An Unattractive Vampire (26 page)

“This is where you’ll be staying,” announced Dr. Raquel as they came to a small two-room hut.

Catherine took off her sunglasses, revealing her dead eye with its small black pupil. The aid worker, catching sight of it, visibly flinched and turned away, toward the village. “I know it isn’t much, but out here, it’s all there is.”

“That’s okay,” Catherine assured her. “I’ve been promised a Spanish villa next.” When she emerged, she’d put on her sunglasses again. She saw the doctor’s relief. “Bring the boxes inside.”

The American college students lugged the three sealed boxes into the small wooden structure and then fled before being asked to do anything else. After all, they’d come to Africa to help
real
people, not other Americans.

“Well, thank you, Dr. Gutierrez, for all your help,” said Catherine.

“Raquel, please,” the doctor insisted. “If there’s anything you need, please, let me know.”

“I definitely will,” Catherine replied.

• •

The night was dark in the village, which occupied a small clearing cut out of the forest, always on the verge of being reclaimed. Small windmills provided electricity, but mostly that was used to power small refrigerators and televisions. Charcoal lamps and candles lit homes, but times being what they were, shutters were kept closed despite the heat. And so the only light one could count on was what little moonlight made it through the canopy, and the occasional firefly.

Blink and flash. Blink and flash. The small insect lazily flew through the still air. Blink and flash. Blink and flash. Its progress was slow, but fireflies aren’t known for being in a hurry. Blink and flash. Blink. It landed on the sill of the only open window in the village, that of the new arrivals, the folklorist and her son. Without any seeming purpose, it crawled inside.

On the far side of the room, the small boy slept, despite several hours of careful instruction on proper slumbering technique. Around him hung several layers of mosquito netting. The firefly let out a barely audible chirp that amounted to a chuckle. It used its head to lift the nets and ducked inside. It crawled up the leg of the cot, across the legs of the boy, and over the legs of an illustrated Buddha on the reincarnation book that lay open on the bed,
⁵⁷
until finally it arrived at its ultimate destination, the boy’s outstretched thumb. With fiendish relish, the small insect cleaned its mandibles in preparation for its sanguine meal. Thus distracted, it did not notice the forefinger coil up beside it.

A flick sent the surprised bug reeling onto the dirt floor of the hut. It fluttered its wings to right itself just as a jar came crashing down around it. The firefly’s glow began to pulse. It became brighter and brighter. Then, the room flared white. The jar shattered with a tremendous
crack!
Simon reeled back, shielding his eyes. When the radiance subsided, he was faced with an elderly, feral, hunchbacked man with black chitinous claws.

“You should have let it alone, little boy,” the creature growled with a smile. “Now I will eat your heart and liver while you watch.”

Simon took out two specially prepared syringes from beneath his pillow. One was filled with DDT; the other with antivirals. “Try.”

The door to the next room swung open.

“That will not be necessary.” Yulric motioned for the hunchback to join him. “Adze, it’s been too long. We have much to discuss.”

Phantom Studios offered tours to the public four times a day, every day. Tourists, mostly black-clad teenagers with their embarrassingly normal Midwestern parents, came through on a bus that ushered them around various points of interest, including the Devil’s Cross back lot, the sets, the production building, the writers’ shed, and the actors’ apartments. On an alternating basis, one of the actors came out, under an awning that protected him or her from the sun, and took pictures with his or her adoring public. Then the bus took the visitors back through the main gate, where they departed and, with their unnecessarily angst-ridden teens mollified, continued with their vacation.

The entire thing moved like clockwork. You could set your watch by it, which, incidentally, Amanda had done.

“Five, four, three, two . . .” She took off running across the floor of the spacious apartment. It took her several seconds to cover the ground, which, fortunately, she had accounted for. She sprinted full steam through the already open balcony doors, stepped once onto the ottoman she had set out there, stepped another time onto the railing and leapt. There she hung, in midair, staring at the bus, which—thank God—was underneath her, and waiting for gravity to do its thing.

This was so stupid,
she thought as eyelined eyes went wide and camera phones flashed. Then she came crashing down into the aisle of the double-decker tour bus.

