Consultation with a Vampire - 01 (9 page)

Topper kicked one of the coffins and shrieked, “C’mon, rise and shine!” He immediately regretted it. Pain shot up from his foot. The thing was the size of a town car and probably weighed more. He hopped around, cursing his foot, his fate, and the universe in general.
 

When he ran out of steam, he sat down on a nearby ottoman and said aloud, “She’s not here,” as if it were the most surprising fact imaginable. “I mean, the nerve of some people. Some ex-people. Whatever. She steals ya heart and then she takes a midnight train to... I dunno, but it’s gotta be a midnight train.”

He limped in small ovals and muttered furiously about various destinations for nighttime trains and about the general lack of civility in the war between the sexes. He was interrupted by a voice booming through the darkness. “What mortal has come unto me seeking death?”

Topper looked up into a bright light shining directly into his eyes. He was so upset, so worked up, that he forgot to be afraid. “Oh, FINALLY, some answers.” He made directly for the light.
 

“You,” the voice behind the light said. “La petite amuse-bouche.”

“Get that light out of my eyes!” Topper demanded. The light shifted, and Topper saw what he already knew. There stood DeChevue, clad in silk pajamas and wrapped in an impossibly thick velvet robe.
 

“Nice housecoat, Elvira,” Topper said.
 

“What?” DeChevue said defensively. “It’s soft.”

“Un-hunh. I bet it is. Just like my honey-flavored nut sac. Now, where is she?”

“I see that you have succumbed to her charms. MuhahahahahHAHAHAHAHMUHAHAHA!”

“Cork it, Dracula.”
 

DeChevue was so surprised at being spoken to in this way, he fell silent.
 

“Where is she?”

“She’s not here,” DeChevue said with a shrug.

 
“Well, if she’s not here, and she’s not with you, where could she be?”
 

Edwin didn’t go home. After hours of walking through the city, he returned to his office. Work was the only place he felt comfortable, or alive, or much of anything at all. Sad as it was, his fine apartment had become more of a wardrobe than a residence. But he was not troubling himself with such melancholy thoughts. His heart soared as the express elevator took him upward. His mind was clear, and he was in the grip of an idea.
 

By the glow of the city below he navigated to his desk. He sat, folded his hands, and pressed the tips of his index fingers to his nose as he considered the the clutter of his office. Instead of the minutiae of security protocols, stealth technologies, and blood type distribution in the continental United States, the piles that crowded his office now became the topography of history.
 

To the left, the great heights of Greece and Rome, the broad plains across which the conquerors Alexander and Genghis had driven their cavalry. A library burning in Alexandria. The floating world of the Orient was bathed in light as all of the West sank into the Dark Ages. The long climb back up to the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. The Rise of Democracy. And farthest to the right, the 20th century descended into a low, swampy region that was the collapse of the warfare-welfare state. If one squinted, the technology might make this region appear unique, but Edwin could see inexorable features of geologic time in his imaginary construction.
 

Yes, Edwin thought, this is what history might look like to a thoughtful, educated person who had lived a long, long time. A person who viewed history in this way would have true, careful calculation. If the first 30 years of life were enough to change a reckless boy of reasonable intelligence into a prudent adult, what would 300 years do? Or 1,000? Edwin would look forward to talking to a person like this. But this person was not DeChevue.

With DeChevue, there was no conversation. For as much as DeChevue affected the manners of a decadent French aristocrat, he did not engage in conversation. When others spoke, he merely waited for a pause so that he could begin talking about himself again. Tiresome. So very tiresome.
 

To what advantage would Edwin put such a gift? It would be the chance to engage in speculation on a scale never before imagined? It was difficult to see how one might short something like the Dark Ages. But as he looked at a particularly massive and cathedral-like stack of binders, it came to him. The Church. Amass capital by controlling and building a series of monasteries. Then, one would move that wealth into trading outposts in the Crimea. Then, participation in the first great joint-stock companies of England and Holland – The momentous land-grab that was the discovery of the New World.
 

