"Yes. I do."
I'm starting to like her, of course—really like her. She's great eye candy, but it isn't just that. The more she talks, the more I like what's inside. She understands—she understands the mortal human heart.
"But I'm supposed to kill him," I say.
"Why?"
"Because of—because of 'balance.'"
"What?"
"That's what my employer said. Even though Frank wants to flip, and you'd think that would be a plus, it wouldn't be. It would throw things off."
"You really believe that, Anthony?"
Now we're on first-name basis, and I don't mind.
I don't say a thing for a second.
"I don't know."
"It sounds wrong, doesn't it."
"Yeah, it does."
We sit silent for a while. I'm looking at her hard, too interested, so I make myself look away.
"Do I make you self-conscious?" she asks gently.
That turns me red. "It's not you. It's me. You look awfully good. It's just me."
"That's sweet." Now she's doing the looking away, cheeks a little red, and when she looks backs, she says, "Any idea why God would really want him killed?"
"None whatsoever."
"But you've still got to do it."
"There was this promise."
"I know."
"You do?"
"Sure. If you do it, He'll forgive everything. They offered me that too if I helped you."
"And you said no?"
"Yes."
She loves this guy—this vampire—this son of You Know Who—so much she'll turn down an offer like that? Now I'm really looking at her. She's not just beautiful, she's got coglioni. She'll stand up to God for love.
I'm thinking these things and also wondering whether the angel lied about her because maybe she stiffed him. Because he's the vindictive one.
"There's nothing I can say to stop you?" she's asking. She doesn't say "nothing I can do." She says "nothing I can say," and that's all the difference in the world.
"Wish there were, but there isn't. Where is he?"
"You know."
"Yeah, I guess I do. He's in the Vatican somewhere trying to convince those Jesuit vampires that it's okay if he turns."
"That's where he said he was going when he left a week ago, so I'm sure it's true. Like I said, he—"
"Never lies. I know."
I get up.
"I'm sorry."
"Me too."
I'm depressed when I get to Rome and not because the city is big and noisy and feels like LA. (My dad's people were from Calabria and they never had a good thing to say about Romani, so I'm biased.) It's because—well, just because. But when I reach the Vatican, I feel a lot better. Now this—this is beautiful. St. Peter's. The church, the square, marble everywhere, sunlight blinding you like the flashlight of God. Even the silly little Fiats going round and round the circle like they're trapped and can't get off are nice.
He's not going to be in the basilica, I know. That's where the Pope is—that new strict guy, Benedict—and it's visiting day, dispensations, blessings, the rest. I don't even try to go through the main Vatican doorway on the opposite side. Too many tourists there too. Instead I go to a side entrance, Via Gerini, where there's no one. Construction cones, sidewalk repair, a big door with carvings on it. Why this entrance, I don't know. Just a hunch.
I know God can open any door for me that He wants to, so if my hunch is right why isn't the door opening? Maybe there'll be a mark on the right door—you know, a shadow that looks like the face of Our Lady, or the number 333, something—but before I can check the door for a sign, something starts flapping above my head and scares the shit out of me. I think it's a bat at first—that would make sense—but it's just a pigeon. No, a dove. Doves are smaller and pigeons aren't this white.
I know my employer thinks I'm slow, but a white dove?
The idiot bird keeps flapping two feet from my head and now I see it—a twig of something in its beak. I don't want to know.
The bird flies off, stops, hovers, and waits. I'm supposed to follow, so I do.
The door it's stopped at is the third one down from mine, of course. No face of Our Lady on it, but when I step up to it, it of course clicks and swings open.
We go through the next doorway, and the next, and the next, seven doorways in all—from a library to a little museum, then another library, then an office, then an archive with messy files, then a bigger museum. Some of the rooms are empty—of people, I mean—and some aren't, and when they're not, the people, some in suits and dresses and some in clerical outfits—give me a look like, "Well, he certainly seems to know where he's going with his musical instrument. Perhaps they're having chamber music with espresso for gli ufficiali. And of course that can't really be a pure white dove with an olive twig in its beak flapping in front of him, so everything's just fine. Buon giorno, Signore."
When the bird stops for good, hovering madly, it's a really big door and it doesn't open right off. But I know this is it—that my guy is on the other side. Whatever he's doing, he's there and I'd better get ready. He's a vampire. Maybe he's confused—maybe he doesn't want to be one any longer—but he's still got, according to the angel, superhuman strength and super-senses and the rest.
