Jay and Tommy are quiet after she finishes talking. Michelle feels worried that she’s being a freak again, that she’s not supposed to be on Carrie’s side. That’s she’s just proven herself a psycho, yet again.
The sharp rap of Bette’s knuckles on the windowpane breaks the moment, to Michelle’s relief. Jay stands up from their circle on the floor and lets her in.
“Tim’s friend Nicole is showing up tonight. She’s come to town for a visit and Gretchen’s being wretched and boring about it,” Bette says, instead of more traditional greetings like ‘Hi everyone’ or ‘How are you?’. Michelle wants to sigh. She almost misses the tedium of her school day.
“She explained to you why she’s like that about Nicole, didn’t she?” Jay asks.
“Mm-hm.” Bette nods. “And I mean sure, it was shitty of her, but it’s not like she can undo it by being guilty now, you know? Consciences suck.”
“And we have a new winner for the ‘things you don’t want to hear a vampire say’ award,” Tommy deadpans.
“Can I meet her?” asks Michelle. “I’d like to, if you think it wouldn’t be a big deal. Gretchen made the whole thing into one big tragedy, you know? But you can’t live for like 150 years or whatever on the fuel of tragedy alone. I want to see who Nicole is apart from what Gretchen wants to think of her as.”
Bette shrugs. “Yeah, I’m sure it’s fine. Just come back with me when I go. You guys want to come too?”
“I will,” says Tommy. “Gretchen wants to kill my sister. This Nicole chick will probably give me some ideas of how to talk her out of it.”
“Not me.” Jay shakes his head. “I’m officially giving myself the night off from vampires. No offence.” Bette waves off any possible slight from the remark. “I just need a bit more time away from all of it before I’m ready to go back. Is it okay if I hang here a while longer, Tom? I’ll lock up when I go.”
“Yeah, sure,” Tommy agrees. “And Rosie’ll probably be home by then, so it’s no big deal.”
“I promise you that Gretchen won’t hurt her,” Bette vows, her voice serious and sad. This time, Michelle does sigh.
“Come on, let’s go. I’m not in the mood for another round of the pity party.”
~
Nicole has a box of Tim’s vinyl records from the late 1980s and early 90s open in front of her, the contents piled in haphazard towers on the carpet of the upstairs living room of the townhouse.
“I’m still so jealous of everyone who got to wear kinderwhore fashion,” she remarks to Alexander as she examines the jacket of Spanking Machine by Babes in Toyland. “Same with that Gothic Lolita stuff that’s around now. I can’t pull off knee socks and Hello Kitty in a way that looks ironic and subversive. It just makes me look like I’m trying to look ten years old. Cree-py.”
And the thing is, she doesn’t look ten. She isn’t being sarcastic. Maybe in photos or sleeping, it’d be harder to tell, but seeing Nicole in motion, speaking, it’s obvious immediately that she’s an adult.
She wears several delicate silver rings on each hand and a wool coat with a black fur collar over dark denim jeans. More than anything, she reminds Michelle of the women her parents are friends with, the lawyers and bankers and political campaigners who always seem to have their shit together and everything under control. Michelle has always envied and feared those women in equal measure.
Nicole’s hair is the same white-blonde as Sofie’s. It’s cut short and severe just above her jawline, which lessens the roundness in her face. Michelle guesses that the slim eyeglasses with bold rectangular frames probably serve the same purpose, since vampire eyesight is always excellent.
“You have a 1964 Aston Martin parked outside,” Bette says, as if Nicole may have somehow failed to observe what kind of car she has.
“We have to give you lessons in saying ‘hello’,” Tommy tells Bette.
“You can’t drive it,” answers Nicole. “It’s modified to my height. Also, I have a policy against letting anyone in Blake’s family anywhere near my cars. Nothing personal, it’s just that you’re all maniacs.”
“Accurate,” Bette concedes with a shrug. “I’m Bette. These’re Tommy and Michelle.”
