“Yes,” said Lennox.
“Unshaved? Dirty?”
“They were incredibly dirty,” said Lennox.
“Well, my friend, I think you’ve been living too poshly, if you’ll forgive me. You may have forgotten what it’s like to be on the streets. These are homeless people. The victims are all homeless.
“It’s simple, if you think about it,” Ballard continued. “Homeless people aren’t missed. How many times have you looked the other way at a homeless person? They’re put up with. I think the last census had some seven thousand homeless people in Rome, the majority of which are foreigners. No one knows about them. There’s no one to call the police, if John Q. Nobody goes missing. In short, they’re the perfect victims for crimes. Likewise the girls. There was an article in the newspaper the other day about Nigerian baby farms. Girls are impregnated and sell their offspring that end up in Human Trafficking circles. The world is full of people society allows to be victimized. I’ll tell you something else, too. If it were somebody important, you could bet the caribinieri would have something to go on, other than just hot air.”
Ballard had worked himself into a steam. “There’s more to it, than that,” said Lennox, who nevertheless got excited by what Ballard was saying.
“What? I’m listening. Tell me,” said Ballard.
It was quiet. Finally, Lennox turned to us, and said, “What do you know about... necromancy...?”
It was like time stopped. I realized Lennox was not the only one withholding. Nor had Ballard been. I was equally guilty of keeping things close to my chest. I was a pussyfooter, too!
“It’s magic,” I said. That would have to suffice for now. I couldn’t share any more... Not––not yet, anyway....
He looked at me and he got this look. Inscrutable, was the word. I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t quite like it, either. Did he know? Impossible, I told myself. My powers were indeterminate, suspect, like the shadow we hunted. I had never even shown, much less conjured. I smiled back, trying to be equally nondescript. I didn’t have Ballard’s gift for indifference.
Which, by the way, was cracking. He seemed to have a natural aversion to people being hurt in any way. Like he was a protector, almost. This leaning was more well developed in him than in anyone I had ever met.
Necromancy....
Ballard surprised me: “It’s a magical discipline of many and multifarious things,” he said. “Why?”
“I want to take a break,” said Lennox. It was noontime and I suspected he hadn’t been sleeping well lately. However wearing this had been for us, he was doing it doubly. I thought about Marek... out there, and if he had any leads? “I think we’ve been sitting here for too long; we need to stretch our legs. Let’s say, an hour. The place is free to explore. Let’s meet back in one hour,” he said. He left.
I didn’t know what to do. I looked at Ballard, who just shook his head.
* * *
When we reconvened, Lennox had a newspaper under his arm, but being as I didn’t know the language, I was heavily dependent on both of them to translate. How to rectify that? I thought Lennox looked a little hot under the collar. He was smoking––literally. “You went out,” I said. It was midday. He could’ve been burnt to death, or to undeath.
“I collect the paper. First things first–– Ballard, you look like you want to say something.”
“It’s best to be methodical, I am.”
“Go on.”
“Necromancy encompasses a bunch of stuff,” said Ballard. “But, basically, it’s all about three things. Getting people to see what you want. Getting people to feel what you want. And also getting them to do what you want, by making them hallucinate and feel stuff.”
“Yes?”
“The communing with the dead is just the flashy part,” said Ballard. “Even then you’re manipulating demons... What do they want?”
“Ballard,” I said. “Where did you learn all this?”
He just looked at me.
Lennox opened the paper to the obituary section.
“Your insight about the homeless people is brilliant. I called my contact within the Questura,” said Lennox, “Lieutenant Moretti. They’re still following the sanguinists––the Starbucks vampires. According to him, they have a team of investigators looking through databases, trying to find someone with a history of mental illness who likes to dress up in vampire outfits. It will be up to us to pursue the real, supernatural avenues. From what I understand of necromancy, you talk to the dead, yes, who may reveal information to you, about what, I’m uncertain: the future, the winning lotto numbers, I don’t know. But what I’m interested in is the raising of the dead.
