An Unattractive Vampire (12 page)

“They would get out of the way,” he said absentmindedly. He had just noticed a small boy watching him from the car in the next lane. He smiled, menacingly. The boy started screaming.

“Stop that,” scolded Amanda.

“Stop what?” Yulric replied, having adopted the appearance of innocence, both for her and the child’s parents, who were now looking at him.

“You know what,” Amanda said. She pointed at the windshield. “There, see. There’s the city.”

“Where?” Yulric asked.

“It was past those condos. You must have missed it,” she explained. “Just keep looking.”

Yulric craned his neck, trying to peer around the building in question. It was another ten minutes before he realized he’d been tricked, but by that time, it didn’t matter because they could finally see the gray tips of distant towers peeking out from around barely moving semis or just above YMCAs. As they inched forward, these monoliths of glass, concrete, and metal resolved themselves and grew. Ten minutes and half as many miles later, they equaled heights rivaling the cyclopean towers of R’lyeh or the ruins of Leng,
²⁹
and still the car had not reached their base. Higher and higher the buildings rose, not one or two, but dozens, stretching into the sky, some even disappearing into the very clouds overhead, making it impossible to tell if they ever ended.

“I may have underestimated the Dutch.” The vampire gaped.

A few minutes later, they were pulling off the road that ran alongside the edge of the island and into an area with an entrance marked by squat, brick buildings, which took up entire blocks. Amanda pointed to one in particular. “That’s where we’re going.”

“A slaughterhouse,” Yulric purred.

“Um, maybe. This is the Meatpacking District,” Amanda stammered, uncomfortable with his tone of voice. “How did you know?”

The vampire just closed his eyes and breathed in, trying to extract blood from the neighborhood’s history. He stopped when Amanda began to drive away from their destination, turning his breathing into a series of inarticulate noises that basically all translated to “Why?”

“We need to park the car,” she explained to the still-grunting vampire.

“But . . . there are cars all around,” protested Yulric.

“And no space for ours,” she replied. Apparently anticipating his next suggestion, she added, “We can’t park on the sidewalk.” The vampire fell back against his chair in a resentful huff. “Look, we’re on our way to a . . . stable for cars.” And indeed, a few minutes later they were pulling into a parking garage: a hideous, cement structure built specifically to temporarily house cars for a fee. Which came as a shock. He’d assumed, based on what he’d seen on TV, that such buildings were designed for clandestine meetings and brutal murders. Though when he thought back, there had been cars in those scenes, as well.

Amanda guided the car up, level by level, until they finally found a single, open parking spot. Carefully, she squeezed in the car between a Prius and a brand new Hummer, which had tried to take up two parking spots without getting a ticket. This meant there was an inch and a half of space on the passenger’s side to open the door.

“You can mist your way out, right?” Amanda suggested to the vampire. He gave a shrewd grunt of a laugh and then dissolved into smoke, just like she’d had in mind. The mist then crawled over her on its way out the driver-side door, which was very much NOT what she’d had in mind. When the vampire materialized once more, and Amanda was quite certain she wasn’t going to vomit, she, too, exited the car. “From here, we walk.”

Whatever smugness Yulric’s face had gained from his defiant stunt quickly evaporated as he put together what he’d been too distracted to realize before. “But”—his voice became a nervous hush—“what about the—” A distant screeching of tires finished his sentence for him.

“You’re not going to be hit by a car,” she said exasperatedly.

“They’re everywhere,” he whispered. The vampire wrung his hands manically, his eyes darting this way and that.

Realizing he would not budge from this spot until certain of his safety, she tried to calm his fears. “In the city, people have the right-of-way. The cars will stop.”

The monster folded his arms. “In my day, people on horses stopped for walls and spears and little else. Those who were inattentive or slow were trampled underfoot.”

“Well, that doesn’t happen now,” Amanda said.

“Why?”

“Because people are basically decent and good.”

“Ha,” laughed Yulric. “Times have not changed that much.”

“And we have laws,” Amanda added, conceding his point. “Mmm,” mused the vampire. “And how harshly are these laws enforced?”

Amanda had absolutely no idea. “Death,” she lied.

“Very well,” Yulric nodded approvingly, finally allowing himself to be led away. “Let us go.”

