Dead Roses for a Blue Lady (13 page)

"Okay, buddy, what the hell are you trying to pull here—?"

Rhymer squares his shoulders and pulls himself up to his full height, hissing and exposing his fangs, hooking his fingers into talons. His red eyes glint in the dim light like those of a cornered animal.

I am not impressed.

"Can the Christopher Lee act, asshole! I'm not some goth chick tripping her brains out!

You're not fooling me for one moment!" I kick the saw horses out from under the casket, sending it tumbling to the floor, spilling its layer of soil. Rhymer gasps, his eyes darting from the ruined coffin to me and back again. "Only
humans
think vampires need to sleep on a layer of their home soil!"

Rhymer tries to regain the momentum by pointing a trembling finger at me, doing his best to sound menacing. "You have defiled the resting place of Rhymer, Lord of the Undead!

And for that, woman, you will pay with your life!"

"Oh yeah?" I sneer. "Buddy, I
knew
Dracula—and, believe me, you ain't him!"

One moment I'm half-way across the room, the next I'm standing over him, his blood dripping from my knuckles. Rhymer's lying on the basement floor, wiping at his gushing mouth and nose. A set of dentures, complete with fangs, lies on the floor beside him. I nudge the upper plate with the toe of my boot, shaking my head in disgust.

"Just what I thought: fake fangs! And the eyes are contact lenses, right? I bet the nails are theatrical quality press-ons, too..."

Rhymer tries to scuttle away from me like a crab, but he's much too slow. I grab him by the ruff of his poet's shirt, pulling him to his feet with one quick motion that causes him to yelp in alarm.

"What the fuck are you playing at here? Are you running some kind of scam on these goth kids?"

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) Rhymer opens his mouth and although his lips are moving there's no sound coming out. At first I think he's so scared he's not able to speak—then I realize he's a serious stutterer when he's not a vampire.

"I'm n-not a con m-man, if that's what y-you're thinking. I'm n-not doing it for m-money!"

"If it's not for money—then why?" Not that I didn't know his motivation from the moment I first laid eyes on him. But I want to hear it from his own lips before I make my decision.

"All m-my life I've been an outsider. N-no one ever p-paid any attention to m-me. N-not even m-my own p-parents. N-no one ever took me seriously. I was a j-joke and everyone k-knew it. The only p-place where I could escape from being m-me was at the m-movies. I really admired the v-vampires in the m-movies. They were d-different, too. But n-no one m-made fun of them or ignored them. They were p-powerful and p-people were afraid of them. They c-could m-make w-women do whatever they w-wanted.

" W-when my p-parents died a c-couple of years ago, they left name a lot of m-money. So m-much I'd n-never have to work again. An hour after their funeral I w-went to a dentist and had all m-my upper teeth removed and the dentures m-made.

"I always w-wanted to be a v-vampire—and now I had the c-chance to live m-my d-dreams. So I b-bought this old church and s-

started hanging out at the Red Raven, looking for the right type of g-girls.

"T-Tanith was the first. Then came S-sable. The rest w-was easy. They w-wanted m-me to b-be real so b-badly, I didn't even have to p-pretend that m-much. B-but then things started to g-get out of hand. They w-wanted m-me t-to—you know—p-put my thing in them. B-but m-my thing c-can't get hard. N-not with other p-people. I told them it w-was because I w-was undead. So we f-found S-serge. I-I like to w-watch."

Rhymer fixed one of his rapidly blackening eyes on me. His fear was beginning to give way to curiosity. "B-but w-what difference is any of this to y-you? Are y-you a family m-member? One of S-serge's ex-g-girlfriends?"

I can't help but laugh as I let go of him, careful to place myself between Rhymer and the exit. He staggers backward and quickly, if inelegantly, puts distance between us. He flinches at the sound of my laughter as if it was a physical blow.

"I knew there was something fishy going on when I spotted the belt buckle on the goth studmuffin. No self-respecting dead boy in his right mind would let that chunk of silver within a half-mile of his person! And all that hocus-pocus with the smoke and the Black Sabbat folderol! All of it a rank amateur's impression of what vampires and vampirism is all about, cobbled together from Hammer films and Anton Levy paperbacks! You really
are
a pathetic little twisted piece of crap, Rhymer—or whatever the hell your real name is!

