Mark Henry_Amanda Feral 01

by Happy Hour of the Damned

  “Ricardo? What does he have to do with Mortuary?”

  “He owns it, silly.”

  I swear to God. I used to know things first. Did you see the fucking show? The man said debutante, you heard him—I was in-the-know, if-you-will, and I promise, I will be again. As God as my wit—

  Forget it. I knew my place: I’m Reality Show fodder.

  And to think, Cameron Hansen was my personal stalker, my Hinkley? Yuck. But still. I knew any publicity was good publicity. I should embrace it. I could probably turn undead notoriety into bank for my under the table work. I’d charge supernatural businesses a premium for way better campaigns than I’d seen on Undead Satellite. Of course, I’d have to get rid of Pendleton, Avery, Prissy and Lollipop, eventually. Marithé would have to be made. She was too valuable to lose.

  I needed Gil along for the tracker’s task, not because he would be any more help than the others, but because we hadn’t had a chance to chat. He and I talked every morning on the phone, before he turned in, but not lately. I missed that. He’d mourn some lost love of his life—they were all great loves; Gil only had great loves—well, except for Chase Hollingsworth, and he was my great love, because I loved to tease Gil about his one night stand with Winston Churchill—and I’d share stories from the human trenches. Crazy things like Lollipop’s fall, or someone smearing feces in the unisex bathroom. It wasn’t me. I swear!

  Plus, I was getting bored with Shane’s pretty face—absence makes the heart grow fonder, and shit like that. We sent Wendy and Shane ahead to the Well of Souls to get a VIP table. I wasn’t sure how long the task would take, but Wednesdays at the Well were crowded until the early hours of morning, so we’d catch up to them no matter what.

  “So how was he?” Gil asked.

  “What?” I brushed off the top of my jeans. Jeans. I wasn’t about to go on a secret mission in a Vivienne Westwood Basque. What are you thinking?

  “The prom king? How was he for a gasm?” Gil’s face registered distaste; his lips were pursed under cloudy eyes. Subdued but distaste, nonetheless.

  I shook my head sorrowfully. “Not.”

  “I’m sorry. That bad, huh? He looks it, though. So pent up.”

  I opened the folded piece of scrap, with the tracker’s instructions, from my pocket.

  The first cryptic instruction was a cinch, as it wasn’t particularly cryptic—oh wait, I get it, crypt. Go to the resting place of Kato. Although it could be for a pop culture junkie.

  “Is Kato dead?” I asked, scrunching my face up.

  “You’re thinking about Kato Kaelin. No. I think this is about another Kato. Bruce Lee.”

  Oh yeah! I thought. Everyone knows that Bruce Lee was buried here in Seattle; his son, too. Brandon Lee was sleeping off the world’s worst headache at…“What’s that cemetery?”

  “He’s over at Lakeview.”

  Gil was already driving the Jag in the direction of Capitol Hill, but on hump day, traffic could be a bitch.

  “You know, you never talk about the vampire that made you. Not since that first time I asked, in fact.”

  “There’s not much to say…”

  Oh. Really.

  * * *

  Here We Go Again…

  Inconsiderate Interlude of the Bitter & Pathetic Part Three: Gil, again

  * * *

  “His name is Rolf DeBeers—and before you ask, yes, those DeBeers, I think…I never actually asked. He’d slipped away from his home and family in Amsterdam, to take up surfing in Southern California. How he came to be in Tacoma, of all places, is another story, I don’t know that story personally, but…anyway, we dated for a while, and I fell in love. I think I was in love from the moment I saw him in the Rusty Bucket. That coffee sniffin’ bastard.

  “It started out great. Long walks on the Sound, I told him everything about me, and he’d listen. He had great hearing; sometimes he’d just walk off and let me keep talking. I knew he was listening though.

  “Rolf was distant, aloof—he called it—I like to think he was mysterious. I tried everything I could to keep him interested. I brought willing victims to him, wrote him cute love letters, sent him flowers. I even introduced him to my mother, God rest her soul.

  “Then, one night, I got up for the evening and found a note pinned to his pillowcase—I say ‘his’ because I had his name, then mine embroidered through a little heart, it even had a cute little cupid’s arrow going through it—the note said: Enough.

