by J. F. Lewis
A shard of the stake Petey had used to try to kill me lay in a puddle of blood at the edge of the sidewalk. I picked it up, took its measure in my hand, and ended Petey. When he died, the prostitutes screamed in unison. On one of them I saw a tattoo with the words Petey’s bitch glow brightly and then fade.
The girls of Sweetheart Row were all thralls?
A scraggly looking vamp in an army surplus jacket stumbled out of the hotel. Fresh blood trailed down his chin, dripping on the jacket. “You killed them. The little guys. Why did you do that?”
You know, I can only feel so much guilt for killing a pack of little pimps.
“They were fucking vampires,” I shouted. “Maybe you don’t get it. Maybe you never got the memo. They were fucking monsters. I’m a fucking monster! You’re a fucking monster! The question you should be asking yourself is why should I even feel the teeniest bit guilty about it?”
“Chill out, man.” He held his hand out in a gesture that meant calm down and lower your voice. “We’re all friends here.”
“No, we’re not.” I dropped back down to humanoid, the splintered bit of a stake I’d used to kill Petey still clutched in my hand. “I only have four or five friends: two women, a mage, a cat, and maybe…just maybe, one freaky little tantric witch.” Fang honked and I added, “And one heck of a car. Nowhere on my list does ‘sad little poser in a green jacket’ appear.” Speed control still with me, I spiked his chest with the stake and watched him explode into a cloud of dust. I love it when that happens. It’s so much tidier than the bubbling puddle of rot you get most of the time. “Does anyone know where Petey and the gang kept their cash?”
I turned around. Of the eighteen girls on the street, nine of them had turned to ash.
“What the hell?” I hadn’t thought about what might happen to a thrall if the vampire who owned them died. I spun quickly, looking at the other girls. Three others were rapidly going from old to decrepit. Then I understood. Time was catching up to them. But how? Marilyn had been Roger’s thrall and she’d grown old and Roger was a Master. Petey and his gang had been Soldiers. Shouldn’t Roger’s ability to keep his thralls young have been stronger?
The other five girls looked like they might be okay, and Cheryl appeared to be completely unaffected. She walked back, her demeanor much more confident.
“What now?” she asked me. “You got what you wanted. I’m sure some people will be pissed off. Even if we don’t stay here, I’m sure I’m not the only girl who has regulars that are a little bit obsessed. They’ll track us down. We’re going to need some protection. I don’t want to be snapped up by the next sadist who comes along just because Petey was pimping me out on Sweetheart Row.”
And that, my friends, is exactly why when I eat out, I tend to kill the donor. If she’s dead, it’s harder for her to stick around and whine. “Hold that thought.” More vampires stared at me from the Bitemore, peeking out windows or from the fire escape. Three big vamps in suits that shouted hired muscle walked out through the front doors. I don’t know if they worked for the hotel or the vampires I’d just killed, but it didn’t matter to me. If I was going to send a message, why not send a fucking message, you know? I transformed into the uber vamp again. Two of the muscle-bound morons showed me fang-filled grins. They didn’t grin for long.
22
TABITHA: LOOK WHAT THE GANDER DRAGGED IN
The accommodations at the Pollux made me miss the Highland Towers. There was a shower behind the stage near the dressing rooms, but the water smelled funny and no one offered to bring me a bottle of blood wine, mulled or otherwise. Industrial strength cleaner mingled with a background stench of disinfectant.
At least the shampoo from Eric’s office was recent. He didn’t seem to need or understand the uses for conditioner. I guessed he’d picked the shampoo himself, because it had no strong scent, smelling like soap rather than any herbal concoction or perfume.
After the shower, I put on the magic skirt and top Winter had given me. Even though I had them change color—a blue top, a black skirt—so that no one would notice I’d already worn them once this week, I kept wishing that I’d packed something else. Magic or not, wearing the same clothes is just icky. Rubbing my hair dry with a towel, I nosed around the dressing rooms hoping to find something else to wear. Greta emerged from the one at the far end of the hall, looking hunted. I didn’t sense her until I saw her, making her the second vampire I’d met who could do that with their mystic presence. She closed the door behind her too quickly for me to see any specifics, but it looked as though a whole apartment’s worth of furniture had been crammed into the small dressing room. Her hands slid across the door protectively.
