In all honesty, the atmosphere wasn’t much better for the considerable number of Negro people who called Port Buck home.
A few tried to get out, but if cash for day-to-day food and clothing was hard to come by, finding money to go gallivanting elsewhere to hunt up your fortune was like stumbling over that rainbow’s end pot of gold. As a result, the colored folk generally kept to themselves and stayed out of trouble, watching the noises about equality made by people in the rest of the country with a keen and hopeful eye. The white people tolerated them as long as they kept to their place—back of the line and the town’s only bus, mind you—provided cheap labor, and stayed on their own side of Port Buck.
Which is why Asha knew it would be an unexpected sight for people to see her, a young Negro woman, walking right down Main Street like she had the God-given right.
In her mind and her heart, Asha felt she did have that right, but she wasn’t out to debate equality here, or start a conspicuous battle over it. She did, however, want to draw some—just a bit—of attention to herself. If she was lucky, the unseen ears of certain KKK vampire powers would hear about her; from there she’d be marked as a target. Not a threat—she would do nothing to let them know that she knew their true nature, nor that she could actually do something about it. Tonight she just wanted to be noticed.
And, oh, was she ever.
Humidity notwithstanding, it was a rare and lovely Florida night, not too hot, not too cool. Most of the smelly automobiles had been left at home, and there were a fair number of people out and about, taking their evening strolls or going home from church socials and Bake-Offs—God was a big-ticket item here in eastern Florida. A few teenagers, those who didn’t have Dad’s rusting old Ford or Plymouth to go off and make out in, loitered around the Dairy Queen parking lot and lounged at the picnic tables set along the front sidewalk.
As Asha passed from her own side of town to the other, she felt the gazes of them all, most surreptitious, a few bolder and openly hostile. She was less concerned with that than with the occasional snippets of conversation she heard, thanks to a Slayer’s intensified senses. It seemed everyone had something interesting to pass along, no matter their race or point of view:
“Pastor Johnson says eight folks from his parish have gone missing since February.”
“Annabelle Thomas’s husband didn’t come home last Saturday.”
“I heard that a couple from the Catholic church on Maple Street rang the priest in the middle of the night asking for help, but when he got there the house was abandoned. No one’s seen those folks since.”
“Elijah Peterson sent his son James to the store for a sack of flour and he never came back. Boy’s only ten years old, but the sheriff won’t bother looking for him.”
“You hear about that Jew family, the Steins? Deputy Pique says they moved out of town, but George Sanders says he went over and found the house open, and all their furniture and whatnot still inside.”
“Better be sure to keep your mouth shut and don’t get noticed around here, that’s for sure!”
Negro men and women, Jews, Catholics, even children and entire families seemed to be falling victim to the unseen evil here, and as she moved from one part of town to the other, the comments changed. After hearing what she had, Asha wouldn’t have thought it possible, yet the words took on an even darker connotation, more fragmented and secretive. But the message, at least to her, was frighteningly easy to comprehend.
“—meal’s a meal. Don’t make no difference. Maybe that’s what they were made for to begin with.”
“—easy to catch ’em coming out of those evening Masses they have all the time.”
“—pick off one of their kids and you stop a whole line of breeding. Just like killing a mosquito.”
“—non-Christian heathens, they ain’t no better than the darkies.”
As a rule, Asha didn’t come into town very much, and certainly not onto the white side of Port Buck—since her calling, most of her vampire battling had been done in the swamps and on the edge of Port Buck. Now she realized her mistake. She’d always believed the evil was outside, trying to get in. It really had never occurred to her that it might be inside trying to expand out, and the concept was an ugly and eye-opening revelation.
At the Dairy Queen she stood off to the side and changed her tactic a bit, worked at not being noticed until there was no one else in line. Then she stepped to the walk-up window and placed a twenty-five-cent piece on the ledge. “I’d like a malt, please.” She kept her voice carefully even, but she didn’t lower her gaze.
