by Clark Hays
Far from elaborate, a circle only a few feet across and exactly five feet, eleven inches deep, it was perfectly tailored so when he soaked, he could stand upright, feet resting on the soft sand at the bottom, with the water just up to his neck. These days, however, his ever-expanding belly threatened to overflow the edges of the pool. Each time he soaked, he was unpleasantly reminded of how desperately jolly looking he had become. He shook his head and sad ripples spread out around him.
The cold water helped him control his appetites. It was a nightly ritual. Each evening as the sun set and he was resurrected, he came first to his dipping pool to cool his body and his hunger. Then he was able to think clearly about the coming night.
Moonlight streamed in through the skylights carved out of the solid stone above and Lazarus looked into the blackness of the night sky, the millions of stars blazing there. The sounds of the desert passed through his entire being, the quiet certainty of the life moving there, the insect hum, the warmth of the wind, the slow but certain shifting sands.
At last he let out a deep breath. His mind was cleared of the cobwebs collected during the long, empty day spent disassociated in the Meta. Yes, he thought, the die has indeed been cast. Last night, he put his contingent of supporters throughout the world on alert. He honestly did not know what to expect from Julius and his New York world of darkness, but expected it would be drastic.
The real wild card was that he had no idea how much Lizzie knew, if anything. Regardless, the power was building in her body, power that would issue forth in twenty one days — no, it was more like eighteen days now. He sighed. Women and their periods and their other mysterious processes, he thought. If only Adamite women knew about the power of vampire menses. What a magnificent article he could write for their tabloids.
One of his greatest pleasures was reading the tabloids. Daily, one of his minders made the trip to the closest gas station to purchase the latest issues, and occasionally to restock on chocolate milk and HoHos.
The glossy, shocking pages luridly captured the real interests of the Adamites, the subtleties of thought, their childlike worries, their strange attachments. Unlike the mindless and polished void of respected media, the tabloids were a direct link to their psyches. Often, he ghost-wrote articles, telling the truth about vampires, ancient biblical prophecies and the like. Imagine if he told them about the pain of existence for vampire women, the pain that kept them so slim and firm. And forever young. “Stars Flock to Try Fantastic Vampire Blood Diet!”
What a headline. He smiled even wider and began to laugh.
“Sir, would you care for some tea?” Carlos asked.
Lazarus lazily opened his eyes. “Nope. Bring me some whiskey instead. I suspect I may have to learn to enjoy it, based on what I know about cowboys.”
“Do you think they’ll be here soon?” Carlos asked hopefully.
“I reckon I don’t know.”
“Sir?”
“Don’t mind me. I’m just practicing. I would like to be able to relate to my girl’s main squeeze.”
Carlos laughed. “Your ability to pick up the nuances of languages never ceases to amaze me.”
“If only they had accepted my offer to translate the parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Aramaic,” Lazarus said. “I could have turned the academic world upside down with an accurate translation. Instead they have a poppycock version full of educated guesses. It’s my mother tongue, for Malthus’ sake. Oh well. I guess my enthusiasm intimidated the Adamites.”
“Sir, with all respect, you started speaking Aramaic, words that in this day and age have been experienced as an ancient, dead language. They thought you were crazy.”
Lazarus waved his hand, dismissing the memory, although his eyes shined gleefully. “Fetch me that whiskey, pardner.” He ducked his head under water and held his breath as long as he could.
When he resurfaced, there was a tray with a bottle and glass near the edge of the pool. Lazarus poured two fingers and took a long sip. “I have to admit, I’m awfully excited to see her, to actually be able to talk to her. It’s been so long.”
“I wish it could be under different circumstances,” Carlos said.
He sighed and poured another shot. “I’m optimistic we can protect her. But she must seek sanctuary here by choice. I will not force it on her. I owe her mother that.”
“I understand. But no one has been able to find her since she left Julius.”
Lazarus let out a belly laugh. The water around his naked body shook, sending waves out from him, circles of water undulating from the force of his laughter, the ripples cresting over the edge of his dipping pool and spilling carelessly onto the cool sand. “That’s my girl.”
“By the way, he telephoned. Several hours ago.”
“Oh, he did? What did the old fart have to say?”
“He was very polite,” Carlos said. “He asked if we had seen his protégé. He did not sound pleased.”
Lazarus sighed. “No, I would imagine not.”
“Now what?” Carlos asked.
“We must be certain every opportunity is available for her to contact us. It must be simple, once she makes the connection, once she understands what is happening. Is Sully still in New York?”
“Sir, Sully has been in New York, attending the same church on the same night every week for the last twenty-seven years. I hardly think he would stop now.”
“Yes, excellent,” Lazarus said. “Remind me to reward him for his hardship posting. His assignment has no doubt been rather tedious this last decade, especially after she stopped going to the church altogether. I’m guessing it’s about to get considerably more exciting.”
The sounds of the desert deepened in Lazarus’ ears, mixed with the warmth of the whiskey in his mouth.
“Bring the Book of Revelations into the library. I’d like to read it again.”
“I reckon I can do that, pardner. Pardner-Sir.”
Lazarus let out another laugh that shook the stars.