When the door opens—without the slightest sound, I note—I'm looking down this spiral staircase into a gorgeous little chapel. Sunlight is coming through the stained-glass windows, so there's got to be a courtyard or something just outside, and the frescoes on the ceiling look like real Michelangelos. Big muscles. Those steroid bodies.
The bird has flown to the ceiling and is perched on a balustrade, waiting for the big event, but that's not how I know the guy I'm looking down at is Frank. It isn't even that he's got that distinguished-gentleman look that old vampires have in the movies. It's what he's doing that tells me.
He's kneeling in front of the altar, in front of this big golden crucifix with an especially bloody Jesus, and he's very uncomfortable doing it. Even at this distance I can tell he's shaking. He's got his hands out in prayer and can barely keep them together. He's jerking like he's being electrocuted. He's got his eyes on the crucifix, and when he speaks, it's loud and his voice jerks too. It sounds confessional—the tone is right—but it's not English and it's not Italian. It may not even be Latin, and why should it be? He's been around a long time and probably knows the original.
I'm thinking the stained-glass light is playing tricks on me, but it's not. There really is a blue light moving around his hands, his face, his pants legs—blue fire—and this, I see now, it's what's making him jerk.
He's got to be in pain. I mean, here in a chapel—in front of an altar—sunlight coming through the windows—making about the biggest confession any guy has ever made. Painful as hell, but he's doing it, and suddenly I know why she loves him. Hell, anyone would.
Without knowing it I've unpacked my crossbow and have it up and ready. This is what God wants, so I probably get some help doing it. I'm shaking too, but go ahead and aim the thing. I need forgiveness, too, you know, I want to tell him. You can't bank your immortal soul, no, but you do get to spend it a lot longer.
I put my finger on the trigger, but don't pull it yet. I want to keep thinking.
No, I don't. I don't want to keep thinking at all.
I lower the crossbow and the moment I do I hear a sound from the back of the chapel where the main door's got to be, and I crane my neck to see.
It's the main door all right. Heads are peeking in. They're wearing black and I think to myself: Curious priests. That's all. But the door opens up more and three of them—that holy number—step in real quiet. They're wearing funny Jesuit collars—the ones the angel mentioned—and they don't look curious. They look like they know exactly what they're doing, and they look very unhappy.
Vampires have this sixth sense, I know. One of them looks up at me suddenly, smiles this funny smile, and I see sharp little teeth.
He says something to the other two and heads toward me. When he's halfway up the staircase I shoot him. I must have my heart in it because the arrow nearly goes through him, but that's not what really bothers him. It's the wood. There's an explosion of sparks, the same blue fire, and a hole opens up in his chest, grows, and in no time at all he's just not there anymore.
Frank has turned around to look, but he's dazed, all that confessing, hands in prayer position and shaking wildly, and he obviously doesn't get what's happening. The other two Jesuits are heading up the stairs now, and I nail them with my last two arrows.
The dove has dropped like a stone from its perch and is flapping hysterically in front of me, like Wrong vampires! Wrong vampires! I'm tired of its flapping, so I brush it away, turn and leave, and if it takes me (which it will) a whole day to get out of the Vatican without that dove to lead me and make doors open magically, okay. When you're really depressed, it's hard to give a shit about anything.
Two days later I'm back at Parlami's. I haven't showered. I look like hell. I've still got the case with me. God knows why.
I've had two martinis and when I look up, there he is. I'm not surprised, but I sigh anyway. I'm not looking forward to this.
"So you didn't do it," he says.
"You know I didn't, asshole."
"Yes, I do. Word does get out when the spiritual configuration of the universe doesn't shift the way He'd like it to."
I want to hit his baby-smooth face, his perfect nose and collagen lips, but I don't have the energy.
"So what happens now?" I ask.
"You really don't know?"
"No."
He shakes his head. Same look of contempt.
"I guess you wouldn't."
He takes a deep breath.
"Well, the Jesuits did it for you. They killed him last night."
"What?"
"They've got crossbows too. Where do you think we got the idea?"
"Same wood?"
"Of course. They handle it with special gloves."
"Why?"
"Why kill him? Same line of thought. If he flips, things get thrown off balance. Order is important for them, too, you know. Mortals are the same way, you may have noticed. You all need order. Throw things off and you go crazy. That's why you'll put up with despots—even choose them over more benign and loving leaders—just so you don't have to worry. Disorder makes for a lot of worry, Anthony."
"You already knew it?"
"Knew what?"
"That I wouldn't do it and the Jesuits would instead."
"Yes."
"Then why send me?"
Again the look, the sigh. "Ah. Think hard."
I do, and, miracle of miracles, I see it.
