The Falstaff Vampire Files (17 page)

I rushed to the window and tried to pull her away. “Come on, Vi, turn around.”

“Do you see them?”

Looking past Vi, I could indeed see something.

“Look away. Cover her eyes!” Again Sir John’s voice in my head.

I turned from the window and put my hands over Vi’s eyes. It was hard to shut her eyelids. “Pull her away.” Vi resisted when I tried to move her away from the window. But once I turned her head slightly, she slumped against me like a puppet whose string is cut.

I got her arm over my shoulder, put an arm around her waist and half walked, half hauled her over to the bed. I picked up the cell phone from Vi’s pillow and hesitated. Somehow dialing 911 didn’t seem right. I pressed the button to page Bram. Then I heard Sir John striding through the house. I don’t know how Sir John got in, any more than I know how he could speak his thoughts in my mind, but I was very glad to see him.

“The Others are here,” he said.

Chapter 48

Kristin Marlowe’s typed notes

August 20th

Sir John sat on the bed with Vi
and pulled her up into an embrace. He sank his teeth into her neck hesitantly, as if tasting her. “Cold as stone,” he said as if to himself.

Vi moaned faintly.

Sir John shook his head. “Too far gone.” He pulled back a moment and looked at her very pale face. “One remedy alone remains.” He pushed up his sleeve, took a small dagger from an inside pocket and made a cut along his arm, gritted his teeth and cut a little deeper. “Damn deep veins,” he muttered. Blood began to trickle down his arm and he held the wound against Vi’s lips.

At first it ran down her chin, but he took his other hand and wiped it up into her mouth. Her lips closed around his finger and she sucked the blood, then she swallowed. Sir John hastily pulled his finger out of her mouth as her whole body jerked in a kind of convulsion. Vi’s eyes opened slightly. She looked half dazed and half hungry. She focused on the blood dripping from Sir John’s arm. She seized it, licked it from wrist to elbow and put her mouth over the wound.

“There’s my girl.” He held her up and let her drink for a minute or more. Then he pulled her away and set her back on the pillow.

He pressed on the wound for a moment, and I could see when he took his fingers away that the bleeding had stopped.

Vi stared up at him, breathing shallowly. I stood helpless while Sir John sat pressing the opposite palm against the wound in his arm.

The door bell rang, making me jump, although Sir John and Vi didn’t seem to notice.

“That would be Bram,” I said, getting up to let him in.

“Nice lad,” Sir John said. “Promising.” He sighed and leaned back a little. “Always promising.” Vi reached out to put her hand lightly on his belly. It was an oddly intimate posture.

I let Bram in and briefly told him what happened. I hadn’t got to the part about Vi drinking Sir John’s blood, but when we came into the room he was still sitting with his sleeve pushed up. The wound in his arm had nearly healed.

Sir John sighed and half turned away from Vi, who still had her hand resting on his belly. “Have not done that in these 600 years,” he said.

“But Vi looked so weak. Will she get better?”

“We must wait and watch.”

Bram couldn’t stop staring at the wound on Sir John’s arm, which was healing right before our eyes, knitting together into a small scar. “She’s going to become a vampire, isn’t she?”

“That is the best we hope for.” Sir John’s voice was mild.

“What would be the worst?” Bram asked.

I expected him to say “death.” Instead he turned to Bram. “When you came over here, did you see anything strange about the house?”

“No, but I was hurrying.”

“Mistress Kit? Did you see what Vi saw outside the window?”

I thought back, “There seemed to be something gray, but you said not to look.”

“Wise lady. Those things have sucked away Mistress Vi’s life. They may yet pull her into their world—a hell beyond imagining.”

He turned to Bram. “You cannot see them. Vampires learn to will them away.” He turned to me. “Most in danger are the vampire bitten and newly risen vampires.” He rose wearily. “I must go. Mistress Vi will die by dawn, if not before. If she tries to go to the window, hold her down. If she talks, take note of what she says.”

I stared numbly at Sir John. “I thought you saved her with the blood you gave her.”