You surround yourself with the icons of darkness and play at damnation—but you don't recognize the real thing even when it steps forward and bloodies your fuckin' nose!"

Rhymer stands there for a long moment, then his eyes suddenly widen and he gasps aloud, like a man who has walked into a room and seen someone he has believed long dead.

Clearly overcome, he drops to his knees before me, his blood-stained lips quivering uncontrollably.

"You're real!'

"Get up," I growl, flashing a glimpse of fang.

Instead of inspiring fear in Rhymer, all this does is cause him to cry out even louder than before. He is now actually groveling, pawing at my boots as he blubbers.

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"At last! I k-knew if I w-waited long enough, one of y-you w-would finally come!"

"I said
get up,
you little toadeater!" I kick him away, but it does no good. Rhymer crawls back on his belly, as fast as a lizard on a hot rock. I was afraid something like this would happen.

"I'll do anything you w-want—give you anything you n-need!" He grabs the cuffs of my jeans, tugging insistently. "B-bite me! Drink my b-blood!
Pleeease!
M-make me like you!"

As I look down at this wretched human who has lived a life so stunted, his one driving passion is to become a walking deadman, I feel my memory slide back across the years, to the night a foolish young girl, made giddy by the excitement that comes with the pursuit of forbidden pleasures and made stupid by the romance of danger, allowed herself to be lured away from the safety of the herd. I remember how she found herself alone with a blood-eyed monster that hid behind the face of a handsome, smooth-talking stranger. I remember how her nude, blood-smeared body was hurled from the speeding car and tossed in the gutter and left for dead. I remember how she was far from dead. I remember how she was me.

I can feel myself trembling like I've got a high fever. My disgust has become anger, and I've never been very good at controlling my anger. And part of me—a dark, dangerous part—has no desire to ever learn. I try hard to keep a grip on myself, but it's not easy. In the past when I've been overwhelmed by anger I've tried to make sure I only vent it at those I consider worthy of such murderous rage. Such as vampires. Real ones, that is.

Like myself. But sometimes...well, sometimes I lose it. Like now.

"You want to be like
me?!?"

I kick the groveling little turd so hard he flies across the basement floor and collides with the wall. He cries out, but it doesn't exactly sound like pain.

"You stupid bastard—
I
don't even want to be like
me!"

I tear the mirrored sunglasses away, and Rhymer's eyes widen as he sees my own. They look nothing like his scarlet-tinted contact lenses. There is no white, no corona—merely seas of solid blood boasting vertical slits that open and close, like those of a snake, depending on the strength of the light. The church basement is very gloomy, so my pupils are dilated wide—like those of a shark rising from the sunless depths to savage a luckless swimmer.

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) Rhymer lifts a hand to block out the sight of me as I advance on him, his trembling delight now replaced by genuine, 100% monkey-brain fear. For the first time he seems to realize that he is in the presence of a monster.

"Please don't hurt me, mistress! Forgive me! Forgive—"

I don't know what else he might have said to try and avoid his fate, because his head came off in my hands right about then.

For a brief second Rhymer's hands still flutter in their futile attempt to beg my favor, then there is a spurt of scarlet from the neck stump, not unlike that from a spitting fountain, as his still-beating heart sends a stream of blood to where the brain would normally be. I quickly side-step the gruesome spray without letting go of my trophy.

Turning away from Rhymer's still-twitching corpse, I step over the ruins of the antique coffin and its payload. No doubt the dirt had been imported from the Balkans—perhaps Moldavia or even Transylvania. I shake my head in amazement that such old wives tales are still in circulation and given validity by so many.

As I head up the stairs, Rhymer's head tucked under my arm, I pause one last time to survey what is left of the would-be vampire king of the goth chicks. Man, what a mess.

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) Glad I'm not the one who has to clean it up.