There were two people in there, one back by the sink working on the dishes and one guy at the window to take orders. The dishwasher never glanced up from his chore, but the order taker looked like a typical Florida teenager—tall with blond hair, blue eyes, and well-tanned muscular arms poking out of a uniformed shirt with the name Joey stenciled above the left pocket. If it hadn’t been for the smell of him, she’d have probably mistaken him for a normal all-American boy, doubtlessly a member of the Port Buck high school football team. But Asha knew the scent of death all too well, and this kid reeked of it.
Joey looked at her, then at her money, then back at her. Had there been other people in line, Asha was sure he would have refused to serve her, but her strategy of waiting until no one else was around had worked. After a final glance out the window to make sure no other white folk were around, his hand snaked out and snatched away the quarter, came back a moment later with five cents change. A ten-cent overcharge, but now was not the time to count her change.
“One malt, coming up.” Asha had heard tales of people doing stuff to the food they served Negroes—spitting in it wasn’t uncommon—so she watched him while he scooped out the ice cream and added the milk and malt. He must have had other things to think about than adding something nasty to her drink, because he never so much as tried to turn his back to her. He even smiled when he poured it into a big paper cup and set it on the serving counter.
“Don’t see many of your kind over here,” he said conversationally. “You lost or something?”
Asha had been trying to figure out a way to get the boy talking, and he’d opened up the door on his own, even given her an idea. “Yes, I am,” she told him as she took a sip. The malt was a rare treat, and she let herself enjoy the rich taste for just a second before getting back down to the dirty business at hand. “Kind of new to the area, you know. I heard about this meeting place, and I was trying to find it. . . .” She let her voice trail off, knowing he would assume she had no clue about who, what, or where in the town. He’d think she was dumb as a rock; after all, she was colored and a girl.
Joey put his elbows on the counter and leaned toward her, and Asha had to force herself not to wrinkle her nose and pull away—did vampires have no idea that they smelled so bad? Perhaps it was only to her heightened senses. “If prayer’s your kind of thing, I hear they hold big prayer meetings every other night at that bingo hall over on Hickory and Thirteenth Streets,” he said.
“Really?” She gave him a bright, vacant smile, although she wanted more than anything in the world to ask why a white boy would know about Negro prayer meetings and bingo halls.
“Sure.” Joey smiled back, and she could almost feel his hunger, the way his fangs wanted to slide forward. That he held back gave her hopes a little lift—at least vampires weren’t so common in Port Buck that he could just change right there in the DQ window and attack. Now he looked her up and down, then licked his lips, probably didn’t even realize that she noticed. “Anyway, pretty colored girl like you . . .” He paused dramatically, trying to play up his concern. “Well, let’s just say you might not want to be walking around the white part of town at night, you know?”
Asha looked at him with wide eyes, hoping she could act the innocent. “Oh, my—I never even thought of that. I guess I’d best be heading home straightaway.” It pained her to act so submissive, but there was a greater good to be served here—fa
r better that she keep her identity and abilities a secret than pound this ugly-hearted weasel into road kill—or better yet, vampire dust—in the middle of the white half of town. She gave him a final smile and picked up her cup, felt the gaze of his hot, hidden vampire side as he watched her walk away.
Would he follow her? Probably. Asha could well imagine Joey getting the other kid to cover for him for a few minutes. Not wanting to get too far ahead, she kept her walk steady but not overly rapid, and three blocks out of the main shopping strip where the DQ was centered, she set her paper cup against the wall of a building, then slipped into the doorway of a darkened store a couple of yards away. If her counter boy decided to hunt, her malt cup would draw him like a bread ball would draw a catfish.
She smelled him before she heard his stealthy footsteps, the scant breeze easily carrying the scent of his rot to her hiding place. He was reaching for her malt cup when she stepped from the doorway.
“Looking for me?”
Joey jumped back, then grinned. “Well, yeah. I wanted to make sure you got through the neighborhood okay, and I thought we could, you know, talk.” He shoved his hands in his pocket, going for the shy teenager act.
Asha wasn’t fooled, but she let him think she was as she stepped closer. “About what?”
