Best of Marion Zimmer Bradley Fantasy Magazine, Volume 2

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  The blessing might prove useful someday or other, but for now a dry ship and a good meal would be handier. I remarked as much to her, and, sure enough, in a few hours, with the air-child scouting ahead and the turtle swimming diligently after her, we found a ship heading back to the city we’d come from the day before. The air-child gave me one parting kiss on the forehead, but naturally none of the sailors noticed it as they hauled me aboard; and that was the last I’ve ever seen or heard of her, until and unless I can find more of that lotion. But by then she may be in Heaven.

  I got back to the city and gave my singer the little mermaid’s voice, telling her it was a throat lozenge from a physician who was too rich and famous to come calling in person. She sucked it down, and afterward said he must be the most wonderful physician anyone ever heard of, for giving her a remedy that brought her voice back better than it ever was before.

  She doesn’t sing in the chorus any longer. Now she is a famous principal with the opera, standing up in the middle of the stage singing arias and duets, and her body has even started plumping out with all the good food. The last time I went to see her sing, I got so boisterous with my applause that the management threw me out of the Opera House. They said I had no knowledge of how to appreciate fine music. Snip, snap, snurre! It’s the way of the world.

  About Selina Rosen and “They Never Approve”

  Selina lives in rural Arkansas with her son, her roommates, and various assorted animals. She is active in the local synagogue and the local Society for Creative Anachronism group, although she’s cutting back a bit on the latter to allow herself more time to write. (Writing takes a lot more time and energy than one would think—the old line about “Sit down at the typewriter and open a vein” isn’t quite a joke.)

  And speaking of opening veins, here is a story with a definitely unusual slant on vampirism.

  They Never Approve

  Selina Rosen

  They had decided they didn’t like her before I ever brought her home.

  Hell, they didn’t even give her a chance.

  Ten minutes into dinner I saw Mom and Dad exchange that look. I know that look. It’s the one that says they agree about something. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, it invariably means that I’m in trouble.

  But she hadn’t done a damn thing. In fact, she couldn’t have been behaving more properly if she had been trying, and she wasn’t trying.

  Virginia was always every bit the lady. That’s why I liked her so much more than the girls I went to school with.

  But they didn’t like her.

  She had impeccable manners. She was polite. She was courteous. She was intelligent.

  None of that mattered.

  She was wearing normal clothes, and she was beautiful.

  That didn’t matter either.

  Only one thing mattered to them, and she wasn’t out of the house five minutes when they started in on me. “Of all the girls you know… You have to bring one of those home.”

  I didn’t stick around. I went to my room.

  I slammed my door, but the door didn’t stop me hearing them, and their words still sting my brain with the intensity of their disapproval.

  It was always the same with them. No matter what I did. All I had to do was tell them that I had a girlfriend and they promptly made up a list of what was acceptable and what was not.

  Talking soon turned into screaming—sometimes my parents were louder when they were agreeing than when they were disagreeing. I didn’t even try not to listen. Maybe I should have.

  “I think I could have accepted anything but that!” my mother screamed.

  “He’s only sixteen. Let’s just hope to God that it’s only a schoolboy crush and that he’ll grow out of it.”

  “If he lives through it,” Mom screamed.

  “I don’t think anyone has died yet,” my father reassured her.

  “Lily Simmons’s daughter Janet came damn close. She wound up in intensive care. My God, Bill, they had to give the girl three blood transfusions, or had you forgotten that? What do we do?”

  “Tell him he can’t see her anymore.” I guess that sounded logical to my dad.

  “Oh, come on, Bill. You know Steve. If you tell him he can’t see her, that’s just going to make him want to see her more.”

  My dad gave a grunt of agreement. “Maybe we’re overreacting. Remember your parents’ reaction to me.…”

  “Bill, you wore a leather jacket and rode a motorbike. When you were feeling really rebellious, maybe you smoked a little reefer. This girl is a vampire. She sucks out people’s blood.”

