Author: C. E. Murphy
Category: Vampires
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“Self-preservation. Whatever’s been hunting us, I want at least one more vampire between it and me.”
“And you think a mook with a Tommy gun is the way to do that?”
Pain crept across Campanelli’s face. Emotional pain, the kind of bone-deep wince you get from dealing with a moron. He took another sip of wine. “He was supposed to be using wooden slugs.”
Everybody knew wooden stakes killed vampires in the pictures. Nothing I knew killed ’em in the real world. I almost said that. Almost, but I shut up just in time. This was information. More than I’d known before. Maybe more than Chelsea knew. If Campanelli was going after Daisani with wooden slugs, there was something to the myth.
It might seem strange a guy as old as I am doesn’t know how to kill a vampire. On the other hand, they don’t advertise it. I’d only learned recently you could imprison a dragon, and I am one. So vampires still having secrets wasn’t such a surprise. What I did know was they’re too fast to take down easily, and they don’t stay down. That’s the shapeshifting: it heals all of us to some degree, but vampires are masters at it. Subtle changes, not the big wallop of going from man to monster. It keeps them alive through injuries that would take out a gargoyle or even a dragon. If they get in a fight that bad, it takes buckets of blood to whip them back into shape after. Chances are their opponent will provide it, too.
“Still,” I said, casual as I could. “Taking him out in a public place like that? Even if they’d been wooden slugs—”
Campanelli bared his teeth. He wanted to talk, and I was in no hurry to stop him. “I was there. I was waiting. I had the iron, and that would hold even Daisani until I could bury him.”
Iron. Earth. Wood. A human’s heart would’ve given him away by now. I was cold-blooded with a slow heartbeat to match. I’d never been so grateful for that. “And nobody woulda seen you snatch him. You’re that fast.”
He sneered an agreement. Truth was, all vampires were that fast. No harm in letting him think a little more of himself, though. Not when he was confessing the elements to bind a vampire. “But the idiot used normal bullets, and that bitch wouldn’t leave his side. I’d just wanted Daisani, but now.”
My ears were ringing. Somebody said “Don’t be hasty,” in a tone I recognized. Teasing. Compliant. Unctuous. It was me. Snake-oil salesman voice, the kind that so many marks fell for. “Dame that loyal can be good for more than just killing. With her at your side, you could walk right into Daisani’s hospital room. Offer your condolences, straight-up and narrow. Put a wooden slug in his chest then. Let her see the mistake she’s made before she dies.”
Campanelli frowned. “They couldn’t stop me getting in anyway. I’m too fast.”
Vampires. I wanted to hold my head. Instead I lit a cigarette off one fingertip and waved the fag suggestively. “Sure, but what fun is that? Better yet, I can make you look official. Show up with a PI, everybody knows somebody’s got dirt on Daisani. You and me are the only ones who gotta know he’s going in the dirt. I’ll make it up proper. Hire a hearse, put a coffin in the back for him.”
“Yeah? You gonna bring the cistern of holy water, too?”
My gut clenched. Iron. Wood. Dirt. Water. Elements of earth, to bind a race that claimed they weren’t from this world at all. I held my cool by the skin of my teeth. “Sure. Not like it’ll burn me.”
“Why would you do that?”
I leveled my best stare at him. “You got any idea how long Daisani and me have been going around, kid?”
Here’s the answer: he took it when I called him kid. I nodded once and put a hand out. “Helping you out will rattle his cage. And you’ll owe me one. I like that.”
Campanelli considered that a minute, then walked over and took my hand.
I transformed.
***
It was stupid. Chicago was Fina’s town. Now she’d know I was here. But there are things a man doesn’t mess with, and a guy’s arch-rival is one of them. So inside a breath I blew my cover, destroyed two floors of a downtown pool hall, and caught myself a vampire.
