Gypsy Blood

by Vernon, Steve

  “Invite her back in. I’m famished.”

  Doris didn’t know what to make out of that declaration.

  “I’m hungry,” Maya said.

  “And I’m pissed. It’s one thing to mess with my life. Don’t mess with my living.”

  Tell her, boy.

  Carnival pushed past Maya. She could have taken his head off of his shoulders with no effort at all but he wasn’t going to let her push him around.

  “You just remember what we talked about, Doris,” he told her, putting his back between her and Maya. “One problem at a time. Everything will be okay if you can keep things in perspective. Go home and call the police.”

  Doris nodded, embarrassed and bothered by this strange woman’s behavior.

  Why not kill her? You’ve lost her business anyways. She won’t be back.

  Poppa was right. It didn’t take much to push a person off a fortune teller’s reading list. They were nervous enough every time they come through his door. A little anything would scare them like gun shy deer.

  Carnival shepherded Doris safely to the sidewalk. He could feel Maya’s eyes, chewing into his spine. He took the old lady’s hand and held it, just long enough to comfort her and squeeze in a little bit of necessary advice.

  “If you know any good prayers, say them out loud on the way home.” he ordered her, as forcefully as he dared.

  Doris crossed herself.

  Maya’s eyes kept staring into Carnival’s back. He knew she wanted an explanation, and he couldn’t really blame her for that.

  Doris headed off down the sidewalk, crossing herself and praying loudly every step of the way.

  Aunt Bea stepping out of Mayberry and straight into the pages of Salem’s Lot.

  She knows what’s going on. That old woman is no fool.

  Poppa was right.

  Maybe dumpy middle aged housewives aren’t nearly as thick minded as everyone thinks they are.

  “Do you think the crossing will help?” Carnival wondered aloud.

  “The aerobic activity is good for her heart.” Maya whispered coldly in his ear closer to him than he thought she had been.

  Good for her heart, yes. It will keep it beating one more night.

  Carnival turned to face Maya. She snarled. Her mouth, was wide and nasty, showing all of her teeth.

  And you thought you were pissed.

  Carnival stared at what might be his death, listening to the sounds of Doris’s sensible flat shoes click-clocking into the night.

  Poppa was right.

  Her heart would keep on beating, for one more night.

  Carnival wished he could say the same thing about his own heart.

  Chapter 63

  Getting Familiar with the City

  You don’t have to be a palm reader to know what she wants.

  Poppa was right. Maya wasn’t being that subtle about it. She wanted her feeding but Carnival wasn’t in any kind of a hurry.

  Maybe he’d never have to worry about hurrying again if he had his way tonight.

  Spin your webs, spider-boy. Faster than a speeding aneurism.

  “You chose her,” Maya rasped. “You chose her over me.”

  “She was a customer. I make my bread and butter from people like that.”

  “People like that are my bread and butter,” she said.

  She has a point.

  “I saw you talking to the old man on the staircase,” she said. “You could have killed him for me. It would have been easy.”

  There was a note of desperation in her voice that Carnival hadn’t heard before.

  “Didn’t you just eat?” he asked. “I saw your boyfriend downstairs, the one with the goatee? And what about that tattooed skull? Who the hell was that? Have you been raiding the raves or the freak shows?”

  She refused to meet Carnival’s gaze.

  Heh. That’s a novel concept. A vampire who doesn’t want to look in your eyes.

  “You could have bagged him for me.”

  Carnival shrugged irritably.

  “Could have, should have, that’s just yesterday’s history. No sense worrying about what’s already passed.”

  “I need to eat.”

  There was nothing behind what she’d said. Nothing good, nothing bad. For once, she wasn’t a dark creature of the night. She was just hungry, was all. Carnival saw the hunger in her eyes. It left him with a bad taste in his mouth but a real one. It was his fault, wasn’t it? He’d said he’d see to her needs. He’d made a promise. Hadn’t he?

  Don’t ask me. I’m an old man. I forget things easily.

