Tall, Dark & Dead

by Tate Hallaway

  I held the door to the main room open for him. “Partly. But for me it has to do more with Lilith. The asteroid. And the Goddess,” I was so tired I was starting to babble. I stopped myself. “The point is, it’s not contagious. It’s my problem.”

  “Hey, su problemo, mi problemo, amigo.”

  “Okay.” I smiled. “Help me find a board for the window.”

  * * * *

  The first part of the day passed slowly. William spent much of our downtime trying to get me to relate the story of dealing with the police over the break-in, but rather than make up lies, I told him I just wasn’t up to talking about what happened. When he wasn’t asking about that, he wanted more information about vampires.

  “So,” he said, while polishing the silver jewelry with a cloth, “where do you find real vampires?”

  I had the case open and was spraying window cleaner on the underside of the glass top. I ripped off a paper towel and started wiping. “I found my first at an all-night café near Banning State Park.”

  “In Minnesota?”

  “Yeah,” I said, spritzing the top. “I was visiting my folks, and, well, there’s nothing to do in Finlayson, so I’d driven down to the casino in Hinckley to hang out with some old high school friends who were working there. Anyway, I stopped in the truck stop on the way home. For some reason the place was crowded. I ended up sitting at the counter next to him.”

  “How did you know he was a vampire?”

  “Honestly I didn’t at first. We just started chatting and hitting it off, and when I found out he was from Minneapolis, too, I gave him my phone number.” In hindsight, that should have been a clue. I was ultra paranoid about giving out my number, but Parrish had worked his glamour on me… or maybe just his charm, since if he’d just wanted to lure me off for some tawdry sex and a nip on the neck, he probably could have convinced me to take him out to the back of my car.

  “So he was totally passing as average?”

  I nodded, though I knew Parrish would bristle at the idea of being referred to as average anything.

  “So anyone could be a vampire.”

  I wasn’t sure where William was going with this. “I guess. Why?”

  He’d finished his work and waited for me to complete dusting the interior of the case. “I want to find one,” he said, leaning back against the register.

  “Why don’t you ask Feather?”

  “I did,” he said. “We had a huge fight about it.”

  “She didn’t want to share her needle, eh?” I hadn’t meant to say it, but the words slipped out.

  Before I could apologize, William shrugged and said dejectedly, “Yeah.”

  William changed the subject shortly thereafter, and we didn’t talk about vampires for the rest of the morning.

  * * * *

  I’d just let William go for his lunch break when Mátyás Von Traum walked into the store.

  He stopped the moment he noticed me behind the counter, and he slowly replaced the scrying mirror he’d been examining. Mátyás still courted the Euro-trash look with a burnt-orange silk shirt and black trousers. The bright color should have been gaudy on him, but something about the fabric brought out the vaguely golden cast to his skin and the deep blackness of his hair. Give the boy a bit of curl, tie a scarf over his head, add some gold hoop earrings, and he’d have looked stereotypically gypsy.

  “If it isn’t Daddy’s Witch-for-hire. How nice to see you again,” he said, making it perfectly clear he felt it was anything but.

  “What are you doing in my store?”

  Mátyás gestured at the arrangement of curios meaningfully. “Browsing, I believe.”

  “Maybe I can help you find something,” I said, trying to play the part of courteous store manager between gritted teeth. “Did you have something specific in mind?”

  “Actually, I’m looking for a vampire, about this tall,” he said, holding his palm out flat about three inches over his head, “looks a bit like me, only far less attractive, and he dresses like an auto mechanic.”

  “That’s a very popular item,” I said. “Had a customer in earlier looking for the same thing.”

  “Really?”

  He managed to pull off “surprised” convincingly. The man should have been an actor, because I suspected Mátyás knew all about the Vatican’s interest in Sebastian. Someone had to have told the agents to look for Sebastian at my place. Sebastian must have told Mátyás his plans at some point.

  “Yep,” I said, feigning interest in arranging the pens near the register. “Actually, there was so much interest in that particular item last night that it was nearly pulled off the shelf permanently.”

