Moonshine: A Novel (9 page)

I was pretty sure the snow-encrusted one on top, attempting to bang the other's head into the ground, was Amir. "You're quite welcome," he said, only a hint of gasp in his voice. With a roar, the vampire overwhelmed him and they began to roll around again.

"Oh yes, I can hardly thank you enough. If you had come just a little later, I might have killed him."

"That's funny," he said, grunting with the effort of keeping the vampire's hands from his throat. "I thought you didn't kill your fellow rational creatures."

Behind them, Aileen had struggled up from her knees and was looking around the alley like she had no idea where she was.

"What, they don't have self-defense in Arabia?"

Amir might have responded, but the vampire had turned him face-first into the snow and I gathered that arguing with me wasn't his first priority. I ran over to Aileen, whose face was pale with fright.

"Did I almost . . . was he about to . . . ?"

I gripped her hands, which were colder than even mine. "Did he bite you?" I said, softly. I dreaded the answer. There wasn't much you could do while you waited to see if a turn would take.

Aileen pressed her hands into her neck and then shook her head. I sighed in pure relief.

"Zephyr!"

The word was strangled, but I recognized a call for help when I heard one. I squeezed Aileen's shoulder. "I'll be right back."

The vampire had managed to pull Amir's head back like it was the top of a bow, and was using his elbow to slowly squeeze all the air from his lungs. Amir had scored at least one point--deep gouges marked the vampire's right cheek.

I moved steadily, calmly and swiftly. I'm just human, I can't move even a tenth as fast as an old vampire at top strength, but he never saw me coming. One minute he was strangling Amir, the next my knife had slid into that perfect spot just to the left of his shoulder blades and up, piercing his heart with pure blessed silver.

They never scream. Or turn to dust. Or turn to bats, or anything like the prosaic images in the movies. Oh, no, when you kill a vampire, they do only one thing: they pop. In one fluid motion I pulled my knife out of his all-too-permeable flesh (like an orange with firm skin but rotting pulp) and kicked him clear of Amir. Not a moment too soon, either: his entire body began to shake as rivulets of blood gushed from every orifice. This wasn't survivable, like when vampires were dumb enough to drink alcohol. This was lifeblood and food blood. This was the essence of their undead existence. When every ounce of blood in his body had soaked the snow around him, a clear sputum followed, and then something gelatinous and fatty. After two minutes, all that was left was a deflated balloon of gray skin.

Aileen fell on her knees again and vomited. Loudly. Amir recovered himself and moved behind me. We didn't touch, but I felt his warmth like an oven, like a bulwark against the cold.

"Does that always happen?" Amir asked, quietly.

"It's worse, the older the vampire." Something Daddy used to say came back to me. "It's . . . really the best way of telling how old they are."

"And how old was he?"

I thought of the yellow, rotting lumpy fat that had sunk into the bloody snow. "A little over two centuries."

I knelt to clean my blade in the snow and snapped it back home. My wrist ached a little from the impact. Unthinking, I hitched up my skirt to replace the knife.

"Zephyr . . ."

I was glad to have him so close to me, though I would never tell him so. There were cloves in that scent, too, and tea and something utterly indefinable. This close, I could barely smell the reek emanating from what was left of the vampire's body.

I rubbed my wrist. "I've only done that twice before. It's a hard thrust."

His hand hovered over my fingers, but he didn't hold them. "Listen, I'm--"

He stopped abruptly when I walked away from him and toward the body. The popped sucker's expensively tailored clothes were useless, but that didn't mean that everything should go to waste. With every appearance of calm, I squatted in snow that smelled like rotting meat and ammonia and carefully removed his cuff links. I stood up and stepped over the body to reach Aileen. She had huddled against the side of the building, breathing deep, shaky breaths like she was desperate to control herself. I considered giving her the cuff links, but decided that she might not be in the best frame of mind to appreciate her good fortune.

"You're safe," I said putting my arm around her shoulders. She leaned into me and let out a long stream of curses, not all of them in English. I led her around the body and toward Amir.

"I didn't see it coming," she said.

Amir surprised us both by responding. "Most of us never do."