“Halsey, what I didn’t tell you about the Lenoir is they get very panicky. We have two issues. The thing killing homeless men, and whatever’s killing the girls. If they’re interrelated, uh-oh; if they’re not, great. The thing killing the men is bringing them back to life. I’ve seen them. And so have you,” he said to me.
“Wait a minute? What?” said Ballard.
“Halsey, the thing that attacked you, the night we met, is what’s doing this, I’m almost positive of it,” said Lennox.
“Why did it come after me?” I asked, ignoring Ballard.
Ballard looked from one to the other of us.
“That I don’t know, but it’s good it didn’t get to you,” Lennox said to me. “What’s happening is these things it is raising are coming back, I dunno, messed up. They have this virus. If one of the things that is being brought back bites somebody, you become one of them: a mean, nasty, fast-walking revenant zombie hate beast.”
“Zombie?” said Ballard, who was standing at this point.
“However, I am almost certain that the two killers, or groups of killers, are not connected at all. The thing that’s biting the girls is killing them; they are not coming back. They are also not infected. They’re just lunch,” said Lennox.
“A vampire,” I said. “Peter Panico.”
“What is going on here?” said Ballard. Lennox held up his hand.
“I’ve been researching with my friend, Occam, and we think this Zombie Master, for want of a better term, is connected telepathically with the people he’s killing––it’s not unlike certain powers vampires have,” said Lennox, “which is another reason why the Lenoir are so nervous. Sires can communicate telepathically with the vampires they sire. If the Paris Coven becomes too agitated, they will come here, and shut things down. They view this as a Vampire Plague... The Suck. Rome will be quarantined.”
“The Suck?” said Ballard.
“This is not the kind of quarantine that lasts for such-and-such length and people are allowed out,” said Lennox. “It’s the kind of quarantine where people are rounded up and made to disappear forever.”
“I need to tell my sister about this,” said Ballard. “Gaven...”
“No, you can’t tell anyone,” said Lennox. “The more people who know, the greater the incentive for the Lenoir to show up. They don’t like loose threads.”
“Ballard...” I said, but he shook me off.
“They need to know, Halsey! You don’t understand. They have an obligation to protect people. If these vampires are coming here––” it was almost like a swear word, “––we need to get ready,” he said.
“Wait,” said Lennox. “It isn’t as dire as it sounds, Ballard.”
“The hell it isn’t!” said Ballard.
“Wait.” Lennox produced a book. It had an orange cover. I could see two eyes; in one, a moon; in the other, the sun. “The Urban 411,” said Lennox. “It’s a guide to the Apocalypse.”
“The Apocalypse!” shouted Ballard. Lennox grabbed him before he could storm off. “Get your hands off me, bloodswine.”
“Ballard!” I said.
“Halsey, he’s talking about the end of the world. I gotta let Gaven know.”
“Just hear him out,” I said, pleadingly.
Lennox released him. “I’m not a foo
l. I have a plan,” he said. “I know if we work together, we can do this, Ballard. If I think it’s too late, then we’ll let the rest of your people know. But not until then! It has to be this way. Believe me, Ballard. You don’t want an army of cruel, vicious vampires coming in and treating Rome like a Leper Colony. They’ll level the place. I swear.”
Ballard shrugged. “Whatever you say. But hear me now. When or if this decision is made, it will be by me, Lennox. Not you. I don’t care what you say. This is our town. You need to know that!”
“Very well,” said Lennox.
I looked between them both; Ballard didn’t bother to withhold his angst. He sat down and eyed Lennox, waiting to hear what the other had to say. It better be good.
Lennox said, “The name changes. Master Zombie. Zombie Master. The boker. King-sire. It’s even there, in the name. Sire. The telepathic connection and the resemblance to vampires.”
“So what of it?” said Ballard, his arms crossed. He looked menacing.
“Whatever this king-sire is planning, he hasn’t done it yet,” said Lennox. “His drones, which are these zombies, have to do what he says; even if he just thinks it. Do you see them infecting people?”
