Consultation with a Vampire - 01 (2 page)

Topper had a good track record for forcing things. Most everybody flinched when an obviously insane dwarf charged at their nuts, arms flailing and teeth gnashing. Topper made up for lack of size with an abundantly applied dose of insanity. However, in amorous matters, going berserk is a terrible strategy.
 

She seemed to feel his gaze upon her. She turned gracefully and looked above his head for the taller man who should have been there. That really pissed him off.
 

But then the unthinkable happened: She smiled at Topper. Not the shocked, oh-my-God-I've-got-to-cover-up-how-insensitive-a-person-I-am smile that people so often gave him. No, this was a smile that exuded warmth, understanding, and yes — could it be? — even longing.

Her pale legs scissored through the darkness toward Topper. She bent down and, as her strange perfume clawed its way into his lungs, she whispered in his ear, “Mon petit hors-d’œuvre!”

The French bypassed his brain and went straight to his loins. “Oh, baby. I love it when you talk dirty!”

“Dir-tee?” she asked, punctuating the thought with laughter that somehow managed to be high and glittery, yet ominous and dark at the same time. She narrowed her eyes like a predator, and, in the very next instant, opened them like an innocent little girl.
 

As Topper listened to her laughter, he realized he was already following her outside. Low-altitude, bipedal gland that he was, he had never remembered wanting a woman – hell, anything – as much as he found himself wanting this mysterious, French-speaking woman. She seemed impossibly young and yet decadent in the way that only the world-weary could be.
 

The back of her thigh flashed as she passed beneath a spotlight. She opened a door to the alley, and Topper followed her. He plunged into the darkness with no thought of damnation and no care for redemption.
 

It was even darker outside. Topper couldn’t see anything, but he could hear her voice, could feel her touch as she pinched and tickled him as one might play with a small child. Normally, this would have driven Topper right over the edge. Comments about his size caused him to explode with rage. But with her soft, foreign words raining down on him like snowflakes, Topper couldn't bring himself to care.
 

“Yeah. Oh yeah, baby. I'm your bad little boy,” he said as he tipped his head backwards. He felt her breath on his neck and realized that in the darkness of the alley he could make out a single star, twinkling and impossibly distant. Topper realized it was blue. Blue and cold and beautiful, like her eyes.
 

Whatever this drug was, Topper loved it. He wanted more. He would have given everything he had to overdose on it right then. Yes, more than anything, he wanted to give himself.
 

“STOP!”

The voice shattered the fantasy for Topper. The rollercoaster plunged towards the earth, and reality came rushing back. A brilliant light assaulted Topper’s eyes. He realized that his beautiful star was really a streetlight clamped to the side of a decaying brick building. And the alley of midnight black, the ideal place for an amorous interlude, was now, in the harsh light of that false star, revealed to be an utter shithole.
 

A man in a velvet cape strode over to them and asked the woman, “What are you doing?” He spoke English but had a thick French accent.
 

“Quoi, il n'est qu'un tout petit apéritif,” she protested. “Il est venu à moi pour que je le soulage de sa douleur.”

Topper lolled in her arms, more obedient and compliant than he had ever been in his life. “Yeah, baby. Whatever you want.”
 

The man in velvet, whose hair draped across his face so dramatically that it completely ignored the line between terrifying and absurd, said, “’E is not an appetizer! He is un otage précieux!”

The woman pushed her lips together in a way that was in danger of breaking both Topper’s heart and his zipper. “Un otage ? Est-il mon otage ou bien le vôtre ?”

“Madeleine, I command you to release him at once. He is an associate of Edwin Windsor.”
 

She dropped Topper on the pavement of the cold alley, jolting him back to his old self. “Hey, Buddy. Ya bothering my lady friend here.”

“M’sieur, I assure you she is not your friend.”

“Whattya mean?” Topper asked. “She loves me.”
 

“Qui est ce Ween-dzor?” she spat. As she did, her fangs retracted slowly, reluctantly, and, as with all actions vampires take, melodramatically.

With that, the last of Topper’s spell wore off. “Hey! What’s with the cold shoulder? Baby, I was going to make all your dreams come true. Wait a minute, were those fangs?”

