by Clark Hays
He continued. “She didn’t know. She has lived her life until this point unaware. It was our intention to, ah, remind her. Wake it up in her. Unfortunately, we were unprepared for her response.”
“What exactly was her response?”
He sighed. “She chose to part ways with us.”
“That’s one thing she’s done right so far.”
“I guess that depends on your perspective,” he said
“Let me tell you something about my perspective. I’m pissed. I’m a long way from where I belong, looking for someone that would still be right beside me if y’all hadn’t waltzed in and screwed up everything. So I guess my perspective is you better come up with a pretty good reason why I shouldn’t burn this goddamn place down around you and shoot everything that tries to run out the doors.” Man, saying that felt good.
He just sat stock still and tried to keep from jumping over the table at me. “While we may have been a bit overeager, the fact is, she is crucial to my people.”
“Keep going.”
“Lizzie represents a union between two of the most venerable bloodlines of vampire genealogy,” he said. “When this is made known to our world, she will be able to assume the royal mantle waiting for her and put an end to the entropy that has gripped our world.”
“Just out of curiosity, does she have a say in this?”
“She is a figurehead, an instrument of history. She has no choice but to honor the legacy she represents.”
I still didn’t believe him. There had to be more to it than needing Lizzie for a vampire princess. “For the sake of conversation, let me tell you how things are going work out. She doesn’t want to be your queen. Hell, she doesn’t ever want to see you again. When I find her, I aim on taking her back to Wyoming. And if any of y’all coming sneaking around her, you’re dead. And I mean dead like forever dead, not just during the daytime dead. Are we clear?”
I suppose he wasn’t used to being talked to like that, but seemed to take it well. He nodded. “I think that would be for the best. However, I feel a certain sense of obligation in finding her. After this revelation, she must be feeling confused, lost. I’m scared for her, as I know you must be. Perhaps we could be of mutual assistance,” he said, tilting his head inquisitively. “There’s no reason we couldn’t work together. At least until we find out for certain what she wants.”
“Reckon I’ll have to think about that.”
“Please do so. You are welcome to stay here. You must be exhausted after your trip.”
“Yeah, but I’d feel better out looking for her.”
“New York is a big city. My people are looking at her familiar places. If they find her, she will be brought here and you will be notified immediately.”
“I don’t know,” I said, but the thought of a few hours of shuteye sounded pretty good.
“You will be quite safe here, both you and your dog. You have my word.”
I hoisted the shotgun up. “I know I’ll be safe.”
He smiled thinly. “There are others here, mortals. They will see to your needs during the day. Tomorrow night, we shall talk again.”
TWENTY-SIX
A cold chill raced through me, like someone stepped on my grave, as I followed the old man up the stairs. “You know,” I said to his crooked back, “you’re working for a bunch of monsters.”
“I suppose that is a matter of perspective, sir,” he said. He opened a door into a room like out of one of those bed and breakfasts I could never afford. “This shall be your room. I trust it will be to your liking. There is an extensive liquor cabinet. Fresh towels are in the closet. Is there anything else before I leave?”
“What’re the chances of rustling up something for us to eat? Maybe a couple of sandwiches.” Rex perked up at that bit of news. “Roast beef if you got it.”
“Very good, sir. Two sandwiches.” He backed out of the room, closing the door behind him.
“Make that three,” I yelled as I examined the room. The bed was an antique four poster with crisp linens and ruffles in descending layers. Rex jumped right up on it and sat on a lacy pillow like it was meant just for dogs. “I probably should’ve got a hotel,” I said to him as I stretched out. “At least there’d be a TV.”
Knowing Lizzie was alive made me feel better, but not much. Directly there was a knock at the door and after I managed to shut Rex up from barking, I opened it to find a young lady with a tray full of sandwiches, some potato chips in a silver bowl and a pitcher of ice water.
“Thank you,” I said, taking it from her.
