An Unattractive Vampire (20 page)

A hiss from behind alerted Amanda to danger. She glanced over her shoulder just in time to see the writer’s open mouth ready to sink its fangs into her neck. Yulric was facing the other way. There wouldn’t be time for him to do anything. This was it. The end. She was going to die at the hands of a pathetic little writer with no understanding for the intricacies of relationship chemistry.
I’m sorry, Simon,
she thought as she braced for the bite.

It never came.

A scream made Amanda open her eyes, just in time to get a face full of dust. Through her stinging corneas, she could just make out her brother, stake in hand, standing at the epicenter of the vampiric explosion.

“Simon . . . ,” she began, before coughing up some writer that had gotten into her mouth. Finally, she was able to compose herself to scold, “Simon, what did we . . .
No!
”

The Gorgon’s attempt to sneak up behind her brother failed miserably as the eight-year-old flung it into his would-be attacker’s chest, piercing his heart. Amanda watched as he, too, went gray and fell to pieces.

“Stop killing vampires!”
yelled Amanda. Simon gave her a look most younger brothers reserve for finding their sisters making out with boys.

Another scream sounded, and they forgot their tiff as they turned as one to stare at the vampires.

Yulric Bile had transformed into thousands of tiny white spiders. Nora and Cassan were shrieking and swatting as the bony arachnids crawled all over them. Phantom picked up a piece of broken wood and threw it. It hit Simon in the forehead, knocking him to the ground.

“Simon!” Amanda cried out. She wanted to see if he was all right but was hit again from the side, more gently this time but still hard enough to send her flying. She expected to hit the ground or the wall or something hard and unforgiving but didn’t. She looked up to find Berwyn’s face hovering above her. He had literally swept her off her feet and was carrying her out of the house. Phantom followed quickly behind while Cassan and Nora pulled up the rear, still shaking off the spiders.

Amanda was stuffed unceremoniously into the limo outside. The other vampires got in quickly, and following a double tap on the dividing window, they took off. Amanda was now alone and in the clutches of vampires. Finally.

• •

Yulric reconstituted himself just in time to watch the long car of the young vampires fade into the distance. Moments later, Simon joined him. The small boy and the old vampire stood side by side, unable to chase after them as neither knew how to drive.

“Where did you get a hatchet?” asked the vampire, referring to the weapon the boy was now holding.

“I always have a hatchet,” responded the boy. “Ransom?”

“Ransom,” Yulric concurred.

The taillights of the limo disappeared over a hill.

“What about us?” asked Simon.

“We wait,” replied the vampire. A crash made them turn. Stuck in the doorway was the very concussed Sanguina Marlowe.

“Wait for me, guys. I’ll drive,” she cried, making vroom noises with her lips and scooting a chair on its side into the doorframe.

The odd pair looked from loopy vampire to each other. Simon raised an eyebrow.

“Very well,” said Yulric. The boy skipped across the lawn, surreptitiously stowing the small hatchet up his sleeve. The skinless one was now alone, his thoughts on the horizon and what would come next. Behind him, a scream rang out followed by the sound of small particles hitting wood. Yulric made his way back into the house, being sure to tread in the ashes on his way.

The phone rang.

Yulric had learned enough from television to figure out how phones worked, in theory if not specifically.
⁴⁴
Through them, you were able to talk to others over great distances. They used to be attached to walls or in booths, but more and more these days, people were using little metal blocks like this one. All things being equal, Yulric had discovered how to communicate from afar long ago. The difference was, now you had to pay for data plans and overage fees, whereas in his day, it cost only the blood of three pregnant goats and a virgin’s left eye. The jury was still out on which system was better.

Cautiously, he picked up the device. His long, spindly fingers reached over to the Send button and pressed down. This was how to start a call, or so he’d been told. Then the “cell” was placed to his ear.

“Yes?” answered the vampire. He was not a
hello
type of person. He was not, in fact, a person at all.

“Is this Mr. Yulric Bile?” asked a woman’s voice. It was not the one he had expected. This voice was pleasant but formal.

“Yes,” responded Yulric.

“Please hold for The Doctor Lord Talby,” instructed the woman, and with a click she was gone.

