Moonshine: A Novel

by Alaya Johnson

  "Hey," said the one who had fallen on the pile of precious rare blood, "don't be like that. Just a bit of fun."

  "Pardon me if I don't see theft and murder as a bit of fun."

  "Murder? No one's murdered anyone!"

  I stood up, hauling my vampire to her feet. "Yet," I said. "So, what is it? Stay here, and let her die? Or leave and save all your sorry asses?"

  "Come on," croaked my prone vampire, "let's just go. Not worth it, right?"

  I was still too angry to feel afraid, and it looked as though my insane scheme might just be working. The vampires looked warily at each other and then, one by one, began dropping their bags of blood. A few had even walked off when something slammed into my right side, smashing me against the cobblestones with bone-jarring force. My knife fell from my hand.

  "She's just a bleeder," someone above me said with a contemptuous laugh.

  "Zephyr!" That must be Ysabel.

  And bloody stakes, suddenly I realized just how stupid I had been. No help for it now. One vampire grabbed my left arm, as though to hold me against the pavement.

  "Always better fresh . . ." I looked up--it was the vampire I'd pinned down, looking flushed and filled with wild, reckless strength.

  Behind her, another vampire crouched, after a piece of the action. Fuck. As Aileen said, being immune didn't mean they couldn't bleed me to death. And where the hell were the police when you needed them?

  I bucked, dragging my arm in a painful jerk across the abrasive cobblestones while simultaneously contorting my body so I could aim a precise kick at the vampire's rib cage. She groaned and relaxed her grip just enough for me to wrench free and stand up. There were three other suckers within striking distance, but the most worrying was one to my immediate right. He rushed toward me, laughing at what he still clearly thought would be an easy mark. I let him come, filled with the familiar, eerie joy. He groped inexpertly for my throat. I dodged him, gripped his shoulders and used his momentum to knock him to the ground beside me. I slammed my boot on his neck. Scanned the ground for my blade, and knelt to pick it up. The remaining suckers paused, looking at me warily.

  "Sun's getting stronger," I pointed out, blinking the sweat from my eyes.

  Suddenly, they started running, bumping into each other in their haste to get away. "The sun isn't that bright," I muttered, looking around the suddenly deserted street. I saw the real reason for their rapid dispersal a moment later: the police had finally arrived. I'd been so involved in the fight that I hadn't even heard the sirens. A police officer hauled the vampire beneath my boot from the ground, and slapped special Other-grade handcuffs around his wrists.

  "Are you all right, ma'am?" It was a young officer, looking at me in obvious concern. He was attractive in a wholesome, fresh-faced way. I smiled, but this seemed to worry him even more. I looked briefly down at myself: well, I suppose I'd be worried too. I was covered in so much blood--almost none of it my own--that I must have resembled Lizzie Borden.

  "They didn't bite me," I said. "I'm fine. And you fellas sure took your own sweet time, huh?"

  He shrugged awkwardly. "There are disturbances all over the city, unfortunately, ma'am. We've got a shortage."

  I looked back at the ruined Blood Bank. "And now so do we," I said quietly. Ysabel came up behind me and enveloped me in a fierce hug.

  "I never saw something so brave," she said, burying her face in my shirt. "I thought for sure you were dead. And they didn't bite you?"

  I reassured her I was fine, though at this point I'd begun to wonder myself. What had I been thinking? My left arm ached--not broken, but I'd have lovely purpling bruises there by this evening. I'd left significant portions of my shoulder skin on the cobblestones. And all because I'd thought I could single-handedly fend off a marauding posse of more than a dozen suckers? The sensation of the knife beneath my skirts--and even worse, the knife in my hands--had begun to feel almost comforting in its familiarity. I had smiled when I felt that poor, Faust-addled sucker squirming beneath my blessed blade. Smiled. I was suddenly grateful that I'd skipped breakfast. At least now I didn't have anything to throw up.

  I stayed with Ysabel for another half hour, while she surveyed the damage and collected what remained of the blood collection. Saul released the poor golem from its torment--erasing one of the Hebrew letters of "truth" inscribed on its forehead to read "dead." All told, the vampires had drunk or destroyed seventy percent of all the supplies, including most of the rare forms of blood. The shortage would cripple the Bank for at least the next week and a half, until the regulars could come back and donate. I described what suckers I remembered to one of the officers, though from his expression I doubted that they would look very hard for them.