She smiled and curtsied and I wondered if she was alive as I watched her slip away down the hall. I set a sandwich onto the carpet and pointed Rex down to it. He looked at it, then back to me like I was fooling, but I nodded and he dove into it. In two bites and a swallow he was done, looking up at me with mustard on his chops. Patience won out and I got tired of him staring so I gave him the third sandwich along with the rest of mine and stretched out on the bed.
I started nodding off, but not before first double-checking my shotgun and laying it out beside me. Rex hopped up on the other side and sprawled out after first licking my face to make sure I was okay. What I meant to say was I was a little scared too, but what came out was a grumbling threat to kick him off if he didn’t get still.
A dream came quick and it was of Lizzie. There was a blue sadness coloring the edges of my mind’s picture of her as she floated just out of reach, inside some quiet, stone place. An earthquake came and the walls shook with a rumbling sound that slowly turned into Rex’s growling. He was standing over me and snarling way down low in his throat and I snapped awake, fumbling for the shotgun. It was no longer beside me.
“No need for violence,” a woman’s voice whispered from the shadows and Rex exploded forward, barking furiously.
“Lizzie, is that you?” I called out, knowing in my heart it wasn’t but desperate to believe. I sat up, confused and drenched in sweat, trying to reach my arms around Rex and calm him down. It was so dark I could barely make out a form across the room.
“Better than Lizzie,” she said. I could see the cold shine of my gun cradled in her arms, then her leaning it softly against the wall.
There was a whisper, a scratch and a match flared to life, illuminating a vision of dark beauty.
It was a vampire woman, pale and cold and barely dressed in some sort of emerald green lingerie that sparkled in the dim light of the match. The skin not covered, which was most of it, was light as pearls and I could see the outline of her nipples brushing against the flimsy fabric. As the match burned down to her fingertip, she touched it to a candle in her other hand. The flame caught and she dropped the match, taking a step forward.
Rex was lost in a rage that silenced him, hackles raised and trembling.
“What a cute puppy,” she said. “Is he housetrained?” I nodded dumbly, lost in her eyes and the mesmerizing sound of her voice. “Why don’t we let him out to play?”
“Lady,” I said, “I don’t know what your aim is, but I’ve got a grenade here that would turn us both to French fries if you take another step.”
She threw her head back and laughed, a throaty and melodious laugh that clouded my brain, her black hair swirled like smoke. “Talk about a lady killer,” she said.
She seemed to float forward on strings. “I’m Elita. I mean you no harm. I only want to talk about,” her voice clicked coldly, “Lizzie.”
Seemed reasonable to me. Midnight, a half-dressed vampire vixen in my bedroom and wanting to talk about my true love. What could be wrong with that? “All right,” I said, “but keep your distance. What do you know?”
“Everything,” she said.
Her mocking eyes never left mine as she leaned over from the waist to place the candle on the dresser, her top gapping forward to not so inadvertently show the pale upper curve of her breasts. My blood quickened of its own accord and a sleepy sort of giving up was stealing through me. I pushed a disbelieving Rex away.
Close as she was, an arm’s length, I felt something hot and dark coursing from her. It was like standing in the middle of a grass fire, feeling the deadly heat and extent of it raging about me, but unable to move. Her scent was narcotic and as I dragged my eyes away from the shadows between her breasts, her eyes were fixed on mine.
“May I sit down?”
“Yeah, help yourself,” I said weakly, then pointed. “The chair.”
She sat down and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hand. Her hair hung down to frame her face and dancing eyes. “So you’re the mighty Tucker.”
“Mighty pissed off,” I said, “and looking for answers.”
“What do you want to know?” She leaned back into the chair slowly, legs apart and hands resting on the leather arms.
I knew my mouth must be hanging open at the sight of her. I jerked the bedspread off and threw it her way. “Would you cover yourself up?”
She laughed again and wrapped it around her shoulders, somehow managing to make even a damn blanket look sexy. “Is that all you want to know?”
“No. Tell me where Lizzie is, and that’s she’s okay.”
