by P. T. Phronk
He sighed. The people of Vancouver were no more receptive to his information than those of Los Angeles. At least they were polite about rejecting him, though. At least he got sworn at less often. Some people tossed money at his feet even though he didn’t even have a cup or nothin’.
Morgan felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Damien’s stooge. The meathead who had helped him with the threat detection array.
“Mister Fox needs to see you right away.” Christ, the fella’s eyes were way too close together. The space between his eyebrows was just a tiny blip of skin.
“I’m busy, can you tell him to wait?”
“Been an accident, sir. Him ‘n that friend of yours, they need you right away.” His voice was monotone yet grating all the same. He sounded like Boo Boo from those old Yogi Bear cartoons.
“Gah!” he said. “The fuck! Supposed to be my day off. Let’s get going then.”
The ride back was pleasant enough. Vancouver: Hollywood North. The studios too cheap to film in the real Hollywood all came here. Was no wonder Fox found his little hideaway close by, to try getting away from all the nasties out to get him. Meandering between Vancouver’s tall buildings, he watched from behind tinted glass as the people went about their little lives, oblivious to what was really going on.
“Why you do that? The crazy preaching on the street?” asked the stooge, staring at Morgan in the rear-view mirror for way longer than he should’ve. Morgan fastened his seat belt.
“Only seems crazy to the ones who ain’t on the up and up. The dumbass public,” he said, jabbing at the back of the meathead’s seat. “Gotta be subtle with it, see. I come right out ‘n say it, and I attract the wrong kind of attention. Could get me killed, see?”
“Not really, sir.”
“A whole ‘nother reality, right under your nose, and you’re all too fuckin’ dense to notice. Wrapped up with your celebrity worship and your pursuit of the almighty dollar. Take a look in a mirror once in a while! See what you don’t see. You see?”
“I don’t, sir.” Christ. His hands on the steering wheel looked like a pack of sausages.
They sat together on the deck of the ferry to Vancouver Island. The meathead chewed slowly on a dry muffin from the cafeteria. For a few minutes, the sun peeked from behind the clouds. Morgan stood and leaned on the railing, letting the sparkling sunlight reflect off the water onto his face.
“This!” he said suddenly, splaying his hands out to the sky. “If it wasn’t for this, we wouldn’t be here. Maybe never would’ve been here in the first place. It’d be them instead.” He pointed back at the city. “They’d have all the skyscrapers and the celebrities.”
“Sir, maybe we should just enjoy the sun.”
“Just enjoy the sun! You don’t get a word I’m saying. We can’t just enjoy the sun while they lurk underground. And I mean that literally, son.”
“Hm,” was all the stooge could say as he went for another bite of his muffin.
Morgan continued to educate the stooge during the long drive along winding roads, through misty mountains, the tall trees only occasionally opening up for wooden cabins or a view of an untamed beach. As dense as this excuse for a human was, he’d need to know this stuff; apparently, his master was attracting attention from the sort of crowd Morgan’s information pertained to.
“Most of it don’t work. Crosses? Come on; most of ‘em consider themselves gods. Probably started the cross myth themselves. Lull us into a false sense of security, you know? Garlic’s a different story. Tossing a clove at them ain’t gonna do shit, but you concentrate it down, mix it with a few key ingredients, refine it into a powder, then you’ve got yourself something.”
Just before Tofino, the car turned, then bumped down a rocky driveway. Through the trees, Damien Fox’s mansion came into view: cedar, steel, and glass perched on the cliffs of the island like a crashed space ship.
“Sir, you talking about vampires?” asked the stooge.
Morgan held a dirty finger to his lips. “Shhh! Any of ‘em hear you say that, you’ll be their next meal.”
But at least something was getting through. There was hope for the punk after all.
Some of Mister Fox’s lackeys guarded the door to a guest room. Inside, Damien stood to the side of the bed with one of his friends that always seemed to be around; an olive-skinned man with a thin moustache. He’d heard this clown described as Damien’s spiritual advisor. Miss Miller was kneeling by the bed, leaning over her massive belly to dab lightly at Jeffery’s mangled neck. She had a red-rimmed tattoo on her hand that seemed out of place on her otherwise flawless skin. It was the same as the one on Fox’s hand; some kind of eye thingy in an upside-down pyramid. Looked kinda like an owl.
