by Jon F. Merz
And going to the Council was out as well.
Call it paranoid insecurity if you want, but nagging doubts have kept me alive in the past. Plus, recent experience has taught me that despite appearances to the contrary, the Council wasn’t the most secure organization around.
Still, I needed to bounce some ideas off of someone. I needed answers about the kid. About what had happened last night.
We were at my place.
Considering I couldn’t really stash him anywhere else and since he’d be safest with me, I’d put him in one of the guest rooms last night when we got home. He’d fallen asleep almost immediately.
My two cats, Mimi and Phoebe set about making him feel welcome by falling asleep on his head and stomach. Well, that’s how they make guests feel welcome. The few times I actually have them.
Morning dawned and nothing seemed clearer than it had when I finally fell asleep last night. I ducked out quickly and scored some jeans and shirts from a clothing store in West Roxbury, a short five minutes or so from my house. I didn’t like leaving him alone, but the kid couldn’t walk around in his pajamas.
When I got home, he was still asleep.
I went downstairs to the cellar and spent forty-five minutes trying to pound reason out of my hundred and fifty pound leather heavy bag. Not having much success, I slapped a few weight plates on the bar and ground out a solid twenty minutes of bench presses, pyramiding up and down until my chest could take no more abuse.
Finally, at eleven o’clock, I rousted the little guy, told him to wash up and come down for breakfast.
He stumbled into the kitchen twenty minutes later already showered and dressed in some of the clothes I’d bought him."Clothes fit okay?"
He nodded.
"You like eggs?" I pointed to the frying pan where I had a few yolks cracked.
He nodded, sat down at the heavy wooden table and looked at me. "I’m hungry."
"Yeah, I’m working on it, slick. Hold tight, okay? The eggs’ll be up in a sec."
"No. Not the eggs," he said. Then he leaned forward, as if unsure how to exactly say it. "I’m hungry."
He meant juice. Blood. I call it juice. I hate calling it blood. The idea that I’ve got to drink human blood still freaks me out. But the growing boy needed his nutrients. I opened the fridge. "You like it cold?"
"Yeah."
"Right." Who wouldn’t? Drinking warm blood is like sucking on a penny. I took out a bottle of what would have looked like chilled red wine to the uninitiated, uncorked it and poured a tall glass. I poured myself a smaller glass and then passed the taller one to the kid.
He looked at it, sniffed at it, and then drank it down a six big gulps. Then he belched.
"Ugh," I said. "Watch the burps, okay, sport? They stink."
He grinned for the first time and I scooped out some scrambled eggs onto his plate. "Here. Get these down, too. You need more than just juice to go on."
He tore into the plate, asked for another glass of juice, and polished off two white powdered donuts. Helluvan appetite, this kid.
I watched him eat while I finished my own meal, juice, and then a tall glass of orange juice. "Listen, I don’t even know your name." I wiped my mouth. "You do have one, right?"
"Yeah."
I smiled. "Well, I can either keep calling you sport, slick, dude, buddy, and governor…or you can tell me your name."
He frowned. "‘Governor?’"
"Maybe not governor."
He sat there another minute. "Jack."
I held out my hand. "Jack, my name’s Lawson. Nice to meet you."
He shook it tentatively. "Are you sure about my father?"
I looked away. "Yeah. Yeah, I am. I’m sorry."
"Damn."
I cocked an eyebrow. He blushed. "Sorry."
"Forget it." I poured myself another glass of orange juice. "Listen, Jack, you know anything about those men at your house last night? Anything at all?"
"Like what?"
"Like why they were there?"
"They had guns."
"Yeah, they did."
"Guess they weren’t very nice."
"No. Did you ever hear your father mention anything about some bad people? He ever tell you to be careful of certain people he knew?"
"No."
"You sure?"
"Yeah."
"All right." I sighed.
"Did they kill my father?"
