhere, and Ingrids and Olivers and Peters and God knew who else, all methodical and perfect and precise in their seductions.
“Do you…?” Ashleigh watched Reginald’s face. Could they lie? How would she know? How could you tell? “Do you really want to?”
Something flickered across his face. It happened so briefly she thought it might be a trick of the light from the stage – a pyrotechnic, a special effect. Then it became a smile.
“Of course I do, Ashleigh,” he said. “Of course I want to do this for you.”
The next morning, Ashleigh asked the vN if he did this with all his sisters.
“We’re all brothers and sisters, in Hammerburg,” he said, and kissed the tip of her nose. Then he helped her order breakfast. In the other room, Virginia ran a bath for her and Tiffany. They had a walking tour that day. Assuming Ashleigh and Tiffany could still walk properly. Ashleigh had her doubts.
On their way out of The Running Boar, they noticed that the goat had been lit. A charred skeleton was all that remained. No one was bothering to clean up the ash or the debris. It was just there, naked and black and hollow, all its artifice burnt to a crisp.
“That’s odd, we didn’t notice that last night,” Ashleigh said.
“You couldn’t have noticed anything other than old Reggie and Ginny, last night,” Tiffany said. She rolled her neck. It popped audibly.
“That’s certainly true.”
Tiffany wrinkled her nose. “Whatever they did, it smells awful. Let’s go somewhere else.”
The Hammerburg village square faithfully reproduced – in curious theme-park miniature – the winding cobblestone roads, alabaster stone, and red tiles of Cluj-Napoca, also known as Klausenburg, also known as Romania’s “treasure city.” Along one side of the square stood a replica of the Moor Park Mansion, where the ballroom scene of The Vampire Lovers had taken place. The crowds seemed thinner today, so Ashleigh could get a good view of both. Ashleigh was admiring them when someone tapped her on the shoulder.
“A message for you, miss,” the boy said.
He was the smaller version of the ginger-haired vN who had met their carriage. Was this his iteration? Had this one budded off of him? He pushed a thick envelope in Ashleigh’s direction. The name on the envelope was Tiffany’s. The seal in the blood-red wax was the Count’s. Tiffany herself was busy filming a segment of some sort; the raven she was speaking to had glowing red eyes, which meant the “record” function was on. Ashleigh thanked the boy and tipped him.
“Don’t go,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“Please. Don’t go up there. Don’t go to the castle.”
Ashleigh decided to play along. “It would be rude to refuse an invitation like this one,” she said. “Why should I not go?”
“The people who go up there don’t come back,” he said. “And if they do, they’re… different.”
Of course they’re different, some of them have had their first orgasm in ten years, Ashleigh thought.
“He’s been feeding them,” the little boy added. “He’s been giving them something different.”
She smiled. She had been waiting for the whole trip to say this line: “I thought the Count didn’t drink… wine.”
The child shook his head furiously. “No. Not like that. The menu is the same, but the taste is different.”
Ashleigh frowned. Could the child be malfunctioning? He seemed so confused, as though he wanted to tell her something he didn’t yet have the words for. She looked at the surprisingly empty square. A light snow had begun to fall. It obscured the village in the distance. Suddenly Ashleigh felt very far away from the rest of the humans she knew had to be there. Where was everyone? More importantly, where was this little robot boy’s… dad? Minder? Nanny? Was the kid working? Was he playing?
“Shouldn’t you be in school?” She blinked. “Wait. Do you even go to school? How does that work?”
The child seemed to spot the raven that Tiffany was speaking with for the first time. “It’s too late,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
He turned and ran away. Bells tolled as his shoes rang on the flagstones.
“What was that all about?” Tiffany asked, her raven having departed.
“You got a note,” Ashleigh said.
Tiffany sniffed the envelope. “You can buy this fragrance, in the gift shops,” she said. “His fragrance, I mean.”
“Does it smell like blood?”
“Oakmoss and leather. Maybe a bit of an oudh or chypre. That’s what the app said, anyway. We get fifteen percent off if we buy some before we leave.” Tiffany slid the envelope open with a fingernail and examined the invitation. “It’s engraved. Pun intended. And it’s for both of us. I guess our new favorite siblings put in a good word for us.”
At six that evening, a carriage arrived at the inn to take them to the dinner. It was a little strange to be wearing a ball gown she herself had not chosen, but Ashleigh reminded herself that was part of the whole experience. And the innkeepers reminded her that it was no extra charge for the nearby beauty shop to put their hair up in a period-appropriate style just for the occasion.
“The better to bare to your neck, my dear,” Tiffany had said.
Ashleigh felt a chill across her newly-exposed skin as they alit from the carriage in front of the castle. The journey up was surprisingly long; there were a number of switchbacks leading up the mountain, and every turn granted them a wider view of Hammerburg below. At the time she had worried about ice, but of course the roads were salted, and now they could stare at the snow-covered village. It looked like a particularly Gothic snow-globe. Which, given the ambient nano-veil that attenuated the light and left the village in perpetual half-darkness, wasn’t a bad comparison.
“You’d never know it was fake,” she said.
“It’s only sort of fake,” Tiffany said. “I mean, everything here is fake, obviously. But people do live here. The vN. They live in the village. That’s part of why it looks so lived-in. Because it actually is.”
“Where do the humans live?”
“What humans?”
Far away, a wolf howled. Others answered it in high, mournful voices. A giggle escaped Tiffany’s lips. “Oh, wow,” she said. “Children of the night, and shit. Amazing.”