Poor bastard never stood a chance. Maybe the concussion of air coulda knocked him away, but I had a grip on him already. A grip that turned from a handshake to a flattening. Like I said, vampires are usually small. Campanelli fit under my palm, gold-tipped claws pinning him in place just in case. I reached out with the other hand—they were a hell of a lot more dexterous than paws—and took one of the splintered ceiling beams down with claw tips. Tilted my head to examine Campanelli, then did something a dragon’s throat wasn’t meant to do: spoke English.
“Grey? You want to do the honors?”
She was quiet long enough I almost thought I was wrong. Almost. But a nose like mine doesn’t lie, and Daisani’s blood was still on her dress. She came in, hair tumbled loose from its waves so she was no longer sleek and composed the way she’d been when she’d walked through my door. Her eyes were wide and she was quiet. Real quiet. After a minute I knew why.
She’d never seen a dragon before.
For twenty years I’d been trying to make the woman’s heart race. Not with fear: that was easy. With desire. For twenty years she’d just barely humored me. Tonight, finally, I got what I was after. Shallow breath, pupil-eaten eyes, quick heart. She shed her shoes and climbed barefoot over my crimson coils while I watched her with one jade eye. Her weight was barely there, not even an itch. She walked along my spine to my shoulder, and slid down my forearm in a rush of satin whispers. Glanced at Campanelli, then met my gaze with a softness and a hunger I’d never thought she possessed. Then she put a hand beneath my nostrils, like I was a horse of immense proportion. I huffed. She laughed, bright trill of sound, and all of a sudden I knew Vanessa Grey better than I ever had. I knew what it was that kept her with Eliseo. And I knew why I could never hold her attention, when he could.
She liked a little monster in her man. Eliseo Daisani could be both at once. Dragons, no matter what lay within, were one or the other in physical form. That would never be enough for her.
But just for a minute there, we were in love.
Then she reached for the splinter I’d pulled from the wreckage. It was nearly as tall as she was. She took it in both hands and stepped toward Campanelli. He was screaming. Probably had been all along. It didn’t matter. Not to me, not then. I was too busy being crazy for this dame, this lady I would never have, as she lifted the stake and slammed it into Campanelli’s chest.
Neither of us expected him to keep on screaming. His whole body shuddered, trying like mad to change shape. To prepare to feed, but the wood held him bound to human form. Vanessa looked at me with an arched eyebrow. I shrugged a massive shoulder. She copied it, small and delicate, then tipped her head toward an exposed iron girder. “Wrap him up in a couple of those. Then dig. I don’t want to leave him here, but we’re going to need a gargoyle to help move him. I’ll call Biali.”
Campanelli screamed until the dirt filled his mouth. I shoved a slab of concrete over his grave and became a man again. Grey’s hair blew all around a second time from the force of air changing. Disarray looked good on her. Maybe that’s why she never let herself look that way. “There are local gargoyles.” It wasn’t what I wanted to say. But she wouldn’t want to hear what I wanted to say.
Her eyebrows went up again. “Can you trust them?”
Sometimes broads were smarter than me. “Call Biali.”
“That’s what I thought. Thank you for your help. I’ll send you your money through Western Union. Just let me know where you go.”
“Go?” The lady had brass balls, I’d give her that. “What makes you think I’m going anywhere, doll?”
“This is Serafina Drake’s town,” she reminded me, “and now she knows you’re here. Considering what happened last time, I don’t think she’s going to be happy to see you.”
“You weren’t even there last time.”
“Does that mean I’m wrong?”
She wasn’t wrong and I knew it.
I also knew the smart thing would be to walk out the door, climb a building, and take to the skies from there. But I couldn’t help it. I transformed again, catching Grey in one huge clawed hand so she wouldn’t fly across the room. Then I set her back on her bare feet and turned that hand palm up. An invitation.
Grey smiled. Then she shook her head and stepped back, arms folded across her chest. There was just a hint of sympathy in her eyes. A hint of regret. I nodded, and left her there with—just this once, just for tonight—the pieces of my broken heart.
But that’s Chicago, kid.