THIRTY-TWO
Lizzie put the letters on the ledge and looked down at the tattered, soiled shift she had been wearing since her death and subsequent escape. “Look at me, I’m a mess.”
Tucker studied her closely: the way a strand of hair hung over her sparkling eyes, the way her pale hands folded together like she was praying, the way the shreds of material seemed to pick which curve to cling to and which to reveal. “You look fine to me. Better than fine. But I did bring you some clothes from your apartment.”
She brushed the hair back from her face so that now it was exquisitely framed. He stood up and moved over to sit beside her.
“What?” she asked.
Tucker said nothing still, just sat down and stretched his feet out in front of him, crossing his boots at the ankle. “I been thinking,” he said at last.
“Oh, you have, have you?” Her voice contained the ghost of a smile, a coy sort of happiness he feared had been erased forever. “About what?”
“Well, I’ve only really ever kissed you when you were dead. Now that you’re alive, more or less, and no one’s chasing us or trying to kill us, I was thinking I’d like to see what it be like to kiss you for real.”
She laughed, a real laugh. “Dear Penthouse, I never thought this would happen to me, but there was this dead girl …” she let her voice trail off and scooted into his arms.
“That ain’t funny.” He craned his head around to press his lips to hers and they were surprisingly warm and pliant, unlike before.
His rational mind wrestled a brief instant with the thought of someone else’s blood coursing through her, but before it could take hold, she straddled his legs and pushed his back to the wall. Leaning her body into him, she took his hat off and with one hand in his hair, pulled his head back to expose the curve of his throat.
“Are you scared?” she asked.
“A little,” he said.
“Afraid I’ll hurt you?”
“It ain’t that,” he whispered hoarse
ly. “It’s just been a long time. I’m afraid I might be a little, you know, quick on the trigger.”
Lizzie ripped his shirt open, popping the snaps, and ran her hands across his chest. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll be forgiving. The first time.” She raked her nails down the tender skin of his chest, raising welts. He gasped in surprise and she kissed the marks quickly, then took his head in both hands to rain kisses on him, kisses that took away his breath and made his heart hammer in his chest.
Raising herself to untangle the shift bunched between her legs, she fumbled at his belt buckle. He slumped almost helplessly as her hands encircled him and, with her guidance, he entered her and they remained locked there, her atop him, rocking gently.
All his pent-up anxiety and frustration of the last week disappeared in a swirl of pleasure and a physical reaffirming of all the love he held for her. He closed his hands around her waist, the skin as soft as her hot breath in his ear, and pulled her close again and again. Lizzie trembled in his grasp, twisting and moaning as memories of mortality mixed with heightened responses heretofore unimaginable.
A whirlwind of ecstasy ribboned inside her, lifting her to dizzying heights that stretched every sense into a taut, quivering wire of rainbow extremes. The colors stretched tighter and tighter until they snaked around Tucker as well, his wrists, ankles, arms and eyes. They rewove themselves into a solid arc of joy that bent from one heart to the other and back again.
Time retreated, ashamed at becoming a bystander, as they were pulled higher and farther away from all constraints of the physical. The church held them loosely in the arms of sanctity and in that holy silence of bodies joined, love laid its claim on the future. A wave of pleasure crashed over them so intense it burned like fire. Tucker melted into her with a groan and she blazed around him, trembling as her body took him deep within.
And then it was done. Time rushed heedless into the void that had been created. She fell onto him, and he held her tightly in silence.
His back started hurting from the position and he pushed her gently to the side. “Good Lord,” he said, then thought about it a minute. “Think it’s sacrilegious to, you know, do it in a church?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think it would matter.”
Tucker’s eyes started sliding closed, but he fought against it.
She traced the tips of her fingers against the stubble of his cheek. “Tucker? I think I’ll go grab a bite to eat.”
He sat bolt upright, suddenly awake. “A human?”
“No,” she said, “but maybe I could find an animal of some kind …” her voice trailed off.
“Can’t you just have a cigarette or something?”
“I thought you wanted me to quit,” she said.
“Yeah, well that was before.”
“It’s just that I feel so alive right now.”
“Well you ain’t,” he grumbled matter-of-factly, rolled over onto his shoulder and pulled his jacket over him. “You’re dead.”
Rex, who watched their writhing with typical disdain, curled up against him.
THIRTY-THREE
“Darling, you look fantastic.”
“Are you sure? Maybe just a little more eye shadow? I’m never sure if I have too much or too little. You’d think with all my time on stage, I would have more skill with makeup, but I guess I’ll have lots of time to practice now, you know, with it being eternity and all.” Mathilda was babbling.
“That purple shade is stunning on you,” Sully said, leaning down to kiss her lightly on the cheek. “And it’s just the right amount.”
“You’re sweet.”
“I’m so excited about tonight. I have the most delicious target for you.”
“Who, Sully? Tell me.”
“Let’s move to the balcony. It’s a perfectly lovely night and I have a bottle of champagne waiting.”
“Champagne?”
“Yes, precious, we’re celebrating tonight. It’s your first full year under my tutelage. Sadly, you’ll be moving on shortly.”
