She shrugged, annoyed at both his disdain and her own provincialism. “And that was over a century ago?” she said at last.
He nodded, and for a moment his voice turned wistful. “For men time is a river, with a beginning and an end. For us it is an ocean with an infinity of shores. It is often difficult to measure the progress of a journey with no end.” He smiled and shrugged. “But no matter.”
Fauvette nodded, but inside she wondered how much of this was true. Could he really transform into a wolf, or summon a storm at will? And if he could . . . could he also teach her to do it? After all, he was right about the sunlight. “So how did you end up here?”
“Ah, that is interesting. And there are parts of the story I do not yet know or fully understand. One man truly defeated me, long ago, in the hills of Wales. Sir Francis Colby.” He produced the crucifix dagger from his pocket. “He drove
this into my heart, believing its nonsensical religious significance would destroy me. It did stop me, and sent me into oblivion as he wished. However, I was revived when the object was finally removed, after much time had passed.”
“You got a
knife
in the
heart
and it didn’t kill you?” she said with disbelief. “Why?”
“I do not know for certain. I believe, based on what I know of our physiology, that the dagger was simply too thin and sharp to do enough raw damage. But I do not know for sure, and may never know.”
She licked her lips and leaned close. Quietly she asked, “Did you go to hell?”
He could think of no way to describe the terrifying void in which he’d spent the previous sixty years. It was certainly not the prosaic hell taught of in Christianity. “Yes,” he said simply. “But it was not as the Bible described it.”
“And how long were you there?”
“I was sealed in a coffin for almost sixty years. I awoke only days ago.”
“Wow.” She started to reach for his hand, but caught herself and shook off the sympathy. “Well, at least you had some money stashed away.”
He smiled. “No, my dear, I had no money.”
“Then how did you afford that motel room and all these clothes?”
“I am a predator. I take what I want.”
“Oh,” she said in a small voice.
“May I ask
you
another question?” he said. “I first observed you in the alley behind that social club near your warehouse. You appeared . . . ill. I assumed that was the reason you kept feeding until your victim died.”
“You were spying on me?”
“I was observing you. You were the first vampire I encountered, and your conduct was so odd it attracted my attention.”
“Oh, and I suppose you don’t ever kill your victims?” she snapped defensively. “You just brainwash them like that girl at the motel?”
His tone remained smooth. “In one sense I suppose I am like a
vyrdolak
. I wait for approval, tacit or otherwise, from the young ladies on whom I feed. And judging from the response of my current paramour, Lee Ann, that consent is much easier to obtain now than in Victorian times. But I have also found that blood given freely is the sweetest blood of all.” He turned serious. “Despite your valiant effort, I have not forgotten my earlier question. What was wrong with you that night?”
She shrugged. “I was just tired, I guess. And then Toddy gave me some of this gray powder, and it made me even more depressed.”
“Gray powder?”
“Yeah, like sugar or something, except it tasted bitter.”
“You consumed it?”
She nodded.
“And if
affected
you?”
She nodded again. “I don’t know how to describe it, it just kind of made the hunger go away, so I didn’t want blood anymore. And it also made me feel more . . . aware of myself. In a bad way. I
felt
like a real walking corpse, like something dead, unclean, un
holy
. So I stopped caring.”
Zginski leaned closer, his concern obvious. “Where did your friend acquire this gray powder?”
“He never told me. Then he died.”
“He
died
? How?”
“He just . . . died. They found him one morning in an alley, dead. Mark said he read it in the paper. He still looked like he did when he first became one of us, so it attracted a little attention.”
“Had he also consumed this gray powder?”
“Yeah. It didn’t seem to depress him like it did me.”
Zginski frowned in thought. The greatest danger vampires faced was discovery by a world quite content to deny their existence. If this substance caused vampires to drop dead almost willingly, it was a threat to them all, including his biggest priority, himself. “Do you have any of this powder left?”
She nodded. “I have some back where I sleep, at the warehouse.”
“Will you take me there?”
She bit her lip before answering. “Uh . . . Mark, he’s kind of our leader, doesn’t like it when strangers show up.”
