by Arthur Slade
I’d been tempted to give a good squeeze but held back. Something about the way he carried himself commanded respect. “Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Ernest.” They certainly had a collection of odd names in this league. “Thank you for pressuring me to rejoin your organization.”
“I hope you don’t feel it was pressure. I’ve been very impressed by you.”
Most humans are impressed by me nearly came out of my mouth. But I impressed myself by holding it in.
“And what are your intentions with me?” I asked with just the right amount of demureness.
“Well, we want you to stay here for a short while to continue your studies.”
“Studies?”
“Yes, we’ve arranged an online completion of your courses. We may even be able to give you a practicum in a nearby library. Assuming your marks are high enough.” He grinned.
“They will be.”
“We have a training regimen for you too,” he said. “You’ve operated on your own for many years. This is a good time to hone your skills. Can you fire a gun?”
“It’s not necessary.”
“It may become so.” He pushed his glasses up, examining me more closely.
“I only eat what I can kill,” I said. “I should remind you that I need to eat in about twelve days.”
“That will be arranged.”
“Is it a delivery service or take out?”
“I’m sorry, but we only do take out,” he said. Though he did grin. “Have a good rest, Amber Fang. And welcome to the League.”
Then he turned and walked out of the house. As I watched through the window, he got into a black Oldsmobile and drove away. He didn’t even have a driver.
He came all this way to see me. That was impressive, yet odd. But perhaps the league’s HQ wasn’t that far.
I was alone in the house.
So I went to my bed, found a copy of The Shining on the bookshelf, and read. Then I fell asleep in my new world.
16
THE BIG B
Enter boredom.
Well, not complete boredom. I did have several books, a wireless internet connection, and a white personal trainer with the personality of a wet stick, though he was particularly good at martial arts. His head was shaved. His name was Jake, and he didn’t live at the White House. He just showed up at the door at ten o’clock every morning, and we went into the walled back yard and fought hand to hand for an hour.
In the afternoons, I continued my Master’s in Library Science online from the University of North Texas. Why hadn’t I thought of online studies earlier? I should have been taking internet courses my whole life—no human contact to foul things up. In the evenings, I read Stephen King or watched CNN. My first project was a paper on the history of information retrieval systems. I was thinking I’d call it I Go Boo at Boolean Logic. Okay, that was only funny to about point one percent of humanity.
A week passed, and I began to get a little nervous about when I’d be eating. That last part of the thirty-day cycle was kind of like smelling meat grilling on a barbecue for a week. I started thinking about blood a lot more and staring at Jake’s jugular.
Thankfully, with six days left, I heard the front door open. I ambled out of my room, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. Dermot was there in a gray suit.
“You must be getting hungry,” he stated.
“Angry too. Which is part of it. I prefer to know when I’ll be eating a bit sooner. I usually have my meals planned out a few weeks in advance.”
“We hadn’t intended to be working with you again so soon, and it took a bit of organizing to put this one together. The last target was, perhaps, too complicated for you.” He paused. Hopefully because of the angry darts shooting out of my eyes. “As a first job, that is.”
There was a manila envelope on the rocking chair. I picked it up. “Paper? Envelopes? Why are you so old fashioned?”
“Actually, paper is the hardest to trace. There is only this copy. If you burn it, it no longer exists. Electronic trails exist forever. And information, like a virus, can be transmitted to the wrong people.”
“You mean this was typed on a typewriter?” I said.
He nodded.
“By you?”
“By someone in the office. Though I often use a typewriter. And a lot of Wite-Out.”
“That is some seriously odd shit you guys do.”
I sliced open the envelope with my pinky. I pulled out the papers to discover a photo of an attractive blonde woman in her early thirties. Her bio stated she was an Icelandic librarian.
“Why on earth would I eat her?”
“Keep reading,” he said.
Her name was Bjork. Okay, I’m kidding. It was Hallgerdur Grettirsdottir. How was that for a handle? And she really was a librarian in Reykjavik.
It became clear in the next few paragraphs that she was also the librarian for ZARC, the arms dealer organization that had so recently tried to put me to sleep with a rocket launcher.
“But did she kill someone?” I asked.
He motioned at the paper. “Read on.”
“Ah, she’s a sniper,” I said.
“Yes. She has a preference for a particular type of radium-tipped ammunition. There’s a list of our agents who’ve encountered her.” There was a bullet-point list of six agents (three male and three female) and short descriptions of their deaths.
“She’s a good shot.”
“One of the best in the world.”
I picked up the papers. “How can I trust this information?”
“You have to trust us, Amber. These are not the type of people who leave mountains of evidence. She also has information about the holding pen.” He said this as if I knew what the holding pen was.
“The holding pen?”
“Yes, the pen in Panama where they interviewed the vampire. She designed it.”
“She’s an engineer too?”
“She’s has an impressive variety of skills. She was part of the team that captured the vampire they experimented on. That’s what our intelligence suggests, anyway. Her blood is waiting for you. We should have a chance to interview her before … well … before your mealtime.”