Madeleine put a finger to Topper's lips, and he almost forgot about everything again. She smiled a sad, strange smile and said, “Je suis désolée, mon petit amuse-gueule, mais tu devras encore endurer ta douleur... pour l’instant.”

"Wait. Wait? What does that even mean?"

She turned away and looked to the man in the velvet cape.
 

Topper decided that he didn't like this fruitcake, whoever he was. As the man threw aside a long lock of black hair from his face, Topper realized that the guy was wearing way too much eyeliner. As far as Topper was concerned, any eyeliner on a man was too much. And this guy was so SERIOUS when he opened his mouth.
 

“Monsieur Topper. You are in grave danger."

"Hey, I don't know what it's like where you're from, Frenchy, but where I'm from, you don't Scotch another guy's play."

"Eh? Scotch? I do not understand. You are in grave danger,” he said as he put his hand on Topper's shoulder.
 

"You don't get it, pal. You are interrupting." Topper moved between the man and the girl with whom he had so recently and irrevocably fallen in love.
 

“She means to harm you.”

“She could harm me a little, right? I mean, just a little nibble. She's totally into me.” Topper argued, unaware that he was arguing for his death.
 

“[The only pleasure I would take is in your death],” Madeleine said with a smile that twisted Topper’s tortured heart in knots.
 

“You see! You see what she said? Now leave us alone so we can pitch some woo!” Topper said, jumping up and down and waving his arms in frustration.
 

“That’s not what she said.”

“C’mon, she used the word ‘pleasure.’ I heard her, and you heard her.”

“Not exactly. Now, I require a meeting with your master.”

“Master? I don’t have a master.”

“Edwin Windsor.”

“Oh no, Frenchy, you’ve made a mistake. I don’t swing that way. Now run along and play with your collection of imported cheeses.”

“My little friend, please. You have no other choice. You must come with me.”
 

That did it. Topper lunged right for the man's crotch, which was tightly encased in leather. With blinding speed, yet an air of nonchalance, the man in velvet brought his hand down on top of the advancing dwarf’s head.

There was a thud, then a thump, and Topper lay unconscious on the dirty pavement of the alley. The man looked down and said, "You did not listen. You are in grave danger." He looked to the girl and said, “This is all your fault.”

She stuck out her tongue and then pouted. If Topper had still been conscious, his loins would have burst on the spot.

The man tucked Topper underneath his arm and walked into the night.

Topper came to and asked, “Are you going to carry me through the air?”

“Heavens no. We will take the limousine,” he said, pointing at the car that waited for them at the mouth of the alley.
 

The next morning, at precisely 8:30, Agnes answered the phone. What is remarkable about this is that the phone had been ringing since she had walked in the door at 7:30. With great and customary restraint, she had ignored it for an hour. After all, business hours are business hours. Standards must be maintained.
 

“Good morning. Windsor and Associates. How may I be of service?”

Topper’s voice shrieked from the earpiece. “Agnes! Jesus Christ, Agnes! Why haven’t you answered the phone? I’ve been calling since 7:30. Hell, I’ve been calling all through the night. Don’t you check voice mail? Shouldn’t you have a hot line or something?”

Blasphemy, what a wonderful way to start the day, Agnes thought.
 

“Good morning, Topper. Aside from the obvious and unavoidable, what is the matter with you
this
morning?”

“I’ve been kidnapped!”

“Really,” Agnes said with a total lack of concern. “I would’ve thought you lacked the requisite air of child-like innocence that the term calls for. And yet ‘dwarf-napped’ doesn’t work either. It somehow loses all urgency and merely suggests a low-to-the-ground, saccharine-cute kind of sleepiness.”

“Agnes, I have been kidnapped by
Vampires!
”

“Well, of course you have,” she said in the tone a favorite aunt would use when encouraging her nephew’s pirate fantasy. “Hold the line for Windsor.” With a gleam in her eye, she placed the phone on hold and bustled into Edwin’s office.
 

When Edwin looked up from behind the vast expanse of his desk, Agnes said, “It appears that your lawyer,” she said, uttering the word “lawyer” with obvious and practiced distaste, “has run afoul of a pack, a coven, a herd, a flock – whatever the plural may be – of vampires.”

Edwin raised an eyebrow.
 

“Even now, he insists that he is in their foul, sinister, and quite possibly imaginary grip.”