  That was the hell of it. Carnival couldn’t remember. Not really. It was like one of those childhood memories. You remembered the candles, the sound of a half dozen children singing “Happy Birthday” to someone, but you couldn’t remember when or where it happened.

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  She looked at him as if he’d suggested swallowing a handful of flaming buffalo turds.

  “Is this going to be a relationship talk?” she asked. “I really don’t have time for that sort of thing tonight. I’m kind of hungry. I get that way, you know. After I haven’t eaten for a while. Funny, isn’t it?”

  Now you’re really getting pissed off. I can feel it. Like a thermostat, turning down. Wars start this way. Wars and divorce.

  “How about a peanut butter and sarcasm sandwich?” Carnival suggested.

  “There’s no choice involved. I have to eat. I need blood every night. You knew that when you started this whole thing, didn’t you?”

  Carnival wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure what he knew. He wasn’t sure if he’d started it at all.

  “I remember the knife going into Olaf’s throat, but I don’t remember thinking about it. You’d think you’d know if you were getting set to murder somebody, wouldn’t you? Wasn’t that what motive was all about?”

  Columbo would know.

  Maybe Columbo would know but Carnival wasn’t so certain.

  He bared his throat, yanking his collar down, nearly tearing the shirt fabric.

  “And what about this mark?”

  He gave her credit. She tried to tough it out.

  “What mark?”

  “I can see it Maya. I’ve broken your spell.”

  “Have you?”

  She looked at him. Hard and soft, all at once. For a moment the room began to spin. His throat stopped aching.

  Open your eyes, boy.

  Carnival scratched at his throat, digging his fingernails into the unhealed wound, smarting himself back into reality. It was closer than he wanted to admit. She’d nearly pulled him back under but he caught hold before everything real slipped away.

  “Don’t try that again. I’ve been mind fucked by the best in the business. You’re a guppy next to me. I’m Jaws, the great white palm reader.”

  She almost laughed.

  Carnival wished she would giggle. If she would just laugh at one of his bad jokes then maybe the whole argument might be over.

  “Look,” she said. “It’s no big deal. If you can’t feed me I’ll go out and get my own. I’ve been seeing to my own needs for some time now.”

  He looked at her.

  “Have you?” he asked.

  She shrugged.

  “How old are you? Really.”

  She opened her mouth and closed it again.

  She doesn’t know.

  She didn’t. Not because she’d forgotten. Not because she didn’t know how to count. She just didn’t know.

  She might as well have been born yesterday.

  “It’s the sleep,” she explained. “You forget every morning when you close your eyes. When the night comes on you start all over. Memories are always vague.”

  “You remember me.”

  “You’re different.”

  Was he? Carnival wasn’t so sure. Lately he’d begun to feel like a punch line to a fast three card monte routine. He kept his eyes focused upon his dark queen. How could he love her a
nd hate her so hard in the same breath of time?

  Forget about gods. Love works in the most mysterious ways of all.

  Carnival kept on talking.

  “And you catch vampirism from your family, isn’t that what you said?”

  She kept trying to find an answer that would make all the questions go away.

  “I just, I just don’t, I’m just so hungry is all. How about we order some take out?”

  Carnival knew what she wanted.

  Another delivery boy.

  Another tasty virgin.

  If you give a mouse a cookie, he’s going to ask for a glass of milk.

  And then he’s going to drink. That’s what Maya wanted, but Carnival didn’t dare call another pizza delivery company. He couldn’t risk the cops coming around again. He should cut her loose. No. He couldn’t do that. Even if he didn’t start this, he for sure needed to finish it.

  Just one more time, he told himself.

  Sure. We’ll waltz this bloody ballroom one final time.

  “We’ll eat in,” Carnival decided. “I know just the place.”

  He owed Doris that much.

  Chapter 64

  A Fate Worse Than Death

  On and on through the long night Olaf continued his assault on Momma’s body.

  They had arrived in Olaf’s home. He didn’t really want to be there, didn’t even need to be there, it was more like some kind of psychic lodestone that called him home.