“This is my room and my stuff.” Her fangs glistened as she spoke.
“I don’t want any of your junk.”
“You want my dad.”
“Maybe,” I told her truthfully. “I guess I do. I’m really not sure.”
“Cut off your head, stuff your mouth with garlic, stake you through the heart with any kind of hard wood, then bury your head and your body in two different plots on consecrated ground. That’s all it would take.”
“What?”
“You’re so unimaginative. I know vampire hunters who would try that method first thing and then you’d be gone forever.”
My fingernails stretched into claws. “Is that a threat?”
“No.” Greta vanished. The floor rose up to hit me in the face, bloodying my nose, bringing tears of blood to my eyes. Her weight was heavy on my back, grinding me into the cold tiles. Fangs touched my neck and my arms bent backward, broken at the elbows. “This is.” She knelt in front of me, head canted at a curious angle. “Hurt my daddy and I’ll kill you.”
“How did you…ow, God!” My elbows reknitted, shifting into their original orientation. The pain was remarkable. It felt…it felt…like having your elbows broken and then having them jammed back into place. I’d like to compare it to something witty, but it’s a unique sensation.
“How did I beat you up?”
I nodded. “I’m pretty fast. I should have seen that coming, at least.”
“Daddy is made for strength and hitting him is like punching a brick. You’re made for speed and you can do the whole lifelike thing, which is cool; Daddy deserves that. I could feel your body heat from the office last night, hear your heart beat, the rhythm of the two of you. It rocked me to sleep.”
Okay, now that was disturbing…I wondered if we could get some kind of mystic soundproofing.
“Daddy can do so many things and he has the angry eyes and the uber mode, oh, and the ghost mode, but me, I’m made for killing and I’m hungry all the time. When we’re fighting together, Daddy and me, I always make sure to let him look the best, because, you know, he’s Dad. It’s like when you used to fake an orgasm. You didn’t want Daddy to feel bad. I get that. That’s why I hope we can be friends.”
“Wow.” I gushed insincerity. “I totally get that.” Our gazes met. My mind darted into Greta’s, but her mind was a vacant room, literally. I was standing in a living room. Ozone, tinged with burnt carpet, dominated the room’s scent. An undercurrent of blood, sweat, and sex drifted in from elsewhere in the house. The salty tang of the ocean crept in through a broken window. I’d dominated another vampire’s mind before. This was nothing like that. Greta had no walls to keep things out, no nice neat ordered core. Walking down a set of stairs came a pretty blond girl, not more than ten, wearing an oversize T-shirt that read: Daddy’s Girl.
Blood trickled down her left leg. Bruises mottled the side of her face along the jawline. “Greta?” I asked.
“Daddy isn’t here right now,” she said softly. “Are you my new mommy?”
“What happened?”
“Bad things.” Her face was expressionless, but a single tear streaked her cheek. “Daddy made it stop. New Daddy. Old Daddy is upstairs.” The girl set her jaw. “You aren’t one of Old Daddy’s friends are you?”
“No!” I ass
ured her. “No, I’m with Eric.”
“Then you must be my new mommy.” Little Greta rushed to embrace me, holding me like an anchor, a temple, a safe haven. My God…
“Sure. Sure. Okay.” I returned the hug, patting her back absentmindedly. “Mommy’s here.” What the hell had happened to her?
“I’m sorry I hurt you, Mommy.”
“It’s okay,” I muttered. “It’s okay. Your father will be home soon.”
“I feel him,” Greta answered in the physical world. Breaking the contact, I discovered that Greta and I were sitting on the floor of the corridor, hugging each other. Greta pulled me to my feet. Eric’s presence brushed mine. Human heartbeats pounded around him. Five of them. “He brought pets, or maybe snacks!” Greta bubbled. “Let’s see which!”
