Monster Stalker

by Elizabeth Watasin

  Chaikov had a morose, worn face with tired eyes. His very conservative (or possibly utterly bored) reaction to the rubles, francs, deutsche marks, and British pounds she laid out on his glass counter made Nico want to sink into moroseness as well. He quoted a sum and Nico balked.

  “We also buy passports, driver’s licenses, identity cards—” Chaikov said in a sonorous voice.

  “No.”

  “What more do you have?” he said, pointing at the security wallet she held.

  “Don’t touch my stuff. How about a Leningrad metro pass?”

  “Nyet. We already have too many. We also buy those.” He pointed at her second credit card that she’d laid aside while digging for the paper money.

  “Too many metro passes from Leningrad? But my credit card is just a piece of plastic,” Nico said. Her gaze narrowed. “With my signature on it.”

  “We buy plastic cards too. People like those. Coins, stamps, paper...anything that belonged to someone has collectible value.” Chaikov shrugged. He pointed down at the contents on display within his counter.

  Nico saw a 1940’s charga-plate, signed “Mrs Jas N Read”, a 1954 Diner’s Club card, one Black Card, several identity cards, employee cards, and—

  “That can’t be Elvis’s driver’s lic—never mind,” Nico said when she saw Chaikov’s expression. “Okay, I’ll sell you my credit card.”

  Chaikov quoted her a price that could buy a few blood servings at Lucy’s. Nico slid her credit card over but continued to press on it when Chaikov tried to take the card.

  “If I somehow end up with my identity stolen, I will come back and kill you,” Nico said, and Chaikov stared at her in fright. “I’m kidding,” she added.

  ***

  Nico stepped back out a few credits richer.

  “I have to stop saying stuff like that,” she said to Bear. “No wonder people don’t want vampires around.” She had nearly asked Chaikov about the four Russian names in her little black book, and then decided against it. With two of them dead and the others non-existent, whatever history she had had with the names might have remained on Old Earth. Chasing old ghosts was not what she wanted to do. A world meant for vampires beckoned.

  She had the odd feeling that she was being watched.

  She looked down the street. A Fedotov van with the peasant girl logo sat at the kerb and next to the grocery. She glanced back at the coin shop’s window, and Chaikov abruptly turned his head.

  “Humph.” Nico continued on her way. If she was being followed, that someone was certain to slip up at some point. She activated Dorothy and requested a job finder search, beginning from her present location. A holo map projected, showing Nico the first place she could enquire at.

  Nico decided to try four listings; the search would keep her out and about on the streets and easier to follow.

  ***

  Vampires not wanted. Please provide references. Citizen papers required. No Vampires need apply.

  Nico put an X through another job she’d queried—a bakery that found her lack of references unappealing—on her job finder map and told Dorothy to ignore any postings that didn’t want vampires and other criteria she couldn’t fulfill. Green dots disappeared from her holo map.

  “Well, at least we get to see some of this city,” Nico said to Bear. They’d been wandering for an hour, watching the city stir from sluggishness and become more active beneath the dreary skies. She no longer felt eyes upon her nor caught anyone following, so she continued to walk and wrapped up watching another of her required citizenship class vids, Immigrations Holo Vid No 2: Darqueworld Today.

  Weird matter engines, Nico learned, didn’t just power celestial sky boats. People on Old Earth could (if they knew to plan beforehand) transport entire city blocks to a place like Again NewYork during a dire event like a bombardment or natural disaster. That explained the presence of a precinct that felt and smelled like a real precinct, but Nico wasn’t sure what happened to Again NewYork itself when a transfer supposedly occurred. Did sewage pipes magically extend? What about utilities? Did the city undo another notch on its belt to accommodate a magically expanding belly?

  “I have lots of questions,” she told Dorothy.

  “Immigrations Holo Vid No 3: Understanding the Dreaming Planet that is Darqueworld,” Dorothy said, “Multi-physical Realisation From Celestial Weird Matter Engineering. Narrated by Carl Sterling, the history of harnessing Darqueworld’s quantum realities is explored.”

