Vamp-Hire

by Rice, Gerald Dean

  Just friends with her sounded like the worst thing in the world.

  “Okay, so he isn’t such a bad guy. You just have to peel off his jerk outer layer.”

  Ti laughed. That was the best sound in the world.

  “He’s a normal human being for the most part. He actually needed the piss taken out of him, so now he should be a little easier to deal with. But don’t make the mistake of thinking I wouldn’t kill you to protect him.”

  “All right,” Nick said. “We understand each other. Do I need to apologize?”

  “No. He’ll respect you more if you don’t.”

  They walked back toward the entrance and made it there just as a Ford Fusion pulled to the curb. Lucky rolled down a window and waved. Ti waved back. Coco came outside as well, stepping out onto the sidewalk between Nick and the car.

  He had a look on his face Nick didn’t know how to interpret and when he looked at Ti, he saw her expression was equally unreadable.

  “Hey, Tiiii,” Lucky called from the car. “You’re looking good.” She hadn’t bothered putting on her leather jacket when she’d come out with Nick and had her arms folded across her chest. Coco’s eyes narrowed at Nick, but rather than attacking, he forced a smile and approached them. He took off his thick sweater, exposing a considerable amount of tattooed skin beneath it and the t-shirt it almost dragged off with it. He wrapped the sweater around Ti’s shoulders, tying the arms into a loose knot at her neck.

  With a deliberate turn of his head he looked at Nick. The smile was still on his face and he stuck out a hand.

  “It was nice meeting you,” he said in a way that could have been mistaken for, “I really would enjoy stabbing you repeatedly in the face” had Nick not been listening expressly to his words. “Please come back and visit.” Nick gave his hand a good pump and quickly let go. He got the briefest of aromas off Coco and he still smelled like food.

  “Yeah. I just may.” Nick broke away and walked to the curb. He didn’t want to turn back to wave for fear Coco would take a swing at him. For fear he might try to eat Coco. And for fear Ti might kill him.

  They rode in silence after greeting each other. Nick realized then he was angry at Lucky. This made the second hostile situation he’d walked into because of him and for all he knew he was about to walk into a third. Intellectually, Nick knew he couldn’t blame Lucky. He had been provided with all available information and had made the big boy decision to go anyway whether it was enough or not the night he had gone to Nancy’s house. And had it not been for Ti’s intervention, he might be in a pen or worse, dead right now.

  “How’s that kid doing?” Nick asked. “The one from the Big Pig?”

  “Kip?” Lucky gave him a sidelong glance. “Had to stay in the hospital overnight.”

  “Did you get him the job at the Pig?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Just asking.”

  “No, you’re not. I can tell by your tone.”

  “Tone? What tone? I’m just saying.”

  “Saying what, though?” Lucky’s tone was equal parts curiosity and mild hostility.

  Nick felt backed into a corner. He hadn’t intended to blame Lucky for what had happened to Kip but somehow had taken a circuitous path to the accusation’s doorstep. Common sense dictated he back off, apologize, find some other avenue of conversation. The weather, politics, just about anything would be more innocuous than this. Despite that voice shouting from some universe inside his brain, he couldn’t stop. That lone voice was a drowning man in a sea of a bad ideas and Nick was charging his way in.

  “You.” Nick shook his head. “That guy, Keith, tried to take my head off because of you.”

  “You mean, like, literally?”

  Nick got his meaning, that to deliver the coup de grace to a vampire it was generally accepted that it must be decapitated. It annoyed him even more that Lucky had taken him literally and he had been responsible for the two of them being in each other’s company.

  “Yes!” he shouted. “Coco tried to chop my head off! And you all but delivered me to him on a plate! Are you disappointed we didn’t kill one another?”

  Lucky pulled to a stop in front of a house.

  “If you weren’t doing a job for me right now I’d punch you in the mouth, man.”

  “Oh, you? Really? Or would you call Ti to do it?”