She sighed. “Your devotion is touching.” I couldn’t tell if she was still mocking me or just downright mean. She sighed. “She’s fine, I guess. Though speaking as a witness, the change is,” she flicked the tip of her tongue around the edge of her lips, “most unpleasant. I imagine wherever she is right now, she is terrified, suicidal and very, very hungry. So in answer to your question, no, I guess she’s not okay.”
I sat up. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You are boring me, Tucker. And boring is so very disappointing. She’s a vampire now. She’s dead. She’s gone from you. You cannot get her back. She is no longer of your world.”
Rex barked and I swung around like I aimed to cuff him. He looked up at me hurt, and hunkered down out of sight. I jumped up and in a bound stood over her, taking her by the shoulders and lifting her up from the chair. The blanket fell back and the strap of her negligee slipped down from her pale shoulder revealing more than the round tops of her breasts. Her body was flushed and scorched my fingers. “That’s a lie. That’s a goddamn lie,” I shouted into her face.
She laughed and I hated her for it. “It’s true, Tucker. Look into my eyes. Elizabeth Vaughan is no more”
I made the mistake of doing just that and my breath came short and shallow. The rage was burning in me, threatening to burst out, and I knew that was exactly what she wanted.
“You know I speak the truth.”
I dropped her and she made no move to cover herself or sit up, just watched me. My mind was reeling like I was about to black out and I steadied myself against the wall, held my hand to my head and cried, the tears falling into the shadows. I begged God she was lying, that Lizzie was all right and that she was human still. Then an arm slipped around my waist.
It was Elita, standing now. Rex ran around us barking and tangled underfoot so that I staggered into her, but she supported my weight easily. She guided me to the bed. Her hand was small and even through the thickness of my clothes I could feel the heat of it against the small of my back.
“Poor Tucker,” she said. “So sad.” She laid me down and crawled on top of me. “Lizzie is lost to you, at least until she learns the power of her condition. It takes years. A century. You’ll be gone and forgotten. She will be forever.”
Her words snaked deep into my thoughts and I pictured me old and alone and Lizzie as beautiful as last week up in the mountains with the sunlight in her hair, and then Elita was tugging at my shirt and it was gone and her body was pressed to mine so that I could feel the contours, the heat. Her hands slid across my chest, nails raked into my back and her mouth glided along my stomach.
She bit at me, teased my nipples with her tongue and I knew this was terribly bad, but my limbs were frozen with a dreadful paralysis like I wanted to die then, and by her pale hands. The realization Lizzie was lost to me unhinged something in my heart and it howled like a wolf and tore at the soft underbelly of my mind.
Elita was tugging at my belt and her hands, on fire with pleasure, caused an unearthly desire to swell in me. Her mouth was all over me and then, finally she pressed it to my mouth and it burned like fire on my lips. I could taste the sweet, bloody taste of death on her and something in my soul rejoiced.
Rex saved my life. Again.
I had all but given up, and he came flying over the bed like a canine missile and slammed into her side. It jolted her good and she tore her hands from me and swiveled her head around, a savagery painted there. Rex darted out of reach and she regained her composure, turning her attention back to me.
She redoubled her efforts, but my mind was clearing now. I let my body be borne backward by her momentum, carrying us across the bed and close enough to reach the Casull from under the pillow. She was tugging on the waistband of my jeans as I thumbed the hammer back and pressed the muzzle to her temple.
“A dozen of you ain’t worth one of Lizzie,” I said.
A hoarse shriek ripped out of her throat and her whole body trembled with rage. She would have gladly ripped my heart out and made me watch while she ate it, but I kept the pistol up against her tight. “Now get off me. I love her. And I aim to get her back. Your behavior only tells me I ain’t too late.”
I was surprised at how quick she regained herself. Like when a cat falls and pretends that was what it meant all along. She stood, her hair in wild disarray and lingerie falling off at the shoulders.
“You have no idea what you’re missing,” she said. “The pleasures I would have shown you.”
