Holographic signs appeared overhead, bearing the logo: Jifk Spaceport.
“Welcome to Jifk Spaceport,” a calm male voice said, pronouncing Jifk like it was spelt. “Passenger pick-up and departure for farther worlds, to your left. Passenger pick-up and departure for farther worlds, to your left.”
Nico looked around in bewilderment as the corridor gave way to a large terminal where people walked in all directions, some with luggage. Glowing floor arrows marked two routes, and she chose left. As she reached the terminal’s end, glass doors opened to a roofed arcade outside, and she knew she’d made the wrong decision. All manner of odd vehicles waited by the kerb, as varied as the disorientated travellers arriving on the walk. Bullet-shaped, compact buses sat at an island divider. When one of the buses drove away—not for the lane but into a sunlit airfield—Nico saw the spaceships, big and small, shiny and rusty, rising and landing, beyond it. One spun, a flashing top, and crossed the sky.
Oh my god. The departed bus rapidly became a speck headed for a hazy ship in the distance. Nico thought it looked like a futuristic ocean liner.
Where will the spider lady go? The fox mother? The naked man with the claymore? Nico saw three dusty centurions standing by the kerb and holding their helms, debating quietly on how to proceed. Nico believed she was almost two thousand years ahead of them in technological and scientific understanding (somewhat) and they didn’t appear as discombobulated as she felt.
Two vampires in black, Victorian-style dress —a blond male and a doll-like, black-haired female in a bonnet —stood on the sheltered walk with a handwritten sign reading: Miss Fairditch. Nico could guess whom they waited for, though she was surprised that despite their immutable state—a characteristic old vampires tended to exude—they seemed to anticipate the arrival of a human with gleaming excitement. Their black clothes were not of handmade materials, nor were they historically accurate, but the vampires’ genteel patience seemed very much of a bygone century.
Did vampires have a nose for sniffing out the elder in kin? Nico couldn’t be certain; she’d never had another vampire explain it to her. But right then, she knew it by the deepened sensation of suspended death that clung to the two. It was a bouquet similar to oak-aged wine in casks, sealed for centuries. It was rich, black, and abiding, and unlike her own undead state.
I’m a biscuit, and they’re a banquet. Anxiety hit at the thought. She felt newly risen all over again, despite having become more assured back on Earth, an ageless girl manoeuvring around hapless humans.
The Victorian woman with the cracked spectacles exited the terminal and came to a sudden stop at the sight of the two vampires.
“Annuska...Edmund,” she said in disbelief. The two stepped to her, and the female vampire embraced the shocked woman, her pretty face near tears.
They’re so happy to see her, Nico thought in surprise. They’re friends. And when the female vampire kissed Miss Fairditch on the mouth, the contact passionate and lingering, Nico knew they were more than friends.
She stood on the walk and considered that: humans and vampires, together. Humans and vampires, openly together. For the first time since arriving, Nico felt like smiling. Then she caught a whiff of hyacinth and jasmine.
The vampire she’d met in the bathroom stepped out of the terminal and into the crowd, wearing sunglasses and dangling a lit cigarette from her smirking lips. She was tightening her tie, as if to make herself presentable again. A grey-haired African woman in a floppy sunhat and batik dress stepped out behind her and raised her hands to the airfield, her welcome bag on her arm. Her teeth and eyes held the full vampire aspect.
“Praise the dark and those made in it!” she exclaimed. “So long, fellow refugee.”
“Take care,” the vampire from the bathroom said. “Good luck.” She strode for the kerb, the outsoles of her black stilettos flashing Bulgarian red rose; the signature colour of Christoffel Loulain. She headed for a long vehicle where an androgynous chauffeur stood. The chauffeur held up a sign: Heloise Allen.
Heloise stepped off the kerb into the bright sunlight and boarded the vehicle.
She stepped into the sunlight, Nico thought, shocked. Heloise noticed her as the chauffeur shut her door.
Nico watched the vehicle zoom away, silent and fast. The Victorian couple led their friend off the kerb as well.
“Oh, Edmund!” Miss Fairditch said, and held back Edmund by his arm before the sunlight could touch him.
