Dead Surround - The Julia Poe Vampire Chronicles

by Celis T. Rono

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  Poe held Penny for three hours, even refusing to allow the dog to do her natural business. She wept 248

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  and did not care that the vampires jeered at her.

  Sainvire was dying or possibly dead, and she couldn’t help him. His light gray eyes were blazed in her mind’s eye. Life without him hurt, and her grief even eclipsed her vow for vengeance.

  Lights appeared at the horizon. Gary flicked his flashlight on and off until the sound of a chopper was heard. The vampire had confiscated her helmet, and the lights of the descending helicopter, though frightening, gave her something to look at besides the stars. I’m dead, she thought gravely. I don’t even care to pray anymore.

  The five told their boss about Sainvire when he landed. Trench had eyes only for the girl who had irreversibly altered his life for the worse.

  Traces of old tears decorated her dusty face. The child he had seen at Goss’ Downtown loft was gone.

  Facing him was a healthier Julia Poe with some meat on her bones, and her arms clung to the ratty dog. He had expected her to look defeated. He hadn’t anticipated the look of grief.

  “I’ve waited for this moment,” were the first words that escaped the master vampire’s lips. “How come I’m not as happy as I should be?”

  Poe shrugged. She did not feel verbally combative. She looked at Quillon Trench’s face expecting to see the burnt crags she’d left on his skin when she had sprayed him with garlic water. About his face he wore a scarf that only showed his intelligent blue eyes. Rumor was he didn’t leave his home any longer. The nightclub he owned at the Bonaventure Hotel shut the moment Morales had shoddily blown up the building. He never tried to open another club. Trench didn’t even help defend 249

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  the highly productive blood farms in Los Angeles.

  Only his own.

  “Are you going to kill me, or are you going to torture me somewhere else?” asked Poe tiredly. Her husky voice intrigued Trench.

  “I remember your voice well, Julia,” he said.

  “Per your question, I’m going to take you back to Los Angeles. And as for you five, you will be well rewarded. Just make sure you don’t get burned a couple of hours from now before dusk.

  “What do you mean?” asked Gary. “Aren’t you taking us with you?”

  “No room, my man,” he said. He gestured to Poe to step into the transport.

  “Are we going to be picked up by one of the Hummers?” asked Henry who was looking with panic at his pals. None of them were sun-immune.

  “The Hummers are in San Francisco with Nesbitt’s battle army. Sorry about that.”

  “You mean to—”

  Trench raised his hand. “Julia, get that dog out of my chopper.” The look of alarm on Poe’s face gave him the satisfaction he had been looking for earlier.

  “No. Please, I can’t leave my dog. She has to come with me,” she said. Her lips trembled.

  “No dirty rats on this chopper,” said Trench adamantly.

  “Sir—” began Gary.

  Trench faced Gary whose bulky body seemed to sag at the scrutiny of the master vampire. “I don’t like being interrupted, Gary. It’s very rude.” He turned back to Poe who held her dog more tightly.

  “Julia, what did I just say?” he said.

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  Poe broke down. All the misery she’d experienced that night coalesced at that moment.

  Megan’s death, Sainvire’s death, and parting from her friends diminished her.

  “Please,” she cried. Her shoulders shook with every sob. “K-kill me, but don’t take her away from me.”

  Curiosity replaced Trench’s annoyance. The famous cattle rustler and vampire killer was sobbing over a dog and begging his permission. All those years he had wasted hating her for disfiguring him.

  Every night he had thought about the torture he was going to inflict on Julia Poe. After all, because of her he had to bind his face with a scarf when he went out in public. The beautiful people he used to surround himself with disgusted him now. Most of them he had dismissed for they reminded him too much of his flawed face.

  And here she was begging him, her beautiful dark eyes inundated with grief.

  “Sir, please. You can’t just leave us here,” said Henry.

  Trench turned his head to Henry, flew at him, and grabbed his hair. He took a dagger from a sheath on his belt and slit Henry’s throat from ear to ear then stabbed him in the heart. He stood beside Gary’s corpse and wiped the black liquid from his hand onto the dead’s shirt.