  "They won't do anything, will they?" Ysabel said, after the police had left.

  I grimaced. "Well, between Rinaldo and Jimmy Walker, the wheels are so greased it's a wonder they don't spin off."

  "Rinaldo's a schlemiel. But you mark my words, things keep up like this, it'll get too big for even old Mayor Herod to ignore."

  It took me twice as long to bicycle home as normal, I ached so badly. My hip had taken a beating in the fall, too, it seemed. But Ysabel's words had given me an idea, and I didn't have much time to implement it. Jimmy Walker, corrupt and ineffectual though he may be, still had a nominal public mandate. Enough public pressure, and he'd have to change his policy. And if I was going to get recognized everywhere in this damn town anyway, I could at least use my notoriety for good. But first, I had to clean myself up. A brief glance in the mirror made me wince: I looked like I'd been on the losing end of a bar fight. And not far from the truth, at that. I took a sponge bath with tepid water, doing my best to clean the grit from the graze on my shoulder. It was only when I hobbled back to my room that the sobering truth dawned on me: I had run out of clothes. Three sensible skirts and five blouses served me quite well under normal circumstances. But now they were all either covered in mud or blood or both. I still had Aileen's flapper dress, but I couldn't very well wear it in the middle of the day.

  I wrapped my kimono more tightly around my waist and went back down the stairs, gripping the banister like an arthritic pensioner. Mrs. Brodsky was in the parlor when I padded in. She seemed appalled at my state of undress, and I braced myself for her tirade, but something made her snap her mouth shut.

  "Vampire?" she asked.

  Oh, yes. I had forgotten that I looked nearly as terrible as I felt. "About twelve."

  She clucked her tongue. "The other girls, they all have sensible jobs. But you, Zephyr . . ."

  I rubbed my temples. "It's been a bad week. And I need to use the phone."

  I called the offices of the Evening Herald, and could have cried when Lily came to the phone. I didn't know what I would have done if she was out on assignment. She, however, was decidedly less thrilled.

  "I just got a visit from my friend at the Daily News. Want to know what their cover story is? 'Vampire Suffragette Fights Back: Our Girl Faces Down Sucker Pack.' And they have a money shot, Zephyr. You look like a fucking Valkyrie."

  "Bloody stakes."

  "You're supposed to be my source! You do something, I get to hear about it first!"

  "It's not like I planned this, Lily!"

  She sighed. "I figured. Aren't you supposed to help vampires?"

  "It's been a bad week. Listen, if you want another scoop, I need your help."

  Lily sounded immediately wary. "What kind of help? You know I can't violate my journalistic--"

  "Oh, get off it, Lily. I just need some clothes."

  "I'd say so."

  "Ha ha. Everything I own is a bloody mess. I want to catch Jimmy Walker at recess and make a scene about the Faust disturbances. Given all my damn press lately, I'm sure you can parley that into a solid three inches. What do you say?"

  It didn't take Lily long to decide. "I'll be there in half an hour."

  Lily arrived twenty-eight minutes later, carrying what looked to me like half her war
drobe, but was apparently just the ten or so items she could bear to part with.

  I looked enviously at her latest ensemble. A bias-cut dress of green chiffon velvet, with four dramatic blue stripes cutting diagonally down to the dropped hemline and then wrapping around back. I didn't know how I could pull anything like that off. In this neighborhood, it had seemed safer (and cheaper) to go with sensible. But being around Lily made me long for stylish.

  I shrugged. "Well, have at it."

  In the end, we settled on a green fitted vest with a double row of buttons, a wide-collared coat with black trim and matching skirt, with a daring little slit up the side. She produced a black velvet cloche trimmed with a green silk floret to finish everything off, and then stood back appraisingly.

  "Not bad," she said, breaking into a sudden grin. "The shoes are a shame, but we've mostly hidden the bruises."

  We took a taxi to City Hall, since I couldn't bear the thought of managing my bicycle, and Lily couldn't bear the thought of her precious garments splashing through slushy puddles. Well, so long as she paid, I was happy enough to travel in style.