“Well . . .” For a second it seemed like he might try to continue the charade, but his impatience won out. “How about something to eat?” His face twisted suddenly, the features running together like hot wax and instantly reforming into a beast of the night.
But Asha only grimaced at him. “You looked a lot better when you were human.”
Joey jerked and blinked at her. “Say what?”
“Is there something wrong with your hearing?”
Rather than argue, he growled and grabbed for her. Asha leaned out of his reach and swatted him aside, her blow hard enough to make him bring a hand up to his mouth in surprise.
“What the heck—who are you?” he demanded.
She stepped toward him, and he stepped back. What a coward—for crying out loud, she’d only smacked him once, not even hard. “I’m the Slayer,” she said calmly.
“The what?”
Golly, Port Buck was so far out of the loop on the rest of the world that they didn’t even know. “The Vampire Slayer,” she told him. “It’s what I do—slay vampires.”
Joey gawked at her. “You mean it’s like your job or something?”
“Exactly.” Asha gave him a condescending smile. “So that’s what I’m going to do—slay you.”
For a second, the boy just gaped at her. Then it sank in—the way she’d tracked him when he’d thought he’d been hunting her, her rapid-fire reflexes, the easy-looking blow that had rattled his brain but good. He looked around wildly, searching for a way to escape. Then he realized Asha had angled him into the corner where another building stuck out farther from the rest; he was trapped. Whatever thoughts he had of fighting her fell apart when he saw her pull the stake from her pocket and realized she wasn’t fooling around.
“Listen, I can help you, I can tell you stuff, lots of stuff, or at least about something that’s going to happen—” He was practically babbling in his fear. “About that bingo hall I mentioned? You know, that one? Except if I do you have to let me go, okay? Because I wasn’t going to hurt you, I would never do something like that, I was just clowning around—”
“Of course you were,” Asha said amiably. Her left hand shot out and she wrapped viselike fingers around his throat, then slammed him against the brick wall. “Now what’s this about the bingo hall—no no, you just keep your hands right down there where I can see them. That’s right.”
“Y-Yeah, the bingo hall.” The cold flesh of Joey’s throat worked against her hand as he tried to talk, and he shuddered. Asha thought she ought to be the one doing that. God, I hate touching these creatures. “See, the Klansmen in town, they got this idea—”
Asha’s long fingers tightened momentarily and his words gurgled off. “By ‘Klansmen’ I’m guessing you mean vampires?”
Joey tried to nod, then found his voice again when her grip relaxed enough to let him speak. “Y-Yeah, and so they found out about the Negroes’ eight o’clock prayer meeting at the bingo place, the one I told you about, and so they’re going there tomorrow night and. . . .”
He didn’t finish, and Asha grimaced. To give Joey a little encouragement, she brought up the stake and dug the sharp end into the center of his chest; he started to struggle, but that went south in a cry of pain when his own movement made the point sink in about a half an inch. “Hey, that hurts!”
“It’s not supposed to tickle, you fool.” She let her fingers crawl upward a bit, going for the nerves just under each side of the back of the jaw. The boy hissed in pain and frustration. “You’re saying they’re going to have a little feast? But what are they planning to do with all the bodies? I don’t suppose they want a bunch of colored vampires running around Port Buck, do they?”
“Gonna bomb the building afterward—get rid of the bodies plus show all the Negroes who’s boss.”
For a second, Asha was stunned. “What?”
Joey tried to bolt.
He went sideways and the end of the stake scraped across his chest but didn’t do any real damage. He darned near got away, but Asha lunged after him and grabbed his collar—better that than the blond crew cut that wouldn’t have given her anything to hang on to. She jerked him off his feet and heard his shirt rip, knew that if the fabric went, her hold on him was also gone. He aimed a haymaker at her head, but she ducked it with barely a thought, then turned the hand holding the stake inward and drove a hard uppercut into his jaw. He went all the way down and she leapt on him and positioned the piece of wood for the final kill.
“Wait!” Joey cried. “I thought we had a bargain!”
Asha only looked at him coldly. “Your mistake,” she said. “I don’t bargain with vampires.”