“It bit ya pretty good, eh?” said Morgan.
“He’s out cold,” said Miss Miller. “He dragged himself here, all the way from … Washington, he said.”
Damien nodded. “Washington. He was conscious when he arrived, but I couldn’t make out most of what he said. I know he asked for you.”
Morgan shooed Miss Miller away from the bed. “‘Course he asked for me.”
Damien’s spiritual advisor stood in the corner of the room, staring at Morgan.
“Can you help him?” Miller asked.
Morgan felt Jeffery’s pulse. Weak, sludgy, but still there. “‘Course I can help him.” He pointed at his favorite meathead, who stood near the door fiddling with his sunglasses. “You.”
“Howard.”
“Yah yah, Howard, go grab the bag from my room. The burlap one, not the little velvet one. And do not touch the equipment on the table. Or the jars on the shelves. Just … don’t touch anything.”
Howard nodded his meaty head. By the time he came back with Morgan’s sack, Jeffery was convulsing, white bubbles foaming from his mouth.
“Open the top box in that bag. No! The other top box. Yes. Now hand me the third vial from the left.” He took the vial from the stooge, Howard, and inspected it. “Good.”
The vial contained liquid that had settled into four layers; yellow at the top, then cloudy white, then red, then black. Morgan poured it into Jeffery’s mouth, then plugged his nose and mouth. His body instinctively choked it down.
“He’s lost a lot of blood, but this will help. Now the fourth vial from the left. And Miss Miller, do you have a Q-tip, or a cotton ball?”
Ms. Miller raised an eyebrow at him, but she reached into her purse, and was indeed able to produce a cotton ball. He took the vial; it was full of a clear liquid that oozed onto the cotton.
“What is it,” said Damien’s spiritual advisor. He had an unidentifiable accent and spoke as if it wasn’t a question.
“Werewolf saliva,” Morgan explained as he dabbed it on Jeffery’s wounds. “This will help with the healing.”
“Werewolf spit? If this will help, how come doctors don’t know about it?” asked Miss Miller.
Morgan scowled. “Modern medicine treats modern problems. Our friend has been afflicted with something ancient. Something primal.” He paused for a moment, crossing off lists of substances, rituals, and principles in his mind. “Some modern medicine won’t do no harm though. Miss Miller, can you sew?”
With the finishing touches to the protection array complete—particularly to the little technological hornet’s nest on the back that Damien didn’t exactly know the function of—Morgan climbed down from the roof to sit on the balcony with a refreshing soda. He heard the sliding door open and close behind him.
Jeffery patted him on the shoulder, then leaned on the railing beside him. “Buddy,” he said, “you saved my life.”
“Bah, don’t even think nothin’ of it.”
“It is your fault I got into this gig in the first place, so let’s call it even,” Jeffery said, grinning.
“Okay,” said Morgan. He wasn’t sure if Jeffery was joking around or not. Based on stories he heard about Jeffery in L.A., probably not.
Jeffery’s breathing was ragged. The wound on
the side of his neck was ugly; the skin was stretched in awkward places following Miss Miller’s amateur stitch-up job. It’d heal quick though. That werewolf saliva, it was hard to come by, but it’d do wonders, provided Jeffery didn’t end up a member of the lycanthrope community himself. Usually it’d take more blood loss and more saliva in contact with a fresher wound, but there was always a chance.
The door opened again. Damien joined them.
“I’m guessing you found out what we’re up against,” said Damien.
“You bet. Got yourself a vampire,” said Jeffery.
Damien’s mouth tightened to a short line. He jabbed a fist in the air. “I knew it. I knew it was, well, something like that. I felt it.”
“She has a companion, and—”
“A companion? Human? Are they working together?” asked Damien.
“Their relationship is unclear. What is clear is that they were heading in this direction. I decimated the vamp cunt good. She’ll need to heal, but they’ll arrive in a night or two. We need to up our game. Your boys will need some sessions to come up to speed.”