Yulric hung up. A few minutes later the phone rang again.
⁴⁵
Yulric answered it.

“Yes?” he said again.

“Mr. Bile?” asked the woman’s voice. “I’m sorry. We must have been disconnected. I apologize for the inconvenience. The Doctor Lord Talby will be with you in just a—”

This time he hung up while she was still talking. Yulric Bile might have been three hundred years out of time, but he still recognized a lackey when he heard one.

After a much longer pause than before, the phone rang again. Yulric picked up. “Yes?”

“Yulric Bile.”

This time it was not a question. It also wasn’t a woman.

“Speaking,” replied Yulric.

“You’ve been quite rude to my assistant,” said this new voice. It was strong, confident, and properly English, which usually lent it an air of authority. Not here, though. Back when Yulric had lived, Anglo-Saxon wasn’t just a term of ancestry, it was the current political state.

“You shouldn’t have used her to be rude to me, Talby,” retorted Yulric. He could almost hear the other man smile.

“Touché,” said the Doctor.

Yulric smiled, too. Thus far, he had faced children and mortals, and the only real challenge he’d found among them was a mortal child. This one was different. He knew how to play the game.

“I assume you know why I’m calling?” asked Talby.

“The girl,” said Yulric.

“She’s quite safe,” Talby replied, mistaking Yulric’s statement as a sign of concern. “Both from injury and you finding her.”

“I doubt that,” said Yulric.

“Ah. You are referring to your ‘powers,’” said Talby. Yulric noted how far out of his way the Doctor went to avoid saying
magic
. “As with vampires, witches are open and abundant these days. A few are even real. I think you’ll find any attempt to track Ms. Linske will lead you to the nearest church.”

Yulric knew this. He’d already tried. “Well then, I assume you require some sort of ransom.”

The Doctor laughed. “So open. I thought for sure you’d refuse to negotiate.”

“In my day, ransom was common. Princes and kings held by other princes and kings,” explained Yulric. “A noble business.”

“Indeed. I must brush up on my history,” replied the Doctor.

“Name your terms,” Yulric demanded.

“The price for her release is you,” said The Doctor Lord Talby, who then had to deal with an earful of barking, shrill laughter.

Eventually, Yulric composed himself enough to respond. “I don’t think you realize what you’re dealing with.”

“Oh, I think I do,” said the Doctor. “Yulric Bile. Born sometime between the eighth and tenth centuries, last sighted in Shepherd’s Crook, Massachusetts, in the seventeenth. Supposedly killed a dozen times before that. Vampire, sorcerer, madman, and monster. Alignment—chaotic evil, whatever that means. Modus operandi usually involves creating a cult of thralls, with no other goal than the sowing of violence, madness, and death. How am I doing?”

Yulric was a bit uneasy. He had always been very careful to destroy any record of himself.
⁴⁶
More than that, he had thought himself unpredictable. That he could even be categorized made his newly re-formed skin squirm. He slapped at it, to be sure it didn’t crawl away. Skin dormant again, he made sure his voice was calm before responding, “You’ve done your research.”

“Actually, I couldn’t find anything about you at all,” admitted Talby. “Couldn’t even get the bank to divulge its information. I also use La Première Banque du Suisse, incidentally. No, all of this I got from Ms. Linske. Apparently, she did quite a bit of homework on you.”

Yulric frowned. The only thing worse than his enemy knowing so much about him was the girl and her brother knowing so much about him.

“Well, since you know everything,” growled Yulric, “you know how likely it is that I will just hand myself over to you.”

“You misunderstand me,” replied Talby. “I don’t mean an exchange. I simply want to meet you. To talk. Maybe come to an arrangement of sorts.”

“Is that why you sent the Phantom to kill me?” retorted Yulric.

“That was a mistake,” sighed the Doctor, “on so many levels. We’ve had to completely reconfigure this season to make up for our . . . losses.” The Doctor seemed on the verge of anger for the merest moment. He regained himself quickly. “You are too dangerous and powerful to fight, and so, I’ve chosen to deal.”