  “We were together for a magical three weeks, a real whirlwind romance, and then he was gone. I just don’t understand what happened.”

  “Um…maybe it was your love of life? Your free spirit and passion. Some men have difficulty expressing emotion,” I suggested. Gil was clearly insane, and had no clue about relationships. Not that I was a fount of knowledge, but to tell him the truth might be dangerous. He might go crazy and suicidal and drive us into a telephone pole, or something. I couldn’t risk it. Despite the temptation to say: Listen, you were too clingy, and you’re not alone, it’s a problem that many women have. I had to keep lying.

  “What?” Gil started to sniffle. A bizarre action, since his tear ducts dried up years ago.

  I reached across the expanse between us and patted his thigh. “Gil. You are a wonderful man. There’s a guy out there for you somewhere. I’ll help you find him.”

  “Thanks,” he mewled. “You’re a real friend.”

  “That’s me.”

  The conversation filled the time from Wendy’s place to the cemetery. Hump day traffic is atrocious. It was late summer, 7:30, and the gates closed at dusk. By the time we made the grounds it would be black as pitch. Gil parked in a residential area and we hoofed it to a service gate.

  “What’s next?” he asked.

  I held the darkened paper out to the streetlight. No. 2 read: Walk straight from the main gate through the beds until you reach the other side.

  No problem—in theory. We tried to follow the fence around but tripped as often as we took steps.

  “Goddamn it.” Gil toppled over a low inset of headstone.

  “Shit.” I stumbled on some unseen obstacle.

  If there wasn’t a headstone to stumble over, there were roots from a high grove of poplars, or mounds of dirt covered in tarp, or protrusions of board hovering over empty graves. A tall hedge provided far too much shadow. The path was treacherous, but before long we reached the main gate, and stepped out of the shadows, me with stubbed toes, and Gil with scratches up both forearms and a shining welt above his brow.

  We headed west through the markers, headstones and crypts. A haze crept across the black swath of lawn, illuminated by thin tendrils of moonlight cutting through clouds that carried only misty patches of rain. Lucky day. Occasionally, we passed specters sitting atop their tombstones. Their ethereal frames blurred at the edges like charcoal rubbings. The phantoms glowed in a mood ring of colors; those that stomped and kicked atop their final resting spots were surrounded with a deep peacock azure; others lazed in sunken rectangles of lawn, like comfortable divans, shimmered emerald.

  One ghost wore a vibrant red aura. A woman. She brushed her hair, with the aide of a hand mirror, her familiar face lit by reflected moonglow. She took particular interest of our movement, and our task. She uncrossed her legs and hopped from her headstone with the ease of a girl. Soon, she had caught up and tagged along.

  “Where ya goin’?”

  “We’re on a bit of a mission, Ms.?”

  “Ms. Mercer, thank you. If you’re looking for Jimi he’s over at Greenwood, now. They dug him up a while back. Family.”

  “We’re not, ma’am,” Gil said, politely. “But thank you. Good to know.”

  “What are you looking for then?” She skipped by and was walking backwards in front of us, passing through headstones, bushes and lawn ornamentation. She left trails of red glow on the stones, like phosphorous. “Brandon Lee’s over there. Everyone thinks that his father’s not, that he faked his death, but he’s
here, too. Right there next to him. Body’s not, but he’s there. Would you like to meet them? It would be no trouble at all. Lovely people.”

  “Some other time, Ms. Mercer.”

  She stopped dead in her tracks, her glow darkened into a regal purple shade. She planted her hands on her hips and roared, “Fine.” My hair flipped back from the force of her…expectoration. She stomped off, mumbling something about rude young people and heathens.

  “I somehow didn’t expect ghosts.”

  Gil stopped ahead of me and turned, smiling. “Yeah, they kinda show up in the oddest places. Are you crazy? It’s a cemetery. What’d you expect to see?”

  “Nothing. I thought I’d seen everybody at the clubs.”

  “Ghosts are linked to things. Sometimes coffins, sometimes an object at the place they died. There’s one over at Les Toilettes.”

  “Oh.” I laughed. “Now it comes out.”

  “I’ve heard. I’ve heard there’s one there.”

