The number given was local, but not familiar. Could be the supposed client’s secretary. However … Penny entered the code that would stop her own call being traced, then punched the number in. A ringing tone began.
Click. “Carmine Smith.”
Penny hung up. Carmine. Not at her office but, obviously, at home. Well, now she had all her answers. New client. Oh, sure.
“You bastard. You two-faced, lying, cheating, cold-blooded bastard!”
And that, although she didn’t realize it until quite some time afterwards, was the moment when everything was set in motion.
She watched. Oh, she watched, and she listened, and at every opportunity she searched through David’s clothes, David’s wallet, anything that David was unsuspecting enough to leave lying around for her. For six days she found nothing. Then on the seventh evening, while he was in the bath, the incriminating evidence finally appeared.
Penny did not know whether to feel triumphant or sick as she read the scribbled note at the back of David’s diary. It said simply: Carmine, The Scream—Friday 12:30. Not last Friday, because she’d looked in the diary more recently than that. Today was Thursday. Tomorrow, then. The Scream was a new minimalist café; Penny had suggested to David that they go there, but he had poo-poohed the idea, dismissing it as an overpriced trap for fashion victims. Now she knew why. Not exactly sensible to take one’s wife to the same place where one met one’s mistress …
Noises from the bathroom announced David emerging, and hastily Penny replaced the diary in the inner pocket of his jacket. Twelve-thirty tomorrow. Good. It would be the final proof.
The rain gave her the advantage of anonymity. It was easy to loiter next door to the café, hiding under a plain black umbrella and pretending to window-shop. Sheer good fortune staged the meeting as if it had been scripted: David arrived on foot, and as he reached the doorway a taxi drew up and Carmine got out. Heart thudding painfully, Penny watched sidelong as they moved towards each other, and saw Carmine reach up to kiss her husband. It was not a sisterly kiss, and Penny waited no longer but turned and, quietly and unnoticed, walked away.
She therefore didn’t see David’s reaction to the kiss; didn’t see him lay his hands on Carmine’s upper arms and push her gently away. Carmine hesitated, searching his face, and what she saw there changed her expression. A small smile, a regretful and half-apologetic shrug. Then they went into the café together.
“I’m sorry.” Carmine stirred her coffee but showed no inclination to drink it. “Yes, I confess I did hope that maybe something might … develop between us. I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit to finding you very attractive, and as we’re both … Well, it seemed logical somehow.”
David thought the morality of that was dubious, but didn’t comment. “Apology accepted,” he said. “And maybe under different circumstances—”
“Thank you for being so tactful about it. But I overstepped the mark. I simply didn’t realize how strongly you feel about Penny.”
“I love her,” he said. “And I don’t want to lose her. When you called the first time, and told me what she’d asked you to do, it shocked me. I hadn’t faced it before; hadn’t thought through the implications of what I’ve become and what it’ll mean to us in the future. Now, though …”
“You want me to do it.” She looked down at the table.
“Yes. So that Penny and I can stay together.” His fingers moved restlessly. “I know it’s a great deal to ask, Carmine; especially when you … well, when I’ve disappointed you.” He shook his head quickly. “Christ, that sounds so arrogant; I didn’t mean—”
“Forget it. I haven’t lived as long as I have without developing a very thick skin. Yes, it is a great deal to ask. But you’re asking it out of love, and I’d have a hard time coping with my conscience if I used love as an excuse for refusing.”
David’s eyes lit. “Then—”
“I’ll do it. Not for money; I won’t accept payment this time.” She raised her head, seemed to force herself to meet his gaze, and smiled. “Call it my love token to you.”
There was a brief silence, then David let out a long breath and relaxed in his chair. “Thank you. I don’t know how to tell you what this means to me.”
“Then don’t try.” One of her hands, under the table, clenched until the fingernails dug painfully into her flesh. “I could begin this evening,” she added after a few moments. “Sooner the better, yes? Then I’ll be out of your hair for good.”
“I don’t know what to say, Carmine.”