“I’ll arrange it,” said Damien.
Jeff pounded on the railing, then pointed at Damien. “Yes,” he said. “Great.”
His eyes shone with a cold intensity that made Morgan shiver. The man shouldn’t have even been on his feet, yet already he seemed to be relishing the thought of another encounter with the creature that nearly killed him. He wasn’t sure about the rumors—buildings full of innocent people, burned to the ground to take out one sleeping vampire; deals with shadowy organizations to cover it up—but they no longer seemed so far-fetched.
Damien turned to Morgan. “Can you do anything more?”
He looked out over the water, mountains just visible in the distance.
“There is one thing,” he said.
Setting up the perimeter was difficult with people constantly coming and going. Especially because he didn’t know who could be trusted. He settled on refusing to tell anyone what he was actually doing.
The ring of salt around the house? That was to keep out earwigs.
The candles arranged in lines radiating from the front door? That was to appease the forest spirits, man.
Scrawling symbols on rocks with a Sharpie then tossing them off the roof? That was just for fun.
It wasn’t like he’d done this before. He read a few books, he called a few friends who called a few friends, and he got a dozen different answers. If he tried them all, one was bound to stick.
Damien found him digging a trough in the front lawn. “So who will be able to get in?”
“You. Me. Anyone who’s already around when I flip the switch, so to speak. From there, the party’s invitation only, ya know?”
“Incredible,” said Damien. His eyes sparkled as he ran his finger along the trough.
“‘Course the vampire couldn’t’ve got in anyway. You know, with the invitation disability. But she’s with a human, says Mister Jeffery. This should work on anything with a heartbeat.”
“Well, thank you, Mister Morgan. You are appreciated.” He looked down the driveway. “Ah, the new midwife is here.”
“How is Miss Miller doing?”
“Honestly? She’s about ready to pop. All this stress, well, it might’ve pushed forward the date. The timing of all this couldn’t be worse. It really couldn’t.”
“I’ll help the best I can. Ain’t gonna get much safer than this. And with Jeffery at your side, that’s another layer around ya.”
“Great,” said Damien, standing. “About Jeffery: thanks for bringing him on board. He’s a great guy.”
Morgan stood, frowning, as he watched Damien greet the midwife with a big fake smile on her face. She blushed as she chatted with him, saying something about being a huge fan. But all Morgan could think was: Really? Damien thought Jeffery was a great guy?
For someone so interested in privacy, Damien sure had a lot of people around. Morgan had to shoo an interior decorator out of the office to check the protection array’s computer. He had to wait so long for a personal chef to finish up in the bathroom that he considered taking a shit in the woods. That damn spiritual advisor always seemed to be hovering nearby, staring at Morgan with those judgey eyes.
Then there was Carley. One of Damien’s assistants, Carley was about forty five, hair graying, and hopelessly in love with Damien. Since Fox was already fucking a woman half his age (though with that giant belly in the way, maybe not so much nowadays), Carley must have known her chances were slim, so she had to redirect her libido elsewhere.
Morgan got the brunt of it. Mister Damien was insistent on assisting himself, leaving little for Carley to do most of the time except wander the house and bother Morgan. Yeah, so he hadn’t gone to bed with a lady in a while. Not since the mess in New York that he constantly thought about putting right. But he wasn’t about to get back on the saddle with Carley, with her bad hair, her crooked nose, and oh God, that grating whiney voice.
The day had been busy, setting up the perimeter then flipping the proverbial switch; literally, activating the perimeter involved chanting a few words while hanging a flaming wreath on the front door until it burned out. From inside the circle there was no way of telling if it worked, but he’d find out soon enough when another Hollywood hanger-on showed up at Damien’s feet.
He sat down with a custom-made herbal tea designed to heal his body and mind, beginning to wonder how he had become such a bitter old man, when he heard Carley’s nasal voice from outside his bedroom door. Fuck. He couldn’t deal with her right now.