The Age of Aquarius
There is a madness in music. This, men have always known: that the beat of a drum, the shake of a rattle, the rise and fall of a voice, might waken something deep in the human heart and set it free. This is how a fiddle might bring a man to the edge of his seat, breath held against the last explosive moment of song; this is the reason for the instant of quietude when music ends, when the heart is overwhelmed and can show itself through no other means but silence. Such things are what have drawn the young, the beautiful, the faithful—faithful to music, not to a god above—here today.
There is, of course, also the promise of drugs and sex, to complete the triumvirate with rock and roll. All of these are why I am here, to spend three nights under a changeable sky and to gather strength and power from those who offer it.
My daughters are here for the same reasons precisely, and yet their reasons are far more base.
“Mother,” says the eldest. Eldest, but not by much. Nine months, less than the space of a year. Little enough time even by mortal standards, and my daughters are close to seeing their first century end. “Mother, ” Jana says again, and she is the less impatient of the two. The other, Emma, sways with the wind, her hands lifted to catch breezes in her fingertips. They say every parent has her favorite, but I cannot tell you which of my daughers is closer to my heart, the one I bore or the one I stole. It changes as easily as the light, and so to my mind, neither is favored.
Jana is her father’s child in looks: tall, with red hidden in the depths of her black hair, and with challenging jade eyes. They’re challenging only for their color: Jana is mild, thoughtful, steady, even shy, none of which her father is. She is also lovely and has no idea of it, which makes her shy charm all the more powerful. Men stumble to please her, and she hardly notices because her duty, to her mind, is to her sister and to me. She believes we need protection, and that she is the only one who can offer it. I think at times that we are her hoard: two objects of beauty, held precious. If that is so, I am content with it; certainly we are easier to carry than rooms of vast wealth.
“I am not keeping you here, child,” I say gently enough. “Go and play as wild as you wish. If you waken things you would share with me, I’ll be honored by your gift.”
“But what about Emma, ” she says in frustration, and we both look to the other girl, the one who still dances with the wind. She is my daughter in aspect: black-haired, blue-eyed, and far more beautiful than her father. And she is untethered, a drifting sweet spirit who acts on impulse and out of generosity, with little thought beyond the moment. Had I guessed the things my daughters might be, I would have been wrong beyond comprehension, as my mother has been about me.
“Emma,” I tell Jana, “can take care of herself, just as you can. Just as we all can.”
“But she’s going to miss everything!” Jana all but stamps a foot, which is more dangerous than it might seem. She is young and small, but even at birth she was as long as I am tall, and with a hundred years of growth she is nearly twice that now. Not in mortal form, of course: she is only a tall girl, as a human. But her dragon mass lingers, and her foot stomped in anger can shake the earth.
Emma ceases caressing the wind and offers her sister a guilt-free smile. “I won’t, Jana. Here, I’ll come with you now.” She offers Jana a hand, and peace is restored. I wave them away, and they melt down the hillside into a sea of gathering humanity. Hundreds of thousands of tickets have been sold, and hundreds of thousands more are coming. It is a pilgrimage, a thing that will never be repeated, though I know already that it will be tried. But there is a power in the first of anything, and the power of firsts is how witches are born. I respect that power, and choose to pursue it in my own way. I am not like most witches: they are born from first secrets, secrets so great they must be whispered once to release the burden, and that breach of trust is where my mother and her
ilk rise from.
A few are born of white secrets: the hundredth name of God, perhaps. But most are born of the blackest secrets: the weight of man’s first murder and of other bleak moments. A dozen or two, no more in all the world; that’s the rarity of a secret strong enough to beget a witch.
My mother is one such, and I am not what she hoped for. We daughters never are: we are lesser creatures, myself only the child of a man my mother later ate. If I am born of a secret, it is that we daughters cannot thrive under our mothers’ guidance. We must die to be free, and then our paths are our own to choose. But this is not a secret to bind me with, as there are a few others like me, and they too know the truth that engendered us all. We are something else, we daughters, and my daughters are different yet.
