I looked down. It was the boy, suddenly off of his stool and across the room at my side.
“Are you the new boss-man, mister?” he whispered.
“What?”
“Are you the new boss-man?”
“Um. Yes.”
“My name’s Tommy. What’s yours?”
“Chris.” I watched the tech dial a number and wait with the receiver at his ear.
“Chris?” Tommy repeated my name like it was the punch line of an extremely silly knock-knock joke. “That’s a girl’s name!”
“It’s also a boy’s name.”
“It’s a funny boy’s name.”
I finally turned my attention to the little towheaded kid. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?” I hadn’t seen any other children so far nor had I expected to. Still, the possibilities weren’t so farfetched. With human servants, biology was bound to have its way with a pair of them sooner or later.
“Are you lookin’ for Darcy?” he asked, ignoring my question completely.
“Yes. Where are your parents?”
“I know where to find her.”
Which was more than the lab tech seemed to know. He was still on the line, waiting.
“She’s in her room, sleeping. Which is where you should be.”
The boy went all wide-eyed. “In Darcy’s room?”
“No. I mean in your own room.”
“She’s not there, either.”
The lab tech turned to me and said: “She’s not answering. Her phone is probably unplugged.”
“Or she’s out,” I said.
“She may be on her way here,” he agreed.
Another tug on my pants’ leg and I looked down. The boy shook his head.
“Where is she, Tommy?”
He crooked his finger, motioning me to bend down. “I don’t know how to tell you,” he whispered in my ear, “I have to show you. ‘Sides, it’s a secret!”
I gave the tech my cell phone number and instructions for Darcy to call it if she arrived before I returned. It was only after Tommy took my hand and led me to the door that I remembered that the Gator-man still had my mobile. My family, my humanity, my fiancée: after working my way through the important stuff I was down to losing the inconsequentials, scattering them in my wake like Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs in the ever-darkening forest.
The hand with the eyeball seemed to wave bye-bye as it scrabbled at the side of the tank.
* * *
After about two dozen turns and tunnel changes, I was starting to wish I had brought some breadcrumbs so I could find my way back. Even that would have been impractical as we moved into a sunken corridor with dripping pipes and an inch of water flowing sluggishly along the floor. There were no intermittent fluorescents now and the glowing lichen that oozed from the ceiling barely provided enough illumination for even my enhanced night vision.
As we splashed through a crumbling intersection where concrete met brickwork met stone, I asked: “How long have you lived down here, Tommy?”
“It seems like forever,” he answered in a gee-whiz voice.
“I’ll bet. You look like you’re about seven. Is that how old you were when you died?”
He turned his head and gave me a long look but didn’t break stride.
“Your hand is cold, Tommy—if that’s your real name. You haven’t been ninety-eight-point-six for a long time.”
“Nineteen fifty-three,” he said. “I was nine—small for my age. And my name is Thomas.”
“So you don’t really think Chris is a girl’s name.”
He released my hand and grabbed a rusted iron rung set in a mossy oubliette. “We’ll find out soon enough.” He started climbing.
“And are you really taking me to Darcy Blenik?”
“Darcy will meet us,” he said over his shoulder. “She didn’t want you to know but some of us felt it was better to ask your blessing than seek your forgiveness.”
His small form was becoming smaller as he climbed upwards. I could stand here, go back and wander around the tunnels for a few days until the search parties found me, or I could follow not-so-young Master Thomas and see what game was really afoot.
I was inclined to climb. The sound of footfalls back down the tunnel, stealthy but for a slight splashing echo, encouraged my ascension. I climbed.
We came out through a manhole in a clump of shrubbery on the far side of the park. Thomas gave me a curious look as I hurriedly dragged the metal cover back and dropped it into place. “Wouldn’t want any squirrels to fall in,” I explained.