  “You are such a chubby chaser. I swear to God.”

  “Shut up.”

  We finished the trek to the far fence and Gil lit the note with his watch. Instruction No. 3: Find the oval marker at the base of the oak and get to diggin’ for the wee coffin. This was the easiest, so far, as the oak was only a few steps away. We spread out on our hands and knees feeling for the marker.

  “Do you think Liesl will appreciate our effort?” Gil asked.

  “I’ve been thinking the same thing. It’s my impression that most people don’t appreciate a goddamn thing.” The grass was damp and I felt moisture seeping between the fibers of my pants, staining them. I was unperturbed. I brought a change of clothes, anyway. Helmut Lang. I hoped Gil had remembered to do the same. I would have suggested Jil Sander. I’ve been meaning to talk to him about expanding his wardrobe.

  “I don’t know if I’d go that far, Amanda. I appreciate—”

  “I was making a sweeping generalization, Gil. It’s rhetorical, please don’t respond. I feel ugly enough that I’ve even said it. I’m so negative.” Had I said that? Negative? The living me would have never copped to that. Sleuthing must have suited me, or, perhaps my brain was rotting into a jaundiced slush. I hoped that wasn’t the case; one needs a brain.

  “Over here!” Gil was on the opposite side of the tree, knees between thick exposed roots.

  Gil dug for the small coffin like a bowel impaction, his fingers crooked, widening the hole, and then picking at the dirt pocked with small stones, loosening it. Although, I would have never thought of it in quite that way if Gil hadn’t remarked, the hole was tighter than a virgin’s ass. Oh, why do I lie? I was already going to compare it to digging a corn kernel from a butt-hole, before he said a single word. I’m a sick fucker like that.

  “This hole is so tight,” he said, in all seriousness, like that, like that’s not a funny statement, and hunched over it on his knees, pressing his probing fingers deeper and deeper. Honestly, that’s a little gay.

  “Oh, yes!” I screamed, then laughed, then screamed again. “Get in that hole, Gil. Yeah! Deeper! Deeper!”

  “Shut up, Amanda!”

  No bigger than a shoe box, the coffin was probably the top of the line of pet burial implements; mahogany, gold fixtures, doggy swank.

  “Open it,” I said. “Open it, open it, open it.” Like the coffin was a morbid little Tiffany box, and this was Black Christmas.98

  A small button on the side unlatched the lid and despite its diminutive size the coffin creaked with an echo across the graves.

  “Can you keep it down?” Ms. Mercer shrieked in the distance. “I’m reading, for Christ’s sake.”

  Inside the box was an amulet. Round and heavily carved, it hung from a thick gold-corded chain. But was it the amulet? Would it fit in that dusty shadow box, in Liesl’s bloodbath of a room?

  “The size of a monocle,” I said. “Weren’t those Wendy’s words?”

  “Yep.” Gil picked at the dirt crammed underneath his fingernails. A look of annoyance spread across his handsome face. He dragged his hands across the damp grass then rubbed them together, repeating the action until his hands were skin-colored.

  We carried the casket to a more lit area. The moon wasn’t illuminating for shit. The bronze pendant was the size and shape of a small compact. Its face and back were engraved and embossed in an intricate orgy scene, like a miniature Kama Sutra. A hedonistic variety of creatures in various ridiculous positions, flitting across its surface—you could almost hear the moans.

  “It’s a sex scene. That just screams incubus/succubus, no?” I asked.

  “Oui, Mademoiselle. Très érotique.”

  “Lovely. But, I took Spanish.”

  “Let’s go back to the car,” he said, in a dull, disgusted monotone. “My eloquence is lost on the likes of you.”

  We crossed the street and the instructions must have fallen from my pocket, because they crunched under Gil’s foot. He picked them up, and read them under the dome light, for a next step, presumably.

  “Oh shit. You’re such an asshole, Amanda.”

  “So much for eloquence. What is it?” I snatched the note from his hand.

  There, following the directive to dig up the coffin, in my own handwriting, if you’ll recall, was an important note.

  It read: Do not open the box.