  “That would have been tragic,” Mátyás said. “I take it I could still get my hands on it for the right price?”

  Lilith twitched restlessly across my stomach. I took a deep breath to contain my swelling anger. “Depends. If you’re purchasing for resale, it seems to me you stand to make a tidy profit. Maybe I want to be cut into the deal.”

  He laughed. “You want the Pope to perform an exorcism on your mother, too?”

  I couldn’t even begin to form a response to that. I was taken aback on so many levels, but mostly by Mátyás’s colossal stupidity. “Do you really think that the Order is going to make good on a promise like that?”

  A tiny crease appeared between his eyebrows.

  Even though he hadn’t said anything, I continued as if he had. “Okay, you’re right. Maybe they will. I mean, why would they lure a dhampyr to Rome on a false promise, especially one that’d be transporting his magically preserved Witch mother?”

  Mátyás stiffened slightly. “My family is Catholic.”

  “I’m sure that will spare you. I mean, clearly, they’re taking Sebastian’s Catholicism into consideration, right?”

  He had no response.

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’m not going to roll over on Sebastian.”

  “No?” He returned his attention to the display of jeweled palm-sized mirrors. “I’d hoped you were at least a little serious when we started negotiating price. Are you interested in money? Because I stand to inherit a lot of it.”

  I wondered if there were estate laws dealing with people who were already dead, but I imagined if the government had any say in the matter, as long as you were making money and paying taxes, they’d consider you some sort of version of alive. No, get serious, Garnet. If the government knew about vampires they’d make sure inheritance laws favored the living and that they somehow got double-taxed for being dead.

  “If not money, something else?” Mátyás continued when I didn’t respond. He turned to look at me. “How about a chance to be off the books? Clear your name with the Order? Surely a life unmolested holds some kind of appeal.”

  I shook my head, though I had to admit that the idea of not being constantly harassed or chased from town to town for the rest of my life did interest me. “I don’t think you have that kind of power—”

  I stopped myself. A picture was forming in my head. “But Rosa does, doesn’t she? She’s your handler. She’s the mastermind behind this whole thing. Leader Guy isn’t in charge at all, he’s just the muscle.”

  Mátyás looked a little shocked that I knew Rosa by name, but he quickly composed himself. “She’s got the ear of people in power. She could smooth things out for you.”

  “It’s not worth Sebastian’s life.”

  Mátyás put his hands in his pockets and sauntered over to stand opposite the register. There was a raised platform behind the counter, so I stood a few inches taller than him. He pulled his bangs away from his eyes and gave me what I imagined passed for a sincere look for him. “Let’s get serious, Garnet. You don’t even know my father. How long have out two been going out? A month? A week? Days?”

  Somewhere around sixty-two hours and counting didn’t seem like a good response, so I said nothing and concentrated in not giving away the answer with a blush. “I’m telling you, Mátyás, I’m not in
terested in giving Sebastian up.”

  “I could make your problems go away, Garnet. Painlessly.”

  “So, you’re leaving? Great.” I turned away and pretended to sort receipts. I got kind of into it for a few seconds, especially when I didn’t hear anything more from Mátyás. Maybe it was being in the zone, but a crazy thought struck me. I put down the pile of receipts and turned to find Mátyás leaning against the jewelry case. “You didn’t join the Order, did you? Please tell me you didn’t.”

  “I’m not sure why you care, but I didn’t. Not yet, anyway. They offered when they found out I was Catholic. Their sensitives get a lot of dispensations.”

  I leaned in close enough to smell his aftershave or hair product. Whichever it was, he smelled faintly of roses and frankincense. “Don’t do it. Seriously, don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re safe with them. You’re always going to be a dhampyr in their minds, Mátyás.”

  “I, my dear lady, am God’s judgment on vampires. Born of a vampire, impervious to vampiric magic. Designed perfectly to hunt and kill that which gave me life. Poetic, isn’t it?” I could see the Church liking the sound of that. “Still,”

  I said, sounding less convinced even to my own ears. “Why would they perform the exorcism? Your mother was”—or should I say—“is, a Witch.”

