An Unattractive Vampire (22 page)

• •

Back at the Pink House, Yulric and Simon sat at the dining room table and pretended they could not hear the ecstatic singing of their new compatriot as she took her first hot shower in four years. The boy tapped on a laptop keyboard. The vampire rubbed his eye and looked irritable.

“It is misty,” Yulric complained.

Simon, completely ignoring the vampire’s moaning, finished his typing. “I’ve arranged a coffin for you.”

“Comfortable?” Yulric asked.

Simon raised his eyebrow. “We’re on a budget.”

“I have three hundred years of back rent and compound interest in a bank in Switzerland,” Yulric pointed out.

Simon paused in his typing. “Fine. Satin lining, it is.”

“Can you arrange for it to be picked up and taken to this airport of yours?” the vampire asked.

“Certainly,” Simon answered. “I just need to know where we’re going first.”

Vermillion (née Rusty) had never actually been to a vampire club before, never inside anyway. That was the unspoken secret he and his coven—correction, his former coven—kept. Every weekend they would go to a vampire club, wait in line, be turned away, and then head for the nearest Applebee’s before retiring to Grimvice’s (née Derek’s) uncle’s comic shop for some role-play. The closest any of them had been to the inside was when Sara (née Sarah) forgot her feminine-hygiene products and had to buy a sanitary pad from the ladies’ room. The bouncer had actually let Sara give her quarter to a much more attractive girl to buy one for her. The girl hadn’t come back, and Sara’s skirt had been ruined, but the quarter had been there; it had seen, and they all had imagined what the sanitary napkin would have looked like. It would have been black.

Now here he was—new beautiful face, new buff body, ill-fitting robes traded in for form-fitting slacks and a shirt best described as
flowy
, hair cut short and well gelled, eyeliner caked on—waiting to be let in. He couldn’t believe it. Literally, he couldn’t. Despite all the cosmetic surgery and The Doctor Lord Talby’s instructions on proper dress and behavior, despite all the lusty stares he was enjoying by hot girls and hot guys alike, despite it all, he still expected to be turned away.

The line moved . . . slowly, which was odd. Normally, it was all over in a few seconds. The bouncer would either nod and pull the rope aside or make no motion at all, which was your cue to start toward Applebee’s. The hopeful turned away, those who were too beautiful to need hope admitted, easy. Today, though, it was taking forever, and there was talking up ahead—loud, high-pitched, frantic talking. If Vermillion didn’t know better, he’d swear people were being allowed to plead their case.

“I nearly had him convinced that I had to run this inhaler to my sister inside,” one rejected passerby told his friend. “He actually checked the name of the prescription before telling me to get lost.”

“I tried the ol’ lean over and flirt,” said his female friend. “His hand moved for the rope. I think if I’d worn my pushup bra, I’d have had him.”

Vermillion stopped one of the ecstatic rejects walking away. “What’s going on?”

“New bouncer,” said the reject, flipping his dyed black hair out of his eyes, which were also black.

“What happened to Bruno?”

“Oh, you know . . . nothing,” muttered the reject with a wink-wink at the end. He snickered, obviously assuming that Vermillion would not understand.

“What kind of nothing?” he pressed, adding a rather pointed wink-wink of his own. The other man’s eyes went wide at the sight of the countersign marking those who “knew.”
⁴⁹

“You didn’t hear?” the reject leaned forward conspiratorially. “A lich came by a few weeks ago.”

“A lich?” whispered Vermillion. He’d always thought liches were role-playing-game inventions.

The reject, who’d thought the same, continued, “It sneaked in, tore the place apart, and killed Bruno and Tony before the real vampires scared it away.”

“They’re dead?”

“Yeah,” sighed the reject. “They’re taking up a collection for Tony’s girlfriend up at the front. Give if you can.”

“I will. Thanks.”

“Anytime,” replied the reject. The two awkwardly stood there for a minute before the reject gave a small wave and walked away. Vermillion kicked himself. He hadn’t been authoritative enough with his dismissal. He’d work on that in the mirror later.

The line moved forward again, this time dramatically enough for him to reach the stairs.