Long blond locks of hair bounced against her back echoing the excitement in her voice. In the rush to get downstairs, she left me forgotten in the hall. I followed more slowly, pausing to straighten my clothes. I’d noticed Eric changing into different sets of clothes without even realizing it, but I couldn’t manage that trick yet. I end up wearing whatever I’d been wearing before I transformed or the black dress I’d worn the first time I tried shape-shifting.
“Honey,” Eric bellowed from the box office. “You’ll never believe what followed me home today.”
“Dad,” Greta laughed from upstairs. “Don’t you already have enough pets? What will Mom say?”
“I was going to tell her they were yours.”
“Dad!”
Women crowded around Eric in the foyer, wearing worn lingerie, latex, and Lycra. The smell was disgusting, like sex in a slaughterhouse. Eric introduced them to Greta, his words evading me completely.
“They’re hookers!” I blurted.
“Blood whores,” Eric corrected.
“We prefer women of negotiable volume,” the youngest among them said. She was maybe forty, but she still had spirit in her, the others were older, broken and empty-eyed. “But you can say whore if it means we don’t get eaten.”
“Where are we?” asked the most senior.
“We’re in the Pollux, Gladys,” the youngest one told her. “You’ve got to re-enthrall her.” She pushed her finger into Eric’s chest. “Gladys has been a thrall as long as any of us can remember. Petey wasn’t even her first master. She hasn’t got much time left.” The older woman sagged physically, her breasts drooping visibly, the curvature of her spine becoming more pronounced as if on cue.
“Can she hang on for another twenty minutes, Cheryl?” Eric asked.
Cheryl sighed. “You don’t know how to do it, do you?”
“Just…What? Yes, I know how to do it,” Eric scoffed.
“Then do it.”
Eric held up a finger. “Just fucking wait.” He put his hand on Greta’s shoulder. “Watch these ladies for me, okay?”
“Sure, Dad.”
“Did Rachel show back up?”
“No, Dad.”
“I’ll be right back.” Eric glanced my way for the first time. “Tabitha, just, I’m sorry, just…”
“Hi,” Greta told the girls. “I’m Greta. I think if you’re bad, I get to eat you.” She pointed in the direction of the front doors as Eric passed through them. “Anybody want to watch a movie?”
She led the women into the theater, a demented troop leader herding her Hooker Scouts out of the foyer and into the dark. Nope, nothing like this ever happened at the Highland Towers.
23
ERIC: MAGBIDION’S BARE BUTT
Okay, so I lied. I didn’t know how to make a real thrall. Mags had given me a few pages of notes that he’d scribbled down, but I’d never made a real thrall and for some stupid reason, I wanted to get it right this time. I didn’t need anyone else to have the same sort of power over me that Rachel had—one was enough.
The concept was simple. Like everything with vampires, making a thrall involved blood. All I had to do was tattoo Mags with my blood…somehow push my mind into his to forge the link, then say the “magic words” to seal the deal and claim him. I’m not sure why he had to be naked.
I hadn’t noticed it before, but in Magbidion’s RV, the bed, when it was unfolded, pretty much dominated the available space, which may have exacerbated the discomfort that I sensed from Magbidion as he removed his clothes. Mags isn’t gay, nor does he seem to be interested in women in an actual bumping uglies sort of way. There has to be a term for it, but I tended to think of him as solosexual: a self-sufficient sexual entity having no real need for human contact outside of himself. A vampire can tell these things. Plus, with his shirt off, anyone could tell that his left bicep was bigger than his right and Mags seemed to be a lefty in everything else, too.
Knowing that neither of us was homosexual did very little to relieve my discomfort, either. When Tabitha walked in, I was still hovering over Magbidion’s ass trying to copy the butterfly off of the sketch I’d done for Tabitha. Try explaining to your girlfriend that you are copying a tattoo you made just for her onto the lower back of a naked sweaty man…It doesn’t matter what excuse you use or how reasonable it sounds inside your head or how true it may be, you cannot win. The butterfly had seemed like a good idea. When he mentioned the need for a tattoo, something unique to me, it’s what I thought of first. I already had the sketch—I’d designed it. I was pressed for time…. Yeah, embarrassment is too weak a word.