“Them. Plural,” said Ballard. “They must be.”
“No. You’ve forgotten... Necromancy,” said Lennox. “The king-sire is raising an army. He is not killing, not yet. He is bringing back to life those who were already dead. It’s like you said. They’re the perfect victims. No one misses the dead. They’re buried away from the light of day.”
“Kind of like you,” said Ballard.
Lennox sighed. “What I’m saying is that while the king-sire is alive, he is in control. They must do what he says. So far he isn’t telling them to do anything.”
“Then he’s building his numbers, waiting for his chance,” said Ballard.
“Likely, that’s correct,” said Lennox. “Which gives us an opportunity. If we can find them, if we can get to them in time––I mean, obviously, they must be gathering somewhere––then we can take these zombies out! Destroy them. And we can kill the king-sire last. But I will do that part myself.”
“So you want us to help you look for these... nests, is that it?” said Ballard.
“You said it yourself,” said Lennox. “Somebody is collecting homeless people. They die on the streets. Old age, malnutrition, sickness, whatever. He brings them back. But he does it just so, so as not to draw any attention. Scan the obituaries, what do you see? The stories of people who were loved. These are the forgotten people,” he said, pointing and jabbing with his finger to the pictures of the dead people.
“So what do we do?” I asked.
He tossed Ballard and me The 411. “Read that. Figure out where the author is. Find him. Get him to help us. Then we go and we find these nests,” said Lennox. “And we take them down. And this remains a city with just one vampire in it. Me.”
Chapter 16 – Halsey
It was the end of the hottest month, but Lennox was like an ice cube, not just cold to the touch, but aloof. The fire of our first encounters was replaced by something else. I had to get to the bottom of it.
Ballard had The 411 memorized. It was written by someone named Infester. That had to be an alias of some sort. They were trying to find him through the publisher, SURVIVOR BROS PRESS. So far, nothing. It needed a woman’s touch.
Instinctively, I had switched my schedule to night owl status. Ballard, meanwhile, was engrossed in his newfound hobby: reading everything he could get his hands on in Lennox’s library. It was not infrequent that I heard him go “Ah-hah!” and “Yes,” and “Why didn’t I think of that?” He had begun living in the library. I couldn’t.
One night, I bid them farewell, then whispered in Lennox’s ear, so that only he could hear me: “Please, don’t stand me up tonight... okay?”
I left so he could think about that, so he could think about me.
I could hear I Gatti as I drove home; they were “tearing it up,” as Ballard would have said. I was just taking my diary out from underneath my pillow, when Lennox showed up.
I put my pen down and looked at him, my eyes obscured by the canopy of fabric around my four-poster. He traced the outline of my body with his eyes. Somewhere inside, a voice said, Yes.
Silly me. Lennox was a vampire. It was his nature to be cold. I wanted to be his ice princess.
“Turn the lights out,” I said. I lit the iron roses. He did as he was told. I felt the air move, he went so fast. One flame flickered, nearly went out, then steadied, and reignited, like our relationship, I hoped.
“Come over here and lay beside me on my bed. I want you to hold me. Do it!” I said, when he didn’t respond. I was going to have to teach him everything.
“Have you ever been with a mortal?” I asked him. “There are ways of embracing besides just taking them.”
I referred to his need to bite, to kill. He was not in his superhero getup. I could feel his form beneath my tracing hands. I kissed him––first slowly, savoring the taste of his mouth, then pressing my lips firmly to his own. He responded, aggressively. Good.
Let him be alive, I preyed.
“I think sometimes you have a wiring problem,” I said to him. “In case you missed it, buster, I’m into you.”
I didn’t wait for him to respond; I kissed him some more. He was going to get it. Even if he didn’t realize, I was going to make him see that he couldn’t live without me.
I closed my eyes and allowed the kiss to become wetter. Our teeth bumped, clumsily; not that I cared. I touched his skin and felt him moan. It was like one of those statues, except he wouldn’t break apart with age. I would.