A large group must have been turned away
. He was right. Coming up the other side of the staircase was his old coven. Vermillion’s heart beat faster. It seemed like a million years since he had last seen them: Grimvice and Ulster, Phoenix and Gorellis. There were his friends, all chatting excitedly about how Phoenix, pretending to faint, had almost gotten them inside. He wanted to call out to them. He wanted to show them what he’d become. He wasn’t really sure why he didn’t, why he watched them walk by. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that not one of them recognized him. “Rusty?”

Well, almost.

Vermillion turned back around to find Sara standing up from tying the strap on one of her knee-high boots. Her face was all astonishment—wide eyes, comically open mouth. Even her nostrils were somehow astonished.

“Rusty?” she repeated, moving slowly toward him.

Sara was not what anyone would call a conventional beauty. She was a big woman, structurally speaking, very tall, very broad, and pleasantly soft, despite being so literally big boned. She may not have had the symmetrical facial features that inspire misspellings like
hott
or
phat
,
⁵⁰
but she was, in fact, quite pretty, if you could get past the lathered-on Goth makeup, which reeked of desperation. She might not have turned your head immediately, but she tended to grow on you over time, until one day, her smile made you wonder why you’d never asked her out. For Rusty, the answer to that question had always been found looking back at him in a mirror.

“Rusty, is that you?” she asked, adjusting the top of her dress. Vermillion raised an eyebrow, just like he’d practiced, and she realized her mistake. “Sorry. I mean, Vermillion.”

“Hello, Sara,” he greeted her.

“Oh. My. God,” she said with a hug. It was one of her patented big, tight hugs, which went on a fraction longer than you thought it would. Rusty had always liked that.

“Look at you,” she continued. “Wow. I mean, wow.”

She was pressing his pecs with her finger. Vermillion tried not to flex. Too much.

“What happened to you?” she asked him. “You fell off the face of the earth. We thought you’d gone Darkmyst on us.”

“You what?” he replied, anger rising in his voice. “How could you even think I was like that traitor?”

Sara’s face turned apologetic. “Sorry. It’s just no one could get a hold of you for the longest time. So I thought, er, we thought . . .” She trailed off and looked away, ashamed apparently of what she had thought. “But, obviously, now we know where you were—the gym.”

“Yeah. The gym,” Vermillion said in an all-too-Rusty tone.

“You look great,” Sara complimented.

“Thanks,” he said. “You, too.”

“Oh please.” Sara laughed. “I look the same. You, though. Did you get a nose job?”

“It’s good to see you,” Vermillion said, quickly changing the subject.

“Yeah. Hey, listen . . . ,” she began.

“Um, the line,” interrupted a cadre of Goth schoolgirls in high heels behind him. Vermillion looked to see that the line had moved. In fact, ahead of him, there was no line. The new bouncer motioned him forward, the rope in hand, ready to let him in.

“Go ahead,” he told the girls. They filed past, being sure to let their chests brush up against him as they did. The last one gave him a little wink.

“Anyway,” continued Sara, looking after the girls with utter loathing, “we were all heading over to Applebee’s, if you want to join us after you get rejected.”

“Um, I don’t think I’m going to be rejected,” he said, trying to put it as delicately as possible.

“No,” she said with a frown, “I don’t suppose you will. Oh well. It was . . . just . . . It was good to see you, Rusty. I mean, Vermillion.”

She started to go.

“Wait,” Vermillion called after her. He grabbed her wrist, and electricity shot through his body. He was normally very careful not to touch anyone, least of all Sara. This physical contact, it was . . . nice. By the doe-eyed look on Sara’s face, she thought so, too.

“I guess I could go with you guys,” he continued, trying to sound casual. “I mean, I haven’t seen you in a couple of months.”

“Great. That’s”—she couldn’t seem to find the right word—“great. Grimvice just picked up the new expansion, and we—”

She was interrupted by the ring of Vermillion’s phone. He checked the ID.

The Doctor Lord Talby.

“I’ve got to . . . ,” he said apologetically.

“Yeah, of course,” she replied with a bit too much gusto. All the nervous energy was apparently going to her head.

Vermillion answered the phone.

“Hello, Vermillion.” The Doctor’s smooth, accented voice put a chill in his heart.

“Doctor, hey,” Vermillion replied cautiously.

“Excuse me?” said Talby in a sterner voice.

“I mean, hello,” he corrected himself. “How can I help you?”

“As ever, it is I who can help you,” said the Doctor. “May I ask why you have not yet entered the club?”

Vermillion looked around suspiciously.