  As far as I knew, no organization had planned an anti-Faust demonstration that day, but a bit of a homegrown one had developed outside the marble steps anyway. I wasn't the only person furious about this situation, I realized. It made me more confident about confronting Jimmy Walker.

  I looked at my pocket watch: here with five minutes to spare. The Night Mayor was nothing if not punctual about his lunch dates. No one paid me much attention as I jostled my way to the front of the crowd.

  "Hey, move aside!" Lily shouted. "Vampire suffragette coming through!"

  I could feel the dozens of eyes suddenly homing in on me like the sightlines of a rifle.

  "Hey, is that her?" a girl close to me asked her companion. "The one who staked that whole pack of suckers this morning?"

  "Guess you changed your mind about how good they are, eh, Zephyr?"

  "Maybe Beau Jimmy will give you a medal for doing his job for him!"

  I turned around and glared at Lily--and I apparently looked fierce enough to make her flinch. Good. Next time she might reconsider making a fool out of me to get color for her newspaper column.

  "I don't judge all of humanity because of some damn fool drunks who get themselves in trouble," I said, loudly enough for the crowd to hear me.

  "But you killed--" It was that girl again.

  "I didn't kill anyone. I was defending myself, and I regret what ever harm I had to cause."

  But I remembered the sensation of raw power when I held that vampire in my grip, delicately burning her flesh with my silver blade.

  "So is that who you are?" said a drawling voice to my right. "Not just any over eager bluenose."

  His pale visage barely flickered in my peripheral vision, but I suppose I could have identified him blindfolded. I turned to him leisurely, as though I was merely curious to see who would address me in so impertinent a fashion.

  "Good afternoon, Mayor," I said.

  "Likewise. You're making quite a name for yourself, Miss . . ."

  "Hollis."

  "Charming picture, by the way. I wish I could get press like that." He tipped his hat to Lily, gaping behind me.

  "Well, perhaps if you hadn't let your mob connections dictate legislation, I wouldn't have had to fight off a pack of Faust-addled vampires this morning."

  He gave me a hard, contemptuous smile that thinned his already bloodless lips. "Talk to me when you have a real scandal."

  I was furious enough to spit, but I reined myself in. "Twenty new turnings in just the last two days. Dozens of vampires burned half to death in the Tombs. A dozen more poppers. And you think this isn't a fucking scandal?"

  He laughed. "Watch your language, Miss Hollis. You're in the presence of a lady." He doffed his hat to Lily again, and stepped off the curb. "Good day, Miss Harding," he said, while his chauffeur opened the door to his Deusenberg. "Valiant attempt, by the by," he said, nodding in my direction, but as though I wasn't present at all. "The intent is chic, but you know what they say about silk purses and sow's ears."

  I could hear my blood rushing past my ears. My breath wheezed in my chest, my neck felt rigid enough to crack. Part of me would have wept with joy to kill him.

  "People are dead because of what you did," I yelled. So much for cool cultivation. I'd come here to make a scene and damn me if I didn't. "Good, loved, upstanding members of the community are dead because of Faust. Their blood is on your hands!"

  "Good grief, they're not people, Miss Hollis. Just Others."

  "Well, that was . . ."

  "Don't talk to me. I can't handle you talking to me right now."

  I was marching away from City Hall, rudely ignoring the few people who had come up afterward to speak to me. I knew I was behaving like the worst sort of disdainful, imperious Long Islander (maybe Lily put a spell on the clothes), but I didn't think I could handle human interaction at the moment. We were living in boom times, the war was over. But we lived in our own little cesspool of the Lower East Side, and they made money off of our suffering. To hear it said so explicitly, when the tragic toll of his actions was so abundantly, painfully clear . . .

  "He's inhuman. I don't know why he calls us Others, I really don't."

  Lily looked surprised. "But Zephyr, you're not--"

  "Of course I am! To people like you and him? What's the real difference between a vampire suffragette and a vampire? Novelty, maybe."

  Lily was silent for several minutes, though she kept pace with me as I walked. "I don't agree with everything he does, you know," she said, finally. "Don't lump me with him just because we go to the same parties. I like women's suffrage. I might not want to go to a meeting, but I use prophylactics."

