Vampires, Hearts & Other Dead Things

by Margie Fuston

  “For once?” He raises his eyebrows as he pops another fry in his mouth.

  I grin before turning serious. “I need to get back in that convent.”

  This gets Henry to pause and wipe his hands on a napkin. More fries for me.

  I wait for him to snap. To show me he doesn’t really believe in me at all.

  “Okay.” He stares a little too intensely at the fries. “Don’t you have other leads?”

  “No,” I answer, but I do. A club in the Quarter’s been mentioned more than once on the message boards—a couple of people said a vampire holds court in the VIP section. Plus, they found a body outside the club six months ago—stab wound to the neck was the official story. It made the news. I showed Dad and said we should check it out on our trip. He said no way, that we weren’t going to hunt killers—be they vampires or humans. He made me promise I wouldn’t go near it before I left, and Dad and I don’t break promises.

  Besides, something’s in that attic. I felt it.

  He chews his bottom lip. “It just seems like going back is a good way to end up in jail.”

  “I’m not asking you to come with me.” But I want him to, more than I care to admit. He got me off the hook last time, even if I didn’t like how he did it. I know he would try again.

  “But I’ll be the one you call to bail you out of jail?”

  “What’s the point of you being here if you won’t at least be my get-out-of-jail-free card?”

  Henry’s face tightens for a moment, and then he loses it. He snorts and drops his forehead to the table. His shoulders shake with laughter.

  I’m tempted to kick his shins under the table, but when he raises his head, this boyish grin sits on his face, and it unwinds a little of the tightness inside of me.

  “Maybe we should take it easy tonight and regroup in the morning. I’ll help you do some research—come up with a better plan.”

  His eyes are wide and sincere and invite me to lean on him, to let him help me, and I desperately want to. But his plans will be safe, and you don’t find vampires playing it safe.

  “Yeah, great idea.” I give him a wide smile, because if he’s anything like he was when we were kids, he’ll be asleep hours before me and not even a werewolf howling in his ear will wake him up.

  * * *

  I leave Henry curled up on his side, knees dangling off the edge of the too-small couch where he fell asleep watching Interview with the Vampire, which he’s never once stayed awake for, and I creep into the night that I tell myself I want to belong to.

  This city is a vampire—beautiful and old and seductive, living off the energy of the people it attracts. I do love the night already, the way the neon bar signs contrast with the old gas lamps and make the puddles of water from the summer thunderstorms glow like portals to another place and time, but nobody steps in them because nobody wants to be anywhere but here. Life pulses up and down Bourbon Street, and I imagine anyone without a dying dad wouldn’t be able to walk down this street without grinning.

  I bet Mom would hate it though—nothing’s organized, nothing has a place. I imagine us on a mother-daughter trip and cringe.

  I turn onto a quieter street with fewer people and darker corners for lonelier creatures to hide in. This city offers places to fit almost anyone’s mood.

  Even at night, the heat and humidity refuse to let up. It’s like lying in bed sweating under a comforter, but you can’t kick it off because some cruel person nailed it to your bed frame—probably what a coffin feels like. I shudder. Small spaces are not my thing. I really, really hope the coffin thing’s a myth. My skin feels too tight just thinking about it.

  I wore a gray sweatshirt and jeans. For some reason I thought it would make me less conspicuous, but given what the other women I’ve passed on the street were wearing, less is more, and I would have been better off in my white miniskirt and flimsiest top. Now I stick out like someone up to no good, which is accurate.

  A few men give me a sideways glance, and I tug my hood up. When you’re already in a furnace, what’s a few more degrees?

  The streets around the convent aren’t empty like I’d hoped, but of course I’m not the only one intrigued enough to come here. This place is a must-see for supernatural tours, and even though tours end at ten, I suspect the group of twentysomething women holding drinks and taking selfies are leftover from one. An older man with a cane walks back and forth in front of the entrance as well, scowling in their direction each time they laugh.

  A single streetlamp gives one corner of the wall an eerie yellow glow. The streetlight on the other side of the road sends the shadows of a scraggly tree across the wall like skeletal fingers trying to tear it down and set whatever’s inside free. I tuck myself in the shadows.

  This part of the plan is simple: wait.

  The women leave first, losing interest when their cups run dry.

  The man is more diligent. I count the beats of his cane as he moves until my mind numbs and I lose track of the number, but eventually he stops and stares up at the third-floor shutters. He’s a believer. I can sense it in the way he holds his position for so long, the way he leans forward like he’d fly up to those windows and rip through them with his bare hands if he could guarantee what he needed was there. He needs something—not just wants. People that want give up easier. I wonder what he needs, but I don’t want to think about it too much. My own need is all I can handle. At least an hour passes. Maybe more. When he finally glances down, his head swivels in my direction. He gives one slow nod as if resigning his duties to me and then retreats into the dark.

  I want to call out to him not to give up, but being alone and vulnerable out here is more likely to attract what I’m looking for.

  I cross the street to a small gray door in the wall, a good twenty feet down from the side entrance. Chipped black bars in the center let me peer through at the empty convent inside. Almost empty. A single light is on in the second story. Interesting. I examine the third-story shutters for any movement, but they’re all sealed tight.

