“Yeah?”
“And I’m the only vampire in Rome...”
“I’ll be. They’re gonna think you done it.”
He beamed.
“Do you know why that is, Sidney?” I asked.
He had to think about it. “I can’t say for sure, but does it have something to do with the fact... that vampires ain’t vampers, and vice versa?”
“Pin the tail on the donkey, that’s right, Sid.” I raised my Cup to him. “A vamper is a non-person, uneducated in our ways. In fact, it is on every true vampire, Sid, are you listening to this? To do away with vampers, wherever they may be. So in a sense, my allowing you to live is a kindness on my part. You have no sire. You are a walking, talking, killing abortion. But you see. The Lenoir don’t care about that. They just care that they don’t have to hear about you. Because it allows them to continue on with this blood status thing. That’s why I exist. Ain’t no vamper in Rome, Sid. There’s just me. So it’s on me, if you follow me.”
He understood where I was leading him, the processes by which we would be parting, if I did not get what I was after.
“But you know what’s really bothering me? You saying you do like the one who made you did. That bothers me.”
I saw his eye saccades again. “Would you like to know why, Sidney?” I asked. “Because vampers make other vampers, indiscriminately, without any thought of the consequences. And that is why we vampires hate them.”
“I didn’t kill no one,” said Sid, agitated. “I ain’t this psychopath, killing. NO ONE! I ain’t done NOTHING. If I was the one killing them people, do you think I would be drinking blood cups?”
It was a fair point, and I told him so.
“I appreciate what you’re saying, Sid. I really do. But let’s be honest. When you were in Topeka, you didn’t exactly tell the truth.”
“I never sold lemons except to people had it coming. And I knew he was bad. Look what he done to me?” he said, speaking about the vampire who had sired him.
Again, I gave him that. “But, you see, Sid, I have to think about the ones who do have it coming.”
“Lennox, man. Come on? Whoever that guy is, ain’t me.”
“Vampers make vampers, Sid. The only reason you aren’t killing them, is because they ain’t dying. Now why don’t you play nice and bring your boys out. The blood cups are a dead giveaway, by the way.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. But his eyes looked off to the corner again. I didn’t know how many of them there were back there.
“The discipline is hard for you. I know it,” I said. “Drinking these lousy things. Tell me you don’t sometimes go off your diet.”
He didn’t say anything. “I’m not here to kill you, Sidney. I just want to know why you gave me bogus intel about that necromancer. My friend and I nearly got killed last night.”
He shifted and took out some money in his pocket. “I bought a six pack of Blood-in-a-Cups. But that’s it, Lennox.”
I told him about the dead revenant I had locked in the back of John Occam’s car. He chose to ignore this.
“Why don’t you answer me something,” he said, “since you’re being all lawyer today. If you’re the only vampire in Rome, why is it I can find a place to sell me packaged blood? If I don’t exist, why am I good enough to sell blood to? If I don’t exist,” he said, holding out the hand with the money it, “how come you give me blood money?”
I had to smile, I really did. “I pay you to watch and report. I pay you because you’re a good pair of eyes. There’s something out there, Sidney. I don’t know what it is.”
He dropped his hand. “The Suck,” he said.
“That’s its street name. Tell me what you know about it.”
“Don’t get bit. Just don’t get bit, man.”
His boys came out. One... two... three...
They were in rags––long unkempt hair––shuffling out of the corners of the crypt. I knew they weren’t the ones responsible. They weren’t exsanguinating––draining the blood; they certainly weren’t responsible for raising the dead; that would take some serious dark magic.
Sid had housebroken them––but they left the evidence of their nocturnal feeding on the floor. Half-drunk blood cups.
Whole-drunk humans.
Whoever was doing this wasn’t running around half-cocked.
The part which really bothered me, was the reference to biting, in the article by Emmanuela Skarborough. I knew somebody within the Questura I could talk to about it. I decided to do that tomorrow. Maybe I could see the dead bodies.
I heard a train race past; it rattled the furnishings. Sid had picked up a book. I nearly choked. “Where did you get that?” I asked.
I went and grabbed it out of his hands. He shrugged. “Found it, picked it up, stumbled upon it. How should I know?”
It was a copy of The Urban 411.
I flipped through it––it had to be three hundred pages long! The cover showed a pair of watchful eyes, with a half moon and a setting sun––one in either eye. Just like on the train.
It was written by Infester. Obviously, a pseudonym.
I turned to the title page, completely ignoring the other vampires, looking for the name of the publisher. I turned the page. There it was, beneath the copyright. SURVIVOR BROS PRESS. It even had an ISBN. But there was no address where I could reach them.
* * *
How to, Where to, And Who With. How to survive the coming Apocalypse. Includes fashioning weaponry and other important bits. Also called the Zeebus Guide. Presented by Infester. Who will you choose to battle the undead with?
* * *
The summary was intriguing, to say the least. I decided to keep it for later perusal. I tucked it into one of the many interior pockets I had in my coat, and ran the fingers of my hands through my hair. So much for that.