“Pleased to meet you. I’m Nicole. Alexander’s been entertaining me since I arrived, since Blake’s off proving to himself that he hasn’t lost his hunting mojo, and Tim’s busy helping his long-lost and new-found sister avoid me. Which, might I add, is a remarkably soap-opera development, even by the standards of this ridiculous household.” Her attention’s caught by a pristine 7-inch record in Timothy’s collection. “Rubbing The Impossible To Burst by Huggy Bear? Oooh, tell him I’m borrowing this one. Oh, and I need to borrow one of your houses while I’m in town, Alex.”
“Don’t you have any of your own? I seem to recall being outbid at several property auctions by someone fitting your exact description.”
“Yes, but they’ve all got tenants,” Nicole says dismissively, waving one ringed hand. “I don’t kill tenants. Makes the places harder to re-rent. You always keep one or two empty for your facade identities. Lend me one of those.”
“There’s one that might suit, actually. I bought it to use in the university stalking debacle I told you about. It’s rather roomy for one, but you’re welcome to it if you like.”
“Ha! Yes, give me that one, and be sure to let Nell know that her little games of trying to intimidate paid off so well for me.” Nicole’s smile is hard, but there’s no bitterness to it.
There’s no bitterness in her manner at all, at least as far as Michelle can see. Or misery, either. The two defining traits of most of the child vampires Michelle’s read about in novels are nowhere to be found. Nicole is just herself.
~
When she’s done raiding Tim’s music collection, Nicole demands that Alexander give her a tour of the entire house, to see what renovations and changes have occurred since she was last here. Bette and Tommy stay upstairs, playing a new game on Bette’s PlayStation, but Michelle tags along with Alex and Nicole. She wants to see all of this fairytale-horrorstory house.
The middle level is a recording studio, which doesn’t interest Nicole, so Michelle doesn’t get nearly as much time there as she wants. Music is where she fits, where she’ll always fit: maybe not in a shitty garage band like she was in with Ash for about ten seconds before Ash died, but somewhere. Maybe off to the side of the stage, a manager or a tech or a merch girl or something.
She wants to cut music open and drink forever.
The ground floor makes the skin on the back of Michelle’s neck prickle. A lot of vampires seem to live here, wandering from room to room as Alexander shows the various paintings and extensions acquired since her last visit. Talking, laughing, playing music – all these other stories, just on the periphery of those Michelle has met. It frightens her to glimpse the extent of Blake’s power, to know just how many monsters lurked outside the door when she sat and listened to stories as a little girl.
She fixes her attention on Nicole, to distract herself from being scared. Nicole still reminds Michelle of the sleek professionals she’s met, maybe with a slightly bohemian slant. But she also makes Michelle think of herself, of Alexander, of Jenny, of Jay: that fighter’s edge that comes of striving to be visible, of battling the assumptions shoved onto her by the world.
When their tour of the house is done they return upstairs, joining Bette and Tommy in Bette’s room. The room itself is the half-messy-half-clean Michelle recognises from her own room, the state that comes from a totally filthy slob being lucky enough to have a cleaner.
“Love the poster,” Nicole says, nodding at the antique Frankenstein print that dominates the wall. “I’ve got some Nosferatu lobby cards somewhere in my closet if you ever want to add to your collection.”
“Sweet. That would rule so hard.” Bette grins. She seems to be in a fidgety, restless mood, and for a minute Michelle’s worried that Bette is made uncomfortable by Nicole’s appearance, and that Michel
le will have to kick her ass for being a jerk. Michelle’s got enough vampires annoyed at her for this week, even if ‘enough vampires’ consists of ‘Gretchen’. Gretchen is more than enough vampires for anyone, all on her own.
Then Bette takes a breath for courage, and says “Um. So I knew this guy… he’s dead now, but anyway. Russ, the guy I knew… he said… he told me once that he had a brother who’d been made into a vampire as a child. Would you… is it possible to find out who that is? I figure you probably know more about the other ones out there. I’ve never heard anybody around here really talk about it.”