  Chapter 21

  God Grant Me the Serenity to Disembowel and Devour

  Wherever you go, there’s always the chance that you’ll run into them. Seattle is certainly no different. Just remember the majority of us say that supernatural is supernormal. We have a right to exist…

  —Uncanny & Out

  After all the hassle of recovering the doggy casket, Clevis didn’t answer his door. We knocked, just short of hammering blisters into our knuckles. A second-story window was lit behind a closed curtain, the light bleeding through the break. Someone was shut up in there.

  My first thought? He knew we’d opened it. Clevis had somehow gained the knowledge that we’d debauched the coffin and fondled its contents. Probably in the same way Nick had detected my unwholesome interest.

  I ended up leaving a curt message on his voice mail.

  Gil floored the British racer, weaving in and out of traffic and, at times, bottoming out, after tight leaps from unexpected hills.

  “That was a complete waste of time, Amanda,” he railed. “What did we accomplish tonight, besides missing half-price happy hour?” Gil loved Ricardo’s specialty vamp snacks; he called them blood crisps. Apparently when not managing the hottest club in town, or promoting his newest, Ricardo was an amateur chef and fan of late night infomercials. The crisps were pungent and snappy, but reminiscent of hard fruit rollups. Ricardo made them in a food dehydrator, a regular undead Ron Popeil.

  “Don’t forget ruining three hundred dollar jeans. I’m sorry. But, honestly, is there anything more important than jewelry?”

  I reached into the floorboard and after some finagling with the latch, retrieved the amulet and donned it. I slumped in the seat like a pachuco, and gave him a nodding pout. Doing my best hand signal gang signs: the Chanel double C logo.

  Gil looked over and his demeanor brightened. “No she didn’t! Mary J. in the house!”

  “Hey-Ho!” I waved my hand in the air and used all four of the required syllables.

  The vampire slowed down a bit then, typical male, needed Mommy to soothe his precious little head. Baby got a temper, he do. He parked the car under the viaduct, and arms linked, we traversed the living obstacles in the gutter, on our way to the Well.

  The club was packed as tight as Nick’s jeans. Clumps of supernatural subgroups were plopped here and there in a vibrating throng of inhumanity. Heavy-handed description, to be sure, but, nonetheless true.

  Wendy and Shane hung off the bar like utility disconnect notices, rejecting would-be suitors with flippant waves or disturbed shakes of the head, all the while, in rapt conversation. Gil bounded off ahead of me to join up, but I had sli
d into stilettos and had to maneuver dark stairs.

  A blatant hand shot out from between a pair of translucent water sprites in Valentino. It latched onto my forearm, like a cuff. Before I could think to snatch it back, I was face to smiling face with the hand’s owner, Elizabeth Karkaroff.

  Let me give you the rundown: The Devil does not as has previously been reported favor the designs of Miuccia, Donatella, or even the man, himself, Giorgio. She wears Carolina Herrera, and wears it well, like the Brazilian seamstress pulled her as a muse. The dress was a tweed boatneck and ended below the knee where jet stockings took over. Her heels were high and rounded at the tip—now, those were Italian. Impeccable. Her long flaxen hair was streaked with platinum, and waved like Veronica Lake. Her eyes were as dark and stormy as a Victorian gothic novel. Her handbag was an Hermès Birkin, in orange ostrich. Holy shit! The woman was intimidating.

  I turned back to scream for Shane. The hand pulled me close. I shut my mouth.

  “Ms. Amanda Feral,” she cooed. Up close, her tongue could have circled the fleshy knob, dead center of my ear, if she’d wanted. “I’ve been meaning to have a word with you.” The accent was studied and aristocratic, as if harked up from a wet lung. South African, perhaps, smooth as dark roast coffee.

  She dragged me through the crowd, her arm enveloping my waist, feeling far larger than its appearance. We stopped at the farthest table, with the highest vantage. She guided me deep within. I tried to spot my friends, but would have had better luck plucking grey hairs from a child. My memory started to speak, shout. Don’t look her in the eye. Who’d said that? If you appear rude, you’re dead. Now, I know I’ve never heard that before. She’ll put thoughts into your head. That was me. Make you kill yourself.

  “I certainly would not,” she responded, her hand to her chest.

  “Did I say that aloud?” I asked, apologetically, staring thoughtlessly into her cat shaped eye, the left one. I began to feel faint.