I should describe myself. I had long hair.
It was wicked black.
My skin was pale, because I was a night owl. I swear I didn’t look like a freak. Sometimes I felt like a freak, though. As far as the measuring tape went, I was terribly, terribly average.
Description done. In the morning, I would get my stuff. Hair care products, etc. I gathered up my hair, pinning it up, and opened the tap. The pipes shivered. Some brown dirt flopped out, then it started gurgling. It took forever.
Finally, clear liquid spewed into the porcelain tub. It got hot.
It felt good, after the long train ride. I felt all of the fatigue wash away. All I had was a piece of soap but it was good enough. I bathed with the door open. When you grow up in a private New England Academy where the rules are strict––
I shook my head; I wasn’t going to hate on them. It felt good to have a place of my own.
Still––the one thing I missed was privacy. I had it.
When I got out, I tracked watery footprints to the closet, and put on a few new things. I hung up the rest of my pathetically meager wardrobe. Sadly, there were hangers to spare.
I decided I would remedy that tomorrow. Or the next day. But that was the whole point. I had days. The whole summer. I was free. It inspired me to make a new entry.
‘It’s me, Halsey. This is going to kick butt. So you know.’
I put on a pair of flats and went out the door in jeans and a tank top.
Chapter 2 – Lennox’s Point of View
I woke to the sound of my laughing wristwatch, feeling like the dead. Occam hadn’t wasted any time. By now he was halfway to Prague. You had to give it to the E.U. The open borders made traveling much more convenient.
The monster in my wristwatch may have slept in a coffin; I did not. My ablutions were finished posthaste. I had a lot to do today.
It was 6:05 p.m. The sun did not go down until 8:48. That was the kind of information it paid to know, when you had my condition. It would continue to lose a minute, each day, until the end of Daylight Savings Time. The Summer Solstice had passed a fortnight ago––my birthday. It was the longest day of the year. My own personal anathema.
Vampires are fat and lazy in these summer months. We hunt little and pass the time in personal endeavors. I was catching up on my Elizabeth Barrett Browning. She was a poet, the one who said, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”
I preferred, “Each man stands with his face in the light... ready to do what a hero can.”
Tonight’s errand involved vampers. While I was prepared to do what I could, I wasn’t sure about the face in the light bit. There was a statue I liked, in Campo de’ Fiori, where I lived. It was of the forgotten figure Giordano Bruno. He was holding presumably a magic book, and was deeply hooded and cloaked. As I was, now.
I made do with a stake, usually. Simple, effective, elegant. There was a leather loop sewn on the inside of my duster, especially for it. I could pull it and deliver a backhand strike in a single move. Or I could just rely on my innate speed, and invincibility. Nothing mortal could take me.
Occam laughed at such statements.
I thought about taking his car, but it was too large and conspicuous looking. It wasn’t built for the labyrinth of streets and alleys. Besides, it drank fuel.
I put my hood up, so it cast my face in shadow, and descended the stone steps, to the inner courtyard of Occam’s private residence. A large gate topped with pointed spikes protected Castle Occam.
“I have enemies,” he told me once.
I took such declarations with a grain of superstitious salt.
There was an all-alone-in-your-parents-house-for-the-weekend-so-let’s-party atmosphere to the old place. I imagined him coming home early to find people passed out drunk everywhere.
I couldn’t remember the last time I just hung out with someone.
Rome was not vampire country. It wasn’t anything. It used to be. But it wasn’t anymore.
The market at this time of night was completely empty. I had a bit of a trek before me.
I passed strolling couples with my head down. Romans had a word for such a nighttime stroll. Passeggiata.
I was in no hurry. On a corner under some scaffolding, was a street vendor who dealt in used books and images of the Pope. He sold every major newspaper from wire racks.
I bought one from Paris and Rome––giving him the coins that passed for money––and perfunctorily thanked him, before passing on. I had time to kill, so I decided to spend it at the place I liked best.
It was just closing before I got there. I simply walked in and never left. Everything was roped and gated off. Footpaths led through all and sundry. One monument caught my fancy in the early years. I liked to go there sometimes. It was a good place, if you wanted to be alone.
Tucking the newspapers inside my floor-length duster, I rested my fingertips upon the warm, pink granite, of the Temple of Saturn, and began the climb, curving around the column to avoid the last rays of sunlight. I made it to the top, and hid in a nook atop the architrave, unfolding the Rome newspaper first.
I was high up; it was silent and peaceful. I turned to the crime beat.
Emmanuela Skarborough, reporting.
There was a picture of her next to her byline. “Police today found the body of another alleged victim of what some are calling the worst mass murderer to stalk Roman streets in modern times. Peter Panico, if he does exist, has some explaining to do.
“So far the bodies aren’t saying much. This reporter did uncover one interesting new twist in a case which has so far managed to baffle local authorities. According to one unnamed source, all of the victims appear to have been bled dry.
“Exsanguination is a very rare method among serial killers. According to the source, the fact that all of the bodies have been drained, means that the killer is dumping the bodies, as opposed to randomly killing them.
“‘We have found no blood on, or around the chalk outline,’ said the source.
