Vamparazzi

by Laura Resnick

  Bill, however, was on the ball. He recognized what passed for my lighting cue in these unprecedented circumstances, and the white spotlight came on, glaring down on me with bloodless intensity. I shut my right eye and lay there dead, feeling relieved to effectively be out of this scene.

  Leischneudel came on a moment later, and Daemon staggered to his feet to finish the performance, such as it was. I could hear the vampire sniffing and clearing his irritated throat throughout the rest of the scene. Leischneudel did a creditable job, all things considered, but I could tell he was making a heroic effort not to burst out laughing. When he fell down dead, just outside the white pool of my spotlight, I held my breath to conquer my own impulse to start laughing. We both lay there in tense silence, waiting for Daemon to finish his final monologue—which he rushed through like a man desperate to finish the job and go find his private hoard of Nocturne.

  The stage went dark, the curtain came down, and a wave of uncertain applause spread through the audience, as if they weren’t quite sure the play was over. I let out my breath on a relieved sigh, then Leischneudel and I convulsed simultaneously with hysterical laughter.

  “Get up!” Mad Rachel insisted. “Get up, you guys!”

  I couldn’t. I was laughing too hard.

  “Come on, goddamn it!” Rachel, who hadn’t just had a spotlight shining against her eyelids, readily found me lying on the darkened stage and started tugging on my arm.

  “Ow, that hurts.” That heavy fall to the stage a few minutes ago, combined with my other injuries, ensured that I was just one big ache by now.

  “And where are you going?” Rachel cried.

  I couldn’t see yet, but I could hear Leischneudel still laughing helplessly as he lay near me, so I knew Rachel must be speaking to Daemon.

  “I’m not taking a bow after that,” he said.

  “No!” Rachel cried. “Stop!”

  The curtain rose on me and Leischneudel still lying on the stage, while Rachel clung desperately to Daemon’s arm, her full body weight dragging on him as he tried to make his escape. Leischneudel and I hopped to our feet, and we all fell into line for our curtain call—though Daemon declined to hold my hand this evening.

  Half of the audience members were already out of their seats and leaving, ignoring us as they gathered their belongings and streamed toward the exits, talking about where they would go for dinner—or perhaps about how bizarre this show was. Some of the people who were still in their seats applauded enthusiastically—most of them, I noticed, were die-hard fans, dressed as vampires, Janes, or bondage babes. The rest of the stillseated crowd applauded politely, but their expressions suggested they were thinking of asking for their money back.

  As soon as the curtain came down on what would clearly be our only bow today, Rachel gave Daemon a hard shove and cried, “You ruined the show!”

  He ignored her and said angrily to me, “Don’t you ever wear that stuff onstage again!”

  “Watch your tone!” I snapped back. I pointed to the covered-up welt on my neck. “You did this to me, you jerk!” I touched my injured cheek. “And you encouraged your fans to do this to me! I am the walking wounded because of you! So don’t you dare take that tone with me!”

  Daemon sneezed and gave a little groan. “Oh, fine. Whatever. Just don’t wear it again.”

  “I won’t,” I said. “I certainly don’t want to be stranded onstage with you like that again.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Leischneudel. “That final scene today was the first time I’ve ever liked this play.”

  “Fuck all of you.” Rachel stormed off in search of her cell phone.

  Daemon stalked off to his dressing room, followed by Victor, who was unwisely telling him the show hadn’t really been that bad.

  Still laughing, Leischneudel and I staggered together toward our dressing rooms.

  When we reached his door, his eyes widened as he said, “Oh, no! That was the performance Thack saw.”

  “Oh, God.” I put my hand over my mouth. “He’ll kill me for making him sit through that.”

  “Well, I can kiss that opportunity good-bye.” Leischneudel’s smile faded.

  “No, you were fine in the first act, and you rescued a couple of scenes as best you could in the second act. I’m sure Thack saw that,” I said truthfully. “I’m sure he also recognized that no one could have rescued the final scene.”