  He didn’t care, just as long as he got what he wanted. It was less of a fuck and more of an invasion on the cellular level. Each of the pieces of Momma’s spiritual self was systematically infiltrated. He kicked down every door of her very being and ransacked whatever he found inside. It wasn’t anything about horniness. Not anymore. It was about completion. He had been killed in the act of seeking sexual fulfillment. Now his spirit was trapped in a self perpetuating loop of immediate need.

  The more he got, the more he wanted.

  This is how serial rapists are born. It becomes an act of escalating fury. It became an act of finding the journey, rather than the destination. It became the fuck, rather than the come. It became about taking power, not sex. So he hammered her in a long drawn out psychic fuck. It was worse than sex. Or better, depending on whether you were talking to the hammer or the anvil.

  Momma lay cocooned within the expanded domain of the possessed Ouija board.

  Be careful what you invite in. Those words haunted her like Christmas bells as Olaf’s spirit raped through her ears and her eyes and her mouth and her pores, through every aperture and orifice. The sea of letters and numbers whispered to her like a cage of dried snakes, long incantory nonsense words spinning across the walls.

  Through the words she saw animals and beasts. Lions and dragons and minotaurs, crawling and spinning across unwashed plaster. Momma fought for her freedom, as helpless as a swimmer caught in an oceanic undertow. The harder she tried to pull away from Olaf, the deeper he penetrated.

  If she could die again, she would gladly do so, but being dead herself left her at something more than a disadvantage.

  The dead cannot run away.

  She thought it was over. Thought she was over. She was adrift, and just about to let go. Never mind that, she thought. I can ride this out. I am a great white shark.

  Now where had that come from? It sounded just like something Carnival might have said. It didn’t matter. It gave her the strength she needed.

  “Come on,” she shouted. “Is this the best you can do?”

  Sometimes the best way to fight a rape is to go with it. To show your attacker how little power he truly has.

  That’s what Momma decided to do.

  She would ride this fuck out.

  Olaf rose up and dragged her deeper down.

  She went with him, laughing.

  Chapter 65

  The Sailor and the Lady

  There are darned few mysteries in a fortune teller’s life but Carnival had always secretly wondered about the lady downstairs who took in sailors. He barely knew her. He hardly ever saw her. He thought she was a little hot but then again he always had a weakness for the crazy ones. He wondered what she did down here.

  Just another variety of hooker. We all are, in our way, boy. We sell what we’ve got.

  Poppa was probably right. She was probably just another whore. She invited them in and took their money and took whatever else they had to offer. But he always felt there was something more to this one.

  So now you find out. You’re going to kill again, aren’t you boy?

  “One last time,” Carnival promised.

  Sure, said the alcoholic to the bottle. One more sip. That’s all you need.

  “No, Poppa. This one will be the last. I’m not sure how, yet, but I’ve had my fill of killing. There will be no more. If it means ending my relationship with Maya, than that’s how it will have to be. I can’t do this anymore.”

  At least you are finally being honest. This girl has angled you in, and now you need to slip the hook.

  Carnival stood at the downstairs door, too afraid to knock.

  You have to think of a proper line, is all. We need space. It’s not you, it’s me. The blonde with her tongue in my ear says you have to go. It’s easy, boy. You have a way with words. Use them.

  There was pink cotton veil tacked across the outside light. It colored everything a soft cotton candy pinkish hue. Carnival reached out to knock on the door. Maya wasn’t interested in the amenities. She pushed past him and pushed through the door, like she’d grown bulldozers on both of her hands.

  The door came off at the hinges and hit the ground hard. There was the lady sitting at her kitchen table. She stood up with a smile, like she’d been expecting company. She was wearing something long and flowing and soft that might have been a nightgown. It looked a little like something resurrected from out of a Stevie Nicks rummage sale. She had company with her. A big fellow, a sailor Carnival guessed. He was dressed in a long feathered pink boa and a long striped dress.

  “What the fuck?” the big man yelled, rising to his feet.

