Annie of the Undead (9 page)

As far as humanity was concerned, the people I’d
killed had probably been the good guys –vampire slayers and all.
But I wasn’t about to stand by and watch a new associate –even a
dead one, get killed in cold blood like that. The brother had been
sleeping, for Christ’s sake.

Sleeping and stupid.

“Do you make a habit of almost getting yourself
killed in bed?” I asked as he drove.

He answered in that other voice of his, the
distant one with no theatricality and no fun.

“That has never happened to me before.”

“Never been attacked by vampire hunters before
or never had them almost win?”

“They are not what you think they are.”

“I don’t know, I’m pretty sure that was a stake
that bitch nailed you to the bed with.”

No answer.

“Look, hombre, I don’t know if you caught this
part, but I just saved your ass back there. I’m thinking you’d
better cough up some answers.”

He remained utterly calm as he answered.

“They were hunters, but not righteous defenders
of mortal morality. They were members of a cult who capture
immortals to extract our power. They planned not to slay me, but to
enslave me.”

“So there’re more of them.”

He nodded, keeping his eyes on the road.

“How many more.”

“Many.”

My favorite.

“So will they come after us again?”

“Us?”

“Well, yeah. If you hadn’t noticed, you owe me
big. I’m not cutting out ‘til you pay up.”

“They will try again to take me. They have
kindled a spell against me. They will carry a charm, charged with a
mote of my own blood, which will lead them to me wherever I
am.”

“How’d they get a hold of your blood?”

“That is not readily apparent,” his voice was
suddenly charged with bitterness, “You must understand: This
situation is critical for me. They are not often as brazen as they
have just been, and they will not like for others of my kind to
know what they have done. It does not matter where I go; they will
follow.”

“They’ll want you dead, so you can’t narc on
them to all the big bads.”

“They would settle for dead.”

Then they would prefer something worse. It
sounded to me like this vampire had even bigger problems than the
quadruple murderer he was sitting next to. So much for his offer of
carefree nights of delightful debauchery.

“They cannot take me by night. They are mortal.
But they will try by day. We must run. It will take some time for
the charm to work if I am at distance.”

“Now, hold up. We’re just gonna run? How long?
Wouldn’t it be better to go after them? Kick their asses with you
vertical? Bullets seem to work on ‘em pretty good. We could knock
over sporting goods store, get armed. Let’s put them on the
run-“

I interrupted myself, breaking into a coughing
fit.

His cold hand suddenly touched my shoulder. A
little mirth returned to his manner.

“Your verve thrills me. The way you gunned down
those witches…”

“Can you put that hand on my forehead?
Ahhh….”

Fever, meet the undead.

“We will have vengeance for this transgression,
but the resting place of a vampire is a sacred thing. I will not
bed down in doubt. I will punish these hunters, but not with such a
weakness.”

“There’s some way out of this –this spell, then,
right?”
“Yes. Their magic is potent, but I hold an ace, if he can be
reached.”

I sensed that he was about to tell me something
he was hesitant to share –
someone
he was hesitant to share.
But he went ahead with it.

“He and I have a history…an intimate history. If
I can find him, and if he will share his blood with me, the blood
bond will be broken and their charm useless. Even if they know
where I am then, they would not dare to challenge an alliance of
vampires.”

Oh, goodie. Another vampire around. The idea set
me ill at ease, but it was better than being hounded by
bloodthirsty cult members indefinitely. Maybe.

“So how do you summon this blood donor?”

“I call his secretary.”

“Uh huh.”

“If he contacts her, she will relay my message,
and then, if he wishes, he will come.”

“Lots of ifs.”

“It is the way things are.”

“You can’t just go to him?”

“No, I cannot. Even if I did know precisely
where to find him, for a predicament of this nature, it would be
considered inappropriate, presumptuous, for me to do so.”

Inappropriate and presumptuous to ask an old,
intimate friend for help? That sucked. It sounded to me like his
associations might not be any better than mine.

“So what now, vampire?”