  “I hate being interrupted,” muttered Trench. “Do you want my men to mow you down?” he asked the four who had caught Poe while pointing out three vamps replete in S.W.A.T. uniforms. “Or do you want to hide out in the mine shafts to avoid the sun?”

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  “We’ll hide out, sir,” said Gary. The three others echoed his answer.

  “Good. Now disappear from my sight.”

  “Sir,” Gary said fearfully.

  “Yes?” asked Trench with venom.

  “We’ve worked for you for over ten years,” he said in disbelief.

  Trench’s eyes softened. “You five have been very loyal to me, and I’m truly sorry about this. But times are different now. I can only keep the best people. I can’t afford to waste limited cattle blood on unimaginative pedestrians like you.” He waved his hand at them. “Shoo now and good luck.”

  He walked back toward the helicopter door to study Julia Poe once more. Before he could say anything, Julia Poe sniffed and said, “Let me keep my dog. You can kill me however you want. I won’t protest.”

  Trench adjusted the scarf about his face. “Then what am I going to do with your dog afterward?”

  “You don’t have to worry about that,” said Poe.

  “I’ll kill her myself before you torture me.”

  Trench, two inches shorter than Sainvire, laughed. “Why don’t you just let her go in the wilderness here? I’m sure that’s better than committing doganasia?”

  “Because,” Poe began.

  “Because what, Julia Poe?” Trench asked curiously, his brow rising.

  “Because there might be a chance we’ll escape from you,” said Poe. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

  Trench laughed so hard that he held on to his sides. The impudence! He handed Poe a handkerchief 252

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  with his monogram sewed on and said, “I’d like to see you try.”

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  CHAPTER 12

  THEY TOOK HER DOG away. Insurance, they said.

  Trench ordered her to take hour-long baths in scented oils and dense bubbles that made her slip in the overlarge tub. The master vampire now owned Downtown’s most prized of all buildings, the undulating metallic Disney Concert Hall whose form flowered into what some say looked like a ship’s mast or peeled-back cabbage leaves. Whatever the description, the building had no inferior photographic angles. Trench had added luxurious rooms and even more sinful bathrooms to the symphony building.

  Frank Gehry, the architect, would have turned in his grave at the desecration.

  Janitors, or ethnic humans who were practically slaves of vampires, worked to sand down her calluses with sandstones, loofahs, and lotions. She tried speaking with them in hope of finding where her dog was being held. But none would utter a word. Trench must’ve put the fear of his fangs into them. An elderly Nicaraguan woman whose name Poe didn’t know evened out the bottom of her self-trimmed hair. A morbidly thin Asian gave her a pedicure from hell while a one-eyed black woman in her late forties manicured her finger nails.

  “I’m getting tortured,” muttered Poe. She did not see Trench for the weeks she’d been at the symphony 254

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  hall. She often thought of escaping, but they’d given her nothing but a flimsy Japanese
robe and slippers to wear. Modesty itself was better than handcuffs and a ball and chain around her neck. If there was one thing about Poe, she was shy about flaunting her body. She bided her time.

  The captors served Poe rich meals, but she discarded meat and wine for simpler and more vegetarian friendly offerings. Water suited her just fine, and she didn’t trust herself with alcohol at the moment. The thought of Sainvire might have turned her into a lush.

  On the third week she met someone familiar.

  “Kawana!” she said when the pretty black police officer, paradoxically one of Trench’s favorites, entered the room holding plastic shopping bags filled with horrors. Trench had personally turned the beautiful woman with high cheekbones. He punctured a hole in her skull, and biting his tongue he let blood trickle in her exposed brain. Unlike other vampires, Trench didn’t discriminate when it came to beauty. Kawana had been a loyal spy for Sainvire from the very inception.

  “Shhh,” Kawana warned. “They can’t know that you know me, Poe. I’m one of the original crew Trench hasn’t gotten rid of. I need to be here.”