“Vampires?” Edwin asked, trying to understand.

“Line one,” Agnes said with great mirth. As Edwin reached for the phone, she asked, “Shall I set up interviews with other law firms?”
 

Edwin’s hand paused on the handset. Again, his eyebrow climbed his forehead.
 

“Edwin, I beg of you. Leave the debauched dwarf to his just (and evidently drug-addled) deserts. Surely, you deserve legal counsel that will match your own professionalism.”

“He has talent, Agnes,” Edwin countered logically.
 

“But at what cost, Edwin? At what cost?”

Edwin picked up the phone, ending their exchange. “Windsor here.” Edwin held the handset away from his ear as Topper shrieked, “E, you'll never believe it. I have been kidnapped by Vampires!”

“You are correct. I do not believe it.” Edwin used measured tones that in another person would sound like boredom.
 

"Okay, okay. I know how crazy it sounds, but Vampires! Edwin, I swear. They're real."

From the phone in the lobby, Agnes said, "Have you confused pale skin and an overabundance of eyeliner with mythological creatures?”

“No, I SWEAR! C’mon, E. You gotta talk to these people; otherwise, they are going to kill me.”

Agnes fired another salvo: “You have only yourself to blame. Don’t come crying to me now that you must sleep in a coffin of your own making.”
 

“Honest, Edwin, it wasn’t my fault,” Topper said.

As Edwin listened to the banter between Topper and Agnes, he detected a note of true fear in his lawyer’s voice.
 

“They said they couldn’t get an appointment any other way. The guy... what’s his name? Something French. Da Chevy, Da Shoe, nah, nah. DeChevue, that’s it. He said he called and called, but Agnes never answered. She never returned his messages. He said he lost patience, and then he told me a long, boring story about how he’s immortal and how he has patience on a scale that I would never understand. Blah, blah, blah. And let me tell you, Edwin, this guy has to be immortal to take that friggin’ long to tell a story. You know, if the sun hadn’ta come up, I think that lispy French faggot would still be talking.”

“Agnes, do you know anything about this?” Edwin asked.

“I simply assumed the man was deranged, or a teenager playing merry hod with telephonic high jinks.”

“You did not deliver a message to me?” Edwin asked.
 

“Edwin, people who call for an appointment in the middle of the night are not serious people. Business hours must be maintained.”

“Agnes, people who call for an appointment in the middle of the night can be serious people in other time zones.”

“Yes, well, he was French, and I didn’t like the sound of him. It is a secretary’s job to interpose.”

“Interpose?” Edwin asked.

"Yes, like a faithful squire diving in front of a crossbow bolt to save his lord and master, I interpose myself between you and the absurdities of the world," Agnes said, her voice rising to fever pitch.

“Hey! HEY!” Topper interjected. “I don’t mean to interrupt your office meeting here, but I’m in trouble.”

“Oh, Topper,” Agnes said. “When are you not in trouble?”

Edwin pinched the bridge of his nose. “Topper, are you unharmed?”

“Unharmed? E, I’ve been kidna– taken hostage! My dignity is wounded. Very, very wounded.”

“Physically, are you in good condition?”

“I think this ordeal is going to stunt my growth. C’mon, what do you want me to say? I’m pissed. And they ain’t got nothing to eat in this joint.”

“What are their demands?” Edwin asked, hoping to bring this conversation to some kind of actionable conclusion.
 

“Oh, right. They want to schedule an appointment. They say they’re not going to let me go unless you meet with them. I told them Edwin Windsor does not negotiate with terrorists. I mean, I know you negotiate with and for terrorists all the time, but it just seemed like the thing to say.”

“Fine,” Edwin said. “I will meet with them. We will stand by for a call after—” Edwin could scarcely believe that he was going to utter such a word for such a reason. “Sundown,” he said, to finish the thought.

“You gonna give in to their demands?” Topper asked.

“Here, I must agree with the foul little man,” Agnes said. “You must not reward their behavior.”
 

“For all we know, this is a simple misunderstanding. It will not hurt me to meet with these people,” Edwin said. But somewhere, deep in the recesses of his brain, the dark thought that it might hurt
them
surfaced. Edwin shook his head to clear it of such nonsense. Vengeance was not an activity in which a serious man partook. There was no profit in it.