  “Is that what this is about? You mad because you got your ham saved by a girl?”

  “No. I’m mad because someone who I thought was my friend didn’t tell me I was in danger.” Nick threw open the door and got out. “And what about that kid who called me this morning? Why’d you give him my number?”

  “What kid?” Lucky pulled a face like he had no idea what Nick was talking about.

  “Thomas Barker?” Nick stressed the name. “He said you told him I could help.”

  Lucky shook his head. “Look, I book jobs for you. If they call you directly, how do I get paid?”

  Nick hadn’t thought about that and while he was, Lucky seized the opportunity to continue the original argument.

  “First off, I didn’t know you were in danger. I asked Ti to follow you just in case. I think a hunch of a possibility paid off big time unless you’d prefer to be the gimp in somebody’s basement. Second—”

  “Maybe if you’d given me the head’s up that wouldn’t have been necessary. Do you realize I am an adult?”

  “And what would you have done? Run? By the time you saw them, you’d already be in the trunk.”

  “I am not a kid.”

  “It’s not about you being a kid, it’s about somebody having your back because you can’t do it all alone.”

  “Just like you had Kip’s back?” Lucky made a face, not understanding Nick’s change in direction. “You could have been preemptive there too. You could have reported those cameras not working and maybe he wouldn’t have had a trip to the hospital.”

  Although Nick knew that was unfair, the words had come out of him full of hot and felt justified. Never mind the fact they didn’t suit his argument, he was winning.

  “Get out,” Lucky said.

  “What?”

  “I said get out.”

  Nick paused for a few beats, wanting to say something, but there didn’t seem to be any words that would fit.

  “Fine.” He threw open the door, stepped out, and slammed it. He stalked around the car, across the narrow strip of grass, and onto the sidewalk. After a brief bit of pacing, he turned back to the car. “How do I get to the job?”

  Lucky rolled down the window. “You’re standing in front of it.” His voice sounded too controlled. Nick realized he’d crossed a boundary, still too angry to see himself as being in the wrong. He looked up at the house.

  “Keep my commission. You’re going to need all the help you can get.”

  That burned. Before Nick could turn for a retort—the next nonsensical volley intending to be a statement that was the direct opposite of what Lucky had said (although, forcibly paying him his commission didn’t seem to be in keeping with proper one-upmanship)—the tires of the Fusion chirped as it pulled away. Nick narrowed his eyes at the rear of the car as it grew smaller until turning around a corner.

  “Fine,” he said again. It wasn’t, really. He’d probably just cost himself the only friend he had unless he could count Phoebe, and they weren’t exactly in a good place, either. It wasn’t his business whether or not Randy was a vamp, Nick just wanted to know.

  He trudged up the stairs, stomping his anger out with each step, and actually managed to feel a little better by the time he got to the door. He closed his eyes and silently counted to a hundred before opening them again.

  A hawkish-looking woman was staring back at him by the time he’d finished, managing to open her front door without making a sound. She was tall, late-fortyish, with blonde, nest-like hair frosted with gray that barely came down past her ears.

  “Are you Nick?” she asked in a voice that wasn’t unappealing. It was s
omewhere in the direction of sultry. Nick could imagine going to sleep listening to her speak.

  “I am,” he said. He waited for her to open the security door. She slowly looked him up and down as if scanning through his clothes for weapons or other dangerous materials. As near as he could tell she was human, though there was something… odd about her.

  She took a hand out of her black and white checkered robe and inserted a key into the lock. She pulled open the door for Nick, pressing her tall frame back to allow him inside.

  “Come in.”

  Nick crossed the threshold and was immediately assaulted by the smell of old lemon scented cleaner and even older sweat. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant, only the faintest retraces remained. Probably the people who had lived here before this woman. Nick took another deep inhale and yes, it definitely smelled like old people.

  “You and your friend were arguing outside. I saw you through the window.”