  “I’ll watch it later,” Nico said. “But you’re really saying...this planet has ways of making stuff happen for us, like ghosts appearing on the veldt.” She looked around with interest. She’d entered a street with a worn, Art Deco automat complete with copper boilers on the counter within, the aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafting through the open glass doors. A woman walked out of the self-serve restaurant wearing peep toe pumps, a wide brimmed hat, and a tailored suit in the utility style, looking ready to visit Rick's Cafe Americain. The woman consulted the holo projection from her Id while holding her handbag and Welcome To Again NewYork bag.

  Wow, Nico thought. Which reminds me...

  “Dorothy. Any answer yet to the lost Id I reported?” The street looked like one snatched from the original New York City, complete with fire escapes, apartment stoops, and marquee signs. Despite the presence of the 1940’s female chrono-immigrant (who then departed determinedly for a building with a Room For Let sign) Nico guessed the era at 1950’s, if she identified the automobiles beside the walk correctly.

  “No messages,” Dorothy answered.

  “How is it possible to have cars like this now, driving on the super flyways?” Nico said in wonder as she looked at the dash inside a green Packard. Perhaps they didn’t operate and merely sat where they’d landed when transported to Darqueworld, run out of gas and time. She saw a woman’s friendly reflection in the Packard’s window, her hair a waved updo topped with curls. Another 1940’s female. Nico turned to her and the woman smiled.

  “Cute bear,” the woman said with a New Yorker’s accent. “Did you get him at the Woodrow’s?”

  “Oh, no,” Nico said, straightening. “I got him—”

  I got him...her thoughts hit the white spot and slid off.

  “I,” Nico said. This amnesia is too much.

  “It’s okay, honey,” the woman comforted with a reassuring smile. “Have a nice day.”

  Nico stood at a loss while the woman walked away, her sturdy red sling backs clicking. But from the corner of her eye, Nico noticed the distinct figure of a woman standing across the street—a female not from a past era. Nico stepped back within the silhouette of a street lamp, and then looked.

  Heloise Allen stood before the Woodrow’s and its mechanical kiddies horse ride and gum ball machines, holding a hard pack of cigarettes. Her creamy blood-dark lipstick matched her pumps’ outsoles. Besides the new lipstick, Heloise wore a different outfit, a dark grey two-piece with a black shirt and bright red narrow tie—red like fresh blood. Nico felt envy at Heloise’s new clothes, and she straightened her cardigan and then held Bear, self-conscious.

  Heloise tossed the new purchase up in the air and caught it, obviously happy. With a twist of her fingers, she tore the top part of the wrapper, and then tapped the pack in her palm, ejecting a single cigarette. Heloise put it to her red lips and brought out a silver and black lighter. Eyes squinting, her cheeks sucked while she lit the end, then exhaled into the air. As the stream of smoke left her mouth, Heloise lowered her chin and looked straight at Nico behind the car and lamppost. Her mouth curled into a smile.

  Nico stiffened. She turned and continued down the walk.

  She shouldn’t have spotted me; I need to be more careful.

  But her laxity could be forgiven; she hadn’t practiced hiding from another vampire since stalking her maker.

  Nicky, her maker chastised.

  Nico hurried and rounded the corner. When she looked behind her, Heloise did not follow.

  ***r />
  Nico was beyond delighted; perhaps more so than when she’d visited Tokyo’s Sanrio Puroland.

  “We’re in England—we’re in London. We’re in Victorian London,” she exclaimed to Bear.

  She and Bear sat at The Blue Owl Tea Room’s small, outdoor table on a cobblestoned street, complete with gaslight street lamps and a row of half timbered houses, one of which bore a hanging hand-painted sign: The Pea and Cock.

  Before Nico could exclaim on how rude (or clever) the pub’s sign was, an open, black, horseless phaeton rolled down the cobblestones, clattering. The cloaked driver in the coachman’s hat held a whip for an invisible horse. Vampires like the ones from Countess Karstein’s vampire ball sat within, in hats and black outfits. One of the women held a silvery parasol made of fine gossamer and looked at Nico, her piercing, vampire’s gaze stark in her pale face. Nico gawked and had Bear wave at the carriage as it drove by.