“You’re alive,” a man says behind me, his astonishment and pleasure clear in the words. An altogether more delightful response than the one his friend and rival gave me eighty years earlier upon discovering the same fact of my survival. My heart beats too fast just once, then hangs silent for the balance. Heat is rising in my cheeks, unheard of, but the man who has spoken is the one for whom I changed everything in my life, and I have not seen him since the day I died.
I look over my shoulder and laugh out loud. Not the kindest answer to his gladness, but I cannot help it. Fourteen decades ago ago he was beautiful, dressed in bright colors and expensive clothes. Today his beauty and brightness have not faded, but he wears the garb of the year, and it looks sillier on him than on most, perhaps because I knew him so long ago. His red hair falls nearly to his hips, held back from an angular face by a beaded headband, and he sports glasses like John Lennon wears, round and dark. Worse still, he has a goatee, golden-red and silky, and it is absurd. It goes with the costume, with the loose-sleeved and open-throated shirt, with the bell-bottomed brown pants and the moccasins, but it is absurd. I stand and offer him my hands. “You look ridiculous.”
Mock offense flies across his face as he captures my hands and bows over them. “Dozens of young women assure me otherwise, my dear. You, despite your cruel words, are ravishing, and I say that without needing to take into account your improbable longevity. How on earth have you survived? Did Eliseo—?”
“Do you really believe my mother’s daughter might need a vampire’s blood to live forever, dragonlord?”
“I would not dare to presume, my dear. And how is your darling mother? Still in Russia with her chicken-legged hut?”
“Still furious and prepared to hunt you, yes. Be glad she is a witch, and cannot cross running water.” A half-truth, that. Her hut can step over streams small enough for its legs to stretch across, and has been known to travel high and deep into the mountains to find the birthplace of rivers, circumventing them that way. But Russia, all of its great expanse, is Baba Yaga’s. She stays within its wettest borders not just because of the difficulty of crossing rivers, but because there are other witches in other lands, and they do not lightly tread upon one another’s territory. Not unless they know the secret that birthed their rival, in which case they tread and strike and rule.
“Really,” Janx says with interest. “If I’m not mistaken, you’re a witch and you’re definitely not in Russia anymore. How is that, if a witch can’t cross running water? There is an ocean between here and there, after all.”
I have a head too full of thoughts of secrets, and a need, now, to keep secrets of my own. I am glad my daughters are gone, already a part of the breathless mass below us. I do not want them to meet this man, not t
oday and perhaps not ever. Most particularly, I am not prepared to let him meet Jana, who is his daughter, and who was stolen from him before she ever hatched. I think he may never forgive me if he discovers she is mine, and that is a weight I am reluctant to bear. “I am not the same as Baba Yaga,” is all I say, and Janx rolls his eyes to the heavens in exaggerated relief.
“She may be powerful, but she lacks beauty, my dear. My impeccable taste in women would be called into question had I been so misled as to bed her instead of you. You are most certainly not the same.” He is willing, it seems, to take the answer because it gives him the chance to be flattering and outrageous, but curiosity piques in his jade eyes. I imagine he will make some effort to learn how it is I am not circumscribed by the same limitations as my mother. He will not, though, discover it today or tonight, or indeed during the entirety of this festival, and that is enough for me.
We speak at the same time, asking the same question: “What are you doing here?” and through mutual amusement I add, “And where is your yin?”
“Please,” Janx says with a sniff. “I’m the yin, he’s the yang. He’s here somewhere. Attempting to monetize the greatest social event of the century. Why would you do that, when you have all of this ?” He waves toward the flux of bodies, as alight with desire for them as he could be for any treasure. Jana is like that too: the things dragons covet are not necessarily as simple as gold
and jewels.
“Perhaps it’s dangerous for him,” I say to the crest of people. “Perhaps the pursuit of profit helps dampen the desire for blood. He has learned some trick, after all, hasn’t he? Something which lends him more control than his ilk are inclined to.”
Janx’s gaze sharpens in thought, softens with consideration, then sharpens again, suspicious now. “Do you know they’ve disappeared?”