Woman and immortal made their way slowly, owing to the former’s footwear, to the elevator. The vampire clacked his long nails impatiently on a nearby trashcan with increasing volume while they watched the numbers descend. When the lift finally arrived, the doors opened to reveal a pair of newly minted twenty-one-year-old college boys. They looked to the left at busty blond Goth with a slit skirt and hooker boots, and their eyes spun to “jackpot.” Then, they turned to the hottie’s dead grandfather, whose eyes—to their horror—were also flashing “jackpot.” The boys nervously took a step back and to the right, allowing the newcomers to board.

It was the most uncomfortable elevator ride imaginable. For starters, the college kids were standing behind Amanda, which she knew was a strategic move on their part so they could check out her ass. However, this intention was being nullified by Yulric’s inexperience with elevator etiquette. Instead of turning to face the doors like everyone else in the known universe, he was staring directly at the boys, his sharp teeth bared in a malicious,
hungry
grin. Their brains short-circuited as the greatest forces that govern human behavior—libido and self-preservation—fought for control of their actions.

“Hey,” one of the boys whispered to Amanda, libido having unsurprisingly won out. “We’re headed to a party. If you wanted to, well, you know . . . ?”

Amanda appraised them both, then turned to Yulric. “What do you think, Dad? Can I go with them?”

The boy who’d spoken up immediately went white and shut his mouth. His companion scrunched himself into the corner, trying to distance himself physically and figuratively from his friend. For the rest of the ride, they stood tensely in uncomfortable silence, until the elevator doors opened and the pair of would-be Romeos fled, not even bothering to brush up against Amanda on their way out.

“What?” Amanda said, noticing the vampire watching her.

“How did you do that?” he asked, apparently curious how she had succeeded where the horror of his presence had failed.

She shrugged. “Horny guys fear parents. Everyone knows that. Can we go?”

“Lead the way.” Yulric bowed.

• •

Amanda was absolutely right about the behavior of automobiles in the city. Not only did they not jump up onto the far clearer walkways, but they halted even when pedestrians strode out in front of them in defiance of both the metal constructs’ potential for death and the signs flashing Don’t Walk over and over. They might honk their horns loudly in protest, their drivers might make obscene hand gestures or suggest you remove your head out of various orifices, but that was the worst you could expect to encounter from the cars.

One could not say the same of the pedestrians.

A flood of humanity filled every available walking path in the city. The established convention of staying to the right side, which prevailed on the roads, was here a mere suggestion, flouted as often as it was followed. In some places, crowds obstructed all movement, waiting outside tableless restaurants for pizza with toppings that appeared on no other menu in the world.
³⁰
They jostled, they trampled, they indiscriminately plowed ahead, indifferent to the ancient monstrosity in their midst.

A five-foot-four woman texting on her phone walked directly into Yulric. “Excuse me?” she snapped, making it clear that he was the one being unreasonably thick. With an annoyed sigh, she stepped to the left and disappeared into the throng, never even so much as looking up from her cell.

“I thought people knew about vampyrs?” Yulric said, annoyed at the woman’s lack of mind-numbing terror.

“Everyone knows about them, but hardly anyone thinks they’re real. Especially not the normals.” Amanda laughed. “To them, you’re just a thing that shows up in movies sometimes.” She smiled smugly. “Though not really, because you aren’t pretty enough.”

“So, when they look at me, what do they see?” he asked.

In response, Amanda drew his attention to a grubby-looking homeless man panhandling at the end of an alley. The vampire hissed in disgust. As he did, a set of stairs caught his eye. “Where do those go?” the vampire inquired.

“To the subway,” answered an impatient Amanda.

“Subway,” Yulric mused. “I will return.”

“Wait!” Amanda called out, but it was too late. Yulric had leapt down the stairs and disappeared. Amanda waited at the top, unwilling to chase after him in heels. A minute later, he reemerged, stowing a subway pamphlet into his robes.

“It always pays to be familiar with underground tunnels.” Yulric beamed.

For a fleeting second, she thought of explaining to him what a subway was, but thought better of it. “Are you done now? Can we go?”

He bowed his head and followed her another three blocks to the old, repurposed warehouse. The pair ducked into a dark alleyway that separated it from the building next door. Here, nearly hidden by steam, was a staircase leading down. At the bottom stood a red velvet rope and an intimidatingly large man.