“We go to a prearranged place of meeting, a city
where other individuals of unnatural affiliation do not operate. We
diminish complications.

Oh, complications. I was fresh out of those
lately.

“There are places like that?”

“Some.”

“So where’s ours.”

“New Orleans.”

“How’s the grub down there?”

“Diverse.”

He paused.

“You don’t find our destination droll?”

“No. Why would I?”

He smiled a little, apparently pleased with my
answer.

“Never mind.”

All I knew about New Orleans was that they had a
big-ass street party there every year during which they got drunk
and naked and somehow managed not to get beaten, tazed,
tear-gassed, and shot by rubber bullets (the Motown heat never
would have let that shit fly), and that they had a big-ass storm
that brought on another national spectacle for the media to lavish
upon the viewing public. Whether or not Kanye West was right when
he proclaimed so boldly what we were all thinking when the
hurricane struck, no one could deny the indelibility of the images
of houses flooded to the eaves, bloated bodies rotting in the sun,
black mothers clutching dehydrated babies on overpasses, and
anarchy that burned Detroit’s Devil’s Night rep.

“You sure that’s the kind of place you want to
run to?”

“It is ideal. It is currently an open city. No
immortal currently claims ownership of it.”

“How do you know?”

“We try to be aware of these things.”

His teeth flashed as he spoke. He did not try to
hide them. I found myself for the first time, in what would be an
ongoing thing with me, wondering how in heck people didn’t know
about vampires.

“Government conspiracy,” I mumbled.

Miguel, who was fully aware not only of my
observation of him but of the exact thought going through my head,
said, “You will find that very few people will believe in the
unnatural even when it has them by the throat.”

“I did.”

“Yes. You are unusual.”

“I’ve had enough. I’m passing out now. Wake me
up when we get there, if I’m still breathing.”

“Rest. I will need you to keep watch when we
stop before dawn.”

“Just stop somewhere with ice.”

As he turned onto the snow-covered interstate, I
fell into fevered unconsciousness.

“Annie….Annie.”

I whimpered.

“Annie.”

I swallowed. Christ, my throat hurt.

“Annie.”

Oh, God, and everything else hurt too.

“Annie.”

A cold hand on my arm.

“Annie.”

“Ohhhh,” I groaned, “Go away, vampire.”

“Annie, you must arise. We are spending the day
here.”

“Leave me alone.”

“No, Annie. Open your eyes.”

“Rrrrr,” I complained, but I did.

And I beheld Ice.

The vampire held a whole ten pound bag of ice.
He held out a cube to me. I greedily put it in my mouth.

After three more, I recuperated enough to croak,
“Where are we?”

“Chattanooga.”

“Whatanooga?”

“Tennessee.”

“What time is it?”

“Four a.m.”

He put his hand on my forehead.

“You’re temperature is 100.6 Fahrenheit. Come,
you must rest.”

He helped me out of the car and across the
parking lot of the little roadside motel. I noticed we were not on
the interstate anymore, but on a quieter two-lane. The air here was
cool, but not frosty, and there was no snow to be seen. I noticed a
light blinking high up in the dark above the lights of the parking
lot. It looked like an airplane, but it was stationary. I could
make out a massive dark area beneath it where no stars shone.

“Is that a mountain?” I asked as he opened the
door for me.

“Yes,” he replied, as he shuttled me
through.

“Is this the safest place for us to stay?” I
asked doubtfully.

“Yes,” he replied not doubtfully.

The room was small, dimly-lit, badly decorated,
and had a seedy, smoky motel smell. I felt right at home.

He turned down the covers on one of the double
beds, ushered me to it, and tucked me soundly in. Then he set a
plastic cup full of ice on the bedside table.

“The rest is in the refrigerator,” he said and
turned out the light.

I could see his silhouette framed in the light
from the parking lot.

“I will return in two hours. Rest.”

I very rapidly obeyed his instructions.

“Annie.”

“What now?”

“I have returned.”

“Already?”

With the finesse of a slug, I crawled into a
sitting position and knocked back the cold cup of water that had
once been ice.