I ran my hand over the orange juice glass, feeling the slight condensation on the outside. "No. No, they didn’t kill your dad."
"Were they going to kill me?"
"Yeah, Jack," I reached for a donut. "Yeah, I’m pretty sure they wanted kill you."
"You stopped them, huh?"
I grinned. "Actually, Jack, I think you stopped ‘em, buddy. Doing that thing you did-"
"My gift."
"Your gift?" I bit into the donut.
"That’s what my father called it. What we called it." He looked away.
"Yeah, well, that works for me. We’ll call it your gift, too, then okay?"
"Okay."
"Why don’t you tell me about your gift, Jack."
"Can I have some orange juice?"
I got him some and then sat back down. He took a couple of sips then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. "It only started a few months ago."
"When, exactly? Do you remember?"
"When I turned twelve."
He was older than that, but most of us convert our vampire age into human years. It keeps things less confusing. "On your birthday?"
"Uh huh. The night of my birthday. I thought it was a nightmare."
"I can see how you might think that. Pretty scary huh?"
"Yeah. But I don’t really remember much when it happens. All I know is I get really hot and sweaty and then stuff kind of comes out of my mouth. I don’t know what it is – the words I mean."
"You don’t?"
"Nope. I’ve never heard that language before. Dad said it sounded kind of like the old language, but I haven’t studied that yet at school so I don’t know about that. I don’t even know how I can speak it. But I do."
"What else happens when you do your gift?"
"Nothing happened before last night. It would just get hot, that swirly stuff would come and then the room would get real hot. After a few minutes it would go away." He looked around the kitchen. "Last night was different."
That was an understatement. "Did your father tell anybody about your gift?"
"I think so. He wanted to try to figure out what it was. I think he was kinda scared of it."
"He probably just wanted to make sure you were okay."
"Yeah."
"Who do you think he told, Jack?"
"I dunno. I never met many of my dad’s friends."
"Did your dad’s work keep him out late?"
"Sometimes. I got used to it since mom died."
"I guess you would."
"She died when I was real young. Dad said she was pretty old."
"My mom died when I was pretty young, too, Jack."
"But now my dad’s dead, too." He looked at me. "Does that make me an orphan, Lawson?"
"Maybe."
He frowned. "I don’t want to be an orphan."
"Hey, pal, listen to me." I laid a hand on his shoulder. "I know this isn’t going to be an easy time for you. But I’m here, okay? And I’m not going to let anything happen to you, understand? I made a promise to your father that I’d look after you."
He looked at me, eyes bright and moist. "You knew my dad?"
"Only for a short time. But I know he loved you very much. And I know he was worried about you. That’s why he sent me to look after you, okay?"
"Yeah."
"So, we’re buddies, okay? And maybe we can make some sense out of what’s going on here and get you back to an almost normal life. Does that sound okay?"
"Sounds okay."
"Good. Finish your orange juice. We’re going to see a frie
nd of mine and maybe see if he can help us get some answers."
"Does he know about my gift?"
"We’ll find out," I said. "He knows a lot of interesting stuff about some pretty strange things."
"I guess my gift is pretty strange."
"More likely, it’s pretty special, Jack. Try to remember that."
He looked at me for a minute, nodded, and then finished his orange juice.
Chapter Five
I didn’t actually consider Wirek a friend.
Truth was he was a drunk who lived on the underside of Beacon Hill, close to where the Council was headquartered. But whereas the Council owned as its headquarters a beautiful brownstone mansion, Wirek lived in a rickety triple-decker above a convenience store whose staples were lottery tickets and booze. Lots of it.
Good thing, too, because a prerequisite to visiting Wirek was to first make a stop downstairs and pick a gift of the fermented type.
Inside the convenience store, it stunk like old milk. The floor was littered with kernels of corn from where a bag made for popping had spilled open and no one ever bothered to sweep it up. An inch of dust caked every shelf.