  We both burst out laughing again.

  “Esther?” a familiar voice called.

  I looked over my shoulder to see Thack being escorted down the hallway by the house manager, who had brought him backstage.

  Thackeray Shackleton was slim, blond, nice looking, always impeccably dressed, and (as I had found was so often the case with attractive, well-dressed men who loved the theater) gay. He thanked the house manager, greeted me warmly, and presented me with a bottle of champagne.

  “I’m so glad you brought alcohol,” I said honestly.

  “After sitting through that play,” Thack said, “I think I need something stronger than bubbly.”

  Although it wasn’t the most propitious moment, I introduced him to Leischneudel.

  “Congratulations,” Thack said to him, “on being the only actor in the cast who can hold his head up after that performance.”

  “Oh, er . . . thank you, sir.”

  “Thack!” I said.

  “Oh, you did as well as anyone possibly could, darling,” Thack assured me. “But even you couldn’t save yourself when you were stranded out there with a demented marionette puppet whose strings had snapped.”

  Leischneudel and I both laughed again.

  “Tell me, is this show always quite that ... odd?” Thack asked.

  Daemon’s door opened and he came out of his dressing room just in time to hear Thack say this.

  He looked at us. We looked back.

  I cleared my throat and introduced Thack to Daemon. Their civil greetings were followed by an awkward silence.

  Thack broke it by saying, “I saw the show today. You offered your audience . . . a unique interpretation of the role. That’s the hallmark of a great actor.”

  Nice save.

  “Thanks,” Daemon said morosely. “Does anyone know where Victor went?”

  Leischneudel and I shook our heads. Daemon went back into his room and closed the door.

  Without missing a beat, Thack said to Leischneudel, “I understand you’re seeking representation?”

  “Um, yes,” Leischneudel said, obviously surprised that Thack was raising the subject after today’s performance. “I am.”

  “Why don’t you two talk while I change?” I suggested. “And Leischneudel can explain what happened out there today. That wasn’t really our show. It was more like a crazed nightmare of our show.”

  They went into Leischneudel’s dressing room. I went down the hall to my room, where I found Rachel raging into her cell phone about the performance while undressing and removing her makeup. I opened the champagne, then drank some of the lukewarm liquid straight from the bottle. I changed into my street clothes, cleaned off my makeup, and applied a fresh layer of antibiotic ointment to my cheek, pausing often to take more swigs from the champagne bottle. When Rachel left, still yammering into her phone, I sank into a chair and enjoyed the blessed silence as I drank warm bubbly.

  I felt exhausted and in pain. Also overwhelmed, all things considered. I really wished we didn’t have to do a show tomorrow. However, although most theaters were dark on Monday nights, the performance schedule for our eight-week run had been based on Daemon’s schedule—and he’d had two longstanding commitments for public appearances on Tuesdays, related to his work for Nocturne. So our weekly day off on this show was Tuesday. At the moment that seemed very far away.

  There was a knock at my door.

  “Come in,” I said wearily.

  Max and Nelli entered the room. I blinked in surprise, having forgotten about them during the course of that disastrous performance.
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br />   “Welcome back,” I said, as Max took a seat and Nelli lay down with a little sigh. I offered Max some tepid champagne, which he declined. I set aside the bottle as I asked, “Did you find any vampires out there?”

  Max shook his head. “We encountered some interesting individuals. Also some rather alarming ones. As well as many friendly, er, vampire enthusiasts. I also spoke with a number of people who are very disturbed by the recent murder. But we did not discover any vampires. Or, rather, Nelli showed no unusual reaction to any of the hundreds of people we encountered. Well, apart from the ones who offered her food, obviously.” He frowned. “Our lack of results could be because there wasn’t a vampire out there.”

  Nelli sneezed twice and gave a little groan.

  I looked at her with concern as I rose to pack my tote bag so we could leave. “Has she been doing that all evening?”