  I grip the bars, cool compared to the warm night air, and press my face against them.

  So many people have reported strange experiences out here at night: the third-story shutters flying open, strange black animals lurking in the shadows, a creeping coldness across the back of the neck, lost time they can’t account for. Perhaps the most terrifying story is of two paranormal researchers who camped outside through the night after failing to breach the upstairs attic—just like me. In the morning, their bodies were found exsanguinated. This story is well-known among those who follow the supernatural, even though the police claim there’s no official record of it.

  More recently a few people have reported strangers approaching tourists and holding odd conversations, but I didn’t find many details, and the stories were secondhand.

  But maybe all I need to do is stand here and wait. Let the vampires come to me.

  Then try not to die.

  I don’t know how long I stand there. Nothing changes. But I also don’t see my friend the security guard. I lean back and eye the door I’m holding onto. I might be able to pull myself up, but then what? Surely they keep their doors and windows locked. Am I going to stand outside and toss pebbles at the third-story shutters like a fool in love?

  At this point, I’m considering it.

  “Waiting for something?” The man’s voice is high and light and doesn’t quite break the silence.

  My heart rate speeds, half from terror and half from excitement.

  I turn slowly, preparing to be disappointed or terrified or both. I keep one hand gripped on a bar of the door like I can somehow scurry up it if this goes south.

  He’s thin and taller than me but not as tall as Henry. His blond hair passes his shoulders, and he keeps it tucked behind both ears, showing off a delicate face and full, pouty lips. In dark skinny jeans and a powder-blue tank top, he looks more like an errant punk elf prince than a vampire.

  I can’t tell
if he’s what I’m looking for or not, but he is standing here in front of the convent despite being dressed for the clubs a couple of blocks over.

  “Maybe I’m waiting for you.” My pounding heart pushes the words from my mouth—bolder words than I’ve ever spoken.

  He smirks. “I doubt it.” His gaze drifts above my head—to the third-floor shutters or the stars? I can’t tell. “Or maybe you are.”

  His smirk widens into a full-toothed grin.

  I eye his teeth with all the enthusiasm of a dentist, even though a real vampire wouldn’t be out flashing their fangs willy-nilly. What real vampire wants to draw that kind of suspicion to themselves? I’m not even sure real vampires have fangs. Gerald never showed his on camera despite every interviewer asking him for a glimpse. Maybe he didn’t have them. Maybe he didn’t want to make the public more scared of him than they already were. Either way, visible fangs would be a sign of a vampire-wannabe, not a real one.

  The dark makes it impossible to tell anyway. I take a step toward him.

  “You’re very brave,” he says.

  His words chill my warm, pumping blood.

  “I’m Victoria.” My name sounds odd, uttered in the dark, and I’m not sure why I say it, but I feel like I need to give him something of myself.

  “Carter.”

  His name cuts through the night and pierces my heart, making it stall out for a moment before speeding forward, urging me to jump toward him and beg him to turn me.

  The name cannot be a coincidence—not in this town, on this street, at this time.

  Wayne and John Carter were brothers living in New Orleans in the 1930s. They seemed normal until a bleeding woman escaped their home one day and led authorities to countless bodies and other survivors who were still alive and being drained of blood for the Carters’ nightly supper. One of the survivors went on to do the same—probably having been turned before the rescue.

  The story’s enough to turn even my stomach. This is the part I don’t like to think about—who I would become as a vampire. But surely all vampires don’t need to be killers. I can be a vegetarian like the Cullens—at least I hope so.

  Carter stares at me with his head slightly cocked, probably reading every thought crossing my face.

  He smiles. “Scared yet?”

  Feet pound behind us. His head swivels, and then he’s brushing past me, so close my racing heart freezes, and then he’s around the corner, long legs carrying him down the sidewalk in a blur.

  “Wait,” I yell, moving after him.

  Someone else grabs my arm, sending a shock through my already electrified system. I turn and swing upward with my fist, connecting with a nose.

  Henry’s nose.

  “Dang.” He bends over and cups the lower half of his face. “Where’d you learn how to do that?”

  “My dad got me self-defense classes for my eighteenth birthday.”

  “Your dad’s awesome.”

  My still speeding heart slows to a crawl. “I know.”

  He unfolds himself and wipes his nose. His hand glistens slightly.

  “You okay?” I ask.

  “It’s not broken.”

  “Great.” I spin and tear down the dark street before he can lunge for me again.

  I check half a mile of road and side streets before giving up and turning around. When I do, Henry’s trailing behind me.

  I wander back in his direction. “I lost him.” I don’t add thanks a lot, which is what I’m really thinking. If Henry had left me alone, if he’d never even come at all, I might have what I want this very moment.

  Or I might be dead. I try to shake off the other, still terrified, voice inside me. Even if he wasn’t a vampire, human monsters exist too.

  “Who?”

  “Who do you think?” I snap. I can only compose myself so well after all.

  “Well, from where I was standing, he looked like some punk-ass creep, so you tell me.”