“Be not alarmed, Livy,” Edmund said with a laugh. “It’s perfectly safe for the shunned. On Darqueworld, the sun’s rays have been made safe for the likes of us.”
They entered a black and blood red vehicle that looked like a chopped coupe, the female vampire taking the driver’s seat, which sat centre and between two other seats. Once the passengers boarded, she accelerated the vehicle away at a sedate pace.
Nico wanted to leave too, though she still didn’t know to where; the bus island across the way seemed a good start. She stared at the sunlit lane. In her head, a grandstand of Mr Bears waved flags and cheered her on: do it, do it, do it!
She poked her toe out into warm sun and her head went light. The world swayed. Someone bumped into her and Nico stumbled off the kerb. She nearly screamed, and scurried across the sun-filled lane for the island and its bus shelter. Once under shade, she checked herself and Mr Bear, her undead lungs working. Nothing smoked or burned. The people on the island stared.
“I watched someone burst into flames once,” she said in explanation, and turned away. She scanned for somewhere next to go—into the sun, because she did not want to board the wrong bus out of sunlight fear and end up on a penal colony’s ship. When she turned back to the terminal’s arcade, she spotted the predators she hadn’t noticed before. Scammers solicited donations (and perhaps picked a few pockets) hawkers enticed the newly arrived with cheap food, lodging, and entertainment, and pimps stood waiting, ready to lure naive girls and boys willing to buy the story of promised employment.
Nico returned her attention to the airfield and saw a neon sign reading Lucy’s, far across the tarmac. It was an old-fashioned, aluminium-sided American diner, the streamlined design right out of the 1950’s.
Nico took a step, intrigued, and a holographic projection popped up before her, resembling a hand-lettered signboard. It read:
Lost?
Come dine with us.
Cup of Joe
Pie à la mode
You’ll know where to go
After eating at Lucy’s.
Someone had drawn a holographic graffiti above the board, of a winking Hello Kitty in apron and chef’s hat with a thumb-up sign. Nico wasn’t sure how one graffitied holographically. She didn’t think an American diner served Japanese, but Hello Kitty was a good sign to her.
“Okay,” Nico said. She steeled herself. Heloise Allen had stepped into the light and Miss Fairditch’s vampires had as well. Nico could do this. She walked into sunlight, then ran for the diner, the sun warming her face for the first time since being made dead.
Lucy’s aluminium siding dazzled, and the brightness made Nico’s eyes tear—not from emotion, but pain. Perhaps she should celebrate the sight of bright light, one denied her for fifteen years, but all Nico could think was as a night creature, she hoped so much light didn’t give her a stroke.
As she neared, holo ad cues popped up, pointing enticingly in the direction of Lucy’s:
You’re getting warmer! Every kind and kin, are welcomed at Lucy’s
We can’t wait, to wait on you, Love, Lucy’s
The scent of incense mixed with the cooking smells of the diner’s grills and a meat smoker, located somewhere in back. Modest, little altars and a golden spirit house sat in a row against the diner’s side, and the ancient history grad in Nico wanted to run up to the altars and inspect each one. They appeared to be for hearth goddesses—she identified Brigid’s solar cross and Hinukan’s koro censer—
Okay, that’s it. Hot-hot-hot—
> She pulled on the metal bar of the glass and aluminium door and escaped out of the sun.
Nico blinked rapidly to adjust her eyesight, though her ears easily registered the activity and noise of a restaurant. The air bore the scents of fire, coffee, food, and bodies. When had she last needed to enter a food place? Possibly when she and her parents had been alive. Nico stood before the empty hostess podium and the glass case displaying pies, tarts, and cakes. The long diner looked the size of two restaurants, with the chatter, clatter, and bodies to match. The spaciousness had not been evident from the outside; the long train car had an attached extension stretching into more rooms in back, beyond the long, stainless steel and chrome-sided lunch counter where patrons sat on bright red stools. Red booths ran beside the scenic windows overlooking the airfield, and another row of booths formed an aisle between them. For her first diner visit, Nico didn’t want to sit at the counter with her back to the entrance; she wanted a window booth.