Nicole shrugs, nodding. “I can probably find him, yes. There aren’t a huge number of us out there—that’s probably part of why you haven’t heard it talked about. Plus, even the most well-meaning vampires would usually rather say nothing than risk saying the wrong thing on the subject. It makes them uncomfortable. Not to mention that well-meaning vampires are in short supply to begin with.” She smirks. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks. I know he and Russ didn’t, you know, keep in touch or anything, but I wanted him to hear that his brother’s dead from somebody who at least sort of knew Russ. His sister might be with him, too. I don’t know if she’s a vampire or not.”
“Why aren’t there many of you?” Tommy asks. “Even if most of the world doesn’t know about vampires, there are still people out there who do. Some of them must’ve had kids who were sick, or got hurt, or were just really weak and unwell. A lot of parents would do anything, if there was a way to make their kid safe from all that.”
Michelle thinks of her own parents, haemorrhaging their bank accounts all through her childhood in an effort to cure the darker parts of her.
Nicole shakes her head. “Not really. Vampires who have contact with children tend to fall into one of two groups, and both prefer that the children remain mortal.”
Bette looks thoughtful. “Blake had three little girls he looked after, back when he was first a vampire. I guess it makes sense that vampires in that situation, they’d want to keep the kids they were raising alive. And the other sort would be… like Cora, I guess.”
“Pedophiles,” Nicole says bluntly. “I dislike euphemisms.”
“I don’t think… from what I’ve heard about it, that’s not… she just keeps them for blood.”
“A philia is an attraction to or obsession with. It’s not necessarily sexual. Anyway, blood and sex are so often bound up together for vampires, so much of the time.” Nicole’s smile is sharp. “Cora is a predator who preys on children, hurts them terribly and then kills them. Whether or not she brings sex into it makes little difference to how much I dislike her. And she loathes me right back; I assume that’s because she has no way to hurt me.”
The no-bullshit way Nicole has of talking adds another layer of comparison to the way Michelle sees her – it’s like how Tommy and Rose’s mom interacts with the world. Michelle thinks that Tommy might sense the similarity, too.
“She hates you because you don’t hate Gretchen,” he says. “When I was a kid, I got sick a lot, you know? And there was this one time, when I was pretty bad, and my mom was taking care of me pretty much nonstop, and after a couple of months of it, my dad couldn’t handle it anymore, and he left.”
Michelle’s heard Tommy talk about this, but only a couple of times. It’s not something he shares with many people, but she can see why Nicole would be one of them. Michelle can see where he’s going with it.
“It hurt. Of course it hurt. Even though he came back later. It hurts. I felt like the most worthless failure of a kid in the entire world, because I made my dad want to leave. Even when he came back, eventually, I felt like shit.
“Then I got pissed. Because we should be allowed to hate them, our parents, as much as they deserve. If they leave us, or they hurt us. It’s our right to hate them for that.
“But they made us. They signed on for this. They should have to be there and be on our side and love us no matter what. They don’t get to run away from us if it gets too hard.
“I don’t mean married parents shouldn’t be allowed to spilt up, obviously, That’s different. But you shouldn’t be able to divorce your fucking kids. Only kids should be allowed to break that tie, and parents should never give them a reason to want to.
“The world doesn’t work like that, though. ‘Should’ doesn’t mean much of anything. So all you can do is survive whatever happens and let it go as best you can. I’m not angry at my dad anymore. I don’t hate him anymore. Not because I forgive him, exactly. Just because there was no point in me holding onto it.
“Cora hates you because you don’t hate Gretchen, and she still hates Blake. She hates you because you’ve grown up, and she can’t.”
~
Jay’s left by the time Tommy and Michelle finally get back to Tommy’s, as dawn has started to colour the sky. They sneak in quietly, so they don’t disturb Rose, and crawl into Tommy’s bed together. Not to mess around, just to be close as they sleep.
“My plan is to miss the entire school day because I’m busy snoring,” Michelle says. “And then I’m going to eat all the cereal in your kitchen and watch the Muppets all afternoon instead of doing homework. And I’m not going to think about vampires even once.”
“Okay,” Tommy says with a quiet laugh. “Sounds good.”