  My mother was obviously outraged that my father would even think to link the two together. “There’s a big difference.”

  “Okay, okay, Ellen. Calm down. What I was trying to say was that it’s just a fad. A disgusting and perverted one, but really no different than any of the others, and like all the others, this one will die out. Besides, I don’t think Steve wants to be a vampire. He just likes the girl.”

  “Bill, think about what you just said. I went with you all of five days when I put on a leather jacket and climbed on the back of your motorbike. A week later I was smoking grass with you. Steve is totally infatuated with this girl. How long can it be before he’s wearing solid black, slicking his hair back with grease, and sleeping in inversion boots? After that, it won’t be long till he’s drinking blood.”

  “You’re right. All we can do is tell him he can’t see her anymore. I know it’s weak, but what else can we do? If we have to lock him in his room, I don’t want him seeing this girl anymore.” My father’s words were firm and final, and meant not a damn thing.

  “Short of locking him in his room I don’t see how we can stop him seeing her, and as I told you, forbidding him to see her is just going to make him want to see her more.”

  “What else can we do?” Dad’s voice raised a pitch. “If you’ve got any better ideas, why don’t we hear them?”

  Mom made a bunch of gurgling sounds that meant that she was out of ideas.

  I couldn’t take any more.

  They didn’t understand love.

  They didn’t understand anything.

  I stormed out of my room. I guess I just wanted to say my piece.

  “You’re just like everyone else!” I said accusingly. “You don’t even try to understand. We live in a world where nothing is sure. At any minute some bureaucrat somewhere could punch a button and we could all go up in a puff of nuclear smoke. Vampires are just trying to improve their chances of survival. How can you put them down for that? They don’t fly through the night and suck out the blood of unsuspecting victims. They don’t take anyone’s blood. All their donors give willingly. It’s done very cleanly, just like in the hospital. No huge fangs digging into flesh. What happened to Janet Simmons was her own fault. Some people get off on having their blood drunk. Janet gave to three separate groups that day. None of them knew she had given already.”

  Mother looked at Father, and gave him the famous “Where have we gone wrong?” look.

  Dad shook his head in disbelief and shame, and almost looked at me for a second, something that he had avoided doing for years.

  Then Mother broke into tears. “My God, Steve,” she sobbed, “have you listened to what you’re saying? Drinking blood!” She shrieked, “Human blood, for Christ’s sake!”

  She had always done that. Probably because it had always worked. She’d tried reasoning with me, now she’d cry, and if that didn’t work, later she could always try her secret weapon—threats.

  I stood my ground and didn’t bat an eye. I knew what I was talking about. I was talking about vampirism, and it was a sure bet that I knew a lot more about that than they did. There are more kinds of vampires in this world than those that feed on blood.

  My parents were vampires. Instead of blood, they fed on people’s spirits, their souls. They used and manipulated people. My father as a lawyer, my mother as a real estate agent, had both ruin
ed their share of people, and they had never given it a second thought.

  But let someone drink a little blood, and they were mortified.

  They were being hypocrites, and I told them so.

  They both started talking, or rather screaming, at once. There wasn’t too much that was actually coherent. But it was obvious that, among other things, they thought I was warped, ungrateful, and being led around by my nose, that Virginia was pulling the string.

  Finally, Mother out-screamed Father. “You’re not like this, Steve. Listen to yourself. You’re defending these people. It’s that girl. She’s filling your head with a bunch of nonsense.…”

  “It’s not nonsense,” I said. My anger slapped at the back of my teeth, trying to find the words with which to escape. I finally had to be happy at just blurting out, “I have my own brain. Virginia doesn’t tell me what to do or what to think.”

  They both started screaming at once again, and I went back to my room. I don’t even think they knew that I had gone. They had never dealt with me as their offspring. They always dealt with me as a problem. One they could never quite solve.