“When do I go?” I asked. I was very hungry. And any scrap of information about my fellow vampires would be helpful. If only my mother hadn’t guarded her secrets so closely.
“We leave today,” Dermot said.
“We? I work better alone.”
“It was decided that you need a—how shall I put it delicately?—a keeper.”
“Keeper?”
“Yes. View me as an assistant. You’ll like that.”
“You can towel my brow when I’ve finished my job.”
Within an hour, we were in a car heading for New York. Then shortly after that, in first class on an Icelandair flight to Reykjavik. I’d never been to Iceland, and I greatly anticipated seeing the land of the sagas. These Icelanders knew how to tell a tale. They did not have any particular vampire mythology, but blood spewed through their stories. And draugrs were constantly coming back from the dead. The country had a close to a one hundred percent literacy rate. These were the facts you picked up as a librarian-in-training.
Perhaps their blood was thick with words.
The plane was soon in the heavens. Dermot brought out an e-reader the moment we were at cruising altitude. It was odd to see him with an electronic device. “What are you reading?” I asked.
“Descartes,” he said.
“Oh, now you’re just trying to impress me.”
“No. I find it relaxing.”
“I just want to break things when I read Descartes. Like his head. But anyway, to each her own.”
He nodded. He turned out to be a rather boring travel mate. I read the on-flight magazine, did a few hours of homework, and watched a movie before we landed.
17
THE DANCE FLOOR
Keflavik International Airport had a red roof. Oh, and lots of glass. It was also
shrouded in that fog and mist that had come out of the pages of the sagas and had been hanging around since the longships first brought the Vikings’ beating hearts to this countryside.
We landed safely and went through security without a problem. I’d expected to see blonde women and men everywhere—another stereotype, I knew—but most of the women had dark hair. The men were tall. And plenty of camera-clad tourists were scrambling for their buses. Iceland was a photographer’s mecca. It was like a gorgeous green spot on the moon.
“Why don’t we go there first?” I pointed at a sign for a place called Blue Lagoon, a hot spring. The people in the image looked happy and well-heated. The water was an unbelievable shade of light blue.
“There’s no time,” Dermot said. “We have much to do before our work is done.”
“Is that some sort of Zen koan?”
“No. I just want you to concentrate on why we’re here.”
“Okay, Mr. Fuddy Duddy, lead on.”
We took a cab down the highway to Reykjavik, passing the American military base on our way. Soon, we were in the city itself. It wasn’t the largest city in the world, but it made up for that by being colorful. The houses were red, pale green, white, and yellow—bright colors that shimmered in the sun. I liked that the Icelanders weren’t afraid to be bold with their paint. We passed near Hallgrímskirkja church with its giant tower that reminded me of pipe organs. It dominated the skyline of the city.
The cab stopped at Hotel Borg, an art deco hotel that stood out because of its gray and white walls. We checked in, then went into the silver-doored elevator and up to the fifth floor.
“Have a rest,” Dermot said. It was 8:00 p.m. Icelandic time.
“Is that an order? I hear the Icelanders party like it’s 1299.”
“Rest. Any irregularities could draw attention to us.”
“It’s not like I’m going to get drunk and start a brawl.”
He raised an eyebrow. It reminded me of a look my mom would give—that exasperated How did I get stuck with her? look. It was a little bit odd and frightening, and endearing.
And totally aggravating.
“We’ve spent six hours on a plane, and I want to stretch my legs. Join me, Dermot. Cast off your fuddy duddy ways.”
“I have paperwork.”
“Paperwork? You didn’t even bring your typewriter.”
He grimaced. “Just be careful. This isn’t a holiday.”
“Okay, Mom.”
I went into my room. We were on the top floor, so the roof curved over a large bed with a white comforter and a black headboard. There was a picture of a man and a goat on the wall.
I freshened up, and one elevator ride later, I was marching along the street. There had been a rain—or more correctly, a thick, drenching mist—but it had cleared after painting the streets with moisture.
The truth was, I needed to walk because the blood lust, the curse as Mom used to call it, was boiling in my blood. Walking distracted me.
I passed several restaurants. I missed a lot of the culture of any country because food was so intertwined with the human experience. In Iceland, they had an island mentality to food: they were willing to eat anything. Shark. Puffin. Cheeses. But it was all lost on me. Even the smells didn’t mean much. A hot dog, or lobster with butter, or a soufflé—all the same. They weren’t blood.
Suffice to say, I never watched cooking shows.
Anyway, culture was also art and dance and music, and I hadn’t been to a bar since my time in Seattle, so I went through a wooden door into Café Amsterdam. There was a band throat-roaring black metal in German, or maybe it was Norwegian. People were dancing madly. I walked right in, threw my coat on a chair, and joined the throng. Dancing was something I was damn good at.
Twenty minutes passed. The bass made my heart beat faster, made my body feel more primal. If there was one thing I could thank humans for, it was creating music. And amplifiers. I forgot who I was. What I was doing there. And I danced. The throng thronged. Most of the people were in their twenties and all vibrantly dancing on this island on the edge of forever.