  “They’re thrilled with the idea. The exorcism will drive the demon from her soul. She’ll be free to move on. They get two birds, don’t you see? My mother will be finally and completely dead.”

  Of course. He had this whole thing worked out. Even so, I thought he was a fool to trust them. I shook my head. “Maybe so, but you’re a magical. The Order is your enemy. Always.”

  We held each other’s gaze for a moment, and I thought by the crease between his eyebrows I might be getting through to him. Then he opened his mouth: “A very impassioned speech, Garnet. Bravo.”

  “I’d like to say that you and the Order deserve each other, but, you know what? I hate seeing anyone played so thoroughly by them, even a jerk like you.”

  William chose that moment to return from lunch. The bells on the door jangled. If Mátyás had planned a witty retort it was lost in William’s enthusiastic greeting. “Hey! Guess what I just found out? I can hire a vampire for sex!”

  Ninth House

  KEYWORDS:

  Faith, Justice, Misjudgment

  William stood in the doorway of the shop looking extremely pleased with himself. I tried to imagine what Mátyás must see: a scrawny, pale Goth boy with hair so newly dyed that it was, quite literally, shiny.

  Then, noticing Mátyás standing beside the counter, William flashed me an oops-I-didn’t-notice-we-had-company face. But the damage had already been done.

  “I’m surprised you have to pay,” Mátyás said, then turned his cold amber eyes on me. “Or is Daddy charging a fee these days?”

  “William isn’t talking about Sebastian; he’s talking about—” I stopped myself just in time. Did I really want to give Mátyás the ammunition that I had another vampire lover who was probably the hustler in question? No, I didn’t think so. I feigned confusion and turned to William. “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh,” he said, clearly surprised that I decided to continue the conversation. “Well, I was talking to these guys on campus—like, Goth guys—I’d seen them around before but never talked to them. I always thought they were poseurs, you know? So, we were talking about how to find real vampires, and, anyway, one of them shows off his bite marks. Says he got them last night here on State Street in an alley for fifty bucks.”

  Ugh. I felt embarrassed for Parrish. “Just biting, though, right? Nothing else.”

  Mátyás shot me a glance, which I pointedly ignored.

  “That’s extra, I guess,” William said with a shrug, though his eyes darted back and forth between Mátyás and me. “Who’s your friend?”

  “Extra?” I blanched. “You mean, you can buy… ?” I couldn’t finish it. It was hard enough to think my ex was giving out a bite for cash.

  “Oh!” William said, with a nervous glance at Mátyás, who grinned at him mischievously. “Not that I’d want the extra. I mean, I just heard.”

  “I’ve heard the bite is plenty sexual,” Mátyás said.

  William came up to join me behind the counter. He stood just slightly behind me at the register, and all but leaned over my shoulder to stare at Mátyás. The spicy/greasy smell of the Mexican food he’d had for lunch permeated his clothes. “Yeah, that’s what the other guy said, too, but he might have been just trying to, you know, freak us out.” He reached over me and held his hand across the glass counter-top to Mátyás. “I’m William, by the way.”

  They shook. It was all very manly. “Mátyás Von Traum. Sebastian’s son.”

  “Sebastian? Like, Garnet’s Sebastian?” When Mátyás nodded, William added, “Hey, how’s he doing? He left in a bad way last night.”

  “Actually, I’m not sure. He never came home. You don’t know where he is, do you?”

  William shook his head.

  “Nice try,” I told Mátyás. “Anyway, Mátyás was just leaving.”

  “I was,” Mátyás said, but instead of turning to go, he leaned an elbow on the countertop. “But I’d love to stay and hear more about this vampire for hire. How old? What’s the pedigree?”

  William brightened. He put down the prayer beads he’d been distractedly rearranging and crowded near me again. “Hey, I just learned about the significance of all that, but, thing is, he’s new to town. No one knows for sure.”