  I lay on my bed and listened to them trying to blame something or someone for my behavior.

  Thirty minutes of “It’s that girl’s fault.” Followed by thirty minutes each of “It’s your fault. It’s your mother’s fault. It’s the school’s fault,” and finally back to “It’s that girl’s fault!”

  As usual, someone was at fault, and it wasn’t either of them.

  I sneaked out of the house. It wasn’t that hard. They were so preoccupied with trying to figure out how they could keep me locked in my room that I walked right out of it and out the front door without either of them seeing me.

  I walked the street, hands in pockets, head down. This was all my fault. I should have known better than to bring Virginia to meet them. They were selfish jerks.

  Because I had really thought they would like her. Because for once I thought that they might actually approve of my choice.

  I am a damned fool. I always have been, and I probably always will be.

  My misery folded in on itself, and at that time, I had no idea where I was or where I was going. I was just walking. Trying to put some distance between myself and the screaming back at the house. Trying to find some peace of mind.

  I never did.

  Looking back now, I can only conclude that it was fate that guided my unsure footsteps.

  My tangled thoughts were interrupted by sound. Sirens! They were close. Too close. The cop car whisked past me.

  It took me a few seconds to realize what that lump in the road ahead was. It wasn’t till I saw all the cop cars that it really shot home.

  It was a body. I froze in place for a second. That sweater. The red sweater with the white stars on it. I’d only seen one like it. The one that belonged to Janet Simmons.

  I started moving again, toward the body. Why I don’t really know. Morbid curiosity, I guess. I wanted to see what Janet looked like. Maybe I wanted to see if she were really dead. Or maybe fate was still guiding me, and I had no choice over where I went.

  I was almost upon the scene when someone hollered out, “There’s one of them!”

  There were sirens and cop cars and ambulances and confusion. It was several moments before I realized the man was pointing at me.

  I ran. I didn’t want to face the fury or the outrage in the crowd. Didn’t want to try to explain that this was the worst thing that could have happened for Virginia and her kind. Because now there was a confirmed death and that would mean witch hunts and persecution tenfold what it had been.

  I had no doubt that if the mob caught me, they would pound a stake through my heart and ask questions later. I ran through yards and jumped fences, but I was never a fast runner, and they were closing in on me. Then, suddenly, someone grabbed me and pulled me back into the bushes. I struggled. I started to scream, and a hand was wrapped firmly across my mouth. I bit it, and my attacker let out a muffled cry as my mouth filled with blood. The blood was warm and sweet and I swallowed. I almost instantly felt different, and I knew that whoever had grabbed me was not human. I looked up into Virginia’s pained eyes. All struggling ceased. Virginia removed her hand and held it.

  I started to apologize, and she put a finger over my lips. I could hear my pursuers all around us. They were so close I held my breath.

  Then they gave up and moved on.

  “I’m sorry,” I told Virginia when I was sure it was safe. “I didn’t know it was you.”

  “You have no idea how sorry you will be.” Her voice was sad and distant; I felt instantly chilled. “Steve, it’s too late to go back now. We better get out of here before they come back.”

  She took my hand, and I followed. Nothing mattered. I was with Virginia, and no matter the reason, I was happy just to be with her, to feel her hand in mine.

  Her hand in mine! Wasn’t this the hand I had just bitten? It felt warm and smooth and undamaged. I stopped suddenly and jerked the hand into my field of vision. It was clear. I checked the other. No sign of the bite. I began to wonder if perhaps I had imagined the whole thing, but the taste of blood still hung sweet in my mouth.

  I looked at Virginia, and displayed a set of very healthy fangs. “It’s not just a game we’re playing, Steve.” She kissed me ever so gently on the lips. “Join me, Steve.”

  I would have followed her to the ends of the earth and back. She was the first girl I had ever loved. Correction, she was the only woman I ever loved.

  I went with her. Their den was in a back alley in the basement of an abandoned warehouse. She shared the dwelling with three male vampires. I was a little upset about that.