He sighed. “Mayhap she will rise in three days. Not all do. I must go. Call this number.” He took a metal disk that hung from a cord around his neck, holding it out without giving it to me. I copied down the number down. “They will help you, but Mistress Kit—” he stared at me firmly. “Say nothing of the Others when you make the call. Tell them she was sick unto death, and say what I did, but not why. Be wise, my lady—you and Mistress Violet need their help.”

Vi’s voice was a faint whisper. Sir John turned back. Bram and I moved close to hear her. “Promise me two things. Take care of my cats.”

“Of course I will,” I said. “Don’t worry, but—”

“Don’t cremate my body. My will says to—Don’t.”

Then she was gone.

“Sooner than I thought. I was just in time.” Sir John stopped and turned back in the doorway. “Maybe I did wrong. Time will tell. Keep your eyes to yourself and say as little as possible. Have a care for your own safety, Mistress Kit, and you, sir.” He bowed politely and left.

Part III: THE UNDISCOVERED CITY

Chapter 49

Kristin Marlowe’s typed notes

August 20th continued

I sat with Bram and the body of my friend
for a few minutes, too much in shock to speak.

Both of us jumped to hear a scrabbling sound, and a huge, shaggy, black cat came out from under the bed. “Hi, Hamlet,” I said softly. “He must have been hiding there the whole time.”

Hamlet stared at me wildly and headed for the door, one slow paw at a time, belly low to the carpet. Once he got to the door he turned to stare at Vi. He didn’t move closer. He stayed for a moment sniffing the air, then stretched his neck out, hissed at Vi, and slipped out the door. Then Ariel and Sly scrambled out of hiding in the closet and bolted quickly out the door behind him. The feral mother and daughter stayed hidden.

“Oh, God,” I said. “That would have broken her heart.”

Bram nodded.

I looked down to see I was still clutching the pad of paper where I had written the number on Sir John’s medallion. My arms and legs felt like lead as I dialed the phone.

A calm voice answered, “SFUFO?”

UFO? “I beg your pardon?”

The woman’s voice grew cautious. “What number did you call?”

I read it back to her. “Sir John told me to call this number.”

“Our Sir John Falstaff? That’s a very high recommendation. You’ve reached the San Francisco Undead Fraternal Organization. What is your emergency?”

I took a deep breath. “Sir John was here—My friend, uh—just died.”

I didn’t seem to be making much sense, but she said, “I understand. You are not one of us, are you?”

“Um, no, but I think my friend will be.”

“Sir John trusted you with this, so we’ll send a team right over. Give me your address.”

Fifteen minutes later the doorbell rang. Bram looked and told me a San Francisco Police squad car and a large van with “Coroner’s Office” on the side had parked in front of the house. “That can’t be an official vehicle,” Bram said.

“At this point, I’m not so sure we want an official vehicle. We need help.”

Bram opened the door and the uniformed policeman and two attendants in black stood awkwardly on the threshold. “You are the one who called our organization?”

“I did,” I said.

“We need to come in to help you, but you must invite the three of us and make it specific to us, no one else.”

For a minute my mind went blank, but Bram squeezed my shoulder and said, “Officer, you and these two gentlemen may come in.”

They filed past us carrying a folded up gurney and we led them back to where Vi’s body lay. One of the attendants examined Vi, noting the bite mark and opening her mouth to check for something—fangs?

“If you have some ID for her,” the policeman said, “we’ll take care of the official paperwork.” I noticed that he was very pale and unnaturally still. “The Organization will take care of everything according to her instructions.”

“How will you know her instructions?” Bram asked.

The policeman turned to him. “We’ll ask her in three days time, when she rises.” He smiled with fangs visible. “Did she mention anything she wanted taken care of?”

“The cats. I’ll be taking care of the cats.”

He smiled, this time with less fang. “That’s good of you.”

“She asked not to be cremated.”

The two attendants stopped in the midst of moving Vi’s body onto their gurney, and stared at me in horror.

“Of course not,” the policeman said with a shudder. “Our representative will be in touch about arrangements. The best thing would be to wait before making any announcements to any friends and family until we find out how she wants to deal with her new status. If something goes wrong and she doesn’t rise we will bring you official paperwork and a local mortuary we deal with will be in touch. Can you wait three days?”

“I guess.”

