Author: C. E. Murphy
Category: Vampires
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/c-e-murphy/page,15,483568-baba_yagas_daughter_and_other_stories_of_the_old_races.html
You hear her tell it now, she stopped in the door and said “You have got to be kidding.” Me, I remember it better than that. I remember those dark eyes of hers, all anger and sadness. I remember the blood on her dress, smelling like a woman’s chosen scent. I remember the way she crossed the room, looking like a drink of water in the desert. I remember the press of her body against mine as she whispered, “You’re the only one who can help me now.”
Doesn’t matter who remembers it true. I remember it better .
It takes a stronger man than me to turn down a pretty woman when she says something like that, especially when he’s been waiting a long time to hear it. I got the story from her, all the sordid details as she wrung her hands and paced the room. I had a healthy appreciation for that, too: satin shimmered and shone in all the right places. The look she gave me said that wasn’t what she was here for, but maybe I read a promise or a hope in that desperate gaze. That was for later, though. Now we had business to discuss. “So what do you want me to do about it, doll?”
“Find out which of the bosses is gunning for Eliseo.”
“And then what?”
She looked me up and down, fierce and bold as a broad can be, and said, “Eat him.”
***
Now there’s two problems with a request like that. One is not even Daisani’s doxy could pay me enough to eat a man. Long pig, nothing: humans are greasy and the bones stick in my teeth. At least, that’s how I recalled it, and I wasn’t in any hurry to see if I remembered right.
The other reason, and this was bigger news, was that Chicago was somebody else’s territory. Even on the best day, eating someone on somebody else’s grounds was rude, but as it happened, Chicago’s dark mistress wasn’t any too fond of me. I wasn’t so much there on her sufferance as without her knowledge. And there’s not a dragon in the world who can transform to his serpentine form without alerting the others in the area.
I should know. If anyone could do it, it’d be me. So I looked Grey up and down and said “No can do, doll. Got a second choice?”
She smiled, and I thought maybe this lady had been hanging out with a vampire too long. Something had happened to the smile I remembered from yesteryear. Something bad. I wish I was surprised when she said, “Then bring him to me.”
I had a clear idea of what she might do in the name of love and revenge. Things we all did, maybe, except once upon a time, Vanessa Grey had been human. Sharp-witted and good at cards, but human. I wondered if this is what the Old Races did to humans they loved: made them more like themselves. There were proscriptions against dallying with mortals. We didn’t have many laws, but that was a big one. I figured it was to protect them as much as us.
But introspection was for gargoyles, and I had a beautiful woman waiting on my answer. I turned my hand up, scraping fire from a fingertip to light the cigarette. “You ready to bring down the whole Chicago scene on your head, doll?”
“Chicago can’t handle me.”
I believed her, but no PI in his right mind would say that to a dame. “It’s your funeral.”
“No.” She smiled again, that sharp smile born from living too long. It made her dangerous. Dangerous, and a little more provocative than a guy should find somebody else’s doll to be. “It’s theirs.”
Nothing’s ever that simple. Truth is, you can’t throw a rock in this town without hitting somebody who wants somebody else dead. It only gets more complicated when you throw my kind into the mix. Technically, we ain’t allowed to kill each other. For the most part, we don’t. There was that dust-up with the vampires right here in Chicago back in the ’70s, but even Daisani agreed they had it coming. I lost a lot that night. Some days I think it’s why I’m here now, doing what I’m doing. Other days I don’t kid myself. In a life as long as mine, playing the same role over and over gets boring. Sometimes it’s fun to be the good guy.
Not that Grey would believe that.
Not that I’d want her to.
So just to be sure, I said, “How do you know it wasn’t me, sweetheart?”
She took the cigarette from my lips. Broke it in half and smeared it under the sole of an expensive shoe. “Because you’re not a power here. Not this time. Maybe not ever, with Serafina Drake still lurking in the sewers. You don’t have any reason to force Eliseo out, and you know that’s the most shooting him can do. You certainly wouldn’t be trying to kill him with a gun, if you wanted him dead.”