A metallic robot with a translucent outer casing and an hourglass figure, prominent bullet-bra breasts, and a glass orb bearing a floating brain where a head would be rolled towards Nico. She had four flexible limbs with jointed fingers, and one of them picked up a menu from the hostess podium.
“Hey, welcome to Lucy’s,” her chest’s crackling speaker hailed with a New Yorker’s accent. “Two to be seated? Let’s get ya that window booth you want.”
“Thanks,” Nico said in surprise. Had she been that obvious? She followed the rolling robot down the aisle.
“Would your bear like a booster seat?” the hostess asked.
“No thank you. Mr Bear can sit on the table.”
“Since Mr Bear isn’t wearing shoes, he can do that. Handsome spirit bear you got there. Oh, pardon me, your conjoined twin. My brain is very pink and healthy, thanks for noticing,” the hostess said.
A telepathic robot? Nico thought in alarm as the hostess laid down her menu at an empty window booth, bade her to enjoy her meal, then rolled away. How often would she encounter telepathy on Darqueworld?
A spinning ship descended from the sky, landed upon the field, and slowed its rotations. Nico forgot about mind-reading brains and gaped. The ship looked like an advanced version of the Forbidden Planet ship.
And I’m staring right at it. At some point, she and Bear needed to ride in a spaceship. She pulled a paper napkin from the polished, chrome and glass dispenser, laid it out on the table, then seated Bear on it so he could look out the window. When she sat down and opened the menu, she noticed it was tailored to vampires. She could order blood pancakes, bread, muffins, dumplings, soup, congee, tofu, stew, curry, black pudding, blood sponge cake, a meringue, tart, custard, macaroon, blood chocolate pudding, and ice cream. All made (the footnote at the bottom said) with enriched, simulated human blood.
Simulated. Elation rose, and Nico recalled the snack pack mentioned in the hologram room. Such largess bestowed freedom; no more waiting for the butcher’s slaughter days. No more chasing after ridiculously priced black market human blood. No more human temptation.
Nico raised her gaze, feeling that she was being watched. A waitress with hair blonde as sunlight stood in the aisle and looked at her.
Bright-eyed, with rosy lips and a body Nico could roll her gaze over, the young woman’s figure flattered her pink diner uniform top and skirt. She wore a nametag that read Shayla, and Shayla’s warm, hazel-eyed gaze focused on Nico, intrigued and seemingly delighted.
Then the look was gone. Shayla’s face receded to pleasantness, and nothing more.
Hm? Nico thought.
The waitress approached, smelling of creamy sweet peach, bergamot, and oak moss, and Nico thought of Shayla’s thighs during her fertility flow.
I bet she’s bloody delicious. Nico dragged her gaze from Shayla’s crotch back up to her face. She would remember a name like Shayla; she loved the Blondie song by that name.
“Do we know each other?” Nico blurted when the waitress stopped at her table.
“Ehm, no,” Shayla said with a smile. She spoke with a soft, laid-back brogue.
She’s Scots, Nico thought in surprise. Like—
Nicky, her maker said.
“I apologise fer starin’. Welcome tae Lucy’s. How ’bout I fetch you warmed blood tae start?” Shayla said. “First cup’s complimentary for new arrivals tae Darqueworld.”
“That sounds great,” Nico said. “Thank you.” Shayla had a gentle tone; she spoke with easy grace, pronouncing most of her words with less of a hard Scottish lilt and at far less the speed Nico knew Scots to speak with, but the roll of her R’s was unmistakable. Nico chastised herself for even comparing the young woman to her maker.
“Magic,” Shayla said, smiling. “I’ll be right back.”
When she left, Nico touched her own face, wondering if her undead pallor was that evident—or perhaps the humans of Darqueworld knew how to recognise vampires. She remembered her free hygiene kit and searched for it in her bag, hoping it had a comb or hairbrush.