Even seated as he was, the man was nearly as tall as an average-sized person and as wide as two. His neck glittered with gold, as did most of his fingers. Despite the time of night and darkness of the alley, he wore sunglasses, as if light was a meager consideration when compared with style. Not that he wasn’t classy; he was, after all, wearing a sports coat over his shirtless torso. Amanda called him a bouncer, but Yulric easily recognized uniform of a guard. And he had ways of dealing with guards.

“Stay close to me,” Amanda said. She descended the stairs. With each step, she placed one foot in front of the other. Not forward and to the side, like most people would, but directly in line. This created a sway in her hips that could mesmerize all but the most Yulric of men. In addition, she added a little extra force as each foot fell, so that she bounced and jiggled in all the right places. The bouncer’s face remained impassive. Yulric, who recognized the power of Amanda’s allure even if he did not feel it himself, made another note in his head.
A eunuch guard, then.

Yulric thought the man would remain as seated as he was impassive, but when Amanda hit the landing, he was on his feet, moving the rope to one side.

“Welcome, Amanda,” he said in a tough, accented voice.

“Thank you, Bruno,” she responded. She turned and waited.

Yulric’s descent was far less alluring. He glided down the steps, and in his wake, darkness followed. By the time he reached the bottom, his eldritch aura had warped the fabric of reality into a miasmal shadow that reminded the brain of a time when man was once a small, easily eaten primate.

Yulric stopped at the rope and waited. The eunuch remained seated. The vampire glanced over at Amanda, who merely shrugged. Unsure of how to proceed, he reached for the rope.

“Can I help you, sir?” The guard was standing now, right in front of Yulric, so close their chests nearly touched. Then again, the bouncer’s chest was such that it could touch you from ten feet away.

Yulric smiled. He’d gotten a reaction. Now he just had to play the right game. The vampire drew up again to his full height, which allowed him to tower over the man, and chose his words carefully. “I require admittance.”

The guard stared for a moment. It was impossible to tell what, if anything, was going through his head until he replied, “I’m sorry, sir. This is a private club.”

“He’s with me,” chimed in Amanda, helpfully.

The guard turned and looked at her with as much surprise as you could without actually showing any surprise. “I’m sorry, Amanda. I would lose my job if I let a lich in.”

Yulric blinked. “A what?”

“A lich,” repeated the guard unhelpfully.

Yulric, who didn’t think the man looked nearly German enough to be using that word correctly, turned to Amanda for explanation.

“It’s a term for a hideous undead skeleton or desiccated corpse,” she explained.

“I thought that was that zom-a-bye thing?” he said.

“Sort of. It’s like a zombie, but intelligent,” she replied. She thoughtfully left out the bit about it being exclusively used in fantasy role-playing games. Yulric, meanwhile, was thinking of the term people had used in his day to describe a skeleton or desiccated corpse with intelligence:
vampyr
.

A distinct lack of movement brought the vampire’s attention back to the bouncer. Yulric weighed his options. Bribery was unlikely to work. Those who accepted bribes were usually not subtle in soliciting them. Attempts at mind control, which had been going on for minutes now, had produced little more than a splitting headache, courtesy of the man’s fortuitous taste in eyewear. And given the guard’s physique and general attitude, a threat of violence would almost certainly be ineffective.

Which left only
actual
violence. With vicious glee, Yulric reached down and slowly lifted the man by the lapels of his jacket.

“Put me down, sir,” he droned, unimpressed.

Yulric smiled. “Very well.” His steely muscles flexed with the intent of flinging the man into the nearby concrete. Not through it, the stone looked very strong, but he hoped for, at least, a favorable splat.

A slight swish caught his cloudy eyes, and he turned to see Amanda giving her head a quick shake, indicating that such behavior was not going to be tolerated. Her eyes flicked down. Her left leg had slipped out of the slit in her skirt, and for the first time, Yulric noticed a small black strap. She subtly displayed her inner thigh, and Yulric was met with a flash of pain as the dim light of the alley caught a
familiar
silver cross fastened tightly against her skin. The same silver cross that had helped imprison him for three centuries. He cursed himself for being too distracted to wonder what had become of it, but of course, she had taken it when she’d dug him out.