I had to hand it to her. She was smart. I was about to speak, but what she said next shut me up: “So it’s not you, and it’s probably not one of us at all.”
It was the kind of silence you could hear a pin drop in. We stared at each other across the desk, me the dragon slinking around in human form, her the human who’d just elevated herself to equal with the Old Races. I
said, “Us.”
Vanessa Grey put both hands on the desk and let her head drop.
I’d known the woman more than two decades. Not once had she ever let her guard down that much around me. She didn’t dare. We both understood the reasons. So did Eliseo. But for the first time, Daisani wasn’t between us.
Dragons covet beauty, and things they can’t have. I waited, heart in my throat, to see which way this coin would fall.
“Us,” she said after a long time. “People who know about the Old Races. People like me. People like that bookseller.”
“Chelsea.” Chelsea Huo was a whole ’nother kettle of fish, but that wasn’t something Grey needed to know. “That really what you meant?”
She lifted her gaze to mine. Cold, for all that eyes that dark should always seem warm. Maybe that was what Eliseo liked about her. But I was the cold-blooded one, and maybe like called to like. “Give it up. You’ll never win this prize.”
I smiled. Anybody else would have backed off. Anybody else wouldn’t like the too-long canines. Grey didn’t care. She’d seen it all before. That kept me smiling. “If I help you, you’ll owe me a favor. I’ll claim the prize I want.”
“No.” There was something about being refused by a woman. Something intriguing, even after all this time. Grey straightened, a vision in satin. “I’ll pay cash, the going rate, or I walk out the door. A bum like you can’t turn down that offer.”
She was right. I couldn’t. Not because of the cash.
Because Eliseo Daisani was my rival. Nobody else got to horn in on that.
She saw the decision in my eyes. I thought she might invite herself along while I sleuthed. I might have even wanted her to. But she took a step back, became a shimmer in the shadows, and reminded me: “I want him, when you find him.”
I put a hand over my heart. “Whatever the lady wants.”
For that, I earned a smile. With Grey, the smiles were everything. They were the admission I’d landed a hit. That the flirting and the teasing weren’t completely unnoticed. When you’re angling for somebody else’s dame, it’s the little things that count. “I’ll call when I’ve got news.”
She nodded, silhouetted as the door closed behind her. I listened to her footsteps fade away, and then I stood, a smile on my face. Hunting down killers and thieves was a job, but this: this would be fun.
***
Grey had one thing right: it probably wasn’t one of us. That didn’t stop me from padding into Chinatown in search of a certain bookseller. They knew me in that part of the city, and not just as a gumshoe. I’d never shown myself, but for some of ’em, I didn’t have to. Humans weren’t entirely stupid. Sometimes they recognized the impossible on a level they didn’t even think about. It seemed to happen more in Chinatowns, like the Oriental knack for capturing our likenesses bled over into life. Or maybe that was just my fancy. Maybe I just felt more comfortable in my own skin in Chinatowns.
Truth is, you don’t want a dragon feeling too comfortable. It’s magic that lets us hold a human shape, but a shadow of all that mass follows us around. The more comfortable—or the angrier—we get, the more of that mass starts to throw itself arou
nd. Could be nobody had a hint of what I was at all. Could be I just had too much presence, and that would get me one of two things: respect, or dead. And dead was harder than it looked.
I swept into Chelsea’s bookstore feeling full of myself and knocked over a stack of books taller than I was. Dust drifted up and I sneezed. Another tower toppled. I held still, trying to reel in some of that self-satisfaction. Anybody who knows me can tell you that’s not an easy thing to do. But a third pile of books only wobbled, didn’t collapse.
Chelsea Huo appeared from between floor-to-ceiling shelves, mouth pinched acerbically. “Don’t you dare come in here again all puffed up like that, young man. Now pick up those books.”
No one on earth could call me young and mean it. Not even an apple-wizened Asian lady who never answered a question straight. I picked up the books anyway. “You gotta get bigger premises.”
