The Vampire's Seduction (13 page)

“What makes you think I’m a vampire?”

“Two years ago my mom and dad and I were driving back from my violin recital and the Caddy broke down in front of Melfrey’s department store on Houghton Street. The one with the big picture window right in front. While my dad talked on his cell phone and my mom went over her appointment book, I watched the reflection of the car being loaded on the tow truck with that hydraulic thingie. Only you weren’t in the picture. I had to turn around to make sure you were really there. It was so cool. Besides, I saw you on the street a little while ago, full-fanged.”

Oh, shit. The little weirdo had been following me. I couldn’t believe I’d been so careless. And I was usually pretty damned careful about mirrors: I’d accidently/on purpose broken the rearviews on my truck. But there I’d been, going about my business in front of a picture window that reflected the whole street. The kid had made me for a vampire, fair and square. The denial option was out. It was showtime.

With one swift motion, I lifted the kid off the fence and held him in the air. “Listen, pal, believe me when I say, you don’t want any of this.” I slammed him up against the fence hard enough to make him see stars, and then I unsheathed my fangs and bent near his face so that he could see my pupils dilate. It was an involuntary reaction to letting down my fangs, a vampire adaptation that helps us hunt at night. At least that’s how I’d got it figured. Anyway, the fangs coming out and the eyes going reddish black never failed to scare the absolute crap out of any human. He might have seen the show from a distance, but it was a whole other animal up close and personal.

And it didn’t fail this time. Von Worm, or whatever his name was, was going all swimmy-eyed like he was about to pass out. Of course that could’ve been due to the death grip I had on the front of his jacket. But then, remarkably, he rallied and poked his chin out. “Yes, I do. I want to be one of you,” he wheezed.

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying. Have you noticed I’m sitting in a cemetery alone?”
Telling my troubles to dead people because they’re the only ones who’ll listen.
“Trust me. You don’t want this kind of life.”

He took a deep breath and looked me squarely in the eye. “Yes,” he said in a stronger voice, “I do.”

I let go of his collar. As he slid to the ground, I rubbed my chin. “Okay, so you’ve been following me because you want me to make you a vampire. Just why do you think you want to be a blood drinker?”

He straightened his jacket and relaxed a little. “When I saw what you did that night, after you’d driven us home, I sneaked out of the house and over to your garage. When you thought nobody was looking, I saw you lift up the car by the bumper without a jack or anything to see what was wrong with it. Right then I knew it was true what I’d always read in vampire stories—the parts about how strong vampires were. I figured there couldn’t be many more vampires in Savannah, or else bodies would be showing up everywhere. So I just assumed you must be the only one. That would make you the baddest guy in town.”

“Yeah, well.” I wasn’t about to tell him about William. If he didn’t already know, he’d probably never guess. William didn’t make the kind of mistakes I’d obviously been making. William didn’t make any mistakes at all.

“Ever since that night, I’ve studied everything I could get my hands on about vampires. Of course, most of it’s fiction, but even in fiction, sometimes there’s a grain of truth. I followed every piece of information I could, wherever it led me. The more I found out, the more I wanted to be a vampire.”

I looked him up and down by the light of the moon. He was naturally pale but had enhanced his look with white pancake makeup in the usual goth manner. Underneath the leather jacket would be skinny arms and a flat, boyish chest. The other boys at school must have beaten the shit out of him every day of the world, just on general principle. No wonder he wanted to be a badass. He might be a freak and possibly a pansy, but he’d had the guts to look me in the eye without wetting himself when I was giving him the full-tilt boogie vampire treatment. Whatever else he was, he was no coward.

I sighed. “Listen, kid. I’d like to help you out. I really would. But I’m telling you this
brotherhood,
or whatever you call it, is not all it’s cracked up to be. Besides, making somebody into a vampire isn’t easy. I’ve never done it before. I’m not even sure I know how.”

“You remember how it was when you were made a vampire, don’t you?”

Actually, I didn’t. Not completely. The last thing I remember of my mortal life was lying on a muddy, bloody battlefield when William came toward me with bared fangs. Then the unimaginable pain-pleasure. There’s no other description for it. Then nothing for a while. Then I was back again, with all new hungers and thirsts. Sounds, touches, tastes, and smells were all enhanced—bigger, deeper, somehow more real than they’d been before. “It was a long time ago,” I told him.