Behind them, a door creaked open. Tiffany reached over and clasped Ashleigh’s hand. She bounced up and down on the toes of her velveteen slippers. Ashleigh turned to her and just like that, she felt it happen, felt the magic of the place cut through her grief and start working on her. It felt like a return to childhood, a return to the whole idea of playing Let’s Pretend. It was a delicious thrill she felt in her whole body, from her pumping heart to the prickles on the back of her neck. It felt like summer, and possibility, and the thought that monsters might be real. She beamed and Tiffany beamed and as one they turned away from the bright projection of the moon and toward the yawning darkness of the castle door.
Their fingers laced together as they pushed forward into the darkness. It was soft and close. The doors slammed shut behind them and they both jumped. Then they both giggled. Ashleigh didn’t remember the last time she’d visited a haunted house, much less a haunted castle, but this place was doing more with pure darkness than any high-tech special effect.
Beside her, a candelabra flamed into life. Tiffany squealed. Ashleigh reached out and grabbed for it. The candelabra gave way with a slight tug. Its handle was warm. Tiffany thought she saw a pair of hands disappear into the darkness. It was just like La Belle et La Bête, Cocteau’s version of the Beauty and the Beast story where the enchanted castle was just a series of props puppeted by human hands. It was the sort of thing only a film nerd would understand, but of course this place was designed and built for film nerds.
She loved this place. How could she have ever felt skeptical about it? Why was she such a snob when they first entered the park? The people here just wanted to have a good time, like anyone else. Some of them were probably working through issues just like hers. She had no business begrudging them their fun, or judging them for wanting to have it.
The candelabra’s flickering light exposed a tall staircase winding around a central stone column. It was more James Whale than Terence Fisher, but the stone was cool to the touch, and pleasantly rough on her fingers, as though it really had been hauled up from one of the nearby rivers and not printed off somewhere in the territory formerly known as Taiwan. Ashleigh carefully held the candelabra out. According to theme park logic, the room she entered through would not be the room by which she exited, and so it was important to see all of it before leaving. The room itself appeared to be small, and hung with medieval tapestries depicting all manner of mythical beasts. Gryphons and unicorns and manticores and basilisks. The last rose high above them, pinning them with its lethal gaze, a crown on its head that looked like spikes.
“Come on, what are we waiting for?” Tiffany asked, but didn’t make a move to go up the stairs.
“Nothing,” Ashleigh said, and led the way.
As they drew closer, higher and higher up, the steps curled around the column and she heard music. A waltz. A set of red velvet curtains hung at the top of the stairs. Two golden silk ropes at either side.
“Christ, they’ve gone multi-player on us,” Tiffany muttered, as they each took hold of a rope.
“On three,” Ashleigh said.
On three, they pulled. And the ballroom opened up before them.
“Oh, my God,” Tiffany said.
“It’s beautiful,” Ashleigh whispered. It was as though her every childhood dream of being a princess had been laid out before her in a single place, all the rustling silk and guttering candles and silver trays piled high with macarons and petits fours. It was resplendent for Christmas: a tall tree stood at one end, lit with candles and hung with oranges spiked with cloves, with little woven straw ornaments. The whole population of Hammerburg seemed to be there. The invitation to the Count’s ball obviously wasn’t as exclusive as they’d been led to believe. Ashleigh couldn’t find it in herself to give a damn. “I can’t even breathe.”
“That’s just the corset talking,” Tiffany said, but it sounded as though she were trying to convince herself.
The ballroom was one long white gallery walled on all sides with mirrors that reflected the massive chandeliers hanging from buttresses at regular intervals. In the mirrors, only three-quarters of the total attendees were reflected. The vampires – or the vN playing vampires – didn’t show up
. Their partners danced with empty air in the mirrors.
“It’s live rendering,” Tiffany said, seeming to notice Ashleigh’s confusion. She sounded more like herself, now, less impressed. “The cameras in the chandeliers use infra red to pick out who’s not a human being, and then translate that to the feeds playing in the mirrors.”
“That must take a fuck of a lot of processing power.”
“Less than you’d think. Come on, I want champagne.”
They found the champagne fountain and started drinking. The glasses were tiny, so they had to keep going back, and soon enough Ashleigh had lost all sense of how much they’d consumed. Idly, she wondered how goulash worked as a hangover cure. Probably there was some ancient Transylvanian restorative they’d push on her the next morning at breakfast. She turned to ask Tiffany about it, but Tiffany was gone. Looking quickly at the mirrors to either side of the gallery, she spotted her, laughing in the arms of an invisible robot.
Ashleigh shrugged and turned back to the desserts table. It was especially luxuriant, possibly in celebration of Christmas. There was Turkish delight, and fruitcake with marzipan icing, and tiny doughnuts, and almond cake, and Joffre cake, and Ashleigh let herself try all of them. She was having a mouthful of smooth, creamy Joffre cake when someone touched her elbow. Expecting Tiffany, she turned and saw the footman who’d taken her bags the first day in Hammerburg.
“Oh, hi!” she said, through all the cake, and immediately covered her mouth and swallowed. “Sorry. Hello. What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to see you,” he said.
“Oh.” Had she ordered that? Had Tiffany ordered it? Ashleigh looked back into the crowd of dancers. Tiffany caught her eye and winked. Of course. Of course she’d ordered this. She’d probably been planning it all along. “Thank you. That’s… that’s very nice. Do we… Would you like some fresh air?”
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