“There was a line,” he explained.

“My dear Vermillion, do we wait in lines?”

“No, Doctor. Sorry.”

“Try to remember that for next time,” said Talby.

“I will.”

“The line appears to have gone down, though. May I ask why you remain at the top of the stairs?”

Vermillion’s suspicions were confirmed. The Doctor Lord Talby was watching him. A more thorough glance revealed a camera on the top of the adjoining building.

“I was, uh, talking. To an old friend.”

“Indeed? And what does she think of you?”

Vermillion turned to look at Sara. She was standing a bit off to the side, obviously trying to find ways not to eavesdrop. Currently, she was adjusting her stockings. His mind filled with white noise for a moment. When he came back, he remembered the Doctor had asked him a question.

“She, uh, she’s impressed,” he answered, barely remembering what had been asked.

“I should think so,” said the Doctor. “I worked very hard on you. You worked very hard on you. And now you are a masterpiece.”

“Um, yeah. Yes, I mean.”

There was a pause on the line.

“Did she say anything else?” asked The Doctor Lord Talby.

He knows!
Vermillion thought.
This is a test and he knows.

“Well,” he said hesitantly, “she invited me to go . . . hang out.”

Sara smiled at this, then covered it up and went back to not listening.

There was a sigh on the other end of the phone. A long, disappointed sigh. Followed by tuts. “And I assume you were going to accept said invitation?”

“Yes,” Vermillion answered. “I mean, I’ve been away, and it’s been so long since my coven’s seen me so . . .”

“Your old coven, you mean,” Talby corrected.

“Yes, of course, my old coven,” he said quickly. The Doctor sighed again, prompting Vermillion to ask, “Is there something wrong?”

“Well, it has been even longer since your new coven saw you. Ever, in fact.”

“Oh!” he exclaimed. He’d been told only to come to the club. He’d had no idea that
this
might be happening tonight.

“Yes,
oh
, indeed,” said the Doctor. “It was meant to be a surprise, but as you were about to run away with your ‘bigboned’ friend, I thought it best to intervene.”

“Oh,” said Vermillion again. He looked back at Sara. She smiled a worried little smile.

“I—I don’t think I’m ready, sir,” he said.

“You are more ready than I was.”

“I don’t suppose we could do this tomorrow?” asked the soon-to-be vampire.

“Karos is waiting for you inside,” said Talby.

“It’s just . . . ,” began Vermillion.

“The girl?” the Doctor completed his thought.

“Yeah.”

“Do not worry. This happens to everyone. It’s the confidence your newfound beauty gives you. The first thing you want to do is find someone you’ve pined over for so long and play out your every romantic fantasy.” The Doctor paused. “It is, of course, an urge you must resist.” Vermillion’s heart fell.

“My dear Vermillion, you could run off and indulge these feelings you’ve harbored, but what then? You have a grander destiny, one that she is not a part of. Would you really want to use her like that?”

He wasn’t thinking about using her. Well, he was, but he was also thinking about other things: eating together, walking together, the two of them reading on a couch with her legs draped over his. He didn’t think that was using her. He tried to plead with the Doctor. “I don’t suppose—”

“No,” the Doctor said sternly.

“You didn’t let me finish,” he said, his voice rising.

“You were going to ask me if I could turn her, as well, were you not?”

“Well, yes,” answered a mollified Vermillion.

“No,” said Talby again.

“But—”

The Doctor cut across him. “Vermillion, I watched for a long time before choosing you for our ranks. I watched your friends, as well. At that point, I was not sure which, if any, of you might be worthy. Of all of them, only you had the will and strength of the vampire.”

Vermillion wasn’t convinced. He didn’t really think he was better than any of his friends. Well, looks-wise, he was
now
, but that was only because of all he’d done these past few months.

“You are thinking that you are not better than any of your friends,” said the Doctor with a disconcerting amount of insight. “You are thinking that any of them would be worthy if they had gone through what you have gone through, if they had endured what you have endured.”

He did not answer. He didn’t have to. The Doctor continued. “But that is the point, Vermillion, the very point. They would not have endured, would not have done all that you have.
She
would not have, because deep down, she believes that there is nothing wrong with her. She has bought the lie people today tell themselves to feel good. Think of what you were. Think of Rusty. Do you really believe that he was equal to what you have become? To Vermillion?” He shook his head.