This isn't the first vampire-wanna-be I've run in to, but I've got to admit he had the best scam. The goth chicks wanted the real thing and he gave them what they thought they wanted, even down to retrofitting the church with theatrical trapdoors and magician's flashpots. And they bought into the bullshit because it made them feel special, it made them feel real, and—most importantly—it made them feel
alive.
Poor stupid bastards. To them its all black leather, love bites, and tacky chrome jewelry; where everyone is eternally young and beautiful and no one can ever hurt you ever again.

Like hell.

As for Rhymer, he wanted the real thing as badly as the goths. Perhaps even moreso. He'd spent his entire life aspiring to monstrosity; hoping that given time his heart-felt mimicry of the damned would either turn him into that which he longed to be through sympathetic magic, or that his actions would eventually draw the attention of the creatures of the night he worshipped so ardently. As, indeed, it did. I was the real thing all right; big as life and twice as ugly.

But I was hardly the bloodsucking seductress Rhymer had been dreaming of all those years. There was no way he could know that his little trick would lure forth not just a vampire—but a vampire-slayer as well.

You see, my unique and unwanted predicament has denied me many things—the ability to age, to love, to feel life quicken within me. And in retaliation against this unwished for transformation, I've spent decades denying the monster inside me; trying—however futilely—to turn my back on the horror that is the Other who dwells in the dark side of my soul. There is one pleasure, and one alone, I allow myself to indulge. And that is killing vampires...

And those that would become them.

Dawn is well underway by the time I re-enter the nave. The whitewashed walls are dappled with light dyed blue, green, and red by the stained glass. I take a couple of steps backward, then drop-kick Rhymer's head right through the Lamb-of-God window.

The birds are chirping happily away in the trees, greeting the coming day with their morning songs, as I push open the wide double doors of the church. A stray dog with matted fur and slats for ribs is already sniffing Rhymer's ruined noggin where it landed in the high weeds. The cur lifts its muzzle and automatically growls, but as I draw closer it flattens its ears and tucks its tail between its legs and quickly scurries off. Dogs are smart.

They know what is and isn't of the natural world—even if humans don't.

The night was a bust, as far as I'm concerned. When I go out hunting, I prefer bringing down actual game, not
faux
predators. Still, I wish I could hang around and see the look on the faces of Rhymer's groupies when they find out what's happened to their "master."

That'd be good for a chuckle or two.

No one can say I don't have a sense of humor about these things.

—
from the journals of Sonja Blue

VARIATIONS ON A THEME

"When you keep the hours that I do, you often find yourself in other people's stories.

Sometimes the stories are funny, sometimes they're weird, sometimes they're scary.

Mostly, though, they're stupid, violent, or pathetic—often all three. Over the year's I've

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) come to see a marked similarity between these stories—as if all human lives are merely variations on a theme.

Occasionally I come in at the very beginning, while other times I make an entrance during the denouement. Every so often I'm a part of the plot, if no more than a peculiar
deus ex
machina.
For the most part, however, my role—if there is one—is to serve as an abbreviated Greek chorus, doomed to observe the human suffering before me, yet helpless to change its outcome.

I couldn't begin to tell you how many rapes I've interrupted over the years—be they straight, gay, one-on-one, or gangbang. Ditto the muggings and back-alley bashings. Not that I'm a bloody Spiderman or Bat Girl, mind you. If I happen across a bunch of thugs tangling over turf or a couple of no-neck knuckle-draggers laying into each other with pool cues and broken bottles, I sit back and let Darwin sort it out.

On any given night I'm more likely to find a junkie sprawled, cold as clay, in some abandoned warehouse, than I am to save a damsel in distress. When I come across the O.D.'s I feel a twinge of regret, if they're young, but it's difficult to dredge up much sympathy for them. I don't understand their urge to live as if they were already dead.

But then, perhaps my take on such things are tempered by my situation.

Still, at least none of the junkies ever seem to have suffered overmuch, before whatever awaited them in their disposable syringe of White Tiger bore them away on the eternal nod. Judging from what I've seen—corpses with their arms tied off, works dangling from clotted veins, vomit crusted on chins and shirts—when Death comes in a hot shot it's sudden, if not exactly clean.