  “Oh, no, that was a misunderstanding,” Nick said. “We kind of got lost on our way over. Nick immediately regretted his lie. Lucky had met with this woman earlier and it was quite possible it had been here. There was something about her that suggested she didn’t go outside much. She didn’t say anything to contradict what Nick said or give a look like she hadn’t believed him.

  “I don’t have too many details,” Nick began, “and I prefer it that way. I want to get a feel of the place myself.” He was making it up as he went. It sounded good and he found the more he heard his external voice, the more quiet his internal one was, the one telling him how big a jerk he’d just gotten through being. “Which walls—no wait—” he held up his index fingers as if to pause whatever it had been she was about to say— “let me sense for myself.”

  “Do you do this often? Is this a specialty of yours?” She had weaved her fingers together and was currently wrestling nervously with her hands.

  “A few times.” Nick didn’t know exactly what ‘this’ was supposed to be. What, look for people hiding inside of walls? He didn’t think that was the sort of thing you could do a Google search for.

  Nick dug into his bag without looking and found the tiny box of latex gloves. He didn’t really need them for anything, had grabbed them one day as a just-in-case. They had stayed in his bag for almost the entire time he’d had it. Now was as good a time as any to use them.

  The woman was staying a steady three paces behind him, taking a step each time he took one, the two of them slow-shuffling down a narrow hallway and into the kitchen in an odd, no-contact-at-all sort of dance.

  “I’m sorry, I meant to ask your name.” Nick looked at her.

  “Valerie,” she said and he held out his gloved hand. She shook it with a long, thin-boned hand. “Do you need to change that?” she said, referring to the glove he hadn’t thought to take off.

  “What? Oh, no. This isn’t for you, this is for whatever may be in here with us.”

  “It’s not a what. It’s a man. I heard—”

  Nick put a finger to his lips.

  The house was older but the kitchen appeared to have been redone in recent years. The appliances were silver and the sink had a deep double pan with the kind of faucet head that could detach to spray hard to reach areas like unsuspecting people standing a few feet away. Phoebe had a similar sort of faucet and had sprayed Randy on several occasions. The counters were marble and there was a small square table big enough for only two people.

  “I’m getting nothing here,” Nick said. Valerie nodded appreciably, raising one hand and pointing up with a finger.

  “It might be because he’s upstairs. Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “Positive.” Nick didn’t know what he was supposed to be searching for. Leavings? Empty pizza boxes and bottles of beer? He turned to her. “After you.”

  She led him upstairs to a hallway made even narrower by an old bookshelf, filled with books so old the smell of the pages were the predominant scent in the air. They walked past a bathroom and a bedroom with an old mutt disinterestedly watching a small color television lighting the dark room. Though dogs traditionally didn’t like vamps, this one only managed to lift his head and pronounce a half-hearted wuff before they’d passed by. Nick was surprised to see it, as the Conflict had done far more damage to the canine population than the human one. That had primarily been from humans who had turned on the animals because of small percentages of feral dogs that had attacked and trained attack dogs that had come down with a lethal illness after biting vampires. The two sets of occurrences had blended somehow, giving people the belief that vampires held influence over them, controlling their behavior, and thus dooming man’s best friend to public enemy number two.

  They stepped into an empty bedroom, white-walled and devoid of any window treatments.

  “Barney and I first heard him in here about a week ago,” Valerie said. Nick figured Barney had to be the dog.

  “Who heard him first? You or Barney.” Valerie gave him a look like she didn’t understand the question.

  “Well, we heard him at the same time. I tried figuring where he got in, but I don’t get out much anymore.”

  Although weird, Valerie didn’t seem to have any physical handicaps. Even if she had a bad back or something all she had to do was walk outside, he figured.

  “Is this the only room where you heard him?”

  “No, I usually hear him when I’m in the bedroom with Barney. He makes so much noise it wakes me up.”

  “No, I mean does he go into other rooms?”

  “Oh, all over the house. I tried leaving out some cookies for him one morning, you know? Obviously, he didn’t go for that.”