Mathilda gasped at this unexpected news.
He gave her no time to respond, however, ushering her through the apartment toward the balcony.
“No, no, not another word,” he said. “Wait for the champagne and I can tell you absolutely everything.”
Unlike many vampires in Lazarus’ tribe, Sully enjoyed standing out in manner and dress. He had a tiny frame with a shock of thick, wavy blond hair, but no facial hair. It gave him a childlike appearance, almost angelic, with pale skin and tender features. He had bright blue eyes magnified behind thick, horn-rimmed glasses; he was nearly blind, the unfortunate results of a brush with the sun early on, but moved through the world with more confidence than most.
The balcony, like the rest of the elegant uptown apartment, was immaculately cared for, an extension of the grandeur of the adjacent dining room. Sully spent the last thirty years lovingly nurturing this garden, largely to pass time during his Manhattan posting. He had artfully arranged various plants to create a cloistered feeling so the city below seemed almost nonexistent while the sky above was wonderfully overwhelming.
Many of the plants were exotic, some even deadly. There were countless varieties of blooming orchids, hemlock, belladonna, Venus fly traps, bittersweet nightshade, baneberry, death camas, foxglove, sumac, lupine and many other deadly varieties.
The plants reflected the trivial nonsense Adamites believed about vampires and it brought him such pleasure watching the mortals he lured here react. It was such a delicious way to lay the foundations of suspicion, which later would bloom into terror. Of course, by that time, it hardly mattered anymore.
As Sully uncorked the Dom Perignon, he thought about Mathilda’s next posting. Lazarus contacted him the night before to say that were transpiring quickly and there was no room in the scenario for the naiveté of the recently turned. He wished they had time for a few more lessons in the sophisticated hunt — it was so crucial to a balanced lifestyle. Sometimes he pitied new turns like Mathilda, at the very earliest stages of understanding their craft. They were forced to rely solely on their still crude and evolving instincts to ferret out the Adamites who possessed that particular brand of evil that emitted the scent so familiar to the undead.
Their absence, these mortals, benefited the world and helped maintain the intricate balance between good and evil.
“Drink, my dear, to your very successful first year,” Sully toasted her.
Mathilda was going through the extensive training required by Lazarus. The first year was difficult, the reason Lazarus matched young vampires with Elders, like an apprentice to a master, or a disciple to a savior. Absolute obedience and submission were required and every need of the young recruit was seen to, from how to hunt to drying tears when an Adamite family member was missed, to correcting their occasional overzealousness.
Once they made the initial adjustment, the real purpose of the training began — teaching new vampires their role in the world and passing on the moral codes from the bible, balancing impulse with purpose. Lazarus and his allies believed strongly in the Original Purpose, laid down in the Garden of Eden.
Silly Adamites, thought Sully, why live by the notion of an Original Sin when an Original Purpose is so much more compelling.
Their purpose was to embody evil, literally, by rending its flesh, sucking its life-blood, watching it writhe in agony and containing it. It was a noble pursuit, protecting the Adamites from themselves.
“I’ve been tracking your latest victim for nearly a month,” he said. “Another Wall Street banker, but really just a tawdry con-artist. Yesterday, he convinced a sweet old woman to invest $60,000 in a non-existent real estate venture in Phoenix. After the check cleared, he wired it to a personal account in Weehawken. He’s been pulling the same scam for years now and has bilked countless seniors out of their hard-saved money. He has more than three million dollars in that account alone.”
“How did you find all this out?”
“I broke his security clearance on his online banking system and put a bug in his phone.”
“But how did you spot him at first?”
“The same way you newbies spot the petty criminals, liars, potential rapists — by the smell of evil. With a few more years of training, you’ll be able to sense the less vicious but equally deadly type of evil in your prey.”
“Like last week. You took that man who was poised to rape his teenage daughter,” she said.
“He was quite simple, really,” Sully said. “I scented his evil during a stroll along Madison Avenue where he was shopping with his daughter. It was overpowering. It only took a few hours observing his interactions. A well-adjusted Adamite probably could have predicted it.”
“His daughter will now live a better life. All because of you.”
He smiled gleefully, like a little boy, and clapped his hands together in anticipation. “Now, my dear, enough about me, did you have your snack yet? You’re not strong enough to control your urges. You must drink the packaged blood at least four times a night.”
“Yes, Sully,” she said.
“And this evening you will go to the nightclub and acquire your target?”
“I’m looking forward to it,” she said.
“Enjoy the kill. You leave for Paris tomorrow, my dear,” Sully said, refilling her fluted crystal glass. “You will enjoy your new Mistress. She has led quite the life. Make sure she tells you her stories from the Sun King’s reign at Versailles. What a deliciously evil time.”
Mathilda stuck out her lower lip. “I was supposed to be with you for ten years. Are you displeased with me? Why can’t I stay with you here? I love you, Sully. No one has ever been kinder to me.”
“Don’t sulk, sweetheart. If you promise to smile, I’ll come see you in the spring. I know a secret about what Lazarus has planned for you.”
“Oh, Sully,” she exclaimed, “I love secrets. And you know I can keep a secret well.”