“These are exactly the right size.” Chelsea didn’t help me clean up my mess. Instead she headed for the back, and after a minute I smelled tea brewing. That was as much invitation as I’d get. Books restored, I squeezed through the shelves and ducked under a low door into a peaceful back room.
I’d never known her to have anything other than a tiny bookstore and a tiny back room with a potted tea tree growing in one corner. The details of the back room changed, but Chelsea and the tea tree stayed the same. I sat down in a horsehair chair—Chelsea always had furniture you slid off—and she handed me a cup of tea I knew better than to refuse. A shot of whiskey couldn’t disguise the flavor, even if she’d let me tip one in. “So who’s in town I don’t know about?”
Almond eyes gave me a stern look over the edge of her teacup. “I wouldn’t stay in business long if I just handed that information out, dear boy. I take it you heard about Eliseo.”
“Grey came to me.”
The woman’s feathery eyebrows shot toward a distant straight hairline. “Now that is a surprise. That might even be worth trading on itself.”
I cursed myself a fool. Chelsea—helped. Helped the Old Races get by in a world peopled by men. Helped arrange meetings between factions who didn’t speak in public. Helped by spreading one bit of information to somebody else. I wasn’t sure anybody liked Chelsea Huo, but we needed her, and maybe, just maybe, we loved her. It was almost human of us.
And she was right. Vanessa Grey coming to me was a valuable piece of information. It meant maybe the woman who’d been in Daisani’s camp for five decades could be bargained with now.
I knew better. She’d been looking for a PI, not a dragonlord. It was her bad luck and my good fortune that she’d walked through my door. But even if Chelsea knew that—and I would lay good odds she did—the important thing was, nobody else did. So I tried to look like I’d offered that tidbit up on purpose. I even took a sip of tea to be polite. I could play along. “So what’s it worth to you?”
“You’re looking for Mario Campanelli,” Chelsea said, which meant it was worth enough. “Have you met him?”
I put my tea down. “No. The Campanelli syndicate wants Daisani dead? Why? He’s a new face in town, not even a threat yet.”
The woman had a dry look that parched a man just by glancing at him. “Do you wait for newcomers to become threats, yourself?”
“’Course not, but I don’t do it so showy, not unless there’s a statem…” A near-invisible smile twitched Chelsea’s thin mouth, and a million pieces fell into place. None of us would go after Daisani with a gun, Grey had said. None of us, unless he was making a statement.
I knew a thing or two about statements. “…have you met Campanelli?”
“I have.”
The last piece fell into place. “Son of a bitch. ”
I forgot to thank Chelsea for my tea on my way out the door. That was a mistake I’d pay for later.
Much later, as it turned out.
***
There’s a certain stillness that marks the Old Races facing off. Part of it is we’re inhuman. Nothing mortal can go quiet like we can. You’d think the gargoyles, who turn to stone, would be the best at it, but it’s the vampires who are really eerie. Their gift is speed, so when they stop moving it’s like the earth standing still. Normally it’s so brief humans don’t notice.
They noticed this time.
Some of that was me. The presence I mentioned before. The largeness that doesn’t fit in a single man. I filled too much of the pool hall when I walked in. That disturbed even the least sensitive of Campanelli’s thugs.
Lucky for them, I was there for Campanelli. I knew it and so did he. Our eyes met across the room. He went still. All other sound faded away. People cleared a path. It was the whole shabang. Coulda been romantic, if he hadn’t been trying to kill my partner.
“You don’t belong here, Dick.” Emphasis on the last word, like being a PI was a bad thing. Italian-American accent, about as real as my own Chicago bang-bang slang. Good-looking fella. Small. Most vampires were.
I put on my best smile, the one that makes humans nervous even though they don’t know why. It’s the teeth, too long and too pointed, like vampire legends. But real vampires have flat teeth. Campanelli smiled back, proving it, and everybody backed up another couple paces. Me, I took a step forward, and let the weight of my attention
land on Campanelli’s men.