  “No, she was fine outside.” He reached down to stroke Nelli’s head soothingly. “However, it also may be that, despite her sensitivity to certain phenomena, Nelli cannot actually recognize a made or hereditary vampire.”

  “Why are you trying to identify a made or hereditary vampire?” Thack asked sharply from the doorway.

  We both flinched in surprise and turned to look at him. He was eyeing Max warily.

  I said, “Er, we just, uh . . .”

  Max studied Thack curiously. “We are concerned about the recent murders by exsanguination.”

  “Murders?” Thack said. “As in, plural?”

  “Yes.”

  Thack frowned. “There was only one in the news.”

  “Max,” I cautioned. What Lopez had told me about the other murders was confidential.

  Still holding Thack’s gaze, Max held up a hand to silence me. “There have been at least two others. Possibly three.”

  Thack entered the room and closed the door. “How do you know about this, given that it’s not in the news?”

  Nelli sneezed. I patted her head as she wheezed a little.

  “I think a vampire may be responsible,” Max said slowly. “What do you think, Mr. . . ?”

  “This is my agent, Thackeray Shackleton.” I gestured to Max, wondering just how crazy he must sound to Thack. “Dr. Maximillian Zadok.”

  “Let me make sure I understand you,” Thack said. “At least three recent murder victims—possibly four—have been exsanguinated, and you think a vampire is responsible?”

  “Yes,” said Max.

  “Hey, Thack,” I said. “After a performance like that, you probably just want to get out of here right away, and—”

  “Does it mean anything to you, Dr. Zadok,” Thack said slowly, his gaze still locked with Max’s, “when I tell you that I’m . . . Lithuanian?”

  16

  I gasped and leaped backward, gaping at Thack. Nelli looked at me with mild curiosity.

  Max made an elaborate gesture with his hands and said something in Latin.

  “Oh, please don’t bother with all that, Dr. Zadok.” Thack took a seat as he waved his hand dismissively. “I’m not at all traditional—much to my family’s dismay, I might add.”

  “Oh?” Max paused midgesture.

  “No ritual greeting,” Thack said. “I beg you.”

  “As you wish.” Max asked, “Have you come here to deal with this matter?”

  “God, no.” Thack grimaced. “I came here because a client of whom I am very fond had a fit of insecurity and insisted I sit through this dreadful play.”

  “Thack!”

  “I told you how I felt about this sort of thing,” he said to me. “I loathe these revolting vampire stereotypes! Even so, I never suspected just how awful Daemon Ravel would be in his role. Leischneudel has explained why—sort of—but that’s no excuse. The people who paid four hundred dollars to see Ravel’s performance today must be feeling positively suicidal after sitting through it.”

  “That’s what the scalpers are getting now?” I said in astonishment. “Four hundred dollars?”

  “Never underestimate the commercial power of having your lead actor charged with murder,” Thack said dryly.

  “He hasn’t been charged yet,” I pointed out.

  “After that performance,” Thack said, “he certainly ought to be.”

  Nelli sneezed twice more, then she laid down on her side with a weary moan. Her eyes looked a little bloodshot.

  Thack glanced at her. “Your . . . small horse seems to be ill.”

  “I think she’s allergic to something in the theater,” I said.

  “And what happened to your face?” Thack asked, studying my colorful injuries with appalled concern, now that my heavy stage makeup had been removed. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. I’ll explain later.” I pulled myself together and stared at my agent in amazement. “Thack! You’re a . . . a . . .” Though we were alone and behind a closed door, I lowered my voice. “A vampire?”

  “Not a practicing one.” He said to Max, “Since I get the impression you know something about these matters, Dr. Zadok—”

  “Please call me Max.”

  “—let me state clearly that I lead a fully integrated life here in New York. I gladly shed all that Lithuanian business when I left home, and I am not equipped to deal with whatever may be happening here.”

  “What do you mean, ‘not practicing’?” I demanded.

  “Don’t give me attitude, Esther. I happen to know that you only go to Temple twice a year—and only then if your mother nags you.”