The riders erupted into applause.

“I didn’t know there was going to be a stunt show,” said a mother in a Minnesota Twins hat. The black-haired boy next to her rolled his eyes with the practiced motion of adolescence.

Amanda waved and posed and took pictures with reluctant Goths, who secretly wanted to have their picture taken with her but would never admit it, until the tour came to an end outside the gates. Then she exited with the rest of them and faded into the obscurity of Los Angeles.

She didn’t have any money; that was her main problem. When the vampires had taken her from home, they had neglected to grab her purse on their way out. So before she could buy a plane, train, or, most likely, bus ticket that would take her back, she had to come up with cash. She had considered grabbing one or two things from her room to pawn, but they might have thrown off her balance on her run. This led her to her current course of action—looking for a nightclub.

It was Tuesday, not the best night for clubbing, but this was Los Angeles; there was always someone with money who wanted to get drunk and dance. Amanda followed the streets, listening for the telltale thump of dance music, watching for the understated blacklit signs, which heralded the abundant use of strobes within. It wasn’t that difficult. Once she ended up on Hollywood Boulevard, she found several within walking distance of each other to choose from.

The club she settled on was called Bastion, strictly because it was the kind of insufferable establishment that went out of its way to make sure you didn’t know it was called Bastion. The sign out front was black with a thin black scrawl that presumably spelled the club’s name. The cards handed out by the staff were also black with the thinnest outline of a chess castle in purple—no name, no address, no phone number. If you didn’t already know how to find Bastion, you shouldn’t be anywhere near Bastion. If you came up to Bastion and called it Rook or Castle or Chess Piece, you shouldn’t be anywhere near Bastion. The club was exclusive and the guest list at the front had only three names: a dollar sign, sunglasses, and the number ten. If a man or woman wasn’t rich, famous, or smoking hot, they were not Bastion material.

Amanda ducked into an alley a few blocks away so that she could partially undress. Underneath the T-shirt and sweats she had worn for maneuverability during her jump was a cute number she had borrowed from the apartment’s nicely stocked guest closet, a little black dress. Very little. It actually didn’t fit very well, but that was kind of the point. There was going to be too much leg and too much cleavage to turn away. She pulled her hair out of its ponytail and gave it a bit of a tussle. Taking a few makeup necessities out of the pockets of her sweatpants, she did a quick and serviceable makeup job. She wished she could have found a way to carry some high heels out with her but decided flats would be fine. Nobody would be looking at her feet.

She worked up a confident strut on the way back to Bastion, building up significant steam so that by the time she arrived at the door, she was working
everything
. She didn’t even bother waiting in line; she just went straight for the man at the rope, who let her in with barely a once-over.

The club inside was a rather tame version of those she was used to. Everything was more expensive, and because of that, everyone was on slightly better behavior. The mass of dancers could actually be said to be dancing rather than just rhythmically grinding up against each other. The fixtures on the wall, the furniture, and the decorations were extravagantly minimalist. The entire club was lit by pink, purple, and black lights, and they were everywhere, from underneath the floor to underneath the bar.

Amanda spent her first twenty minutes among the dancers, partially because “Hey, why not have some fun,” but mostly so she could paint a great big target on herself. When she felt she had allowed enough time for the true players
⁵⁸
in the crowd to spot her, she made her way to the bar. Sensing movement on either side of her, as young men with trust funds and venture capital made a dash to get to the bar ahead of her, she slowed her pace, taking a moment to fix her dress and admire her surroundings.

“Son of a . . . ,” she mouthed.

Nora was sitting in a booth across from her. Amanda changed direction and made for the vampire.

“Seriously?” she exclaimed as she stormed up to the table.

“Seriously? How did you find me?”

Nora choked on her martini at Amanda’s sudden appearance. Unable to speak, she gave a little shrug. The truth was she had just come out tonight to enjoy herself. The fact that they had both chosen Bastion was mere coincidence. But of course, she wasn’t about to admit that. One of The Doctor Lord Talby’s rules was never admit to the mundane truth when people were willing to chalk something up to your supernatural prowess. So it was here.