“I have a pretty good idea,” I said, keeping the pistol leveled right at her black heart. “Whyn’t you just save us both some trouble and tell me where I can find Lizzie.”
“If I knew where she was, do you think I would have come to you?”
“I’ll find her. If I have to take this whole goddamn city apart, I’ll find her.”
She leaned close to me, unwavering. “You may not like what you find.”
“You’re right. I’ll love what I find. All them years you been around, guess you still don’t know what that means.” She spun with a wordless curse and was gone.
Rex jumped up beside me, wagging his little stump and trembling. I meant to say thanks for distracting her, but instead I said, “What? I didn’t do nothing.” He curled up into a ball and kept one eye disdainfully upon me. “You’re the one who let her sneak up on us,” I said.
I eased the hammer back down and stuck the pistol under my pillow “I didn’t do nothing,” I said again as I closed the door and retrieved the shotgun, double-checking that it was still loaded. “Don’t be like this.”
He wouldn’t make eye contact. “Fine,” I said, pulling the blanket over me, “but if any more of them get past you tonight, I’m going to get me a cat.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
“I don’t have any money.”
The cabbie looked at me with open hostility and started to shout. “You crazy bitch, what the hell did you get in my cab for? I’m going to run you straight to the police. That designer dress probably cost two grand and you tell me you can’t pay for a lousy cab ride?”
My eyes burned into him and the heat scorched us both. He froze, mouth open. “I don’t have any money,” I said again. “They took it. They took everything.”
“Go on,” he stammered. “Get out of my cab. What are you, some kind of witch? You’ve got the evil eye. Get out,” he yelled, slamming the cab in gear and screeching away from the curb even before I could shut the door.
The church loomed over me, imposing in the dark, and my body trembled. There was sanctuary within, a place I could hide, and think.
Or call the police.
It was locked. Shit. Of course, why wouldn’t it be? This was Manhattan, even God locked his doors. God, why won’t you let me in, I silently implored. What was I supposed to do now? I had just
escaped from the craziest people in the world and I survived, I was alive, but now would I be undone by a locked door?
No, a voice screamed inside me, the same voice that reverberated during the turning. Your will is your power.
I grabbed the handle and visualized the lock hidden within, watched it turning, resisting as I pushed it with my thoughts, squeezing a slow, steady pressure on the oiled but reluctant parts. The mechanism squeaked and twisted and bulged under my efforts and then with a click, I pulled the door open and entered the church.
The empty church was quiet. I hadn’t been here in years, but it was familiar. If only I was still that little girl coming here with Mother.
Halfway down the darkened aisle, I lay in between two pews. No one could see me there, and I wanted to be still for a minute or two, long enough to figure out what to do next.
The marble floor was cold against my cheek and my body trembled under the flimsy, tattered dress.
My mind slipped back to the cabin where Tucker and I last made love, and the passion we shared. Tucker — where was he? Queen of the vampires, it was absurd. Tomorrow, I would wake up and walk out into the sun, proving Julius to be a foolish and sick old man.
I knew to even make it to tomorrow, first I had to move, to get rid of this coldness, this stiffness in my limbs. I stood and stretched my arms toward the moon, visible through the skylights. Beneath the chill, my body felt foreign, like the movements belonged to someone else. Elita. The movements were like hers, sensuous and without thought. I stretched higher, hoping to somehow feel like myself, but a new sensation broke free. I felt liquid power surging from my fingertips, crackling and twisting. Before I could even comprehend it, the sensation began to change. Suddenly, I could see pure light streaming from inside me. Overwhelmed, I fought against it, but in an instant I could see inside myself from the light, just as I had seen the mechanism of the lock.
Nothing was hidden, no aspect of my life was locked away, all was open. Everything I had been, everything I ever wanted to be, everything I would never be was all displayed, illuminated by the light. I was there in the church, but not there at all. I was inside the light and outside, connected to the air, the granite walls, the clouds and on into the blackness of space.