  He looks a little silly, doesn’t he? Pink is so last year, and those stripes sadly accentuate his stomach girth.

  There were teacups on the table, tiny china teacups with one of those delicate ceramic teapots. She was having a tea party with a cross dressing sailor boy.

  And you thought your life was weird.

  Maya grabbed the lady who took in sailors, leaving the sailor for Carnival.

  The big man put his head down and came at Carnival like a charging bull moose, pink feathered boa flowing in the momentum stirred breeze.

  Get him boy! Show him your amazing Kung Fu grip.

  The big man’s face was hard and ugly. A true American – red-necked, white skinned and blue collared in a long pink boa. He looked a little like a cross between The Hulk and The Village People. Carnival had half a heartbeat to experience the slightest twinge of jealousy. Why didn’t Stevie Nicks ever invite him to a tea party? He figured he was a hell of a lot cuter than Popeye here.

  Tell her that after you kill the amazing abominable Bluto.

  Then the sailor was on Carnival. The room vanished fast as Carnival backed through the doorway, catching ineffectually at the big man’s shoulders. Carnival hit him John Wayne hard, hooking a nice looping left into the big man’s ribs. Only the sailor kept coming on like Carnival was made of cheap rip-off Woody Allen dolls.

  Carnival hit him again, a solid right. The big man was maybe just a little softer than a concrete wall. He caught hold of Carnival’s throat, choking him out with an unmanning ease. Carnival grabbed the big man’s hands but his fingers wouldn’t work right.

  Get hold of yourself, boy. You are being throttled by a cross-dressing seadog.

  Carnival tried to stay tough. He told himself that the sudden wet warmth in his trousers was nothing but sweat. He pulled closer towards the sailor, snugging against his torso like an overly affectionate hug. H
e felt the big man’s breath, wet and close and dank in his left ear. The big sailor worked his chin into Carnival’s skull like it was a blunted awl. His manhood rammed hard against Carnival’s left leg, as if he were enjoying this too much.

  Fight, boy, fight.

  Carnival was scared shitless. He didn’t know what to do. He reached for the big man’s throat, hoping to choke him back. The big sailor easily shoved Carnival’s hands back. Carnival pushed his mouth against the sailor’s neck.

  First it was a sloppy kiss, Carnival’s lips flaccid and useless and reluctant.

  The big sailor grunted, either in effort or excitement, Carnival couldn’t tell. The pressure against his ribs increased. Carnival saw little spots of color polka dancing before his eyes.

  He bit the sailor’s neck, digging his teeth in like the man was a tough chunk of brisket. The sailor had a tattoo on his neck, a rope and an anchor chain. Carnival felt the tattoo move beneath my teeth. The veins and cords twisting and throbbing like water hoses getting ready to explode. It was like biting a snake, feeling it run through your mouth, slick like a loose rope running through a pulley.

  Carnival tasted salt. He tasted aftershave and dirt. A little fruity sort of cologne, or maybe the sailor had just been bobbing for maraschinos in the fruit punch. He felt the sailor’s Adam’s apple in his teeth, like a bit of chewy calamari.

  Carnival forced his cheeks to smile. He felt his ears rise up as his teeth sank in. It looked like he was trying to nuzzle the big man’s neck while simultaneously wiggling his ears. He felt the vein give way and a chunk of the sailor came off in Carnival’s mouth with a ripe salty squirt. Like he’d come in Carnival’s face but it was blood, not semen.

  Carnival worked at the bite, tearing deeper. The big man started to panic. He hit Carnival’s back three or four times with the side of his fist. It wasn’t that bad. It felt like he’s wearing sledge hammers for gloves.

  Carnival kept tearing. The big man’s blood spurted in the Gypsy’s face in perfect rhythm with his panicked heart beat.

  I’m winning, Carnival thought. He’s twice my size, and I’m beating him.

  You’re not beating him, you’re eating him.

  Poppa was right. This was the second man he’d killed hand to hand this way in less than a week. A knife on Olaf, and his teeth on the sailor.