A man with an ankh earring briefly danced with me. But I turned away, and when I turned back again, he was gone. I was glad for that because I’d started to stare at his neck.
You know, on that point, we didn’t always go for the neck. It was just the easiest to reach. There was the femoral vein in the thigh that was handy. And the brachial veins in either arm. These exterior veins were very difficult to bite into, though, and it was harder to hold your food down while you were eating and waiting for the sleep agent to reach their brain. All that kicking and thrashing could lead to an upset stomach.
The ankh-eared man came back, this time a little more red-eyed, and got near enough that he was leaning over me. I felt his slobbering lips on my neck. I reached down and quickly pinched one of his testicles, and he was on the floor in agony. I danced my way into the crowd. I didn’t see him again. I just danced. Eventually, the band grunted twice loudly and took a break.
As I grabbed my coat, a table of three women nearby gave me the thumbs up. A sign of solidarity. Obviously, they’d had encounters with ankh man.
One said something to me in Icelandic, and I shrugged and said, “I don’t speak your language.”
“Oh, you speak English,” a blonde said.
“Yes. My native tongue.”
“Well, join us for a drink, and we’ll toast your native tongue.”
This was not what I’d promised Dermot. This was not lying low.
“He was my ex-boyfriend,” another said. “The man you put on the floor.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
This got a laugh. “Where are you from?” the blonde asked.
“Kansas,” I said.
They motioned for me to sit. I did so and took the proffered glass of wine. The women had fine jugulars and angular, classically beautiful faces. They asked me questions about my life in Kansas, so I made up answers. We were joined by an attractive, blond, straight-jawed man who didn’t seem to have any romantic connections to the women. His eyes were a lively blue, and his sweater an unlively gray. His name was Halldór. All four of them were students at Reykjavík University.
“What I’d like to know about is GKS 2365 4to,” I said. I smiled a bit. I was testing them. And this was a test only a librarian would think of. The women gave me blank stares. But Halldór grinned.
“The Codex Regius of the Poetic Edda?” he said. “At the Árni Magnússon Institute?” The three women tapped their foreheads. “You have a passion for old books?”
It was one of the oldest books in the world—ancient Norse poems about gods and such. “Yes, I’d like to dance around those ancient words.”
“No dancing there,” Halldór said.
“There isn’t a place in the world where I can’t dance,” I said. “We can dance on the rooftop. I’ll show you.”
He stood and the other three laughed as if a bet had been won. We left the club and walked toward the Institute.
And, purely by chance, we walked by Landsbókasafn Íslands - Háskólabókasafn, the National and University Library of Iceland. It was a rectangular, red building, with a white elevator shape on either side. They did like their primary colors here.
Tomorrow, I would dine there.
“You like the library?” he asked.
“Yes. Books feed my soul.” The wine was obviously getting to me. “Well, maybe I can’t dance in there.”
“You said you can dance anywhere.”
“I’m a better private dancer.”
This got him to raise an Icelandic eyebrow. “That can be the best type.”
“Then I’ll go see the Poetic Edda tomorrow.” Again, you weren’t supposed to play with food, but it was nice to talk. Turns out he was writing a play, but he also ran a tourist company specializing in saga-related tours.
“Back up a bit,” I said. “The sagas are stories. How can you visit them?”
�
�Well, you can go to the places where the events were supposed to have taken place. Whether they actually happened or not, that is in the mist of history.”
I must admit, I liked that phrase. It warmed the cockles of my librarian heart.
So I said, “Come back to my room with me.”
He kept a calm face and his heartbeat sped up only slightly. We vampires could be rather forward.
“It would be my pleasure.”
Hand in hand—mine cold, his warm—we went back to the Hotel Borg, through the silver doors, and up in the elevator. Just as we came to my door, the one across the hall opened and Dermot stepped out.
“Amber,” he said. “What are you doing?”
“I went out,” I said. “I came back. I made a friend. Sorry, Mom.”
There was a look on his face that I couldn’t quite place. Consternation. Something possessive, maybe. Then he glanced at Halldór, who had extended his hand to shake. Dermot didn’t take it. “We’ll continue this discussion in the morning,” he said.
“Yes, Mom,” I said.
Then I pulled Halldór into my room and closed the door.
“Who was that?” Halldór asked.
“Oh, my colleague. Another librarian.”
“He was not happy.”
“He rarely is,” I said. Then I cranked on the old radio and tuned it to a station that was playing some odd, ghostly-sounding folk music. I kissed Halldór and tried to ignore the blood rushing in his veins.
Halldór paused long enough to say, “Your colleague isn’t going to be mad, is he?”
“Forget about him,” I said. “Forget about everything. That’s what I’m going to do.”
And we did forget about everything.
18
COMPROMISING THE COMPROMISED
“You compromised the mission,” Dermot said. These accusing words were shot at me over a plate of eggs and something the Icelanders called skyr, a white, yogurt substance. Dermot was eating it. I was drinking Icelandic coffee. It was very tasty and making my heart go ba dump dump dump. Not blood tasty, of course. But I did need to stay hydrated.