“You’re making a habit of these ‘don’t knows.’” She manufactured a laugh to show that that was a joke. “I’ll come to your house at eight o’clock, then?”
“Eight o’clock. Yes. Thank you.”
Carmine stood up to leave, her coffee still untouched. “It might be better if you don’t tell Penny before I arrive. She … isn’t very well disposed towards me at the moment.”
“That’ll change.”
“Ah. My consolation, and reward for services rendered.” Her mouth twitched with a sad drollery. “I’ll see you this evening. Oh, and a glass or two of a decent Bordeaux or Burgundy would be welcome afterward. Goodbye, David.”
He hadn’t intended to say a word to Penny about it, but when he walked into the house and saw her tight face and tense posture, he wanted to cheer her into a happier mood. So he kissed her (she responded stiffly) and said, “I’ve got a surprise for you.”
“Oh?” Penny eyed him uncertainly, wishing she could hate him for what he was doing to her.
“Mmm. You’ll find out what it is at eight o’clock. When Carmine arrives.”
“Carmine?” She stared at him, her eyes glaring disbelief and outrage, but David was already on his way upstairs and didn’t see the change. “That’s right. No need to worry about food: she won’t be eating with us. But I’ve bought some wine; if you open it now, it can breathe for an hour or two. Just going to have a quick shower and get changed.”
His voice diminished up the stairs and Penny stood motionless in the living room doorway. She hadn’t taken in his exact words; hadn’t listened to them. One word, one name, was all that had registered. All afternoon she had been preparing herself for the great confrontation, when she would hurl down what she had seen today like a gauntlet and challenge him to deny it. Now all her plans were thrown into chaos; he had pre-empted her and snatched the advantage. Carmine was coming here. He had invited her, as if there was nothing between them, nothing to hide, nothing going on. What “surprise” had they cooked up between them to mollify her, put her off the scent? They must think she was a fool, a moron, to be taken in by their games!
Upstairs in the bedroom David was singing as he stripped off. He had a good baritone voice, but now it grated hatefully on Penny’s ears. Fool. Dupe. Taken for granted, used, mocked … A huge and uncontrollable rage was rising inside her like a storm-tide, and though a small part of her brain warned her it was a kind of madness, another part welcomed it because it was better, so much better, than the pain of enduring betrayal and making no effort to counter it.
Counter it. Penny moved at last. Down the hall, into the kitchen. Footfalls overhead; David was in the bathroom now. Faint sound of the shower running. He’s stopped singing. I don’t ever want to hear him sing again.
She opened one of the kitchen drawers at random, looked inside, closed it. Her mind wasn’t functioning properly: it was the rage that was doing it, blocking logic, blocking efficient reasoning and leaving her only with a robotic level of half-conscious reflex to drive her. Second drawer. No, not in there. Third.
Ah …
It doesn’t actually have to be a stake. Anything will do, as long as it pierces far enough. Carmine’s own words. Her daughter had died that way, caught out by—how had Carmine phrased it? “A tactical mistake,” that was it. Found out, unmasked for what she was, and summarily executed without a judge, jury or lawyer in sight. It must have happened a long time ago, of course. A century, two c
enturies: Carmine was coy about her age, so she hadn’t put a date on the event. Attitudes were different then. This was the modern world, a rational age. People didn’t do such things. Did they?
As long as it pierces far enough.
Penny took the cook’s knife with the eight-inch blade out of its plastic sheath in the drawer, and started to weigh and balance it gently in her palm.
Carmine was fifteen minutes late, but that didn’t matter. Penny heard a car approach and slow down, and settled herself more comfortably in her cross-legged position on the hall floor. It would take Carmine a minute or so to park; spaces were always tight in the evenings as more and more people arrived home and squeezed into diminishing slots. Yes; there she goes. Rev, rev. Sounds as if she doesn’t know the length of her own car. I don’t think I’ll go outside and help her. I don’t think that would be a good idea.