  “He can’t be that old, if he’s willing to sell so cheap,” Mátyás said with an air of knowledgeable disdain.

  “Why not?” William asked over my shoulder.

  “Because the older the biter, the bigger the kick,” I supplied.

  Mátyás nodded. “Yes, any vampire over, say, a hundred, would be worth way more than fifty bucks per. Besides,” Mátyás said with a shake of his head, “prostituting yourself seems very New World, don’t you think? I’ll bet he’s just some American who was turned in the late twentieth century.”

  “Nah, Todd, the donor who I was talking to, he said the guy definitely had a British accent of some sort.”

  Mátyás shot me a glance, as if to confirm that we weren’t talking about Sebastian. When I shook my head, he continued, “He could be faking it. I doubt Todd and this vampire really did all that much talking.”

  William shifted his feet. I could almost feel the blush radiating from his cheeks.

  One of Mátyás’s evil grins spread slowly across his face. “Why, William,” he said. “I do believe you’re a virgin donor.”

  “Not a donor at all,” William said grumpily, turning away. “I’m going to reshelve the astrology section.”

  Crossing my arms in front of my chest, I gave Mátyás my I-hope-you’re-satisfied glare. Mátyás, for his part, looked somewhat disappointed at William’s hasty retreat. He watched William make his way to the back of the store, then turned his attention to me. “So, you know this new vampire?”

  “I might,” I said. “You certainly know how to talk groupie, don’t you?”

  He shrugged. “You know what they say: find the ghoul, find the vampire.”

  I had not heard that. Frankly, I hadn’t known that there were quite so many pat little sayings about vampires. “Where’d you hear that? Vampire-hunting school?”

  “Only stupid people with death wishes hunt vampires. I merely locate them.”

  “So, you’re a vampire detector?”

  Mátyás smiled—a sincere, you-actually-amused-me grin—placed a hand on his chest, and said, “It’s my special gift.”

  That, and being surprisingly charming for a guy I mostly couldn’t stand, I thought.

  “Let me know if you change your mind about my offer, Garnet,” Mátyás said. “I could make the Order forget about you.”

  “And all I’d have to do is sell Sebastian out? Gee, what a deal,” I said.

&nb
sp; Mátyás pursed his lips and turned toward the door. “You’re going to discover how misplaced your loyalty is, Garnet. I only hope for your sake it’s sooner rather than later.”

  I didn’t have a good response to that since “Oh, yeah?” seemed kind of weak and overused. Instead, I watched him leave with my mouth hanging open, which was equally cliché and idiotic.

  Goddess, I hated that guy. I rubbed at my sore knuckles, thinking how much more satisfying it would have been to have bruised them on his jaw instead of on boxes of books.

  William wandered toward the front of the store, feather duster in hand. “Thought I’d do the window display,” he said. “Oh, and Matt or whatever his name was? He’s a jerk.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, I figured that out.”

  With a serious nod, William began using the tips of the feathers to tease cobwebs from the corners of the window shelf. I returned to the receipts in earnest.

  After I finished, I called a window repair place and made an appointment for them to fix the storeroom window I/Lilith broke. I returned a few calls from various sales reps and placed an order or two. Having unearthed the number of Eugene’s hotel in Finland, I stared at it for a long time before deciding that was a job for another day.

  William, meanwhile, had dusted, polished, reorganized, reshelved, scrubbed, swept, and mopped everything in sight. “I’m a nervous cleaner,” he said, when I caught him standing on a step stool, hand-vacuuming the velvet runners that decorated the top of the Witchcraft book section. “Last night was freaky. I’m still processing.”

  Thinking while engaging in busywork, an interesting trait. “Is your Mars in Virgo? Maybe Mercury in the sixth house?”

  William stepped off the stool with a smile. “That’s the Garnet I know and love,” he said. “I’ve missed you.”

  I nodded, though it occurred to me that the old Garnet he knew was, in a lot of ways, just a persona adopted since coming to Madison. “So,” I asked. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. My worldview shifts all the time, remember?” His smile was a little thin, however.