His expression suggested this was unlikely when the squirrels were hibernating and the biggest nut had just followed him up here. “Come on,” he said, slipping through the foliage and out into the open. It took me a little longer to ease through the curtain of evergreen branches but he waited patiently. As I joined him he grabbed my hand and said: “C’mon, Dad! Mom’s gonna get mad if we’re late!”
That’s when I noticed one of New York’s Finest ambling down a path in our direction.
“Okay, uh, Junior. Lead the way.”
And he did. Right by the cop. Who nodded pleasantly to the “father and son” hurrying to a family rendezvous somewhere across the snow-dappled grounds.
The snow had half melted, the clouds were gone, and the air was still, but the temperature was back below freezing. Even though I was less troubled by the cold, I needed to start dressing like temperature made some kind of difference if I wanted to blend in.
A limousine idled at the curb a couple of blocks away. The kid made for it directly, splashing through slushy puddles and plowing through crusty clumps of snow. Ice-crusted grass crunched under my shoes as I tried to keep my feet dry by following in a circuitous route. Since my legs were longer we arrived at the curb at the same time. The door opened and we climbed into the back.
Two platinum blondes sat across from us, red sequined dresses up to only here and fur stoles only down to there. In between, their barely restrained bosoms threatened to break free and rise like twin pairs of dirigibles straining toward the heavens.
“Jeepers,” said Tommy, “look-it them piggybanks!”
I blinked and realized our fellow passengers were Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield. Or, at least, looked like them. I didn’t know which was scarier, the real deals back from the grave or things that could pry your head open and pour the images over your gray matter like maple syrup.
“Oooh, Tommy,” Marilyn breathed, “you brought us an extra playmate!”
“And he still looks warm,” cooed Jayne.
“Sindi, Sassy,” the kid said, “this is Christopher Cséjthe, our new Doman.”
“Ooooh, Mr. President—I mean, Domo Cséjthe!” Sindi/Marilyn extended a satin gloved hand. “This is such an honor!”
“Likewise,” added Sassy/Jayne, “I’m sure!”
I briefly took each of the gloved hands in turn and released them. They felt strange, like the size and angle were wrong. “Ladies . . .” I turned to young Master Thomas. “Playmate?”
“Would you like to play with us?” Sassy inquired brightly.
“You look like a perfect gentleman,” Sindi observed on the verge of breathlessness. “I hear that gentlemen prefer blondes . . .”
“Uh, sorry . . . no.”
“Maybe he’s hungry, sister. Would you like a menu, Domo?”
I looked back at Sassy. “A menu?”
“Do you like Italian?”
The interior of the limo was not well-lit. The women leaned back in their seats so that the shadows concealed their features for a moment. When they leaned forward, the Marilyn and Jayne were gone, replaced by Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida. The outfits were different, too: dark material, sleeved, but still exposing ample décolleté.
“Mama mia!” exclaimed Sophia.
“How about-a some spicy meatballs!” Gina chimed in.
Both threw their shoulders back and shook their “charms” like a bad burlesque act while cackling l
ike drunken chorines.
I looked back at the kid. “Playmate?”
Thomas grinned like a kid turned loose in Disneyland and I had to remind myself that he was even older than I was.
“So,” said one of them, starting to lose a little focus, “tell us what you like.”
“Why?” I asked, feeling the hairs on my arms start to rise.
“We understand that you’re going to be auditioning consorts,” said the other, also losing face and figure. “We’d prefer more comfortable quarters—”
“—but we’ll take what we can get,” added the first. “Just let us show you what you can get!”
“Tell us what—”
“I’ll tell you what,” I snapped, cutting them off. “Don’t show me anything. Just sit there for a moment.”
While the human parts of me might be susceptible to the full vampiric mind-twist, the transmuted portions of my brain had proven resistant to previous attempts at all-out mental domination. Perhaps I could filter these glamours as well. I stared back at them, trying to peel the illusion like an onion.