  Poe nodded and indicated a chair. Her room was pristine white from floor to ceiling from the bed coverings down to the furniture. A Campbell’s Soup Can painting by Andy Warhol provided the only color. “Tell me. Have they found Morales’ bus?”

  whispered Poe. She felt guilty for leaving her goddaughter behind.

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  “No. They’ve found no one. That’s why Nesbitt is so angry. He received information from a recovered blood victim hoping to have a better life.

  Instead he became Nesbitt’s evening meal,” she said as she opened one of the boxes. “It was a good move to split everyone up before the invasion. Take off your slippers and put these on.”

  Poe’s eyes bulged at the three-inch silver high heel shoe Kawana was holding in her hand. “What the hell?”

  “He wants me to teach you how to dress, how to walk, and how to put on make-up. He said you’re a plebe barbarian, and you need to become a lady.”

  “Um, no way. I’m not doing it.”

  Kawana shook her head. “Listen, Poe. This is better than torture or being turned to a blood cow.

  Besides, I’ll be with you during the day. What I hear, you hear.”

  “Any word on Sainvire?” Poe said quietly for which Kawana shook her head. The young woman, unaccustomed to her hair down, swatted it away.

  Under orders from Trench, the janitors had taken away the six hair bands she had always brandished on her wrist.

  For weeks she’d been nearly naked, and she kept to her room. If it weren’t for the shame, she would have tried harder to break out. Her only consolation was the outdated plasma TV and the stacks of DVDs on the shelf. She was a movie buff. Aside from books and magazines she had learned worldly things from film.

  Angrily she tossed the slippers from her feet onto the other side of the room. “I don’t understand. Is he going to eat me, or is he waiting for me to break my 256

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  ankles? I have pretty wide feet for being barefoot in my bunker most of my life.”

  “Just endure this, Poe,” said Kawana. “At least your life will be spared this way. And your dog’s.”

  “Where’s Penny?” Poe asked. She placed her hand on the petite vampire’s shoulder.

  “Under lock and key somewhere in the Hall just to make sure you behave,” said the woman who could pick up a vehicle with one arm without breaking a sweat. “Now let’s see how you do.”

  Poe took the first twenty seconds to sprain her ankle walking on high heels, two weeks to finally be able to stand on her own without falling, and another week to walk like a runway model in four-inch spiked heels.

  Within a month Poe learned how to curl her lashes, apply mascara, and bring out her features with blush and eye pencils. Kawana brought designer dresses chosen by Trench himself, but Poe adamantly refused to wear them. She opted for straight-legged slacks and silk blouses. Trench twice made an appearance to monitor Poe’s progress. Both times he wordlessly left the room, and his scarf billowed behind him.

  “I don’t understand, Kawana,” Poe complained.

  “What the hell does he want from me? I’ve mastered all this useless shit for what? When’s he going to take pieces of me and make me eat them?”

  Kawana brushed Poe’s long black hair until it glistened. “Nesbitt stayed here last night. He was very angry that you’re still alive and Barbied up. This man is Quillon’s mentor, Poe. He has a lot of influence, and my boss didn’t cave. He was adamant that no one touches you. Nesbitt left in a fury.”

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  “So what now?”

  Kawana opened a box full of expensive breast-enhancing brassieres Poe had never laid eyes on. “I don’t think Trench knows what to do with you.”

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  The time came when Quillon Trench summoned Poe to accompany him for the evening. He insisted she wear a red Dolce & Gabbana dress that hugged the figure and showed off the cleavage. Poe came down the escalator dressed in black slacks, black strapped high heels, and a beige long-sleeve silk blouse. She surveyed the building interior which she hadn’t fully memorized. An elevator stood at the south end of the Hall, fifty feet from Trench’s room. On the same floor as the escalator was the concert hall, untouched by Trench, in all its wood and acoustic glory. Five traditional vamps and two halfdeads, noticeable by their tans and inhuman speed, stood like impeccably well dressed FBI agents to guard her floor. Kawana said the kitchen was downstairs, and it had a back door if she ever decided to bust out of there.

