Fat Vampire Value Meal (Books 1-4 in the series) (26 page)

“I don’t have to be here, you know,” said Barack Obama.

“Nonetheless, let’s try to start with the facts, because I don’t think anyone can argue with the facts. Fact One: In the middle of May, the roof came off of the Council building during a meeting of the Council and the general assembly. Nearly four hundred vampires died in the midday sun. There was no apparent reason for the roof to come off. Spotters outside the complex saw nothing, no equipment, no explosion, nothing. The cameras inside show no fire, no explosion, and no blurs of motion other than after things got rolling and everyone started running. For some inexplicable reason, the Council has more or less chosen to believe that this was somehow an accident, like maybe the roof wasn’t screwed on tight and there was a lot of wind that day.”
 

“It was a gas explosion,” said Charles.
 

“No,” said Reginald, “it very obviously was not. And on a slightly different topic, I’d like to know why a few years as a vampire causes one to live with one’s head firmly planted inside of one’s ass. No offense, Brian.” He was thinking of how Brian had scoffed at all of this the last time they’d spoken.
 

“You’re right, Reginald,” said Brian. “It’s pretty obvious now that I’ve spent some time thinking. You just kind of get used to being on top. You start to believe what you want to believe. But after Balestro…”
 

“And that’s Fact Two,” said Reginald. “At the last meeting, Thomas Balestro, apparently a prisoner, breaks through thirty pounds of silver chain, creates a force field that a two-thousand-year-old vampire can’t penetrate, is unhurt by wooden bullets through the heart, kills a dozen vampires without anyone seeing him move, and then flies through the roof and into the sun. By my count, that’s six things that vampires can’t do. So whatever Balestro is, he’s not a vampire. Anyone have any doubt that everything I’ve just said is objectively true?”

“I know where this is going,” said Charles.
 

“Any arguments
with the facts?
” Reginald repeated.
 

Charles made an unimpressed face.
 

“Look. Everyone here knows that Altus —” Reginald extended an arm toward Barack Obama. “— thinks that this is about angels, and I know how that sits with everyone, but try to divorce yourself from the ‘obvious falsity’ of the myth. Call him by whatever
name
you want, but whatever Balestro is, he’s much more powerful than we are and can go out in the sun. He says he’s coming back, and if he does, that’s going to be very bad for those who are around. We’ve got to prepare.”
 

“You can’t prepare against angels,” said Barack Obama.

“Just… forget ‘angels’ for a second,” said Reginald, waving an arm at Obama and addressing the others. “
Prepare
. Like, against a clear threat.”
 

“Angels aren’t a threat,” said Obama. “‘Threat’ implies some chance of surviving it, which you don’t have.”

“See, this is why I wasn’t going to invite him,” Reginald said to Maurice.

“Screw you, I can go,” said Obama.

“Good. Go.”
 

“G-g-go,” agreed Nikki, hugging the sweater tightly around herself.

“Maybe later,” said Obama, suddenly transforming into Wilford Brimley.

“Prepare how?” said Brian.
 

“You’d know better than me,” said Reginald. “Better security. Weapons. I don’t know what you have. The only thing I know for sure is that it’ll take more than the handful of us in this room. You two need to convince the Council, and the Council needs to convince the Nation.”
 

“This is such crap,” said Charles.

“You’re totally nonplussed by Balestro, then? No surprises from that nutty old guy?”
 

“Trickery,” said Charles. “Complicity of the guards. Anything could explain it. Fake chains. Jet packs. Shit, magnets. Anything but angels. If you’re dealing with anything at all, it’s a conspiracy. Something that we need to root out from within, not by making doomsday proclamations.”
 

“So what you’re saying is that this is the work of vampires. Just…
normal
vampires
.”
 

Charles shrugged, thoroughly uninterested.
 

“Vampires who can go out in the sun,” said Reginald.

“He wasn’t a vampire,” said Brian.

“Advanced genetic engineering,” said Charles. “Some kind of a daywalker.”
 