Underneath the outer shell of 1950s’ icons and 1960s’ screen legends were more identities from the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s: actresses, models, singers, even a couple of princesses—one still living, one dead. Before I knew it I was sitting across from pop royalty: Britney and Christina.
“Hubba-hubba,” said Tommy. “Too bad we can’t pick up Madonna!”
I looked at the kid. “Oh, please. Nobody says ‘hubba-hubba’ anymore. I’m not sure they ever really did.” I looked back: now I was sitting across from a pair of Paris Hiltons. “Okay, now I’m starting to get scared.”
She/they morphed into the Olsen Twins.
“Now I’m really, really scared.”
I blinked. And, for the briefest of moments, Mary-Kate and Ashley became twin girls who appeared to be on their way to their sixth birthday party. Long, blonde hair framed identical round, cherubic faces and huge, blue-gray eyes gave them the appearance of sixties kitsch waif paintings or, maybe, nineties anime heroines. Somehow, in spite of the other glamours, I got the uncomfortable impression that this was pretty close to their true appearance.
They had to be very old and very powerful to project multiple appearances so convincingly. Not that they didn’t really inhabit prepubescent bodies but, while their flesh had stopped aging, their minds and appetites had not.
The one on the right licked her lips.
Ew!
I turned to “playmate” Tommy. “You said you were taking me to Darcy Blenik.”
“Darcy?” The one on the right wrinkled up her little button nose. “But she’s so . . . young!”
“She’s practically a baby,” agreed the other. “You’d be wanting something a little more mature.”
“And diverse . . .” The one on the right started to blur.
As did the one on the left.
Now I was sitting across from Faith Hill and Shania Twain. Who promptly broke into a very bad rendition of “I wanna be loved by you” and sounded more like Marilyn and Jayne as they stumbled into the “Boop-boop-ee-doop” part. Either I was very resistant or there were just some illusions that could not be fully managed on all levels.
I felt the bright coppery taste of dinner rise in my throat. As I tried to swallow it back down, the window separating us from the front seat slid down.
“Domo,” the turbaned chauffeur said, “why don’t you sit up front with me?” His dark complexion and long curly beard were not familiar but the voice was.
“Hullo, Darcy,” I said.
* * *
“What’s with the hide and go Sikh outfit?” I asked as she drove north.
“As a human, I don’t have the advantage of being able to mind-wipe witnesses or cops.” She had raised the tinted window so that we had a bit of privacy. Judging from the sounds in the back, maybe the privacy wasn’t so much for us. “Sometimes it’s best to leave a false impression in the event that things go south.”
“And how far south might things go tonight?”
“Depends.”
“Past the Mason-Dixon line?”
She gave me a sideways glance. “Maybe all the way to the equator.”
“That far? Tell me more.”
“If I did, I’d have to kill you.” The accompanying smile was weak.
“Everyone back at the ranch thinks you’re in bed.”
“Good.”
“So, why aren’t you?”
“Got things to do.”
I looked over my shoulder. “Your night to baby-sit?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“You have a very limited manner of speaking,” I said after another three blocks of silence. “As your Doman I find it a little unsettling that secrets are being kept from me.”
She sighed, but the tension remained in her arms and shoulders. “Did it occur to you that perhaps your ignorance might also be your protection?”
“Nope. I’m surrounded by potential enemies. The more I know the better off I am.”
“Maybe in the wild,” she said, “but politics is a different jungle. Ever heard of plausible deniability?”
“Plausible deniability is an abrogation of a leader’s responsibilities. It suggests that he is either willing to sacrifice his underlings for decisions he won’t own up to—or he really isn’t in control of the people around him. Either way, it’s a damning indictment of the guy in charge.”
She shook her head. “Oh boy. Uncle was right: you aren’t going to last long here.”
“Not if I don’t know what is going on.”
“See, here’s the problem: no one really knows if you’re going to be a good fit to the demesne—”
“Because I’m part human?”
She nodded.