He touched my face.

“Your fever has lessened.”

The vampire put something into my lap. I felt
the familiar shape of a pistol with my hands. Then he set something
else heavy beside me on the bed, then something else.

I turned on the lamp.

The long thing was a shotgun, the handgun was a
.40 caliber P226, and in big green ammo box I found, what else, a
dozen boxes of ammunition. Five boxes contained .40 caliber Smith
and Wesson, and the rest was shot. The trove totaled over one
thousand rounds. I was moved.

“How did you know it was my birthday?”

“You did so well with so little last time. I’m
curious to see what you can do with this.”

He offered me a fresh cup of ice. I took it. He
was smiling.

“You expecting an army?” I asked, already
loading.

“They try to operate in inconspicuous numbers,
often maneuvering in the shape of house cats.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No. Never feel at ease in the presence of a
cat. Never feel unobserved in any place where a cat might be
concealed. Their most powerful weapons are magic, but they employ
them infrequently. They are adept with mortal weaponry, but, as
both they and I have recently discovered, so are you.”

“Short John had his own firing range.”

“I would not have guessed.”

“He didn’t use it much. I did.”

The vampire handed me another bag, as though
there was room on my lap for any more presents. In it was a set of
clothes, used but not dirty: jeans, a T-shirt, a sweatshirt, socks,
tennis shoes. Simple. Perfect. He had even brought me a big bandana
with which to confine my bush. So it was emblazoned with the Battle
Flag of the Confederacy –we were heading south, after all.

I stared at him, tall, thin, clean and finely
dressed, his punctured pajamas replaced by his walking clothes. He
looked sheik and dangerous, like a Fairbairn-Sykes dagger. He
dwarfed the claustrophobic motel room with his presence. He was
still rosy-gold from the prior evening’s kill. Or had he killed
again? His eyes sparkled like peridot.

Whose clothes had he given me?

He was looking somewhere off into a hypothetical
distance, seeing or hearing something that only vampires see or
hear.

“Dawn comes,” he said and sat down on the floor
beside the bed. I watched as he slid beneath it and out of view,
taking an extra blanket that had been sitting folded on a chair
with him.

“That’s a smarter place to sleep,” I said, “If
not as sexy.”

“It gets better,” he said from beneath the bed,
“You would not believe some of the places I have lain.”

“You wouldn’t believe some of the places I’ve
slept either.”

“The old way was to sleep below. The pyramid
tombs at Tikal. The catacombs of France. The sunken ruins of the
place once called Atlantis.”

“I was thinking more about the dumpster behind
Badd Burger, the floor of the crack house next to Motown
Bowling…Wait a second. Did you just say Atlantis? And you’re not
talking about the resort, are you?”

“I will take you there one day.”

“The resort or the Lost City of? You know I’d
drown, right? I can’t hold my breath for more than a couple
minutes. I’m not a vampire. I’m not a…Wait a second. Are you
implying…Hey, Miguel…Hey…”

I leaned over the edge of the bed and peered
upside-down at the blanketed shape underneath. But there was no
answer. Morning had come.

The army of bad pussies never came that day. I
laid in bed, icing my ankle, sucking ice, and getting up to pee
every ten minutes for hours, peeking through the blinds for a
glimpse of would-be do-badders, watching TV insatiably, looking for
word of a manhunt, or womanhunt underway in Michigan. I saw no
police sketches of my face or Miguel’s, nor mention of our names.
But there was a bit on the news about the shooting and the fire. It
was labeled as a business transaction gone bad. The receptionist
described the prostitute and her client who had checked in late at
night. Apparently, they had shot each other. A portion of the hotel
had burned so badly that details were difficult to discern, but two
unregistered firearms were found at the scene, as well as the
remains of two bodies containing lead.

Now I realized what Miguel had done so quickly
that night before diving out the window, and why he had disposed of
the odd corpse out. He had really complicated things for the
investigating authorities –maybe enough for us to make a clean
getaway, or at least a getaway. He was a smart fucker after all,
and very quick-thinking.