“The most famous ‘exsanguinator’ in history––if I may coin a new term––is perhaps Elizabeth Báthory, who, legend had it, bathed in the blood of her victims. According to trial records, she liked to bite them and visit other atrocities upon them.
“Romans are cautioned to avoid traveling at night––but, if you must, to avoid traveling alone. We will be following the case as it develops.”
I turned the page. What followed was a tallying of the kills, the facts of which I committed to memory.
This was a deep and complex issue for me, especially since Occam was right, and Paris would be sending more vampires.
(“I will have to report this––” Occam had said. “They will send someone….”) I decided to use my time wisely. Occam was off to Prague to see Massimo, a demonologist we both knew. Which gave me some time to myself. But I still had work. We had thrown a revenant into the back of Occam’s car. “He wasn’t directly persuaded,” said Occam. “But it will be good for you to study a second-generation carrier. If all goes well, I should be back in a month. From the Czech Republic, it’s on to France. I’ll send word.” He showed me his special Occam seal; it was on a cross he wore around his neck. “Correspondence may find you with my seal on it. Be careful of broken wax.” I nodded and he was off. The revenant would be ready to study in two days.
The next issue was the matter of the dead bodies.
Fresh corpses were preferable when raising the dead; it was this whole thing. If you waited too long, you might not raise something recognizably human.
There were other, more supernatural considerations, I wasn’t interested in at the time.
It followed, however, that if this necromancer was raising the dead––and we knew he was––then he was probably working his voodoo on fresh meat. Ergo, the obits.
A quick survey of the obituaries yielded nothing by way of any new leads. As for the desecration of any graves––none had been reported.
All corpses a
ccounted for.
I was out of luck. I unfolded the Paris newspaper next. How I was ever going to track this bodysnatcher, was beyond me.
Staid. Very staid.
Paris was inscrutable. If it had problems, they were of mortal making. All quiet on the supernatural front. I could imagine the kind of emissary the Lenoir would send. A real bloodsucker, probably.
I put such inevitable unpleasantries out of my mind and stood up, stretching more out of habit than any real need. The day––or night––was calling. Slowly, I began to run.
I ran for the pleasure of running. My duster swept behind me like two giant black wings. I began to flow, arms and legs pumping, the motion effortless, people, buildings, sweeping by.
I leapt across rooftops––higher, farther...
My fingers delved expertly into the folds and cracks of stone. It was keen and pleasant. I enjoyed it immensely.
When I stopped running, I perched, warily, beside a small stone gargoyle. He had fangs just like mine. We were high up. I think he shared the same opinion. That whatever waited below might possibly test the theory that vampires lived forever.
“We shall see,” I said. I descended the side of the building, feeling the wooden stake stowed across my chest. It had a point––to keep me alive.
I crossed the emptying piazza, and descended the set of stairs leading underground. A large white M on a red background declared one of the many metro stations strategically placed throughout Rome. Vampires didn’t like the sunlight. Sometimes to avoid it, we took up in strange places. Like cockroaches.
I was underneath Piazza Barberini, in Barberini Metro station, one of many stops along Line A. It was a long metal tube going down the axis of my vision, disappearing into shadow.
The scythes on my watch hand spun.
I passed the overhead signs going down the platform. People waiting on benches... advertisements for Hollywood movies... the rattle and whoosh of trains coming in and stopping. People got off and on. There was a guitar player, sitting in the middle of the platform. He had a collection of coins in a guitar case and was strumming his instrument.
It was just him and me now. One particular train coming in was covered in graffiti. He said, “Hey, man, welcome to the underground,” as it whooshed into the metro station.
I nodded. Beyond the ordinary tags, one bit of graffiti on the train caught my eye. A pair of eyes. Like they were staring at me. I had seen this bit of artwork before.
It was a reference to a bit of subversiveness called The Urban 411, a guide to surviving––
No, it was impossible.
I didn’t want to acknowledge it. The part of my brain that thought about these things, was playing devil’s advocate. Think about it. Isn’t what’s happening now, a SIGN? Things aren’t as they have been. The dead bodies. The missing people. Exsanguination. Paris is getting worried. Bodies don’t suffer the trauma these bodies suffered and not bleed.
I shied from the argument. Occam was going to handle it. I didn’t want to listen to it anymore.
I dropped a fifty in the guitar case. The broseph asked me what I wanted to hear. I told him to give me some sympathy. And he played it. The broseph played it.
The tunnel was dark but I was a creature of the night, so I did that.
A vamper was a vampire in fangs only. They were layabouts. They gave the rest of us a bad name. All they did was suck. But they had their uses.
I used them for information.
The one I was going to meet was named El Sid. He liked to call himself that. He often referred to himself in the third person.
Sid had been a used car salesman in Topeka. He hadn’t let anyone leave the lot without paying for something. One night, he sold a lemon to someone. This was 1976. Things backfired on him like one of his bad engines.
It turned out the purchaser of the Cadillac––that cracked its rear axle and lost the transmission, all without leaving the lot––was endowed with, shall we say, a life which will never end?