The possibilities for commercial adventure were limitless. After a few centuries of well-laid plans, one might truly become the hand that pulled the strings that moved the world. It was a tremendous thought, and Edwin sat alone in the dark with it for some time. But it was the consequence of that thought that gave him chills. With something very much like instinct, Edwin realized that if he could imagine such a person, then, in all the convoluted iterations of human history, that person must have existed. If life truly could be prolonged indefinitely, then this person was still around.
 

If DeChevue were the emissary of a cold, patient, ageless man, the most nightmarish creature that Edwin could imagine, what did that make this engagement? Some kind of test? A test of what? Edwin disliked being toyed with. But even more, he disliked not knowing what to do about it.
 

The door at the far side of his office opened. Edwin thought, out of habit, that it was his faithful Agnes. She had always been there for him, as if knowing what he needed was her very own superpower. But the shape that moved through his model of history did not do so with her careful, gentle tread. The shadow wrapped in black scissored across the floor, and Edwin realized this was someone else entirely.
 

Madeleine strode to the front of Edwin’s desk and threw her dark hair back with a toss of her head. “I have come for you, Windsor.”

Melodrama. Edwin sighed. If Edwin ever faced a firing squad, he would decline both the blindfold and the cigarette. But his last request would already be prepared. “Yes,” Edwin would say. “I would like an end to melodrama.” Edwin’s carefully constructed model of history melted away as his concentration shifted to the female intruder.
 

Edwin opened his mouth to say, “I am working,” but before he could speak, Madeleine spoke.

“After 100 years of cruelly toying with men on three continents, I have finally met my match. You are cold, implacable, strong, and tall. You are more powerful than my master, DeChevue. Of course, not physically, but the strength of your mind,” she shivered disturbingly. “Try as I might, I cannot resist you. I am yours with all my gifts.” And she flung herself seductively across Edwin’s desk.
 

“Your gifts? There is some kind of dowry involved in this farce?” Edwin asked, always alert to profit.
 

“No! No, my sweet. Do not be cruel to me. I beg you. I, who understand you. The innermost you. You do not long to be cruel; it is just a facade to protect yourself from the world. You are just like me. And lonely, so lonely. For what you truly seek is love, like me. L’amour. L’amour, crying out through the ages.”

“I am not entertaining proposals of that nature at this juncture,” Edwin said.

“Oh, but what does that mean, you cold, cruel man? I have taken such a terrible chance to come to you this night. Why, if he found out...” She lifted herself with her arms and stared into Edwin’s eyes. Another man, a weaker man, might have been forever lost in the chasm between her breasts. “I am yours,” she said, “and with me, you shall have Life Eternal.”

Such histrionics, Edwin thought. Life Interminable. He said, “No.”
 

“What do you mean, no?”

“I refuse your offer.”

“But I have offered you everything. Everything! How can you resist everything? It is not rational; it is not logical,” she protested, English sputtering awkwardly from her lips.
 

“Nevertheless, I must decline.”

Madeleine touched the side of Edwin’s face. “So cold, yet so restless. You need the peace that only I can give you.” And then she pressed her lips to his. She began the kiss with passion and great skill, but when Edwin did not respond, she tore her lips away. She looked into his eyes and saw nothing there. It was as if his soul had been carefully divided and put away in small, numbered boxes.

She slapped Edwin across the face. Her nails left cuts in his cheek.
 

“You will regret spurning me, Windsor. I promise you that.”
 

Edwin calmly produced a handkerchief from inside his jacket pocket and dabbed at the blood. Madeleine eyed the fresh blood hungrily. “I
regret
,” Edwin said, considering his blood on the cloth, “that we must keep our relationship professional.”

“I could take you right here. You could do nothing to stop me,” she said.
 

“You could,” Edwin said, “but I think you will not.”

“Is there no fear in you at all?”

“I fear the worst,” Edwin said, imagining what a man with a drive and intelligence might do with lifetimes in which to play Machiavelli. “You are not it.”

Madeleine’s long, swaying strides carried her back to the door. “Windsor, you will learn to fear me. I promise you that.”