“He wasn’t Wesley Snipes,” said Maurice.

“You are all so
pitiful!”
said Charles. “Fat guys. Old guys. Fraternizing with humans and incubi.” He tilted his head toward Nikki, then Altus. “You overthrow the government and expect to take it off in ridiculous new directions. But you can’t, and that’s why we have checks and balances. This…
whatever
it is… won’t be your excuse.”
 

Reginald’s mouth fell open. “You think
we’re
behind it,” he said.
 

Charles scoffed.
 

“You do! You think Maurice and I are manufacturing an enemy to gain support in the Nation and on the Council. It’s like Salman Rushdie and the Ayatollah Khomeini.”
 

Charles said nothing.
 

“I’m flattered,” said Reginald. “But you saw Balestro yourself. How do you explain what he could do?
 
Jesus, get your head out of your ass for just a second and think about it.”
 

Charles crossed his arms.

“Okay, then,” said Reginald. “More facts. The Guard, assuming they weren’t in on it, would have tested Balestro. They would have cut him and verified that he healed. They would have exposed him to pinpoint sunlight to see if he burned. They would have pulled on his fangs with pliers to be sure they were real. Could he
maybe
be a vampire? Could he just be
very
old and
very
strong and
very
fast?”
 

“No vampire — and especially not an old one — can survive that much direct sunlight,” said Maurice.

“Unless he was so old that he represented a prior evolutionary step,” said Brian.

“Or the
next
evolutionary step,” said Nikki.

“He went out into sunlight at the end,” said Brian. “But that would mean that if he blistered when the Guard tested him earlier with sunlight, he’d have to be…”
 

“Shape-shifter,” said Maurice, looking toward the La-Z-Boy.

“Hey, don’t look at me,” said Wilford Brimley. “We can’t go out in the sun either. It’s like the
diabeetus
.”
 

“
And
you’re weak and slow,” Brian added.
 

“But we get all the girls.” Wilford tossed back a head of imaginary elegant hair.
 

“There are no records of shape-shifters that strong or fast,” said Reginald. “So it’s something we’ve never seen before.”
 

“Or something you collectively haven’t seen in so long that you’ve forgotten,” said Wilford Brimley.
 

Charles rolled his eyes.
 

“Okay,” said Reginald, looking at Altus. “Might as well go there. Just for the hell of it, say he’s an angel. He’s one of the Six who made the deal with God to create vampire Cain and human Abel, and so on and so forth. What then?”

“You mean, what comes next if he has some sort of a grudge against all of you?”

“Yes.”
 

“Then you’re fucked.”
 

“I meant, what do we do?” said Reginald.
 

“What you do is, you get fucked.”

“The thirty-day thing, I mean.”

“What about it?”
 

“‘You have thirty days to quail in fear and decide whether you choose to die by our hand or your own.’ What did that mean?”

“Oh, you meant that.”
 

“Yes.”
 

“And you want to know what it means, you having thirty days.”
 

“Yes.”
 

“Well,” said Wilford Brimley, sitting forward in the recliner, “What that means is that you have thirty days.”

“Right.”
 

“And after those thirty days are up…” He pressed his forefinger and thumb together into the universal gesture of making a very specific and important point. “…
you’re
fucked
.”

Brian sat up onto one buttcheek, leaned toward the recliner, and punched Altus in the stomach.

“Let’s try that again,” he said.
 

Altus, as Wilford Brimley, wheezed for breath. Reginald thought he might have said something again about the diabeetus.
 

“Look,” said Altus. “What you’ve got to understand about angels and demons is that most of us are big on rituals, same as the human institutions that worship us on both sides of the good/evil coin. Lighting candles, dancing in circles, chanting, sacrifice. Just look at what they did with Cain — the thing with him walking the earth forever cursed because he’d struck first. They didn’t have to do that. It was symbolic, to give Cain and his descendants a black mark for eternity. They create the hype, then they believe and abide by what they just created as if it were law. They’ll burn people forever in sulfur because it’s always been sulfur, despite the fact that Hell could easily have upgraded to magnesium, which burns much hotter and much cleaner and doesn’t stink.”
 