"Giovanna is free now," I say.
"Yes. Frank, bless his immortal soul—which God has indeed agreed to do—is gone in flesh."
"So He wants me to hook up with her?"
The angel nods. "Of course."
"Why?"
"Because she'll love you—really love you, innocent that you are—just the way she loved him."
"That's it?"
"Not exactly. . . Because she'll love you, you'll have to stop. You'll have to stop killing people, Anthony. It's just not right."
"No, I won't."
"Yes, you will."
"I don't think so."
"But you will—because, whether you know it yet or not, you love her, too."
What do you say to that?
The angel's gotten up, straightened his red Zegna, picked up the case, and is ready to leave.
"By the way," he adds, "He says He forgives you anyway."
I nod, tired as hell. "I figured that."
"You're catching on."
"About time," I say.
"He said that too."
"And the whole 'balance' thing—"
"What do you think?"
Pure bullshit is what I'm thinking.
"You got it," he says, reading my mind because, well, angels can do that.
Twenty-four hours later I'm back in Siena, shaved and showered, and she doesn't seem surprised to see me. She's been grieving—that's obvious. Red eyes. Perfect hair tussled, a mess. She's been debriefed by the angel—that I can tell—and I don't know whether she's got a problem with The Plan or not, or even whether there is a Plan. The angel may have been lying about that too. But when she says quietly, "Hello, Anthony," and gives me a shy smile, I know—and my heart starts flapping like that idiot bird.
Undead Again
by Ken MacLeod
Ken MacLeod's most recent novels are The Execution Channel and The Night Sessions, and a new book, The Restoration Game, is due out later this year. He is also the author of several other novels and short stories, including The Sky Road, which won the British Science Fiction Award. He is also the winner of the Prometheus Award, the Sidewise Award, and the Seiun Award, and has been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, and John W. Campbell Memorial awards. He is currently serving as Writer in Residence for the ESRC Genomics Policy and Research Forum at Edinburgh University.
This story, about a vampire who chooses cryonic preservation in the hope of a cure, first appeared in the science journal Nature, as part of their Futures series of short-short stories. MacLeod says that it was originally inspired by thinking about viruses that spread through changes they make in the host's behavior.
It's 2045 and I'm still a vampire. Damn.
The chap from Alcor UK is droning through his orientation lecture. New age of enlightenment, new industrial revolution, many changes, take some time to adjust, blah blah blah. I'm only half-listening, being too busy shifting my foot to keep it out of the beam of direct sunlight millimetering across the floor, and trying not to look at his neck.
I feel like saying: I've only been dead forty years, for Chr—
For crying out loud. I saw the first age of enlightenment. I worked nights right through the original Industrial Revolution. I remember being naive enough to get excited about mesmerism, galvanism, spiritualism, socialism, Roentgen rays, rationalism, radium, Mendelism, Marconi, relativity, feminism, the Russian Revolution, the Bomb, nightclubs, feminism (again), Apollo 11, socialism (again), the fall of Saigon and the fall of the Wall.
The last dodgy nostrum I fell for was cryonics.
So don't give me this future shock shit, sunshine. The most disconcerting thing I've come across so far in 2045 is the latest ladies' fashion: the old sleeveless minidress. The ozone hole has been fixed, and folk are frolicking in the sun. I hug myself with bare arms, and slide the castored chair back another inch.
Under the heel of my left wrist, I feel the thud of my regenerated heart. It beats time to the artery visible under the tanned skin of the resurrection man's neck. The rest of my nature is unregenerate. I feel somewhat thwarted. This is not, this is definitely not, what I died for. And it seemed such a good idea at the time.
It always does.
By 1995 we thought we had a handle on the thing. It's a virus. In all respects but one, it's benign: it prevents aging, and stimulates regeneration of any tissue damage short of, well, a stake through the heart. But it has a very low infectivity, so it takes a lot of mingling of fluids to spread. Natural selection has worked that one hard. Hence the unfortunate impulses. And by 1995, I can tell you, I was getting pretty sick of them. I cashed in my six Scottish Widows life insurance policies (let's draw a veil over how I acquired them), signed up for cryonic preservation in the event of my death, and after a discreet ten years, met an unfortunate and bloody end at the hand of the coven senior, Kelvin.
"You'll thank me later," he said, just before he pushed home the point.
"See you in the future," I croaked.
The last thing I saw was his grin. That, and the pavement below the spiked railings beside the steps of my flat. A tragic accident. The coroner, I just learned, blamed it on the long skirt. Vampires, always the fashion victims.
By Blood We Live Page 62