“Stop,” he said.
“No.”
“Stop.”
He didn’t give me a choice; he broke apart. I grabbed for him, but he got up. I think he dragged me off the bed.
I was clingy. Needy. “Why?” I said, kneeling with the bed sheets in my hands, and not embarrassed about it one bit.
He didn’t respond. He just stood at the balcony.
I went out to him and put my hands on the cold stone.
“It’s cold,” I said, touching it.
Then everything went wrong. He went, “Cold. That’s it!”
“What is?” I said.
He went over to the desk and turned the lamp back on. “Don’t you see? Coldness. The zombies have pumping hearts, but they’re cold-blooded. It means they can’t regulate their body temperatures. But they do have to feed!”
He was scattered, all over the place. I wanted to do this. Us. I didn’t want to think about zombies or the Apocalypse or any of that horse––nonsense.
I realized that at first I hadn’t realized that he was so cold. That in our tenderness together I had responded to him as a woman does to a man. Or at least how a seventeen-year-old can to a young man of indeterminate age who nevertheless at least looks age appropriate. Back then, he was hawt.
Maybe I was the one who was wired all incorrectly. I couldn’t feel the cold for the heat and he couldn’t feel my heat because he was so cold. I had to warm him up.
“Later,” he said.
“That’s a promise you just made, buster.”
“We need to tell Ballard. If the zombies are cold-blooded, it means we can locate where they’re at. Do you understand?”
He grabbed the box of multicolored tacks and started peppering them around the map I had pinned up. “We’ll need to find Infester first, of course. He’s the zombie aficionado. But this is huge.”
* * *
“The zombies are probably hiding among stones,” said Lennox, when we got back to his place, and found Ballard pouring over old manuscripts. I yawned slightly. I couldn’t help it. “That’s another good reason for why they haven’t been found yet. That way they can stay warm at night.”
Believe me, I was just seeing how cold my nights could get.
“A lot of monuments are off-limits, still others are closed to the public, u
nless it’s daylight. Don’t you see? When it’s warm, they’re okay, but at night the zombies have to find shelter where people aren’t at, away from the cold. The stones retain heat,” said Lennox. “It’s the perfect place!”
“So we’re looking...” said Ballard.
“We’re looking for an old Roman monument, perhaps several, where enough zombies can be safely stowed, that the public won’t notice, that are warm, made out of stone.”
“That’s all of them.”
They got out the maps. I wandered out of the library. Just to get away.
Lennox’s house was huge, and he had invited Ballard and I to explore it with the enthusiasm of a museum curator. He assured us that each piece of furniture, each decoration, had a story to tell. I was not prepared for how many rooms there were. Each one filled with a lifetime of memorabilia.
I saw movie posters; various Sword and Sandal epics, and the Spaghetti Western, were featured most prominently. I wondered how long he had been in Italy? There was an entire room dedicated to Jubilee, a party Romans threw every quarter century.
As I moved from room to room I began to realize that Lennox truly was older than I was, that before me, he perhaps had lived lifetimes, and that after me, he would live lifetimes still. Suddenly, it felt like we could never be together.
We were too different. I was too young, for one thing. He was too old. I didn’t even know how old he was.
The last room I entered was different from the rest. Ages of thick dust lay upon the floor, across which I traipsed. Spiders had abandoned their webs. Burlap covered mounds of indistinct things, too heavy to push aside; I tried.
Through the detritus was a weaving path. Occasionally I had to find something to remove webs in my way. It was very dark. A stained glass window was letting light in, from overhead. It looked like dark shimmering waves crashing on golden sands, the light. I came to it. Dust motes went up around me.
I didn’t think I would ever be able to find my way out again. No one had been in here in years, it seemed.
When I looked at the stained glass window, it was like stars in the nighttime sky. A whole bunch of them. They made figures, like constellations. I thought I could detect two shapes: that of a man and of a creature that was almost a man. It reminded me of something Ballard had said about sculptures.
The Wiccan Diaries Page 19