Nora stretched out her arm, offering Amanda a seat and, once she’d found her voice again, croaked, “Drink?”

Amanda sat down and ordered a glass of wine, which miraculously appeared within a minute, courtesy of “the gentleman at the bar.” There were twelve of them standing where the server pointed, and it was impossible to tell which was
the
gentleman, because they all winked when she glanced over.

“Why did you come to a club?” Nora asked, sipping her drink.

“I was going to pick a pocket,” Amanda answered, giving a nod to the men waiting for her to finish so they could buy her another.

“But why here?” the vampire continued. “Why not just hit someone on the street?”

“I’m not going to steal from someone who needs the money,” she sneered indignantly. “If I’m going to take advantage of someone, (a) they’re not going to miss it, and (b) they are going to have it coming.”

“Well, you certainly came to the right place for that,” Nora muttered, downing the rest of her martini. Two more arrived via waiter to replace it. Both women stared at them incredulously. “Our powers combined,” Nora marveled. They both laughed.

“So, I guess you’ll be taking me back?” Amanda said finally.

“No rush,” replied Nora, taking a drink in hand.

Amanda’s eyebrow went up. “Really?”

Nora shrugged. “I need a night away from . . . things.”

Amanda gave a knowing nod. “Well, this certainly is a place for that. Plenty of ‘things’ to go around.” She leaned across the table. “How much damage do you think we could do to their wallets?”

Nora smiled conspiratorially. “Only one way to find out.” It was her eleventh escape attempt.

Catherine had always thought her first stay in a honeymoon suite would go a little differently. Oh sure, she’d pictured the spaciousness, the fireplace, the rugs designed to hug naked flesh, the complimentary champagne with every room service order, the en suite Jacuzzi, the heart-shaped bed with red satin sheets, the trail of rose petals leading to locations of potential lovemaking, all of it. She’d just imagined she’d be sharing said den of copulation with a partner or girlfriend or Dana Scully,
⁵⁹
not an eight-year-old and a gaggle of vampires.
⁶⁰

Currently, all the vampires were gathered around the heart-shaped love seat, watching a Spanish-dubbed episode of
The Phantom Vampire Mysteries
. This included the new arrivals they’d found here in Mexico. Sealed within a temple to Quetzalcoatl they had unearthed the one they’d come to find, Spanish inquisitor turned conquistador Cebrian d’Oviedo. Unexpectedly, though, he hadn’t been alone. For the past five hundred years, Cebrian had been arguing with a vampire none of them had ever heard of before. This Tezcatlipoca, as the Spaniard called him between angry mutterings, had a jaguar’s head, feathers, a leg made out of obsidian, and was, by all accounts, the most ruthless and bloodthirsty god in the Aztec pantheon.

Vampires. Just when you thought you’d seen the most disturbing variation, the next popped up, worse than all the rest.

“I don’t see how this is helpful,” Simon grumbled. The two humans had taken refuge in the kitchenette. He was currently taking a break from researching Mesoamerican mythology to shoot angry glares over at the vampires.

“He’s giving them a reason to follow them,” Catherine replied. She finished dipping a strawberry into the chocolate fondue. “Mmm.”

“One would think releasing them all would be reason enough,” said Simon.

“That just makes them resentful,” she explained.

“We saved you and you aren’t resentful,” Simon countered.

“I’m not a raging psychopath.” She lovingly placed another chocolate-dipped strawberry into her mouth. “Oh, that’s good.”

“Still, Yulric is the logical choice to lead. He brought them all together, he speaks all of their languages—”

“Not Tezzie’s,” Catherine interrupted.

“Except Tezcatlipoca’s, yes.” Simon glared at her. “Still, he’s the one with the plan. Why wouldn’t they follow him for the duration?”

“Because they’re afraid of him,” Catherine answered.

“How do you know that?” Simon asked.

Catherine paused. She didn’t know how she knew what the other vampires thought, but she did. And there was more, right on the tip of her tongue, slowly materializing. “Something, I think, something about his resurrection.” Her mind flashed. In a single moment, she witnessed the origins of each of the vampires . . .