  I don’t want to say the words out loud. I know how he’ll react, and I want to live in my own bubble of conviction without Henry’s doubt poking holes in it.

  He won’t leave it alone, though. He stares at me, waiting.

  I start the sentence a million times in my head. He might be… I think he’s… It’s possible… I consider framing it for him to make it easier, but in the end, I don’t need him to be comfortable or to believe me. I need him to support me, and he already promised that. “He was a vampire.”

  Henry doesn’t laugh like I thought he might. “Okay. Why do you think that?”

  He’s taking me seriously, or at least pretending to.

  “There was something about the way he showed up there, and he kept glancing behind me at the third floor like he knew why I was there.” I can see Henry struggling not to show his disbelief on his face. I decide not to mention his name and the connection to serial-killing vampire brothers. “Plus, he was super fast.” Speed’s a common trait in many portrayals of vampires.

  “Well, I’m super fast too, but it’s because I’m in good shape, not because I’m dead.”

  I ignore his joking. “He hinted at it.”

  “How? What exactly did he say?”

  “He said he might be what I was looking for.”

  Henry loses his ability to keep a straight face and frowns.

  “I know how that sounds,” I say.

  “Do you?”

  “Yes,” I hiss, but my tiny thread of hope frays under his scrutiny, and I struggle to hang onto it. “This is my best lead.” I hate the hint of desperation in those last few words.

  A tiny voice in my head reminds me of the club, but it’s not an option—not if there’s any other way. Dad would kill me for going back on a promise. We’d only be vampires for a day before he found out and staked me.

  I know Henry senses my desperation because his frown eases.

  “Then we need to find him again tomorrow.” He nods like we can do this.

  I worry my one lead just slipped away like a bat after dusk.

  What twisted kind of mortal are you?

  —The Little Vampire

  Six

  The next day, we wander the French Quarter, peeking into every odd little novelty shop as our skin soaks up the humid air, turning our steps slow even though urgency gnaws at me. But if I want to find Carter again, I’ll need to wait out the sun. Vampires don’t come out in the daylight.

  Still, I decide we need to keep an eye out just in case I’m wrong. The thing about vampires is every story’s a little different, so I can’t be 100 percent certain about any one trait. Gerald and the other vampires who showed themselves never answered any questions about their skills or weaknesses, like they had some rule about giving humans something to use against them, but I’ve sorted through all the myths and stories to come up with a list of likely characteristics.

  They drink blood. (One of the only traits I’m certain about. Even though vampires who live by stealing energy instead of blood are said to exist, most myths revolve around the consumption of blood.)

  They only come out at night. (This trait’s been key since the beginning—Sumerian texts mention creatures of the night who drink the blood of sleeping humans.)

  They hate garlic. (Garlic wards off the supernatural. This trait has been repeated in too many stories to be ignored.)

  They can’t go into churches, and they fear crosses. (I desperately want this one to be untrue. Dad would hate it.)

  They have no reflection in mirrors. (This stems from folklore and the idea that mirrors reflect the soul. Bram Stoker took it one step further and said painters could not paint them.)

  They have no heartbeat, and they’re colder to the touch than a normal human. (I read a lot of scientific explanations on this—all arguing a different side—but I’m keeping it on the list as a possibility.)

  They may possess other unusual abilities like immense strength, mind control, manipulating the weather, and healing. (We know the healing thing is true thanks to Gerald s
tabbing himself on live television. The weather thing is less known, but it comes from the draugr in Norse mythology.)

  I’m looking for five out of seven since I can’t count on everything being true.

  I run through my checklist to keep my focus, occasionally sharing a detail with Henry as he attempts to get me to enjoy myself. He drags me into more than one art gallery, and the work is rich and vibrant and makes me ache with the knowledge that I may never have it in me to make something like that again. Even if I become a vampire and save Dad, how long until I forget what the sun glinting on water looks like?

  He’s trying to be nice though.

  We play tourist under the pretext of looking for the vampire, but as other tourists laugh and smile and soak in the experience, I shut down and feel nothing. I’m not here to feel things. I’m on a mission. I’m definitely not here to feel happy.

  When we reach the grand white St. Louis Cathedral, Henry suggests going inside, but I shake my head. God had his chance, and if I went in there, if he gave me even the smallest sign, I might use it as an excuse to fly home early and wait for a miracle that won’t come. Instead, we sit outside on the benches with the church looming in front and the street artists lined up behind, displaying their wares along the wrought-iron fence enclosing Jackson Square.

  I sit, caught between two things I can’t risk loving anymore, trying not to let it pull me apart.

  “We need to keep walking,” I say.

  “It makes more sense to sit for a minute. This is a high-traffic area.” Henry stretches his legs out in front of him, flexing his feet up and down. We have covered a lot of ground.

  “I doubt we’ll find a vampire taking a stroll in front of a church.”

  “I thought we wouldn’t find one in the daylight,” he mumbles.

  Fair point. Why’d I share my list of traits with him? What I really want is to keep walking—movement allows me the delusion of progress.

  But I know I’m losing this argument.