Yulric wanted to say “to beg.” He wanted to laugh and gloat and challenge this man. But he was careful, very careful. He nearly hadn’t walked away from the last encounter, and there had been just the slightest emphasis on
powerful
. The Doctor Lord Talby was trying to push Yulric’s buttons. He shouldn’t even know there were buttons to push.

“You mean to trap me,” Yulric said. It was not a question.

“Well, certainly,” replied Talby jovially. “If not one way, then another. There is an old saying, or maybe for you, a new saying. ‘If you can’t beat them, join them.’ We cannot beat you. I am equally certain you cannot beat us. Therefore, coming together is the only rational, civilized thing to do.”

Yulric said nothing. The same thoughts had crossed his mind, though he wasn’t about to say so. Talby likely recognized this and so continued, “Just come to the studios in Los Angeles, and we’ll have a little chat about the future. Our future. Anyway, must go. The bandages are coming off today, and, well, that’s another story. See you soon.” He hung up.

“Well?” Yulric asked.

“Duplicitous, at best,” Simon assessed. He was sitting on the floor, legs crossed, listening on something called a “cloned phone.” Yulric understood only that it had enabled the boy to hear the whole conversation.

“He means to lure me to his place of strength and kill me there,” said Yulric.

“Possibly, as a last resort. If you don’t agree to his arrangement,” replied Simon. Yulric appreciated how the boy’s mind worked when it was not trying to kill him. “What about my sister?”

“She is fine,” answered the vampire.

“How can you be sure?” asked Simon with a little boy’s concern in his voice. Most little boys, however, wouldn’t have added, “He didn’t offer proof of life.”

“Only because he did not think he needed to,” explained Yulric. “He fancies himself a great man, civilized, honorable. She will be fine.”

“We’ll need to know everything we can about Phantom Studios,” said Simon. He tapped a few times on his magic Pad of Eye and brought up a view of the entire structure.

“If you were holding my sister, where would you keep her?” he asked the vampire.

Yulric scanned the layout. “There.”

“The front gate?” Simon asked suspiciously.

“Yes,” replied Yulric. “She would be tied to it. Her corpse would anyway.”

“So, that really doesn’t help us, does it?” said Simon, leaving out “foul creature.” The term was implied, though.

“I suppose not,” said the vampire, very bored and not really caring. The small boy continued to plot and strategize how to rescue his sister while Yulric considered
The Phantom Vampire Mysteries
third-season episode “As You Wish” and the plot holes concerning who turned Phantom. After all, if it was Nora, like so many on the online forums insisted, then how could one account for the fact that in that episode she was controlled by the sire call of the Dead Pirate Rowan
⁴⁷
and he was not? He vowed to have Amanda post a “flame” on the message boards upon her return.

After an hour of careful study, Simon leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. “I’m afraid the other vampires have the advantage. Even if we were to cause a distraction and try to sneak past, I’m not sure . . . What? What are you smiling about?”

Yulric sat up and spoke only two words:

“Other vampyrs . . .”

Leaving a country used to be such an easy process; you would simply get on a horse or a boat or, if you were poor, walk and physically travel from where you were to a place where people spoke a different language. Occasionally, you might find yourself in a country where the border was fortified with various checkpoints and magistrates were charged with keeping out certain undesirables: gypsies, tramps, the English. This made a crossing slightly more difficult but was easily overcome by a judicious application of currency.

In the modern world, though, leaving required detailing personal information, which was checked, double-checked, and then double-checked again until they found some reason to stop you. It was no use explaining to them that you were a five-year-old girl in a wheelchair; if your name was on their list, they assumed you were really a six-foot, thirty-five-year-old murderer in disguise and refused to let you travel. And that was supposing you got that far. Identification was required just to fill out a form to receive identification. If you were an eight-year-old who didn’t understand why a library card didn’t count as ID, no matter how many books you’d read, this was a problem. If you were a one-thousand-year-old vampire with only a handful of cautionary mentions in the biographies of certain saints, it was impossible. Worse yet, those in charge of customs no longer accepted bribes. In fact, they became very cross when you tried. Alarms were pressed. Authorities were called. Guns were drawn.

When did everyone become so honest?
thought Yulric as he speedily fled an airport.