  So were they.

  “Damn it, Virginia,” one said, “not another one.”

  I found out later the reason for such an outburst. The boy (or Billy, as I later came to know him) had been her first. They called him Count.

  Billy had never understood Virginia’s needs. The rest of them did, and I soon learned.

  “Chill, Count. This is not time for one of your tantrums. Janet Simmons is dead,” Virginia said. There were a few moments of absolute silence.

  “You do it?”

  I recognized the boy; it was Larry. Now, I knew Larry real well. We had grown up on the same block. We had played in Little League together. We had been caught trying to drill a hole in the wall so we could watch the girls shower. But what I never would have guessed was that he was a vampire. Larry just wasn’t the type. He was shy, quiet, the absolute last person you would expect to be drinking blood.

  Before I go any further, let me dispel some myths about vampires.

  The sun does not kill vampires. Grant you, it does hurt their eyes a little, but a good pair of Polarizers will take care of that.

  Crosses and garlic have no effect on them. Or holy water, or any of that stuff.

  They do have a reflection.

  They don’t turn into bats.

  A wooden stake through the heart will kill them. But so will a bullet in the same place. Their heart is their weak spot.

  Maybe this is going to sound like I am really stupid. But until Larry asked, it had never entered my mind that Virginia might have killed Janet. Or maybe I just knew Virginia enough to know that she couldn’t do such a thing.

  “No, I didn’t,” Virginia said hotly.

  “Don’t act so holier-than-thou, Virgi.” Someone else I knew! Stewart! I had always liked Stewart. But right then, I could have slapped him. “We all drink blood. You more than us. And she was one of your favorite donors.” It was the way he said it that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. He didn’t care whether she had killed Janet or not. He just didn’t want her to lie about it.

  “I haven’t been to Janet for blood since I found out she was giving to other groups,” Virginia defended herself.

  “Get real, Stewart. You know Virginia doesn’t like to share.” Count drew his words out, and his lip curled into a snarl as
he started at me with utter contempt.

  “I really don’t have time for this stuff.” Virginia’s voice was filled with rage and an authority I had never heard her use before. To my amazement, even Count looked frightened.

  “What is it? What happened?” The arrogance had completely left Stewart’s voice.

  “The cops were there. In force. They chased Steve. If they had caught him, they would have lynched him.”

  “Can they link him to you?” Count asked, the anger daring to enter his voice again.

  “I should think so,” Stewart said, looking at his nails. “She’s been sporting him for weeks.”

  Larry asked the obvious question. “Was it a vampire kill?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will the cops know that?” Larry asked nervously.

  “They already do.” Virginia’s brow knotted up with worry.

  “You do it?” Count asked me.

  I was more than a little taken aback. Till then, they had talked about me as if I were a nonentity. I think I was more shocked at being acknowledged than by the accusation. “I didn’t kill her,” I screamed at him, then added in a purely childish manner, “Maybe I did!”

  They laughed at me then. They all did. Except Virginia.

  “Can the laugh track, jerks. We’ve got a real problem on our hands, here. Thanks to Janet’s carelessness, every vampire in this city is going to be under suspicion. Us more than the others. We’re going to have to hide out till this all blows over.”

  “What about feeding?” Steve asked hungrily.

  Virginia looked tired, rubbed her eyes. “Dawn approaches. Let’s get some sleep.”

  Virginia took me to a secluded part of the warehouse. That was a private time. A time for her and me, and no one else.

  It never came to mind to think about what my parents might be thinking or doing. It never occurred to me that at the happiest moment in my life they were making moves to destroy me.

  “Look at this.” I woke up to Stewart screaming and something thrown in my face. It took a few moments for me to come fully aware of my surroundings. By the time I sat up, Virginia was already reading the paper. She sighed deeply. “What now, Virgi?” Stewart asked in a panic. “What do we do now?”