“I will deal with him.”
“No, that’s not what I mean, I just mean he . . . worries a lot. But I suppose you have to meet him sometime.”
Zginski stood and offered Fauvette his hand. His smile was warm, friendly, and genuine, with no hint of his true thoughts. He would learn more about this gray powder and, if necessary, eliminate any who knew of it, including Fauvette. But all that could wait a bit. “Fauvette, you have helped me immensely. As a reward, we will wander the streets of this Memphis just as Antony and Cleopatra might have done their own, and judge the qualities of people as they did. Then we will go to your warehouse before sundown, so that we may be there to greet your friends when they emerge, and learn the truth of this gray powder.”
She wanted to insist that she go to the warehouse first and explain things to the others, but he held her eyes until she nodded. For a moment Fauvette had relaxed, believing Zginski liked and trusted her; but now she knew she was as much his prisoner as if he held her in a cage.
T
HEY EMERGED FROM
the park and strolled down the sidewalk as the streets filled with early-morning traffic. Few people actually worked in downtown Memphis, so the gridlock was brief and intermittent. For Zginski the noise and stench from the combustion engines was overwhelming, worse than even the coal-burning furnaces he remembered in European cities. That smoke had been heavy and almost tangible; this was thin and scalding. He wondered what evolutionary changes man might make to continue existing in such filth.
Still, he got no sense of wild joy from these vehicles the way he did riding with Lee Ann. These drivers looked sullen and miserable, as if resisting the urge to speed from place to place, hair blowing and music turned up loud, had killed something fundamental in them.
Fauvette discreetly observed a pair of prostitutes tottering down the street, talking animatedly about their night just like any other workers at the end of their shift. Both gave Fauvette a cursory, contemptuous glance. They assumed she was a runaway teen with her first john, and it was never too early to defend your territory. If they’d known she was
merely entranced by the colors of their spandex and sequins, they would’ve been even pissier.
At the corner, the headline inside a newspaper rack proclaimed
Joint U.S.-Russian Space Flight On Schedule
. Zginski knelt to peer through the machine’s scratched plastic window. An illustration showed a spiderlike craft against a background of stars, with a hammer-and-sickle on one side and an American flag on the other. It took several moments for the story to register on Zginski’s consciousness, and when it did, he felt his stomach drop. Man had
left the planet
. America was now going into space on a regular basis, and apparently the Russians were there as well. Technology had leaped so far he could now barely comprehend it, and for the first time he wondered if he could ever truly fit in again, let alone regain his previous stature in society.
Fauvette watched a pigeon land on the sidewalk to peck at a discarded half donut. The birds lived in the warehouse, of course, and she’d seen them startled from their sleep many times. But this was the first time she could recall seeing one going about its normal business, head bobbing in blank-faced determination. It struck her as incredibly beautiful.
“Hey, other people might want a paper, too, y’know,” said a wide-shouldered black man clad in stained coveralls with
CITY WORKS DEPARTMENT
stenciled on the front pocket. He scowled in annoyance, clearly used to his physical size doing most of the work of intimidation.
Zginski stood and faced the man with narrowed eyes. “Did you speak to me?” he said in a tone of supreme, complete authority, despite being a good eight inches shorter.
It had the expected effect. “You need to borrow fifteen cents, is that it?” the man said, sarcasm dripping from the words. “Nothing smaller than a twenty-dollar bill in your pockets? Well, maybe you shouldn’t come downtown where the po’ folks are.”
Fauvette took Zginski’s arm. “Come on, let’s go—”
Zginski did not move, but merely fixed his gaze on the bigger man. “I am not finished,” he said through tightly clenched teeth. “When I am, then
you
may have access to this machine.”
The man’s eyes opened wide in surprise, hostility, and amusement. A fight was clearly what he wanted. “Hey, you think you be Jerry Lawler or something?”
By now a half-dozen people surrounded them, most black, all amused at Zginski’s impending smack-down. “You should treasure your ability to speak to me this way,” Zginski said, his voice barely loud enough for the man to hear. “You should look upon this moment as a gift from your tribal gods.”