The women I’ve known have described it the same way every time. When a dragon transfers his attention, it’s like he moves suddenly. Like force rippling down a cable. When I say the weight of my attention , I mean it. It knocked into Campanelli’s boys like they were ninepins, and the smart ones scattered.
There were more smart ones than I expected. The dumb and ambitious held on a few seconds longer, until Campanelli flicked his fingers. Then they disappeared too, scents lingering: booze, smoke, perfume, blood. All familiar in one way or another. He spoke, same words as before, but this time they were thoughtful, not a threat: “You don’t belong here.”
I could see him trying to figure what that meant. I didn’t want him to get too cozy with whatever he was thinking, so I interrupted with a mouthful of true: “Getting Daisani off the board is one thing. Trying to kill his human persona in public, that’s something else. That’s making a bad enemy. Why do it?”
Mario Campanelli stood and sauntered to the bar. I knew a saunter when I saw one: it was my kind of walk. Vampires didn’t usually dilly-dally around with that sort of thing. They got more effect by whooshing up, muttering something cryptic, and disappearing again before your heart even had a chance to jump. Then if they weren’t gonna kill you, they’d stand back and listen to the way it jumped when they were gone. Daisani said it was a thrill that never got old. I believed him.
But Campanelli sauntered. Poured us each a drink—red wine for him, about as affected as you could get—and whiskey for me. Keeping us in the roles we’d assumed. I liked that. But I still wanted answers. I took the tumbler, raised it in thanks, and waited.
“When was the last time you saw a vampire?”
Whatever I’d expected, that wasn’t it. Campanelli knew it, too: an ugly smile slid over his handsome mug, and now he waited while I thought it out. He didn’t mean Daisani, and he didn’t mean him. He meant any other vampire.
Now here’s the thing about the Old Races. There were never millions of us. Not like humans. Even back when we were this world’s dominant sentients, we lived too long and bred too slow to be that populous. Now what numbers we once boasted have been cut down by human expansion. It’d be a miracle if there are two thousand dragons left. I don’t believe in miracles.
And there were more of us than there were of the vampires. Good thing, too: one vampire will wipe out a herd, a city—a whole species, sometimes. They don’t do it for food. Mostly they’re like human children: it seemed like a good idea at the time is reason enough. If there had ever been even tens of thousands of vampires, life wouldn’t have evolved the way it did. That woulda been a shame: no pretty ladies like Vanessa Grey to while away the years with.
So you didn’t see vampires often, just because there weren’t many. I’d almost never seen more than a handful at once. Back in Rome, yeah: the decadence drew them like moths to fire. Here and there across the ages, they gathered where the pickings were lush and the people high-spirited. America in the twenties should have been big with the vampires, or London in the Gay Nineties.
Should have been, but now that Campanelli made me think about it, they hadn’t turned out in force. They hadn’t turned out at all.
“Chicago,” I said, a long damned time after he’d asked. “Right here, sixty years ago. That’s the last time I saw a vampire.”
“We’ve all gone missing.” Every word stood on its own. Campanelli had red wine at the corner of his mouth, like blood. “All but me. Daisani. Maybe a few others.”
“Van Helsing. Dracula. Everybody knows the stories now. You’re the stuff of talking pictures, Campanelli. Maybe they got smart and went underground.”
Thing was, vampires didn’t get smart. Daisani called himself the master of his kind. If he was, it was because he could control his impulses. Campanelli was running a mob syndicate, which meant he had to be the same sort. There’s a few oddballs in every family, I guess. But as a whole? Not a chance. Vampires don’t retreat.
Which meant something or someone had happened to them. “Van Helsing,” I said again. “Almost the greatest vampire hunter mankind’s ever had.”
A nasty fluidity happened around Campanelli’s jaw. The bones went soft, distending, before he got them back under control. “Almost?”
Blonde hair. Green eyes. An adventuresome demeanor almost crushed beneath convention. A hundred memories flashed through my mind, but I shook my head. “Nevermind. What’s shooting Daisani got to do with this?”