ALEXANDER
Dear Timothy,
I will probably be home before this letter reaches you. I hope so. I miss you. Europe is all right, but as abrasive and stupid as America may be, I still love America more. Perhaps I’d feel differently if you were here with me. Next time, we should come together. We can run with the wolves over the snow where you lived as a boy.
It’s all come to a head pretty fast. By happy accident Bram is here as well, also visiting Oscar – who calls himself Sebastian Melmoth now, but I’m not yet used to the new name and so still think of him as Oscar in my heart – and to begin with we all carefully avoided mentioning the fact that the years have changed and aged them but not us.
Then Bram took Blake aside and said, with more forthrightness than he usually uses with Blake, that it was probably time for Blake to have the conversation with Oscar.
Blake knew what he meant, of course. Unlike Nell and Bram’s friendship, which birthed a book complete with fangs, red eyes, and blood to spare, Blake and Oscar have always enjoyed the coy flirtation of feigned ignorance. Oscar says that he believes Blake’s agelessness to be inexplicable, perhaps magic, and Blake pretends that Oscar is sincere. It’s been a dance, a game, they’ve played for all the decades of their friendship.
Bram was right, though. Prison has drained more vitality from Oscar than Oscar had to spare. His recent writing has had a largeness of soul to it which I think he may claim was worth the price. (All artists are stupid in that way.) The situation reminds me of one of his old fairy stories, the one about the beautiful, selfish Star Child, who undergoes great sorrow and emerges the better for it: so bitter is the fire of his testing that he only lives his new wise life for three years before he dies. It’s becoming obvious to everyone that the same will prove true for Oscar.
So Blake did as Bram suggested, and had the conversation with Oscar, the conclusion to their dance. And Oscar replied, saying...actually, I’ll quote him verbatim, because as usual he had to be florid and absurd about a straightforward question.
“There are two choices left to me, then. To go to my rest in the knowledge that I shall become a noble figurehead—in time I will, you mark my words. Saint Oscar of Oxford, patron of plays and prison reform—and have future ages remember me at my best, my brightest, my most beautiful. Or I can remain alive forever as I am now, a care-worn relic lamenting his lost bloom. I think you well enough to guess that my vanity will allow only one possible conclusion to the deadlock.”
Blake pointed out that to choose the latter did not preclude the former, and Oscar sighed and said that Blake had no sense of poetry in his soul.
Oscar is com
ing back with us – you may have met him already by the time you read this, if we’ve managed to beat the letter home – but has warned me that he does not share even a jot of my love for America, and is staying only so long as it takes him to get bored of our library.
~
The evening is still light enough to sting when Alexander goes out hunting. He dislikes being uncomfortable, but is willing to endure it for the sensation of being out of the time he is meant for. He’s too adaptable to feel it very much as the years pass him from era to era, as some vampires do, but he feels it sharply in the moments when the sun still casts the last of its rays over the world and the daytime people continue with the last few outdoor errands of their daytime lives, before they lock themselves safely away from night people such as himself. He likes the sense of intruding into their safe little lives.
Blake, despite still being quite under the weather, has gone out for an early hunt too. Alexander discovers this when he rounds a corner and comes across the sight of Lily shoving him up against a wall in an otherwise deserted street. Blake’s wearing one of the grey felt top hats he’s partial to, which Lily knocks to the ground as she grabs at a fistful of his hair.
“Why do you wear such stupid fucking outfits,” she sneers, pressing close to him, pulling his hair.
“I think you know,” Blake answers, slipping one white-gloved hand up under the hem of Lily’s honey-hued satin skirt, high on her stockinged thigh. “This is hardly your usual uniform of tattered denim, after all.”
“When I’m not dressed like me it’s easier. The costume makes it somebody else doing it.”
“Some of us are born comfortable in our new skin,” whispers Blake, his breath in close against her mouth. “Some us of take time to learn the art.”
Alexander decides that watching any more of Lily’s newest crisis of faith, erotic though it may be, will put him off his food. He leaves the pair to their insults and trysting and goes looking for someone to eat.
The Wolf House: The Complete Series Page 80