Infester’s guide! I had been looking for it forever! Sid wasn’t much of a reader. He didn’t mind if I stole his book.
Vampers, now.
I mean obviously Sid had been siring. It was the same impulse that made humans want to have children. Extend the bloodline. You got to see your name live on.
If vampers weren’t an issue, we wouldn’t be having an issue with vampers, I told myself. Vamper overpopulation was a major concern, for a number of reasons.
Murder, letting people know about our existence, murder, killing everyone, ending the human species, overrunning the earth, killing everyone.
It reminded me of an article I read about the crown-of-thorns. The crown-of-thorns was destroying the Great Barrier Reef. The crown-of-thorns was a starfish––but it had curious properties.
It ate coral, which was alive, slow to grow––just like humans were slow to grow and mature, and also alive.
And if you hurt it, it could regrow itself. It could multiply, this starfish.
And it gave off a chemical that attracted other crown-of-thorns.
It liked to start a feeding frenzy.
And its numbers were growing. The crown-of-thorns population was out of control. In consequence, coral was threatened.
That reminded me of this.
The vamper population was out of control, and, as a consequence, people were threatened.
Well, this was my reef, and I had to defend it.
Such would have been the gist of any argument––but a vamper was a vamper for one reason only. It didn’t know any better.
I had learned long ago not to try to teach someone anything that they didn’t already want to know. Especially if they had a pair of fangs and could kill me permanently.
Chapter 3 – Lennox
Sid got off the couch and came toward me. I could smell the whiskey on his breath. He was communicating without using words, telling his offspring what to do.
It was a connection between the sired and their sires––So I had been told.
“I am older than all of you,” I warned.
They chose to disregard this.
The other vampires fanned out.
Unlike Paris, I did not choose to think of them as vampers. Having a dismissive name for something showed either a foolish over-self-confidence or else highlighted a deep-seated insecurity. It was the attacker you didn’t see that got you.
Some of this fighting philosophy had saved me in the past.
Sid’s progeny were trying to pin me against the wall. It was four against one.
I could see by their appearance, Sid had preyed among his own kind. That thought led to another.
Victim selection.
I made a mental note, preparing myself for combat.
I was older, but they had the numbers. Whether he knew it or not, Sid had built for himself a nice little army.
Going against a sire was like pressing your flesh to the crucifixion. It burned.
I had never met my sire. It wasn’t until I met Occam that I even knew other vampires existed. He gave me the broad strokes, taught me how to fight. He was the one who taught me that age mattered. Before that, I had been just a regular, mundane vamper.
I did not immediately grab for the stake––choosing instead to keep my mystery intact.
“If you can make your opponent underestimate you,” Occam had said, “he will be more inclined to cut certain corners. This opens him to vulnerabilities he would not otherwise have, and you can press home the point.”
Part of me felt upset that it had come to this. Sid extinguished that concern when he suggested to the others that drinking my blood could make them stronger. They came at me, clumsily––fangs bared, claws extended. I moved in a blur, passing through them.
Sid gaped in astonishment; it was something learned, not given. I could see him communicating with his children. His lips moved like they did when he read the newspaper article I showed him.
This was actually a weakness in sires. They got so concerned with directing the troops, they forgot they were oldest.
Sid was a much more formidable vampire than the ones he had sired. They were clumsy, he was not. If I killed him, it would be like releasing them––they could fight without impediment. So I let him continue in his error.
Sid had mortal concerns. He scrounged money. He got all hung up about things like status symbols, and so forth. He was into cars and big-screen TVs. He was still that me-minded old Sid, who dreamed of leaving Topeka, back in 1976. Look where that got him. Rome with rabbit ears. Unfortunately, it made him a terrible sire.
When I passed through them, I wounded one, opening its jugular with my finger. The neck spewed blood. It was a bad cut. In a human being, it would have been fatal. But this was a vampire. Already the connective tissue was knitting together, leaving the faintest scar.
The other two didn’t know what to do; they stopped and tried to help their comrade. Sid put his fingers to his head like he had a headache, closing his eyes and concentrating.
The real tragedy was these were newborns––days old. They only existed because I had allowed Sidney. I had allowed him to be. I hadn’t sired him. But I hadn’t destroyed him, either.
And now I had to kill his offspring, made because I had been too soft on Sid.
The veins were standing out on his neck. I noticed the two other vampires who were not wounded, double up in pain. He was trying to concentrate, talk to them. It was an experience I was unfamiliar with.
“You’re losing them, Sid,” I said to him.
He fought with them while I watched the other vampire heal itself. The sinews of its neck muscles were beginning to reattach and I saw it pick itself up.
Half torn, they came at me.
They wanted to go for Sid––and would have, if they had had a choice. They didn’t. They came at me, instead. Sid looked like his forehead was about to explode.
I grabbed the remaining blood cups off the floor and threw them at Sid’s face. They broke open, coating him in blood. His telepathic connection snapped. He was set upon by his vampires.