  The vampire was waiting for her in the lobby.

  She bated her breath for Trench to scream at her for disobeying him and choosing her own outfit, but he just shook his head and motioned her toward the exit door. Two well armed vampires held the glass door open for them. A shiny black Lincoln Town Car waited by the curb.

  They drove in silence. Poe glanced at Trench just once and tried to figure out who tailored his snazzy dark designer suit. Kawana said it was important to Trench that his women know style. But what the hell, 258

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  I’m not one of his women. I’ll never be one. He killed Goss and Sister Ann after all. And she could care less about brand names. She missed her black t-shirts, olive green army pants, and the comforts of her Adidas sneakers.

  She looked out the car window at the top-to-bottom Downtown transformation. Almost all of the stranded cars had been cleared, and actual working cars drove the roads. Traffic lights had been rewired and bulbs changed to illuminate the streets. Kawana had said progress was all due to Trench who had consolidated power after the Vampire Council disbanded. The vampire had vision. Poe had to give him that.

  Her wingtip eyebrows drew together as she recalled what Trench had looked like before she had disfigured his face. She’d only seen him once at the Eastern Columbia building under harrowing circumstances. She vaguely remembered that his features had been better than average compared with other vampires. His blue eyes had thrown daggers at her when he ordered his men to finish her off. For the life of her Poe couldn’t picture in detail what her captor had looked like. Now he was simply Mr.

  Scarfman with reddish brown hair that fell nearly to his jaw.

  “Why didn’t you wear the dress I chose for you this evening?” Trench startled her in his deep, sensuous voice.

  Poe looked at him and shrugged. “I don’t wear dresses. Not even my mom could get me to wear them.”

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  She heard him chuckle behind the scarf. “You don’t know how persistent I am, Julia. In any case, why don’t you like wearing dresses?”

  Poe smiled against her will. “I don’t like them because they make me feel like I’m naked underneath.”

  “One of these days you’re going to wear a dress for me,” he said commandingly. Before she could re
tort the car stopped. They had reached their destination. Poe recognized it as Warehouse Alley, the filthiest, seediest place in Downtown. There were no rules, and everything was game in that part of town.

  Poe gulped down her fear. She remembered the giant-size rats and the gambling den where bored Ancient vamps anted humans for poker games.

  Trench extended his arm. Poe glanced at it and looked back at Trench. “You’re supposed to hold my arm, Julia.”

  “Oh.” She nodded and complied.

  Even Warehouse Alley, it seemed, had received a makeover. The warehouse club they were going to was named Drip. She could already hear the music from inside. In fact her internal organs quaked from the resonating boom of the bass, the music was so loud.

  “What are we doing here?” asked Poe nervously.

  “It’s about time you got out of the house, Julia,”

  he said.

  Poe exhaled loudly. “Is this how you’re gonna get rid of me? A mass feeding?” Trench laughed, patting her hand. “You do know that I’m hated around here, don’t you?”

  “I do,” he said in amusement. “Hence the fun.”

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  “So that’s how it is,” Poe mumbled.

  Drip was crawling with dead and halfdead killing their boredom away. A stage stood in the middle of the warehouse. Three extremely attractive redheads, each with her own dance pole, gyrated and pumped their hips to techno beats with the accompaniment of pulsating colored lights. The speed for which they worked the poles dizzied, and they would sexily slow down, arousing the hooting onlookers. Curiosity getting the better of Poe, her eyes roamed the club.

  Waiters dressed in stereotypical gothic black leather pants and red silk shirts carried cages filled with whimpering cats and dogs and handed them wriggling to patrons who liked their drink warm and fresh. Vampires bit down on their petrified meals after taking out their shavers to clean the creatures’

  neck areas and enjoyed the entertainment. Poe shivered.

  “Trench,” Poe tried to whisper in the tall vampire’s ear. She finally tugged him down to her level when he didn’t respond. “You haven’t brought Penny here, right?”