“Tribal gods?” the black man said, now puzzled as well as angry. “The fuck you talking about, honky mofo?”
“I’m sorry, he’s from Europe,” Fauvette said, still trying to tug Zginski away.
“He’s about to be from my motherfucking-foot-in-his-ass Arkansas, when I kick him across the river.”
“You’re making a scene,” Fauvette whispered to Zginski. She did not want to die on the first morning she’d seen a sunrise in almost half a century.
Zginski fought to control his temper. It was one thing to accept in the abstract that people of inferior races now behaved with impunity, but another to confront it so unexpectedly. He craved the confrontation, if only to force the big Negro to his knees where he belonged. But Fauvette was correct, drawing this much attention was dangerous.
Without a word Zginski turned and strode away down the sidewalk, tugging Fauvette behind him. The man’s laughter rang in his ears, quickly joined by the other bystanders’. They turned the corner and continued down two more blocks before Zginski finally turned left into an alley, yanking Fauvette after him.
She twisted from his grip and snapped, “
That
was brilliant.”
He whirled to face her. The rage in his eyes made her gasp. “That primitive had no right—”
“Yes, he did!”
Fauvette hissed. “The world isn’t like it was sixty years ago! Skin color doesn’t matter anymore, everyone has the
same
rights. Now get a hold of yourself!”
His glare intensified, and suddenly Fauvette’s knees wobbled as a surge of physical need for him swelled within her. She practically leaped into his arms and hungrily kissed him before even knowing her body was in motion. The pain she knew she’d feel if they consummated this moment was nothing against the agony of not feeling him inside her.
Then like a switch it was gone, and she was gazing into his eyes, breathing like a goldfish discarded on a countertop. “Never forget your place,” he said in a soft, dangerous whisper.
She felt tears run down her face. “You bastard, I’ve tried to help you,” she whimpered, the physical effects of his power taking far too long to fade. “You didn’t have to do that.”
He continued to glare at her, but she noticed something new and unexpected as well—he looked
tired
. The effort of controlling both himself and her had worn him out. She pushed him away, and he did not resist.
“That was unfair, and mean, and creepy,” she continued, wiping her eyes. Her lips still tingled from the kiss. “I am not your victim. If you want to yank some girl’s chain, go back to the motel.”
“ ’Scuse me, little miss, is this fella botherin’ you?” a new voice said.
They both turned in surprise. A police car was parked at the far end of the alley, and one of the officers sauntered toward them, his uniform armpits already stained from the heat. He had short blond hair, a thick mustache, and the cocky air of a schoolyard bully. He looked muscular enough to bench-press his patrol car. “You know this fella?” he added.
Fauvette wiped roughly at her eyes. “Yes, sir, I know
him,” she said in her best little-girl voice. “We were just arguing. He’s not bothering me.”
The cop’s name tag read
BARKER
. He looked down his nose at Zginski with a half smile, and disdainfully flicked a strand of Zginski’s long hair. “This your father?”
“No,” Zginski said. It was only one syllable, yet loaded with complete contempt.
Barker’s smile faded. “You best learn the words ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, sir,’ you plan on hanging around Memphis too long,” he said. “I got a funny feeling about you. Let’s see some ID.”
Zginski looked blank. “I beg your pardon?”
Before either Fauvette or Zginski could react, Barker slammed Zginski back against the wall, the nightstick pressed across his throat. “You’re going for a little ride to the station, smart-ass. Trolling for illegal poontang, and I’m betting this little sleaze pot is a runaway, too.”
Zginski, startled, reached up to grab the stick and was about to hurl the man across the alley when Fauvette suddenly spoke up. “Officer?” she said in a small voice.
Both men looked at her. She had her chin down, and her big eyes looked up at him pitifully from beneath her bangs. She had tugged down the front of her blouse so that the adolescent curves of her breasts were exposed. “He wasn’t hurting me,” she said, fixing her eyes on the cop. “But if you’ll let us go . . .” She nodded toward the dark space behind a nearby Dumpster.