The kid leaned forward and lowered his voice. “It’s the blood exchange. That’s all. Of course, most people don’t survive the limbo stage, but—”

“Huh? You make it sound like a luau.”

He was looking pretty exasperated by this point. “You know, you really should know this stuff.”

He was right. Damn William. He’d never let me in on the fine points of how to be a vampire. He’d just told me the minimum of what I needed to know to stay alive. It was entirely possible that this pimply shrimp in front of me, with his two years of book learning, knew more about vampires than I did.

“I know plenty,” I said. “In fact, I’m going to test you. If you know so much about vampires, tell me what it’s like to be one. First off, how do you spot one?”

“Okay, you might be a vampire, if . . .”

“Very funny.”

“. . . you were afraid of garlic,” he continued.

I snorted. “I love me some garlic.” The only thing I actually ate, in addition to drinking blood, was red meat. I had no idea if I was afraid of garlic. Why the hell should I be afraid of garlic?

“You might be a vampire if you can’t go out in the sun.”

“Check.”

“You can only be killed by fire, wooden stakes, and silver bullets.”

“Yeah, yeah. Silver’s mostly for werewolves, but technically, yeah.” I waved him on to the next topic.

“You might be a vampire if you can fly.”

“Kid, are you on drugs?” If I could fly this whole time and William didn’t tell me, I was going to stake him myself.

“Not lately. Anne Rice’s vampires can fly.”

“Oh, crap. Is that what you’re basing that on? Anne Rice’s vampires can’t even have sex. Screw that.”

“So you can have sex?”

“
Hell
yes.” I swear I could feel Gerald laughing again.

“Good.” The kid seemed to perk up a bit at this piece of news. I’d bet my fangs he’d never gotten laid in his life. Hope springs eternal, I guess. Maybe that was the real reason he wanted to be a vampire—to get chicks. Or dudes, I thought, looking at his earrings again.

“What else?” I demanded.

This went on for a while. He got the part about the coffins right. Also crosses (can’t go near them). He said holy water would hurt us, but water’s water, as far as I know. He also knew you can’t cross a threshold uninvited. He did come up with a number of things that I’m definitely going to have to experiment with. You just never know. I figured I might quiz him some more some other time, but it was getting late—or very early depending on your sleeping habits.

“What exactly is a Van Worm anyway?” I asked.

“Von Werm,” he corrected. “W-e-r-m. My family’s old Savannah. Former plantation owners, now bankers.”

Now I remembered. The Von Werms were one of the high-society couples who were regulars at William’s parties. I’d just bet they were thrilled by how their sprout had turned out. In fact, that was probably why he went around like every day was Halloween. Just to get under his folks’ skin.

“So what do they think of their little boy wanting to grow up to be a vampire?”

“I don’t tell them anything. They’re barely aware I’m around. I’d have been better off being raised by wolves.”

“Is that why the getup? To get attention from Mommy and Daddy?”

“When I first became aware of you, I was fascinated with the world of the dead. Goth culture was the perfect outlet. I made them my tribe. I flunked out of SCAD after a year and needed to be able to work and play at night and sleep during the day, so I took a position in retail.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“I went to work on the night shift at Spencer’s in the mall, okay?”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty.” He plopped down on the nearest crypt and was about to apply some black lipstick.

I grabbed his hand. “Oh, no, you don’t.”

“Why not?”

“That’s not the vampire way,” I heard myself say, like I was the Roy freaking Rogers of the vampire world. By now it was clear that I had no idea what the vampire way was. I just knew this kid creeped me out. And, like I said, I was a vampire. Not only did he look weird, he talked weird. One minute he was talking like a normal kid and the next he was saying things like “pleased to make your acquaintance.” The poor kid had indifferent parents, a spindly body, and a funny-looking face and was saddled with a name like Lamar Von Werm. Shit, no wonder he wanted to be a vampire.

“Okay. So why should I make you into a vampire? What’s in it for me?”