The night of Edwin’s meeting finally came. It was time for him to present DeChevue with a plan for how to profitably and efficiently exist as a vampire in the 21st century. As he put the finishing touches on his presentation, Edwin reflected on how much of his advice was simply a sane, sensible way to live.
 

If his client had been different, more restrained, more sensibly educated, Edwin would have been able to spend more of his time and effort on truly original work. But as it was, he knew he had to convince his client to take advantage of the way the world worked and, where necessary, to explain the mechanisms.
 

Nearby, a technician was giving the presentation equipment its final test. Edwin distrusted technology and had arranged for everything to be checked and double-checked. He had done everything in his power to make certain nothing as avoidable or petty as a technical failure would ruin this high-stakes meeting.
 

Topper entered the room and asked, “Okay, E. Are we to the part yet where you spring the trap? You know, where we stake this guy through the heart and laugh while he turns to dust?”

“No, Topper. We are at the part where profit and mutual benefit are created.”

“Ah, c’mon. That’s dull.”

Edwin turned to the technician, who was staring at Topper with his mouth open. “Is everything ready?” Edwin asked.
 

“Y-yeah,” the technician, who wore a blue jumpsuit, answered.

“Very well. That will be all.”
 

The technician scurried from the room, not taking his eyes off Topper. Ignoring him, Topper unscrewed the top of a flask and took a slug. He held the open flask in his hand and walked over to the window. As he looked down on the city, he took another slug and whispered, “Made it, Ma. Top of the world.”
 

Edwin considered his little friend for a moment and smiled. He was an absurd creature of appetites, but he was one of the few people who could bring a moment of levity to Edwin’s otherwise very serious life.
 

“Edwin, I must speak to you,” Agnes said in her most serious of tones. “You are well aware of how much I hate to agree with the little savage, but in this case, he is right.”

Topper raised his flask to Agnes. “Holy shit! I’m right. How did that happen?”
 

Agnes did not dignify this outburst with a response. She held herself ramrod straight and moved as carefully as if she were balancing a book on her head. “Edwin, I will have nothing more to do with them. I am pleading with you; they are savages. Savage creatures, who, for all their arrogance, are subhuman. I loathe them, but more to the point, I fear for your safety. There are, Master Edwin, some roads down which one should not travel. And this is one of them.”

Edwin crossed the room and put his hand on Agnes’s shoulder. Her face softened, and the irritability dropped away from the corners of her mouth. She did not seem younger, but his touch unburdened her.
 

“I understand your concern,” Edwin said, “and I share it, but to leave this business unfinished is far more dangerous than to see it through to its necessary, proper, and logical conclusion.”

“As you wish, but I will not be party to any of it.” The bird-like nod of her head brooked no argument.
 

“Very well,” Edwin said. “Good night. I will see you in the morning.”

Agnes walked away from the office. At the last moment, she could not help herself. She turned and said, “Edwin, please, please be careful.”

“Don’t worry,” Topper said. “I’ll protect him.”

Agnes’s self-control slammed down again. As her face became an unreadable wall of stone, she looked down her nose at Topper and said, “And THAT is what I fear most of all.”
 

After she had gone, Topper said, “Seriously, E. I’ve got a crossbow in the car. Put me behind a curtain or something. I’ll look out for you. You know I will.”

Edwin started to imagine all the things that could go wrong when a loaded weapon was connected to Topper’s sweaty little hand. After a moment, he forced his thoughts to move on. He simply didn’t have the kind of time that such an analysis would require. “No, Topper. No one will be taking unnecessary chances tonight. I will meet with them alone.”

“Alone! Are you nuts? Are you completely nuts?”

“I do not think so. I am merely engaging in high-stakes speculation.”

“But! BUT! I mean...” Topper sputtered, trying to get a handle on the moment. “SPECULATE! That’s just a fancy word for GAMBLIN’. And Beanpole, you are the investor. I’m the gambler. You’re musclin’ in on my turf. You don’t got a union card to be stupid. You’re in the smart-guy local.”