And hammered the beast into oblivion.
* * *
Beneath her bed, Asha kept a battered, musty-smelling crate full of weapons, and in the morning she dragged it out and checked the contents. There was nothing fancy about the box or what was inside—a dozen extra stakes, several wickedly sharp hunting knives, one equally sharp but smaller blade that could be hidden in the palm of her hand. She set out several of the stakes, then inspected each of the knives for a good edge and chose the best one.
“You’ll need some help this time, uh-huh.”
When Asha glanced up, the calm-faced Cajun woman was awake and sitting on the side of her own bed against the far wall, watching her. Laurent had been sleeping when Asha had come in last night, and the Slayer had risen earlier than normal, her dreams and rest troubled by what she might face this evening.
“Help?” Having someone else battle these creatures with her was something she’d never considered, but Laurent was right—she’d fought a bunch of the creatures since her calling, but never more than two or three at a time. Her toughest battle had been early on, when first two, then another had risen from the murky green waters of a swamp bog like sea monsters, surrounding her. She had been prepared for the first two but the last one had surprised her, ripping a chunk from her shoulder as it tried to chew its way up her neck before she’d battered it away and finally killed it. How would she face a whole crowd of these savage things by herself?
They were smart and would not go down easily—no doubt the white boy she’d killed last night had already been missed and questions were being asked. Had anyone noticed him talking to a pretty colored girl at the Dairy Queen? Had he told anyone he was going to follow her? Possibilities for doom spread through her mind like a spider with long, sticky legs.
“Yes,” she finally said. “I do.” She studied her fingers. “I was thinking to get there early, stop the meeting before it starts, and send everyone home. There’s been so much talk about coloreds disappearing in Port Buck, I don’t think it’ll take much to get them out of the
re. Then when the vampires show up . . .” She didn’t have to finish.
“There’ll be more of ’em than you’ve ever seen in one place, uh-huh.” Laurent nodded matter-of-factly. “I’ve trained you as best I can,” she said. “If we have to, we keep our backs together and don’t let them separate us, and we’ll do all right.”
“Yes,” Asha said again, wishing she felt as confident as she was trying to sound. She checked another of the hunting knives one more time, then put it aside—later she would change to denim jeans and a shirt, and tie the knife in a sheath on her belt.
Her Watcher got up and began to make a plain but filling morning meal—drop biscuits and smoky pieces of thick-cut bacon, a couple of eggs for each. Knowing she would need strength tonight, Asha ate well even though she was too nervous to be hungry. To Asha, this was a huge thing they were about to do, her biggest battle yet; her insides churned with excitement and more than a little fear, but as always, Laurent was silent during the meal, giving no insight about her emotions. Afterward the older woman took her pipe and went out to sit in the rocker on the front porch; Asha could hear the chair going back and forth, back and forth. Laurent was such a strange, closed-up person. Does she have any fear? Any love? After all these years, Asha had no idea.
Asha spent the day training lightly in the front yard, focusing more on skill and speed than a hard workout that would overtire her muscles. Laurent watched from the porch, occasionally coming over to offer a comment or two, or to correct something in the way Asha kicked or blocked an imaginary punch. Somewhere in between they ate a midday meal, beans and bacon, biscuits left over from breakfast and lightly warmed in a pan on the stove. The hours passed swiftly, too much so—it seemed as though the sun was high in the sky one minute, then only a few inches above the tree line the next. The daytime chatter of the birds quieted, surrendering to the hum of evening insects; soon the frogs and owls would join in the swamp’s nightly song.
It was time.
The preparations were done, and they were as ready as they could be. Both were dressed like men, in denim painter’s pants—lots of pockets—and cotton shirts, leather boots. The eight-inch hunting knives hung from their belts because while a stake was the weapon of choice for the killing—they each had several stashed in deep pockets—there was nothing like a trusty blade to sever the hand that might be around your throat. Asha had slipped the smaller knife into the ruler pocket down the right side of her leg just in case, and if she didn’t exactly feel self-assured, she did feel strong and ready.