  “You’re saying it’s voluntary?” I asked. “You can choose whether or not to be a vampire?”

  “No, alas,” Thack said. “Like being Jewish, it’s something decided by birth. But you can at least convert. I, on the other hand, am stuck with being a vampire until I die.”

  “If I converted, my mother would die,” I said. “Noisily.”

  “However, I can choose whether or not I practice vampirism,” Thack said. “And like you, darling, I choose not to practice unless my family nags me enough on special occasions.”

  “Vampires have special occasions?” I blurted.

  Thack seemed a little miffed by my question. “Everyone else has special occasions. You don’t think we’re entitled?”

  “And on these special occasions you . . .”

  “Drink human blood? Yes.” Seeing my reaction, he sighed and said to Max, “You see? This is exactly why I never tell anyone about my family background.”

  “Shackleton is not a Lithuanian name,” Max noted.

  “As I said, I left all that behind me when I left Wisconsin.”

  “There are vampires in Wisconsin?” I gasped. “I’m from Wisconsin!”

  Still lying on her side, Nelli wheezed a little. We all looked at her.

  Then Thack said, “I legally changed my name when I came here. William Makepeace Thackeray and Sir Ernest Shackleton are two of my heroes. Isn’t New York the place to reinvent oneself? I wanted to live unfettered by all that ... vampire stuff. It is so not me.”

  “I always thought Thackeray Shackleton couldn’t be your real name,” I admitted.

  “It is my real name,” he said firmly. “Just not my given one.”

  “Well, you and Daemon Ravel certainly have something in common.”

  “Oh, please,” Thack said in disgust. “If he’s a vampire, then I’m Eleanor Roosevelt.”

  “Actually, I meant the name thing.” I explained briefly about that. Then I noted, “You seem positive he’s not a vampire. Can you sense other vampires? Can they sense you?”

  He gave me an exasperated look. “No. And we don’t wear secret code rings or special badges, either, Esther.”

  “I was only asking.”

  “But no way is Ravel a vampire! We do not call attention to ourselves—let alone alert the media,” Thack said. “Even the most orthodox vampires keep a very low profile. It’s how my family, for example, have survived for centuries as practicing vampires—including my two little nephews, whom my brother is rais
ing traditionally, back in Wisconsin.”

  “Let me get this straight,” I said. “Your family is originally from Lithuania?”

  “Yes.”

  “So vampires immigrated here?”

  “Is that a problem?” He looked insulted. “Everyone else gets to immigrate and pursue the American dream, but vampires should be kept out of the country?”

  “Well . . .”

  “This is why—this is exactly why!—I never talk about my background.”

  “I didn’t mean to offend you,” I said. “I’m just a little . . . never mind.”

  “Hmph.” He frowned. “What were we just talking about?”

  “Daemon Ravel.”

  “Oh, yes. What a ridiculous name,” Thack sneered, blissfully unaware of the irony of his criticism. “But it certainly goes with his absurd pretensions.”

  “I agree he’s absurd,” I said. “But I don’t believe he’s the killer.”

  Thack said to Max, “You really think a vampire is the guilty party?”

  “Having had time since this afternoon to contemplate our scant information, yes, I am inclined to think so,” Max said.

  “Where are you getting this scant information?” Thack asked curiously.

  “A confidential source on the police force,” I said.

  “The same one whom Daemon Ravel’s own personal tabloid menace is using?”

  “No,” I said with certainty.

  “If this is vampire business, then what’s your involvement?” Thack asked Max. “Zadok isn’t a Lithuanian name, either.”

  “I am the local representative of the Magnum Collegium.”

  “Which means?”

  “I deal with mystical problems.”

  Thack nodded. “Ah, that makes sense.”

  “Really?” I blurted.

  Both men looked at me.

  “Never mind.”

  “I also used to be a vampire hunter,” Max said.

  “But you’re not a vampire?” When Max shook his head, Thack whistled, evidently impressed. Then he frowned and asked, “Is that even allowed?”