The stain on the carpet was spreading. Her hands and arms still dripped, probably from when she had punched her clenched fists into his chest afterwards, to make absolutely sure. Funny; she was so squeamish about red meat, but tonight she hadn’t felt sick. Still didn’t, despite the fact that the whole thing had been much more spectacular than she had anticipated. Penny giggled. Moviemakers didn’t know the half of it. The marks might come out of the stairs and hall carpet, but there wasn’t a chance of eradicating the mess upstairs. Bathroom, bedroom—she hadn’t quite struck cleanly (Ha! Joke!) the first time, so David had managed to get to the bedroom before shock and pain keeled him over and she had been able to finish it all properly. The heart really is an efficient pump, isn’t it? I hadn’t realized it would go on for so long.
The revving outside stopped at last. Footsteps now, click of elegant heels approaching the front gate. Penny giggled again, and this time had a degree of trouble making it stop. Silly woman. Control yourself. It’s no laughing matter.
At that thought she covered her mouth with a stained hand and snorted like a horse. Her face was smeared when she finally sobered and took the hand away, but she wasn’t aware of it and wouldn’t have minded in the least anyway. Come on, footsteps. I can hear you. Up the path. Hello, Carmine. Come in. I’ve been expecting you and I’m all ready.
A shape loomed dimly through the frosted glass panel in the door, and the bell rang, just once, demurely.
Bitch. Two-timer. Cheat. Betrayer. Made my husband immortal, did you? Well, he isn’t immortal anymore. Maybe I’ll let you see him. But I think it’s better if I don’t. Safer. I don’t want to lose the element of surprise, after all.
Penny stood up and started to smile. The hall mirror, as she passed it, reflected a demonic vision of gory red and deathly white, with eyes that burned and laughed and burned. Her hands felt as if they were burning, too, but it didn’t matter, any more than Carmine’s lateness mattered. The smile on her face was fixed now, as if nothing could ever erase it, and her right hand closed more firmly on the hilt of the scarlet knife behind her back, as with her left she reached out to open the front door.
AFTERMATH
Janet Berliner
South African–born American author Janet Berliner (1939–2012) served as president of the Horror Writers Association from 1997 to 1998. Her novels include The Madagascar Manifesto series (with George Guthridge), Execution Exchange (with Woody Greer), Rite of the Dragon (as Janet Gluckman), and Artifact (with Kevin J. Anderson, F. Paul Wilson, and Matthew J. Costello), while her short fiction appeared in Shayol, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and various anthologies. As an anthologist herself, she edited Peter S. Beagle’s Immortal Unicorn, David Copperfield’s Tales of the Impossible, and David Copperfield’s Beyond Imagination. Berliner won the Bram Stoker Award in 1997 (with Guthridge) for the story “Children of the Dusk.”
“At the risk of being branded a traitor, I admit to the fact that, excepting the original, I was never much into vampires of the traditional blood-sucking variety,” the author admitted. “Or so I believed, until I had an epiphany at a party in Las Vegas.
“Living in such an environment, running into Elvis or Marilyn at a party or the crap tables is commonplace, so it didn’t seem all that peculiar to me when I met a tall, handsome man who called himself Vlad, spoke with a strong Balkan accent, and claimed to be from Transylvania.
“Immediately Vlad found out that I was a writer, he asked me if I had ever written any vampire stories. I hadn’t. Then, as fate would have it, the very next day I was asked to write a vampire story, set in Jerusalem in or around the year 1197.
“There it was. The challenge I needed. I could continue to write about the human condition, and the next time I met Vlad I could tell him honestly that I had now written a true vampire tale …”
IN CANAAN, WHICH was also known as the land of Israel, in the spring of the year Christians called 1197, Moslems prayed openly but with a sense of unease. Jews, for whom the spring coincided with the celebration of Passover, called the year 4957. They prayed, too, in secret and with no less nervousness. Moslems and Jews alike were people whose families had endured and survived the injustices and cruelties of three Crusades. They knew, to a man and to a woman, that this brief respite from war would not last; a fourth Crusade would follow the third as surely as camels carried their own water across the desert.
The first three Crusades had been devastating. Entire Moslem families had been decimated; Jews, falsely accused of engaging in blood rites too horrific to contemplate, refused to convert to Christianity, to deny ha-rachamim, their Merciful Father, and laid down their lives for the sanctification of His name.