She was looking at the toothbrush, laser razor, germicide bottle, lotion, packet of tissues, her snack blood packet, and several fast food coupons for a place called Shivers when she noticed little twin girls in headscarves, restless in the booth across, their skin golden and their green eyes inquisitive and bright. One turned to Nico, and a pendant on her front dangled: the winged heart of the Sufi. Their preoccupied parents studied their immigration packs, the father’s weathered face elated while his young wife frowned at the pamphlets in her hands. Shayla appeared at their booth, one hand bearing a coffee mug topped with whipped cream. She drew the girls’ attention and smoothed her hand over the tabletop, whispering. The air shifted, tingling, and Nico felt the change against her skin and teeth. She shivered. Paper colouring mats materialised before the little girls, and Shayla pointed at each mat. Crayons popped into being from thin air. The girls held their mouths, awed and delighted.
Magic? Nico stared in amazement. The quality of the air’s change seemed different from the teleporting she thought she witnessed in the hologram room. The energy sparkled more, a livelier, vibrant presence, as if the change—the intention to cause change—held the signature of living will. Nico sucked in air and tasted particle vibrations on her tongue, quivering with specific intention. The signature was Shayla’s.
People seated farther down the row let out an exclamation of appreciation and clapped. Nico leaned to look; their waitress waved over her closed fist, and when she opened it, striped straws rolled down her outstretched palm. She placed each straw by a customer’s sundae.
They’re all witches.
Shayla turned towards Nico’s booth, smiling, and set down the mug before her. Nico smelled warmed blood beneath the whipped cream.
“Would you like tae colour too?” Shayla asked, her tone easy and relaxed.
“I am not a little child,” Nico said, but she straightened in anticipation. “Yes, please.”
“Everyone likes colouring, even griffins,” Shayla said, and passed her hand over the tabletop before Nico. “Reveal,” she incanted, and Nico felt the brush on her skin again of air changing. A paper mat materialised before her, illustrated with a space liner, spaceships, and Lucy’s Diner. “And I mean grown griffins, not bairns.” Shayla tapped the tabletop and crayons popped into being before Nico and Bear. Nico held the table’s edge, delighted.
“I’m not a baby. I’m thirty-three, my age at death plus my vampire age,” she protested with a touch of haughtiness. “This is so cool,” she added.
“It’s a simple trick. You’ve not witnessed weird work before?”
Nico shook her head. “I’ve never seen sorcery until now. Any that I believed, anyway.” Shayla picked up the red crayon and let it roll into her palm.
“Ah, sorcery. I cannae say that’s what I do here. I only...” She closed her hand around the crayon. When she opened it, the crayon was gone. “Manipulate the unseen, then...” She made a fist once more. Unfolding her fingers, the red cray
on lay in her palm. “Bring what’s hidden back again. Ye’ll learn soon enough, the ways of the weird on Darqueworld.” She handed the crayon to Nico. Nico accepted it and felt Shayla radiate with something more than life, heat, and blood, right then.
“Wow,” Nico whispered as she stared at Shayla, and she put the crayon in her mouth. She could taste the lingering, tingly presence of Shayla’s influence on the wax.
“Thirty-three years, ye say?” Shayla remarked, her tone light. “And still eatin’ yer crayons?”
Nico pulled the crayon from her mouth. “I am. I have a human driver’s license from fifteen years ago. Somewhere.”
“Ye’re eleven years my elder, then.” Shayla seemed to nearly want to say more, the corner of her mouth quirking. But she stepped back.
Nico found herself grinning as Shayla walked away. The rare expression made her face hurt.
***
Colouring calmed. Or perhaps Nico was finally set at ease by the reassuring welcome and acceptance Shayla had given her. Ships rose and descended on the airfield, alien beings walked by her booth led by the robot hostess while Nico licked all of the whipped cream from her coffee cup and coloured. After completing the big spaceship and Lucy’s Diner with bright reds, blues, and oranges, she proceeded to peruse her pamphlets.
Do you still use the term, Alien? Nico read in her pamphlet, “The Intragalactic and You”. In the Pleiades, we are all “aliens”. Try using the word off-worlder, instead.
Nico put her mug down and mentally raised her hand: Yes, but which ones are aliens and not Other-beings? Perhaps as a vampire, she was expected to know about Earth’s other supernatural creatures, but she hadn’t known griffins were real until she viewed them in the hologram room. An intragalactic species and Other-beings encyclopaedia would be helpful.
She traded her pamphlet for the one Bear perused, titled: Who’s Who On Darqueworld.
Monster Stalker Page 3