He bit Sid and drank his blood. But Sid had skank blood, as the story goes, and was left for dead. That night, Sid crawled into his office trailer to die. In the morning people wondered where “the Sid” had gone to––that’s what he used to call himself, back then. The Sid had closed shop and was never heard from again. But the people of Topeka enjoyed a resurgence of reliable, used automobiles.
Flash forward, and he was master of an empire on par with his ambitions.
Walking between the tracks, I found the place without much trouble. It had been made to look like any other part of the tunnel. But I knew its occupant; I knew Sid.
He didn’t bother answering when I knocked, so I set aside the false panel, and entered through the crouch hole. It looked like it had been punched out with metal fists.
The infamous ex-Topeka Trickster was relaxed on a rat-infested sofa with fluff and springs coming out of it. He was watching I Love Lucy on a TV with rabbit ears sticking out the top of it.
I said, “Hey, Sid.”
He didn’t bother answering. That told me something right there. I plopped down on a recliner next to him.
He was drinking a Blood-in-a-Cup. “Mind if I have one?” I asked.
“Help yourself,” he said, scratching his stomach. Sid was in a coffee-stained wife beater and pair of dickies.
I punched thirty seconds into the microwave on the floor and watched my Blood-in-a-Cup go through, rotisserie-style. The floor was littered with them. They were all half-empty and dripping everywhere.
When a Blood-in-a-Cup is exsanguinated, I told myself, it makes a mess.
“Mmm. That’s good Blood-in-a-Cup,” I said, smacking my lips.
I finished the fluid manna, and said, “So.”
He looked up at me. There was blood on his mouth and teeth. His eyes were empty. But I saw the telltale nystagmus.
“El Sid doesn’t think he’ll be hearing any more ‘so’s’ from you,” he said. He had a scratchy smoker’s cough; it translated when he became immortal. He looked away. “I home. I home, Lucy,” he said.
I still had the newspaper from Rome, which I tossed on Sidney’s lap. He looked it over, being all blasé about it, and pretended like he didn’t know what it meant. I had great faith the Sid could read. After all, he could understand foreign language I Love Lucy. That had to count for something. Right?
Actually, I knew him to be diabolical in a limited, self-serving way. The stake was for if things got out of hand. Not that I needed it.
It paid to have resources, which described my relationship with Sid to a tee. “I thought you said you knew all the vampers,” I said.
“I don’t know who is doing this,” he said, referring to the article about the serial killer.
“But you do agree that it is a vamper?”
Sid sat up. He temporarily lost his temper. I saw the little demon flash behind his eyes. Sidney was home, all right. “Listen, blood knight.” The derogatory phrase proved it. “You may have status. I don’t care. This is my place,” he said, thumping his chest. “You got me?”
I counted Blood-in-a-Cups. “Sure, Sid, you got it.”
“Just because the Lenoir––” he drew it out, just to let me know what he thought of them “––have seen fit to nobilize you, doesn’t mean you can tell the Sid what to do, my friend. I know about you.”
Somehow, I didn’t think so.
“I know they tell you what to do,” he said.
I held up my hand.
“Prancing around, in your little black getup...”
I put my hand down. This was getting good.
“I know about you,” he said again.
“Are you through? I wanted to ask you something.”
“Yeah. I’m through,” he said. His eyes blanked over. I had lost the Sid.
“Because I want to tell you about me. Enough to let you know that I don’t like being played, Sidney.”
No movement on his part.
“The Lenoir sent me here. Yes.
But did you know, Sid, that according to the records kept by the Lenoir, I am the only vampire in Rome?”
His eyes shifted and did the back and forth thing again.
“Do you know what blood status really means, Sidney...? Do you know what vampers really are?”
I could see him working it out. “I haven’t got a clue, Fang Dick.”
“They’re people like you. They were turned, for whatever reasons, and left to fend for themselves. Sometimes it was a vampire in a hurry. Sometimes it was some newb of the night who didn’t––or hadn’t learned yet, rather, about siring, and didn’t understand what they were doing. A quasi-vamper. An almost-Sid.
“Other times it’s some mortal attacking their vampire during the moment of embrace. The blood, Sid, it goes everywhere. Some of it may be ingested by the one left for dead. Unbeknownst, a vampire has sired an immortal. Its offspring.
“To put it in a parlance you’ll understand, Things Happen. Look at yourself,” I said. “How you became a vampire.”
“I got bit,” said Sid.
“More, more,” I coaxed.
“He bit me. I had a tire iron. I whacked him pretty good. I remember he got all upset. It’s like what I do when they talk back.”
“I bet that tire iron, when it hit him on the head, drew blood, didn’t it?” I said.
“He snapped it up and hit me over the head with it,” said Sid. “Beat me till I was unconscious.”
I could see it now. “He beat you over the head with the tire iron that had his blood on it after he had already been feeding on you. Sid?”
“I’ll be,” said Sid, realizing what must have happened. “I bet some of his blood dern got in my throat.”
“So the mystery of Sid is solved,” I said.
“I’ll be.”
“An unknown vampire mistakenly sired you when he thought you were on your way to the hereafter.”
“I’ll bet you’re right.”
“I know I am, Sid.” The next part would probably go over his head. “So, Sid. If someone’s biting people and draining all their blood...”