The Crusades denied fathers the pleasure of seeing their sons grow up; they denuded both communities of single men who could marry their daughters, so that they could no longer obey the Lord’s or Allah’s instruction to go forth and multiply.
And so it was that Meyer ben Joseph and Hamid el Faisir, who were the leaders of their communities and knew that they all needed protection against the evil to come, befriended each other. “If we are destroyed, it will not matter to the few survivors which God we worshipped,” Meyer said.
Hamid assented.
On the first night of Passover, in the same spirit of cooperation, Hamid agreed to be present at the religious meal which his new friend Meyer called the Seder. “In this way,” Hamid told his people, “I shall be an eyewitness to their rituals. If they do not drink of the blood of Christian children, as has been reported, then we shall defend our City together against the soldiers when they come.”
And so it came to be that Hamid and his family joined Meyer, his wife Rose, and their only surviving child, Devora, on the first night of Passover. They reclined and listened with respect as Meyer told the story of his people’s journey across the desert in search of the Promised Land, they enjoyed the melodic songs, and they bowed their heads respectfully during the prayers.
“Pour the last of the wine, Meyer,” Rose said, finally. “I sense that our guests are growing hungry.”
Meyer poured a small amount of prayer wine for each person, though he knew that his Moslem guests did not drink. He was emptying the last of the carafe into a large goblet set aside for the Prophet Elijah when there came a knock at the door. Meyer’s hand jerked in surprise and a few drops missed the large goblet and landed on his wife’s handwoven tablecloth. He grimaced; there was little more where that had come from. The extra glass of wine they poured each year—the extra place setting at the table—was a tradition he would never have ignored. But for a stranger to know the exact moment in the Seder bordered on miraculous.
“Timing is everything,” he said, thinking, the Prophet has a good nose.
“Go, Devora. Open the door for our visitor,” he said, addressing his sixteen-year-old daughter.
She was not surprised, for each year at Passover her father had not so subtly knocked under the table and instructed her youngest brother to open the door and welcome the Prophet Elijah. Of course, there had never been anyone there, though her father said that Elijah’s spirit entered.
>
Not so this time.
Standing at the door in the darkness was a robed stranger, a tall man whose handsome face spoke of unbearable weariness. Slightly behind him stood a second man whose appearance and bearing cast him in the role of manservant.
“Welcome to our home,” Meyer said, beckoning the strangers to the table and thinking that Rose would have to set yet another place. “It may not be much, but it is one of the best in Mea Shearim.”
Gesturing first to his manservant in such a manner that it was apparent he would remain outside, the Stranger entered Meyer’s house. He did not remove his robe, nor did he look into the eyes of his host.
“Will you pray with us over the wine?” Meyer asked, thinking that he must remember later to have Devora take food and wine outside to the manservant.
The man sat but did not speak, neither did he eat or drink, even after the prayers were done. He was dark and swarthy, but did not seem to be of Jerusalem.
“What road have you traveled, Stranger?” Meyer asked, wondering if the man had been sent to observe the blood rites of which the Jews were accused. If so, he would leave disappointed.
“I travel the Road of Humanitatis,” the man said.
Those were all the words he spoke.
When the meal was over, there was one more tradition to be observed before the final song could be sung. Earlier, Devora—the oldest and the youngest—had hidden a piece of unleavened bread known as the Afikomen. Now she was sent to retrieve it.
“Let our daughter also take food and wine to the man who is outside in the moonlight,” Meyer said to Rose. “She will be rewarded for returning the Afikomen to the table,” Meyer explained to his guests, “for without it the Seder cannot be completed. It will not take long for her to find it. Rose and I watched her hide it in the garden.”
After a few moments, when Devora had not returned, the Stranger stood as if to leave. Meyer bade him Godspeed and glanced at the family of Hamid el Faisir, wishing they too would depart. Despite his best efforts it had been a strained night; he wanted it to be over.
The Mammoth Book of Vampire Stories by Women Page 22