  I slowed. "When families are living ten to a room, without heat or electricity, and meanwhile you and Beau Jimmy are bingeing for three days on illegally imported Cointreau at some glamorous Long Island party?"

  It was odd, I thought, how angry this seemed to make her. "Jesus, Zephyr, what do you want from us? Blood?"

  I had to smile. "It'd be a start."

  After a beat, Lily laughed and shook her head. "Touche. Are you going somewhere? I can pay for the cab."

  And with that, I felt the last of my anger dissipate. Lily couldn't help the world she was born into any more than I could. Getting angry with her or Jimmy Walker was only a proximate target of a much larger, systemic problem.

  I graciously accepted Lily's offer of a cab fare and then left her for Gramercy Park. She would come by Mrs. Brodsky's later to night to take me to the fancy party, but for now I had a few errands to run, of a sadly familial nature.

  I found Daddy sitting with Troy and two other well-muscled Defenders in the parlor of his suite. A brace of arms worthy of a large militia covered the dining table. Knives, swords, bows, shotguns and dozens of rifles glittered dangerously. Caught unawares, the Turn Boys wouldn't stand a chance.

  Troy saw me first. "Zephyr! So you changed your mind after all." He strode toward me and punctiliously helped me remove my coat before I could do so myself. "Loved the story in the paper," he said. "I knew you couldn't keep up with this Other-rights nonsense forever."

  I wrenched my arms out of the coat and whirled on him. "Troy, you are quite--"

  "Oh, leave her be," said Daddy, who had not so much as raised his head from the gun he was loading. "Zeph's gone soft. She thinks it's best to help monsters, not kill them."

  Troy's blond brows came together and his lips pouted in a way that, five years ago, I had fancied I loved.

  "But didn't you see the papers, Mr. Hollis?" Troy asked. "Derek, show him."

  The bigger of the two Defenders shrugged and reached under his chair to pull out the morning paper. It was the first time I had seen it, and so despite myself I walked closer to get a good view.

  Bloody Christ. Well, Lily had called it a money shot. My hat had fallen off, and my hair was flying as I apparently tossed a vam
pire over my shoulder. His mouth was open comically wide and mine held an expression that would not be out of place on an avenging goddess. Daddy looked impressed despite himself.

  "When did that happen, sweetie?" he asked.

  "This morning," I mumbled.

  "But you didn't pop none of them, I bet."

  "Daddy!"

  Daddy turned to Troy. His smile was strange, disdainful with an edge of fondness.

  Troy looked bizarrely disappointed. "Is that true, Zephyr?" It was almost flattering to think that he'd wanted me back in his Defenders so badly.

  "I just need you fellas to . . . delay for a while. Give me a week."

  "What for?" That was Derek, looking suspicious.

  "I have a . . . side job I'm doing for someone. It sort of requires the Turn Boys to be alive for the next few days, right?"

  "Is this some kind of trick?" Derek said. "I heard you were working for them. Some buddies of mine have seen you around that gin joint of theirs the past few days."

  Oh, great. Now Daddy and Troy looked at me like they'd found out I was selling babies. "I'm not working for them. Exactly. Well, Nicholas thinks I'm teaching him his letters, but really I'm spying on him for this job I was telling you about, see?"

  Troy crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the table. "Well, it appears we're on opposite sides of this, then, Zephyr. I'm afraid there's no way the client will permit us to delay the strike."

  Daddy frowned at me. "These Boys are nasty, Zephyr. I know you think suckers are just like us, but these guys are different. This damn wog of yours needs to learn to take care of himself."

  "Daddy, you sound like an ignorant yokel. I'm perfectly capable of making my own--"

  He stood up and tossed the gun to the floor. I winced, but the safety held. "Oh, I can see that! Rolling around in the hay with genies, teaching gangsters to read . . . vampire suffragette, they call you. Is that it, Zephyr? You just want the monsters to take over all of us and destroy our country?"

  Daddy finished this with a very effective shake of his head and deep, bone-weary sigh. It made me furious. "You are the most self-absorbed, ignorant--"