“Holy shit!” she said when she opened the door. I turned to explain, but she had already closed the door again and retreated.
I went back to what I was doing. “That’s just fucking great!” I grumbled.
“You want to go after her?” Mags offered.
“And tell her what?” I asked in exasperation. “It’s not what you think. I’m not fucking the naked guy; I’m making him my eternal slave?”
“Slave? My friend, I will not be your slave, so much as a companion, a confidant…”
I guess Mags had illusions of freedom. “Who has to do what he is ordered and is bound by an eternal unbreakable mystic link unless his master releases him? Should I go on?”
“Okay, okay. Slave is technically correct, but I still like to think of our arrangement as something special, more an alliance than—”
Definite denial. “And don’t say companion. For anyone but Doctor Who, that word has different connotations, especially when nudity is involved. Let me put it this way: Do you want to fight the demon yourself, Mags? Because if I have to listen to much more of your hedging, I’ll just try it on one of the Golden Girls in the Pollux and be done with it.” He shivered and it really wasn’t something I wanted to see from behind. Magbidion naked was something I already hadn’t wanted to see, but watching his sphincter tighten reflexively was too much. “Okay, I’m out,” I said as I headed for the door. “I am not doing this. Too much naked-man ass for me.”
“No, please, Eric,” he began.
I turned. He turned. Tabitha opened the door again.
“All right,” she started, “I have to ask.”
“Please, Eric,” Magbidion continued. “You must do it. I need you!” He sounded frantic and afraid. He also sounded like he was begging for something else.
Tabitha put a hand over her mouth. “Oh. My. God.”
“This is not happening,” I said as I covered my eyes with my palm. Even if Tabitha and I weren’t getting back together, this was not the image I wanted her walking away with.
“I’ll just leave you boys alone then, shall I?”
“That would be nice,” Mags said.
“Okay.” I put a hand on Tabitha’s shoulder. “Everybody just stop. Magbidion,” I pointed to him, “turn around. Nobody here wants to see your twig and berries. Looking at your pale little ass is bad enough.” I wasn’t looking, but it sounded like he did as I asked. “Tabitha, you’ve got superhearing. Did you hear what we were talking about or not?”
She giggled and kissed me on the cheek. “That’s why I turned back around. Is it mean to have a little f
un?”
“Does this mean you two are getting back together?” Mags asked as I uncovered my eyes. He also turned around to face us again. “I don’t want to keep you from your…festivities. Eric and I were just prepping for the blood whores.”
“You are so not helping.” I looked Magbidion in the eyes and gave him the universal gesture for turn around. He seemed to deflate a moment, but he resumed the position.
“I wouldn’t be standing this way if he would hurry up. What’s taking you so long anyway? All you have to do is put blood where you want the mark and then picture it in your head. Indecision is one thing, but—”
“Picture it in my head?” I interrupted.
“Yes.”
I smeared the blood around on his lower back. “You didn’t tell me that. I thought I had to draw it. Tabitha, show me your tattoo.”
She obligingly lifted the back of her blouse. It took a few seconds for me to focus, but once I could concentrate properly, the blood on Magbidion’s back pooled and sank into his skin. Line by line, the butterfly tattoo on Tabitha’s back was replicated on Magbidion’s. Red lines slowly changed to the appropriate colors and when it was completed, the entire tattoo flashed brightly one time.
“I mark thee and bind thee,” I incanted. “Master to servant. Servant to master. You are mine until I set you free. You are mine. So mote it be.”
Of course there was more pain. Why I had thought there wouldn’t be, I can’t say, but it felt like molten lead had been poured on an open wound and unfortunately, I do know what that feels like. Pretty much the same as having molten lead poured onto healthy skin, just a little more vicious. I bit through my tongue, severing the tip nicely. “Fuck! Damn! Son of a bitch!” I cursed, falling to my knees. And I was fixing to do this shit five more times in a row—lovely.