  The Victorian sector consisted of several streets, and its buildings—augmented and adapted since their snatching—still bore the sooty, greasy stains of the original London’s factory-polluting miasma. When Nico had entered the area, she had activated a holo historical plaque on the walk. The holo narrator explained the section’s snatching of over one hundred years previous. The original occupants, Nico realised, had long since passed away, and she doubted their descendants would have kept up Victorian appearances and ways. But it made an excellent haven for time travellers of the era. A contemporary woman opened a shutter in the upper storey of a half-timbered building to air out her unit.

  “I want to live here,” Nico said to Bear. A goateed gentleman emerged from the tearoom’s entrance: a vampire.

  He stood on the walk in grey gloves and with walking stick in hand. To Nico, he felt as old as Heloise. He was dressed in the Belle Epoque style; all of hand stitched real wool, cotton, and silk fabrics, and wearing a blood red silk waistcoat and beaver fur top hat, which he tipped to her. He then presented her with a card:

  Dear Miss

  As I am going in your direction

  Allow me to be your protection

  The flirtation card was bright and new. Nico looked at it and thought of how many women he might have killed, presenting them with his charming card.

  “I’m a vampire too,” she said, though she was certain he knew. “And I prefer women.”

  He smiled and nodded in understanding, and Nico wondered: was he a killer, or a donor eater? Was he seeking her company only, or looking for a hunting partner to indulge with? He flipped the card so that the long end extended forward, a silent invitation for her to accept it, and she did.

  “Then may this humble device aid ye more than it has myself, miss,” he said, his accent Irish, and tipped his hat again. He then progressed down the street for a storefront called: Absalom, Fairditch, & Vastagh, Rare and Unusual Books.

  Fairditch? Nico recalled her fellow chrono-immigrant and her two Victorian vampires. Dorothy confirmed that Livy Fairditch was indeed an owner of the bookshop.

  The waitress emerged from the tearoom.

  “How’s your blood tea?” she asked congenially. “Would you like anything more with it? A blood custard? A pudding?”

  “The blood tea is great. I’ll try the custard, thank you,” Nico said. “Is that gift shop over there for the United Kingdom, or—what’s it for?” The gift shop across the street displayed a kind of Union Jack in the window that Nico had never seen before, one with a red dragon in the centre of the red cross. The blue background also bore stripes of gold along with the red and white.

  “Oh, you’re a new arrival, aren’t you?” the waitress said. “That shop’s for gifts from the Isle. It’s not the United Kingdom, it’s the Isle Kingdom, and the Queen travels back and forth from Old Earth to rule, from time to time.”

  “The...Queen?” Nico said when the waitress went back inside. She looked up “Isle”, and the map showed an isle across the sea, settled by Scots, Irish, Welsh, British peoples, the Sidhe, and other fairy brethren. Along the coast lay Selkie territory.

  “The fairies pulled a huge transfer,” Nico exclaimed to Bear. “And three different British Queens helped. I should have kept my British pounds. Dorothy, search for Shayla O’Fey. Tell me if she’s native to Darqueworld.”

  Dorothy affirmed that Shayla was a Darqueworld native, which meant Nico couldn’t ask Shayla how she got to the planet. But a slew of records and news data popped up with mention of her last name.

  Wow, she’s a—a coven’s pistol? What’s that? But before Nico looked up the definition, she wanted to check if Shayla was married; according to public records, no.

  Tee hee, Nico thought.

  The waitress brought Nico her blood custard, and she ate it as she read what a pistol was: a coven and community peacekeeper.

  But it looks like she isn’t one now. Nico scanned the headlines. She opened one article titled: Promising Pistol Gives Up Badge.

  “Is Shyla O’Fey a misspelling by the media?” Nico said in surprise.

  “Shyla O’Fey is the elder sister of Shayla O’Fey,” Dorothy answered, bringing Shyla’s public record to prominence. “Death at age twenty-two. Vampire life currently at three years.”

  Fascinated, Nico watched news footage about Shayla and her vampire-witch sister, Shy.

  Her Id chimed. Nico started out of her perusal, wondering what the alert was for.

  “Oh! Maybe they found Violet Eyes.” She checked the caller’s identification.