I kept a close watch on Jack but he seemed pretty okay. For someone without any parents, he was handling like a trooper. He wandered around the store, hefting cans of beans that looked like they belonged in a nuclear fallout shelter rather than in that place. I picked out a bottle of tequila from among the musty bottles of gin and brought it to the counter.
The twenty-something behind the counter gave me a frown. "Buying that shit in front of your kid, man? Get some class."
I slid a ten onto the counter. "Shut up. Put the bottle in the bag. Don’t say another word until we are gone. I don’t need life advice from burnout punk."
Smart kid that he was, he did just that.
Outside, I pressed Wirek’s doorbell and waited. After four minutes and three more buzzes, the intercom speaker finally clicked on. "What?"
"It’s Lawson. Let me up."
"-the hell for?"
"Open the door, Wirek. I need your help."
More profanity followed but the door finally buzzed open. I looked at Jack. "This isn’t going to be pretty. Just let me do the talking, okay?"
"Okay."
It still smelled as bad inside the hallway as it had the last time I’d been here a few months back. Stale booze and piss has a way of clinging to walls and woodwork like no other smell I’ve ever known.
Above us, Wirek’s door opened. I led Jack up the stairs and we climbed, listening to them creak under our weight the entire time. I seriously wondered if the whole building wasn’t due to come crashing down around us.
At the top of the stairs, Wirek stood waiting. He didn’t look happy to see us.
But he still looked about the same. Flaps of old useless skin hung off him like handbags while he seemed to have lost some of the precious little hair he’d had the last time. The remaining tufts sprouted at weird angles. He was dressed in gray blotchy-stained sweat pants and a T-shirt that read "Kiss My Jamaican Ass" on it.
"Nice shirt," I said by way of hello. "Never figured you for a Rastafarian."
"I got lots of shirts like this. Maybe I’ll let you have a few."
"Great, I’m sure my wardrobe would appreciate the infusion."
He noticed the bag. "You bring me a gift?"
"‘Course." I handed it to him and watched him unwrap it like it was Christmas again and I’d just delivered the Baby Jesus to him.
"Lawson, you shouldn’t have."
"You’re damned straight, that stuff’ll kill you. Just do me a favor: I need you sober, so hold off on the party until after we leave."
"‘We?’"
I looked down. Jack had managed to hide himself behind my right leg. I nudged him out. "This is Jack."
Wirek frowned. "What’d ya bring a kid here for, fer crying out loud. This ain’t no daycare, Lawson."
"Jack’s got himself a gift, Wirek. Jack’s also got himself quite a fan club."
"Everybody should be so lucky," said Wirek. "I’m not interested." He started back inside his apartment.
I stopped him. "Unfortunately, these fans are humans."
Wirek stopped. "Humans?"
I nodded. "And interestingly enough, they happen to carry Fixer guns."
"Popular kid, huh?"
"Seems that way."
Wirek gestured toward the open door. "Better come inside."
We walked in and I blanched. Wirek must have cooked something earlier that smelled like road kill that had been left in the sun too long. "Jesus, what the hell did you incinerate in here?"
"Got some leftovers if you’re interested."
"Not even remotely."
"Hmph, should have figured you wouldn’t be the type to appreciate fine cuisine."
"I’m not even going to dignify that with a response."
Wirek plopped himself down in his orange plaid recliner and pointed us to the couch. I cleared off the old newspapers and booze bottles then sat us down across from him.
"So. Tell me about it."
I filled him best I could, which in truth wasn’t all that much. After all, I’d come to him for answers not the other way around. I looked at Jack from time to time to make sure I was getting it all correct. When I was finished, both of us looked at Wirek expectantly.
Wirek looked like he’d passed out.
I poked him. "So?"
He opened his eyes. "I listen with my eyes closed lately. Don’t mistake it for sleep, Lawson."
"Fair enough. What’s your take on this thing?"
"It sounds," said Wirek stretching his arms over his head slowly. "As though your young comrade there has the Gift of Bilau."