“I’ll be your servant. Just like Renfield in
Dracula.
And after I’ve proved my worth, then you can convert me into a blood drinker.”

I remembered Renfield in
Dracula,
the Coppola version. Who would have thought of Tom Waits as Renfield? Now that’s what I call casting. Maybe Werm could be useful. On the other hand, he might just be in the way. It was not like I needed any complications in my life just now. “I don’t know.”

“I can be an informant. I hang out with some pretty tough people. They know things.”

I laughed. “What things? Like what store in the mall has the blackest jeans?”

His dark eyes took on a kind of gleam. “Like who’s the new vampire in town.”

He had my attention. Since he thought I was the only vampire in town, who was he talking about? William, Olivia, or the killer? “Okay. Who?”

“Don’t you know?”

“Would I be asking if I knew?”

“Promise to make me one of you and I’ll tell you.”

This kid was as stubborn as a mule. I figured I could rough him up a little, but he’d probably made a career of being roughed up. I had a feeling it wouldn’t faze him. Besides, there was no time. Morning was coming soon and I had to get back to Eleanor’s to get a ride to the warehouse. I’d have to sleep on a way to get him to talk. And on his offer to serve me. Would he have to serve me like I served William?

“Okay, you little pissant, if you’re so good at following me, come and find me tomorrow night. We’ll talk about this some more.”

“Make me a vampire now!” he demanded, his voice rising. “There’s time. I want to be like you!”

I grabbed him by the shoulders again, lifting him off the ground. He was starting to piss me off. I jumped over the fence with him and hung him back onto the spikes by the collar. He’d be safer on the outside. “I’m going to leave you hanging here until daylight. Then you can call somebody over to help you down. In the meantime I want you to spend the rest of the night thinking about what it really means to be a vampire.” I remembered Algernon’s charred and staked remains on the deck of William’s boat and my mouth went dry. “Think about what would happen if you were a bloodsucker and some stronger vamp kicked your ass and left you here to burn to a crisp when the sun came up.

“I want you to think about what it would mean to have to live in the world of humans but never really be part of their world again, never to be able to share their warmth and the spark of their souls. To feel the heat of a human woman surround you but never be able to wake up with her. To never again feel the sun on your face. To be trapped by cold and darkness for eternity, cut off from everything good and decent, always on the outside looking in.”

“But what about the brotherhood?” he whimpered.

When I laughed I heard the bitterness in my own voice. “You think that once you become a vampire, you’ll be in some cool fraternity or something? Let me tell you, kid. Just because you’re a blood drinker doesn’t mean you’re going to stop being the last one picked for the team. If you think you’re lonely now, if you think you’re an outcast and a freak, just wait until you become one of the undead. Then you’ll really know what isolation feels like.”

I left him then, still trapped on the fence, his mouth gaping, eyes wide. I didn’t hear another peep out of him as I walked back to Eleanor’s.

Someone on their way to work would find Werm and help him down. But not, I hoped, before he’d had a chance to reconsider his career choices. Being a vampire was a long leap from selling Halloween masks at the mall.

In a few minutes I was back at Eleanor’s. Olivia and Eleanor were resting comfortably in the porch swing. William stood at the top of the stairs like a sentry. When they saw me, the women got to their feet, and William gave Eleanor a chaste kiss on the forehead before he and Olivia came down the steps.

“Jack, does this vehicle belong to who I think it does?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “Why the hell have you parked the mayor’s vehicle in front of a house of ill repute?”

“It’s not like it’s not parked here twice a week anyway,” Eleanor said, sounding a little peeved.

“Oh,” William said. “Very well, then.”

William walked to the SUV and his face turned dark with anger. “Why the hell did you leave that
collier
here? You were supposed to
wear
it. Keep it with you all the time, do you understand?”

“No. I don’t understand. Why don’t you explain it to me? Why don’t you explain everything while you’re at it. You know who this guy is, don’t you? You know who we’re looking for.” We were nose-to-nose now. I expected him to haul off and slug me—wished he would, in fact. Then I’d finally have an excuse to at least try to whip his ass once and for all. But instead of getting angrier, William’s face took on a look of sorrow. Like instead of making him mad, I’d hurt his feelings.