“Your friend trusts you or we wouldn’t be here. The transition is never easy, but it helps a new vampire to have a support system of loyal daylight friends. If you need more information, call the same number tomorrow after dark. We don’t work after dawn.”

It wasn’t until after they wheeled the gurney with Vi’s body on it out the door that I sat on the sofa and began to cry. Bram hugged me.

“Do you want me to call Larry?”

“They said not to tell anyone.”

“I have to go back to Arizona tomorrow, and I’m worried about you without someone to call on. I wonder if we can tell Larry without going into any details. Did he know Vi or any of her friends?”

“No, he knows my psychology friends, not Vi’s friends.”

“Larry is the most discreet person I know. We could ask him not to talk to anyone about it.”

Larry came right over. Bram sketched out a sudden death scenario that did not include vampires. I was dazed, but relieved not to have to try to explain it.

“She was dead by the time the medics got here.” I said.

“It must have been a stroke. I only met her once or twice, but she seemed so energetic. You just never know.” Larry offered his place if I needed to get away.

“Or if you want me to stay and sleep on the sofa—you might not want to be alone,” Bram said.

I met Bram’s eyes. His offer startled me. “Thank you. Both of you, I appreciate it, but I’m going to sleep now.”

When they did go Larry hugged me, and when he realized that Bram was hugging me for longer than usual, he discreetly stepped out into the hall to give us a moment. “Thank you for explaining things to Larry,” I whispered.

“I can’t think of any rational way to explain what we saw. I only hope we don’t regret it.”

“Me too. Do you think it was illegal?”

Bram looked at me seriously. “Some things are so far from anything we call reality that it’s hard to fit them in that category. If you accept what we’ve seen in the past week or so, we’re going to have to rethink a lot of things. But not tonight.”

“I hope you won’t get into trouble. I don’t know how I can ever repay you for helping us.”

“The kissing was nice. Maybe we can try that again soon.”

I sighed. “Next time without vampire feeding going on in the corner of the room.”

“I have to wind up some things in Arizona tomorrow and get my car. I’ll drive back. I need to be here with you for awhile.” He gave me a significant look, and I took his hand and found myself kissing that quirky mouth again.

“I’ll be back next weekend,” he murmured into my neck. “Let me know what happens with Vi, and call anytime if you need anything.” We hugged goodbye as if there were some doubts we would ever see each other again.

Chapter 50

Kristin Marlowe’s typed notes

August 21st

I woke up near dawn,
still on Vi’s sofa, surrounded by cats. The little tuxedo cat, Ariel, draped over the arm of the sofa just above my head while the orange tabby, Sly, lounged on the back of the sofa. Hamlet had curled around my knees like a shaggy black blanket, snoring softly. I got up and put out the backyard buffet for the ferals, and then came in to feed Vi’s cats. They watched me go back to the cottage. Their world had changed too, and that made me even sadder.

I reached the cottage just before sunrise. The minute I closed the door the phone rang. A resonant male voice said, “Ms. Marlowe, this is Edgar Morford of the law firm of Morford & Bates. We’ll be looking after the Semmelweis estate.”

“Okay.” I suddenly wanted a cup of coffee very badly.

“I’d like to make an appointment for you to come in and take care of the some details on Sunday—say around 9:00 p.m.”

“You work on Sundays?” I said, feeling stupid.

“We work after dark. That’s our only restriction. We will need a little time after sunset to talk to Ms. Semmelweis before we’ll be ready for you.”

“Of course. When will I be able to see her?”

“As soon as we’ve had a chance to explain her situation.”

“Mr. Morford, the people I talked to at the number Sir John gave us—the, uh, SFUFO—told us not to tell anyone, but what about official notices and so on?”

“That is always a delicate matter. Some among undead society prefer to maintain a legal claim on life for economic purposes. With the right documentation we can inherit our own estates over and over again. We undead don’t age beyond the day we died, so for security reasons we have to reinvent ourselves every three or four decades. Some prefer to make a clean break and start fresh. We won’t know what Vi chooses until we’ve had a chance to interview her. Then we’ll provide you with the appropriate documentation.”

“Okay. But I’ll have to let a few friends know where I’m going.”

Morford chuckled. “Most prudent, but have no fear for your safety. I’ll send a car for you.”