  “Obviously.” Nick nodded as if that made all the sense in the world. He figured it was best to ask. “Why was that obvious? And why didn’t you call the police?”

  “Well, it’s only Barney and me and Barney woulda said somethin’. And he didn’t eat the cookies anyway. The man, not Barney. Chocolate gives Barney diarrhea.”

  “And the police?”

  “I’m not a crazy. I didn’t tell them I had somebody in my walls. I told them I had an intruder. They sent a guy and he didn’t find anything. Of course, he wasn’t gonna find anything.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Y’know. On account o’ the government protecting your kind.”

  “My kind?”

  “Yeah. He’s a vamp. Like you. I told you I’m not a crazy. I don’t think there’s somebody in my wall, I know there is. Matter o’ fact, I had to clean up after the mess he made yesterday mornin’.”

  Nick noticed the change in speech.

  “Mess?” he asked. “Where?”

  She pointed to a general area on the floor between them. “Thereabouts.”

  There was a slight stain on the floor that explained the heavy scent of bleach. It looked like it had been blood before a heavy-duty cleaning. He had to ask her even though he was certain of the answer.

  “Why haven’t you left yet?”

  Something dangerous had happened in this house, although he didn’t know the extent.

  “Because he loves me.”

  Nick whirled on her.

  “He sleeps in your walls. He left blood on your floor. He might have killed someone.” Her eyes were glassy, faraway. The obvious question came to mind. “What’s the real reason you asked me here?”

  “I want you to coax him out. I want him to know I don’t mind ‘im here. We can be together.”

  Even someone who was possibly a murderer had a place he could call home if he wanted, but Nick was still in residential limbo.

  He scratched at his ear. His hearing had begun to sound scratchy out of his left. He wiped a tear away from his eye on the same side, feeling a tingly sensation in his cheek.

  “Could I have some… water?” he asked. “I think I need to sit.” He didn’t wait for an invitation, plopping down on the floor. He felt vertigo and tasted the coppery tang at the back corners of his mouth, intense nausea hitting him s
o fast he almost dry heaved. Nick absolutely hated throwing up. Even if it resulted in him feeling better after he’d rather be sick a whole day than lose his lunch even once.

  He realized Valerie was speaking and that he could only hear her out of his right ear. Was this a stroke or something? His arm felt fine so far as he could tell. Nick made fists over and over again to confirm to himself his brain wasn’t shutting down half his body. Whatever she was saying made no sense to him at all and he managed to turn his eyes up to look at her. The sounds coming out of her didn’t sync up to the motions of her mouth.

  Nick was looking at her and something else too. A room not in this house and right in front of him. It was a restroom with mostly white tiles and dirty gray grout. There were two stalls to the left and a man blocking most of a urinal directly ahead. It smelled in here—in there—and the scent further disoriented and nauseated him.

  “Are you hearing me?” the man asked. His voice was flat and low, young-sounding, maybe Nick’s age. He wore a gray suit and had black, close-cropped hair. The other thing Nick could tell through no identifiable sense was he was a vamp.

  “I’ll be fine,” Nick said, hoping he wasn’t shouting at Valerie. “I just need some water. Please.”

  He saw her leave through the dulled vision of his right eye, like the dimmer switch had been turned down on the world he’d been in a moment ago. This new world comprised of toilets and air stained with the smell of urine was brilliant and stimulated all except his sense of touch. The nausea passed as quickly as it had come, but something browner than urine was curling into his lungs. Nick didn’t know what this was and he wanted to make it stop.

  “I said, are you hearing me?” the vamp said again.

  “Yes,” Nick said, half aware of his slow nod.

  “Good.” The man remained where he was even though he must have been finished with his business. “You’ve been watching me?” It sounded like a question. In place of the tinny feeling bisecting his brain that had accompanied the nausea, warm euphoria suffused him. He felt like half of him was floating, the other half still anchored to the Earth by gravity. It was as disorienting as it was… pleasurable.