“Kind of a racist attitude, don’t you think?”
“It’s a question of policy, not biology. I’m human but I’m not Doman. I don’t make or break the rules that affect the lives of everyone else in the demesne. The concern is that you are gonna be ‘ethical man’ when what’s really needed is ‘practical man.’”
“And ethics is a bad thing, right?”
“It comes back to how human are you?”
“Human or humane?”
“I guess the words are interchangeable.”
I shook my head. “Not really. When we are treated like animals, we say: ‘Hey, I’m human.’ When we behave like animals, we say: ‘Hey, I’m only human.’”
She smiled. “Nice. But the question remains. Can you rule a pack of predators who must hunt, who must kill, to survive?”
“I’m not convinced that killing is necessary. A symbiotic relationship—”
She slapped her hand on the dashboard. “There are too many carnivores who will not submit to those limitations. If you try to impose a vegan lifestyle on vampires you will have civil war. At best, they will all rise up and depose you. At worst, there will be a bloodbath as the clans are torn apart over leadership and loyalties—a bloodbath that could well spill over into the human neighborhoods. Weak and ineffective leadership could be worse for your ideals of mercy than having another monster like Elizabeth Báthory rule!”
“And the assumption is my human side will make me weak and ineffectual?”
“So far you’re an enigma. You’ve survived assassination attempts, destroyed two former Domans, and chosen not to form any political alliances, yet . . .” She paused. “Well, there is that little rumor that you’re forging ties to the Were community. I’m assuming that one is just as ridiculous and ill-founded as all of the others seem to be.”
“That’s me: Mr. Urbane Legend.”
She ignored that with a shake of her turbaned head. “The point is, my uncle respects you and you have allies in the Seattle and Chicago enclaves. This gives you political clout that no former Doman has had in living memory. And living memory around here goes back several hundred years.”
“But there’s still that niggling little pr
oblem of my humanity,” I said.
“So, as I said, we’re all watching to see how you do on your first tests.”
“Tests, plural?”
She nodded.
“Like Yuler? How’d I do there?”
“The jury is still out. While many feel it would have been more merciful to kill him—points for you—you did imply a death sentence for attempts on your life just before Yuler made his.”
“I believe I said ‘dealt with harshly’ with consequences for the families and clans involved, as well. Ask Friederich Polidori if he and his clan emerged from the evening unscathed.”
“Social humiliation is not the same thing as harsh punishment.”
“Depends on who you are and where you’re from. But, rest assured, ole Freddy and I aren’t done yet. Not by a long shot. Now, you said ‘tests’ plural. I figure I’m in the midst of another exam tonight. I’m assuming it isn’t ‘open book’ since you’ve avoided any worthwhile explanation of your errand, tonight.”
“And then there’s the matter of your dead wife and daughter.”
Sometimes people light the fuse of my temper and it’s a short one. In this case, it was a hand grenade and Darcy Blenik had just pulled the pin. I counted to three: “You want me to take tests? Fine! Sharpen up a woodpile of number two pencils and stack the little blue books to the ceiling! After that, I’ll pee in a cup! I guess for every day that I survive around here as the head tooth fairy, there is going to be a fresh round of exams.
“But let’s get one thing clear: my family is not a test! And I will demonstrate to anyone who thinks to make them one that they are dead wrong—heavy emphasis on the words dead and wrong!”
She let the silence build in the car before answering softly. “No one wants to bring your family into this, Domo. You know that this is not our doing. But it cannot be anything but an indicator of your priorities, of your loyalties, if you choose to leave New York at this crucial time.”
I didn’t respond so, after a moment, she spoke again. “You can’t afford to be distracted with side issues—”
“My wife and daughter are not side issues.” My volatility was downshifting into implacability.
“The lives of two weighed against the lives of many.”
“Obviously you never saw Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.”
Habeas Corpses - The Halflife Trilogy Book III Page 23