Brian: “And this has to do with…?”
 

“The thirty days. It’s a ritual. Why give you time for… for whatever? Because once upon a time, they themselves decided arbitrarily that they should.”

“And what are we supposed to do with the time?”

“Quail in fear, apparently,” said Altus.
 

“He said something about a decision, though,” said Reginald. “What are we supposed to decide?”

Altus nodded suddenly, as if something had just occurred to him. “The free will thing. I forgot. Free will is Heaven’s one big check, its ace in the hole. It’s also why angels can’t see into the future — they can’t understand free will. Angels can’t
force
you to do anything because of it, or impose a defining action on you. Let’s say an angel wants to kill you. Well, he can’t just kill you; you have to
decide
to die. So the way the angel gets around it is, he gives you some kind of a choice. In this case, it’s a redemption period. During that redemption period, you either do nothing or try to redeem yourself and fail. In either case, it’s your actions or lack thereof that have caused you to die. Free will, see.”
 

“That’s like something a lawyer would pull,” said Nikki. “It’s so arbitrary.”
 

“Well, the lawyers don’t
all
go to Hell,” said Wilford Brimley.
 

Reginald stood and faced Altus. “What happens if, during whatever free will trial you get, you manage to redeem yourself?” he said.
 

“You can’t.”
 

“But what if you…”
 

“You can’t,” Altus repeated. “Angels aren’t humans. They aren’t emotional. You’re not going to impress them and make them cry by showing them a PBS moment wherein you save a puppy. They want you decimated, the decision is already made. The waiting period is a formality, nothing more.”
 

Charles stood up. “I’ve had enough retardation for the evening. I’ll be going now.”
 

“You’ve got to talk to the Council,” said Maurice.
 

“No,” he said, “I don’t.” He looked over at Brian, who was rising from the couch. “Threaten me all you want,” he said. “You haven’t convinced
me
, so there’s no way that I or anyone else will convince the Council. The Council disagrees with you on
principle
, Maurice. Even if you had a perfect case, which you don’t, there is absolutely zero chance you’ll derail the entire government and get the whole Nation to stop what it’s doing, rally behind
you
of all people, and mass weapons that this dickhead says are useless anyway against some arbitrary threat from a storybook, in less than a month. And you know it.”
 

Maurice shook his head. Charles made an
Are we done?
gesture. When nobody responded to it, he became a blur and was gone.
 

Wilford Brimley had moved into the kitchen while Charles was speaking.

“I could use some nutritious Quaker oatmeal,” he said.
 

C
HESS

AFTER BRIAN AND ALTUS HAD gone, Nikki snuggled up next to Reginald on the couch. Maurice lit a cigarette. He dragged deeply on it, exhaled, and repeated. The room waited for someone to speak, but nobody did.

Reginald pulled a coin from his pocket and rolled it across his knuckles. After discovering his surprising new facility with balance, he’d begun looking for other abilities that might arise from better muscle coordination, and card and coin tricks seemed to be among them. Seeing a demonstration earlier, Maurice had said that Reginald would be an excellent pickpocket or card shark.
 

“We’ll never convince Charles to do anything,” said Reginald.

“And even if he did, the Council wouldn’t listen,” said Maurice. “It’s so inconvenient to think that the world might end.”

“This sweater smells like ham,” said Nikki, as if the thought had just occurred to her.
 

“This is so strange,” said Maurice.

“I know,” said Nikki, smelling the sweater.

Maurice was tapping the eraser end of a pencil on the desk in front of him, pensive.
 

“What?” said Reginald.

“Just feel the mood in here,” said Maurice. “I feel like we’re bracing to survive a hopeless war, but all we have is one encounter with one guy who got the best of some of us. I hate to say it, but Charles’s take on this is much more sensible.”
 

“Maybe. But what if our take is the right one?”

“Our take? Does this mean you’re committing to, ‘A biblical angel is stalking vampire-kind?’”