  It said: Specs Plonsky.

  My social worker.

  “Hello?” Nico answered, and Specs’s face popped up, his holo reducing Shayla’s data to secondary prominence. He looked exactly like his photo, from his shaved head to his thick-rimmed Wayfarers, except for the stubborn stubble that looked resistant to laser razors.

  “Hey there, how’s it going,” he greeted.

  “It’s going good,” Nico said.

  “I’m your social worker, Specs Plonksy. You can call me Specs. Mr Plonsky would be my father.” He chuckled. “It’s your second day here on our fair planet, Ms Nico Alexikova! Tell me what’s going on with you.”

  “Well, I did some job hunting and learned that vampires need not apply to nearly all of the job postings. This is great, by the way.”

  “The, uh, lack of jobs?”

  “No. Being here; the possibilities. I’m only now appreciating it.” Nico stared at him. “It’s euphoric.”

  “You don’t look or sound euphoric. But I agree, I felt the same when I got here.”

  “Do you mind if I bring the thing I was looking at back to prominence? I just want to finish something.”

  “Yeah-yeah, let me do that,” Specs said. His visual blipped out, leaving only Nico’s data on Shayla in view. “Great. Initiative, I like that. So, besides the disappointment that is our job market for vampires, everything else going good? I got contacted about your adventure at Royal Bento Food Packaging Co—”

  “Oh?” Nico said, curious. “Who told you about that?” She thought it highly unlikely the police would want to talk about her. She typed a message to Lucy’s, enquiring if Shayla was at work.

  “Let’s just say your friendly neighbourhood Makepeace like to keep an eye on their Other-being flock. On behalf of all fully ordinary humans having no enhancements or abilities whatsoever, I wanted to say how grateful I am for what you did last night.”

  “Okay,” Nico said. “Can I have more money?” She typed a response to the diner’s answer. Shayla had the day off.

  “Not until your status evaluation at the end of the month. And now that we’re back to business—how’re you doing on your immigration education vids?”

  “I’m halfway through viewing them.”

  “Excellent. And did you go over your vampire rights and rules pamphlet?”

  “Um.” She’d thought the pamphlet had looked boring, which civics was. She wasn’t about to tell Specs that she’d chucked it. “No, last night I was too busy—vampire stuff.”

/>   “That’s right! Stalking off-worlders, right? If you can refrain from doing that tonight, I suggest you read it, because better you know now than have a Makepeace blow a hole through your heart for not knowing. First thing you should be aware of, making one like you is forbidden by la—”

  “I’m not interested in progeny,” Nico snapped.

  “Y’okay! Very good. But if you ever were,” Specs said, “you would have a ton of paperwork to fill out. And a three-month wait, in case the intended progeny—or you—changes his, her, eir mind. And there would be tons of forms for the intended too. On Darqueworld, it’s like having an adoption.”

  Nico thought about her maker beating her to death and into a shallow grave.

  “Uh, you there?” Specs said.

  “Yes. Shallow grave.” She typed another response to Lucy’s, thanking them for further info. “Just a question: what if a vampire makes another to save that person’s life? I mean an on-the-spot decision. No time for consent forms.”

  “Ah, that. Simple answer is...well, thanks to the last time that happened in Again NewYork, there’s no simple answer. But it’s still considered an arbitrary act, especially when the dying person’s consent is in dispute.”

  He’s talking about Shy O’Fey. “Okay, thank you. I got another question, since you were a new arrival too. How did you learn about Darqueworld?”

  “Wow, that. Well...I didn’t. Back on Old Earth, I was a UFO hunter. Chased them from New Mexico to Washington. Wrote about it, blogged about it, took tons of pictures and footage—”

  Blogged? Nico thought. What kind of word is that?

  “—I wanted to believe,” Specs said. “And then I got abducted.” He cleared his throat. “And I guess I rode all the way here, naked and in suspended animation.”

  Specs ceased speaking, long enough for Nico to realise she should offer conciliatory words, but she was stuck on the reference to the X-Files. The last thing she remembered of Leningrad was that she had been looking forward to seeing the upcoming X-Files movie.