I took out my stake. It gave me no pleasure, whatsoever.
Sid had his eyes shut, when I got to him. He was groaning miserably. I suddenly understood why.
“I heard them die,” he said, taking his hands away from his face. He was still trembling. “I heard what it sounded like... when you killed them...” I had removed them one, two, three, when their backs were turned.
He looked up at me.
“I’m sorry, Sidney,” I said, imagining what it would have been like to hear as the mental connection broke––as his vampires were destroyed. I buried the wooden stake in Sid’s heart.
“But it’s not my problem.”
What happened next, was something I never get used to, no matter how many times I am the cause of it.
Sid looked like someone had just infected him with the Suck. Instead of it spreading from the wound, however, it was like all of his vitality was drawn to the entry point I had just created in his chest. Like his heart was a supermassive black hole and it was drawing in all the light that was formerly Sid.
He ate in upon himself and just turned to nothing, right there in my hands. And that was the end of him as a vampire. It was over.
I left the crypt, unaware of where I was headed, and just wandered down the hollowed out tube, until I came to a place I recognized as Spagna Metro station.
I became aware that the sucking of the life force from Sid was not unlike the sucking of the life force from one of our victims, that it was apt, and poetic, and all of that nonsense. And that one day it would happen to me. Just whoosh. Nothing.
Someone screamed.
Halsey
My landlady lived down the hall in a small fortified broom cupboard with metal bars and a tray to pass money through. It was where she conducted all her business. It was at the top of the stairs, and any time you came in or went out, she knew about it. Her eyes poked through the plexiglas window and stared at you. If the need arose, she could open the whole contraption up, and come at you with a knife––she was a fierce, fierce landlady. She never slept. I had to pass by her every time I wanted to go out. She never missed an opportunity to offer me advice on what I could do to improve myself. It was like being back at boarding school all over again. Except I had to pay her. And she was so judgmental.
She said anyone going out at this time of night was either up to no good or else looking for trouble.
“If you keep on doing what you’re doing,” she said, “I may not hear from you again. There is a killer on the loose.” She jabbed her finger at me like a knife, and pretended to come at me like the killer. It was very avant-garde. Her window offered her a proscenium arch, through which she pretended to crawl; it was like she was coming through my bedroom window, to get to me. It gave me the chills.
I showed her my index and middle fingers scissoring: “Just want to walk. You won’t know I’m here,” I said.
She just shook her head.
On the street, it was pleasantly warm––a cool breeze lifted the strands of my hair. I had pinned it up to keep it off my neck. Wisps of it jutted here and there.
Rome was a sprawl, and any microcosm of Rome was an opportunity to get lost––and experience that sprawl. I felt like what’s-his-face in the labyrinth, with the Minotaur or whatever. Except there was no Minotaur. I just felt like feeling that. I’m kinda existential. The haphazard helter-skelter screwy lack of any city planning made the streets impossible to navigate.
The city was a maze of ancient and modern. I wandered my new street with a wide smile on my face, in love with the possibilities of it.
I had money in my pocket, after all. If the need arose, I could get my hands on even more. I could spend, buy, acquire, furnish. I don’t mean lavishly. Just finish out my apartment, is all.
The word ‘freeing’ was. The shops included all of the finest clothing and jewelry, but it was the antiques I was most interested in.
Within feet were priceless jewels and multimillion-dollar works of art. Yet over all of this was my one room apartment and the faucet
that hardly worked.
I walked down one street, then another. Inwardly, I was composing what I would write about, when I got home.
‘The gentlemen attend to their ladies, who hang on their arms, enraptured in Rome; and when they pass, they acknowledge one another, like You know the secret, too. I could get lost in Rome. I just know it.’
I made sure to remember my steps.
‘The buildings are tall, dark, imposing. I want to see what things look like from a different point of view. I think we get lost in our own points of view sometimes. I don’t want that. I want to know and understand everything. Everything interests me. I am intrigued by all of it.’
I knew that when I got home I would write something less than what the experience had been for me––but I always got fascinated in things. I always felt, for example, that if people paid more attention–– Instead of taking notes, all the time––
‘I want to think, know, feel...
‘I want to experience all of it. I don’t even know what “it” is yet. But I want it. I want it very much.’
It was like coming here had been a sieve. I knew I could be me, if that makes sense. That whoever I was––wasn’t who I was. I was free to choose. I could be whatever me I wanted to be.
The problems that had threatened to trap me had all been sifted away until I was left with who I was.
But who was I?
Ballard––it all had something to do with Ballard.
* * *
I passed a small café and a rental store for mopeds. A sign said that I could rent one for a day or even a month, if I so chose. I would have to park it somewhere overnight, though. I would look into it in the morning.
It would make traveling through Rome much easier if I could come and go as I pleased, instead of being landladied all the time. While walking was fun and all, I was starting to get a light patina of sweat. The roads went up, down, all over the place.
I was now several blocks from where I had started out––everywhere was beginning to look the same.