"Okay, and that would be what-exactly?"
"He’s an Invoker, Lawson. He can summon spirits forth from their existential plane. It’s a latent ability that crops up in only a very few of our race." He glanced at Jack. "How old did you say you were, boy?"
"I’m twelve in human years."
Wirek nodded. "And right on schedule, too, by the looks of it. The ability usually surfaces about that age. But it’s so rare, that it isn’t even discussed in the course of normal vampire society."
I knew that feeling. Fixers weren’t discussed either. "It doesn’t explain the hit team, though."
"Doesn’t it? Evidently, someone knows about the boy’s gift. And someone obviously wants to possess it." Hg took another glance at Jack and lowered his voice a bit. "Or else do away with it all together."
"Who? Who would know about it?"
"You mentioned his father told some people about it, right? So, I’d assume some of them told some other people maybe."
"Can you think of anyone who’d be interested?"
Wirek shrugged. "That’s your department Fixer. Not mine. I think I’ve given you some decent information. Certainly fair trade for the small gift you brought, hmm?"
"Yeah." We were being dismissed. I nodded to Jack. "Let’s get going."
We headed for the door. I stopped and looked at Wirek who was already taking a swig of the tequila. "Do me a favor?"
"Another one?" Wirek sighed. "What?"
"If you ever manage to drag yourself out of this dump, keep an ear to the ground? Call me if you find anything out, all right?"
Wirek waved me off. "I’m retired, Lawson. You always seem to forget that fact."
"You’re retired because you want to be, Wirek."
"I’m retired because I have to be, Lawson."
"Yeah, well, we both know you miss the old days."
Wirek didn’t say anything but took another long drag on the bottle.
I steered Jack out of the door and then looked back one last time. "I’m giving you a chance to stay in the loop, Wirek. Help me out."
But he’d already closed his eyes and drifted away again.
Chapter Six
So the little guy was an Invoker.
His ability to summon forth spirits certai
nly helped explain what he’d done to those two goons over at his house. I shuddered thinking about death by spirit summoning. Not something I ever wanted to go through, that’s for sure.
For the bottle of tequila, I suppose I’d gotten a fair trade from Wirek. Part of me wished he’d given me more to go on. But then again, my job is to figure this shit out.
Difficult as it was bound to be.
Outside Wirek’s apartment, I steered Jack toward the Volvo and watched him strap himself into the front seat. Twelve seemed plenty old enough for the guy to be riding up front anyway. But then again, my experience with kids is about as much as my experience with driving a nuclear submarine. I felt sure there were probably a million child safety advocates who would have been only too glad to jump down my throat and tell me I was doing something wrong.
Some people seem to live for doing that.
We got as far as Exeter Street before Jack turned to me and dropped his bombshell.
"What’s a Fixer?"
I’d cringed when Wirek had used the term at his place, knowing that Jack seemed smart enough to pick up on it. I hoped he hadn’t heard. Apparently, he had.
"You’ve heard of the Council, haven’t you-in your government and history class?"
"Yeah."
"I work for them."
"Doing what? Fixing stuff?"
"Kind of." I pointed at a couple walking a black Labrador outside a brownstone on Beacon Street. "Humans. They don’t know we exist. They don’t know people like you and I are always around them."
"Yeah…"
"The reason they don’t know that we exist is because of something called the Balance. You might call it the biggest secret you can think of. You know what that’s like? When you’ve got something so special that no one else can know? You might be dying to tell them, but you just can’t. You know what that’s like?"
"Yep."
"Well, I help keep that kind of secret. There are rules in our society. Laws that our people have to obey so that our secret remains safe. If humans found out about us, they’d probably hunt us down. They don’t know the truth about what we are, how we came to be, and what we can do. If humans heard there were vampires living in the same neighborhoods with them, they’d all freak out. We wouldn’t be safe. Anywhere. You wouldn’t want that, would you?"