He set down his tea and flipped off a Bunsen burner on the table, then opened the door a crack and stuck his head out. She was down the hall, her back to Morgan as she talked with a guard, her poofy hair all streaked with gray.
“I need to briiing him something,” she said in that whiney voice. “Frank Morgan? The guy with the hair and the …” She pinched at her clothing, presumably trying to express his patched-up clothing in gesture.
“Oh, Morgan, well he’s—”
Morgan caught the eye of the guard she was talking to; that stooge who’d driven him here, Howard. Morgan shook his head and put a finger to his lips, shhh.
“His room is right there, but I think it’s empty.”
Good boy.
“Ohhh, well I’ll just go check myself,” she oozed. Morgan snuck out of the room and tip-toed the other way, but he felt her gaze hit him just as he turned the corner of the hallway.
“Morgan!” she said. He pretended not to hear her. He clomped down the stairs as fast as his old steel-toed boots would take him. The front door was ahead, but it was cold and dark out, and knowing what was out there, approaching fast, it wouldn’t be safe. He ducked down another hallway as he heard Carley ticking down the stairs in her high-heels.
He nearly ran into Damien’s personal chef as he burst out of a kitchen.
“Morgan! Just the man I wanted to see. Try this for me; I need an amateur’s opinion.”
“Busy busy,” he said, shuffling past the chef’s considerable belly. He jabbed his thumb behind him. “I heard Miss Carley was hungry though.”
He turned a corner. Behind him, echoing around the high-ceilinged hallways, he heard the chef and Carley chattering quickly. She brushed the chef off as quickly as Morgan had.
He came to the end of the hall. Damn. There were three doors around, none of which he had been through before. Randomly, he chose the one on the left, then quietly shut the door behind him. Thank God, there was a lock on the doorknob, which he clicked into place.
He heard her try the doorknob. Then her muffled voice: “Oh, he must have gone downstairs. I’ll just wait here until he’s done.”
“Whatever, lady,” replied the chef.
Morgan sighed. He looked around. A single lightbulb lit the way down a set of carpeted steps. He didn’t even know the place had a basement. Curious, he descended the steps. There were voices below.
Cigar scent
hit his nostrils. He arrived in a dark room with an archway to his left. Voices, light, and smoke spilled through the archway.
“You locked the door right?” he heard Damien’s voice say.
“Mmm hmm, pretty sure,” came Miss Miller’s, high and squeaky.
“Probably the chef trying to bring us dinner. Anyways …”
Morgan definitely wasn’t supposed to be here. He stepped up beside the arch, careful not to let his steel-toed boots stomp too loudly, then peeked into the room beyond it. It was a sitting room with a roaring fireplace, a mahogany bar with a mirror behind it, and plush chairs arranged in a circle. Five people filled the room.
Mister Fox sat with his back to Morgan. In chairs around him were the midwife he’d seen greet Damien earlier, Jeffery Humber-Wilcox, and that creepy-ass spiritual advisor. Miss Miller sat on the ledge in front of the fireplace, with her crossed arms resting on her bulbous belly. In the light of candles, he could see purple bags under her eyes.
“Does the timing matter?” asked Fox.
“No. It can be at any time after dusk,” said the spiritual advisor in his odd accent. He took a deep sip of scotch, then licked some from his moustache.
Oh, how Morgan could use a drink right now. Hadn’t touched a drink in decades, but he sure could use one now. When the spiritual advisor put the glass back down, Morgan noticed the eye tattoo on his hand. The same one that Mister Fox had on his. Same one freshly branded on Miss Miller.
“Her due date is in a week, but it is looking like it will be pushed forward to tomorrow night,” said Damien. Silhouetted by the fire, he reached to his side, then held a dagger, twirling it in his hand, alternately reflecting fire and the faces in the room. It was spotless except for some symbols etched into the blade near the hilt. It looked razor sharp, and had a nasty little bend to it near the tip.
“Let’s be frank, so we are all one hundred percent clear on what we’re dealing with. We induce labor. When the child is born, I will take it.”
Fox paused. His Adam’s apple bounced up and down for a moment before he continued. “I will use this knife to cut its throat, quickly and painlessly.”