We went back to Horace's. Aileen looked like . . . well, she'd almost been sucker dinner, but the lights inside were dim and the smoke was thick and almost no one looked at her ruined rayon hose or unraveling turban. Hell, in a certain light, it might have been a style. I wanted to go home, but Aileen insisted on a drink and under the circumstances I didn't think I could refuse her. The three of us just sat at the bar, quiet and brooding. For a few moments, there had been something so horribly
right
about the simple moral equations of kill and survive. Pure delight in my physical prowess, in the perfect execution of moves that had been remorselessly drilled into me since I could walk. But I couldn't be like Daddy. I couldn't demonize a whole race of creatures just to get my jollies by killing them. This was the first time I'd been in a true battle in more than two years and I was terrified that I had
missed
it. At some point, a man came up to the bar, looking nearly as disheveled as the three of us. He took a look at Amir's drying suit and thumped him on the back.

"Did that sucker get to you, too?" he said.

Amir raised his eyebrows. "I suppose?"

"Bowled me over right in the street. It's not a new moon, is it? Something's made them go crazy, I tell you."

"You probably just didn't look where you were going," I muttered to my drink. The man gave me a curious look, shrugged, and drifted onto the dance floor.

On Aileen's third gin and tonic, I ordered my second. Amir watched us silently, but he made no move to leave. I almost wondered why he stayed, except that it seemed quite natural. In the end, Aileen got well and truly ossified. I wasn't entirely steady myself. The alcohol made her giggly again, but it seemed to teeter on the edge of hysteria. I remembered the first time I had seen Daddy pop a vampire. I'd had nightmares for weeks, and it hadn't been trying to kill me. We would have to talk about it, but at the moment I was engaged in being drunk for the first time in my life, and it seemed like a bit of a full-time occupation to just keep the room in more or less the correct orientation.

Amir casually tossed some coins on the table to pay for the drinks and stood up.

"I think I should take you girls home."

Aileen seemed to be passed out on the counter, though she periodically giggled. I leaned forward and rested my head on Amir's quite excellent shoulder while I hunted for his pocket watch.

"Dear, perhaps we should save the groping for someplace more private?"

I nodded and then shook my head vigorously. "No, I mean, where is that darling horological device?"

He laughed a little and pulled his watch from his left pants pocket. "One in the morning," he said.

I groaned. "It's closed! Our home, I mean. Mrs. Brodsky closes it . . . quite punctually . . . at midnight."

"Ah." He put his hands firmly on my shoulders and set me upright again. He looked thoughtful, and a little worried. A line of stress seemed to have been gouged between his eyebrows. "Well, I suppose you'll have to come back with me, then."

Fireworks in my chest. I giggled. "What about our virtue?" I said, all wide-eyed innocence.

He snorted. "Quite safe, I assure you. You and your friend smell like a bathtub distillery."

Aileen had fallen asleep in the cab by the time we made it to his building--a large edifice of gray stone on East Twenty-sixth Street. I assumed it was an apartment building until he opened the heavy front doors with his key and we entered the darkened lobby of what was almost certainly a ware house. Of all the places I had imagined Amir living . . . No wonder he had hesitated to take us here. It was a little awkward, as he had to carry Aileen, but he pulled back the grate of the elevator and then used his key to activate the controls. I eyed the elevator lever warily and just barely restrained myself from asking if he knew what he was doing.

After an initial lurch, the elevator went up smoothly enough. He stopped it at the top floor. Attempting to school my expression so that I wouldn't embarrass him with any overt dismay (and who was I to be such a snob, anyway?), I pulled back the grate and stepped inside.

I stared. A prince, he had said. Suddenly, I could believe it. The transformation from the dusty, barely lit ware house down below could not be more complete. The floors were marble, with a few carpets of intricate Persian design. Decorations covered every wall--including many instruments I couldn't identify. It looked as though it sprawled across the entire top floor of the ware house, but just the part that I could see was worth more than everything my father had owned in his lifetime.

Amir went to put Aileen in his spare bedroom, and when he returned discovered that I had managed to take just a few more steps inside.

"Nice, isn't it?" he said.

I lashed out instinctively at the complacent pride in his voice. "Oh, wealth by hereditary privilege. How impressive! There are families starving--"

I stopped, because my vehemence seemed to have made the world start wobbling again.

"Is the boy here?" I asked, when Amir put his arm around me and led me down a hall. Maybe the Temperance Union has a point, I thought.

He shook his head. "My brother has him. His place is safer."

In my current state, this seemed like a perfectly reasonable answer. I looked up and saw that we were in a room with a canopied bed and intricately embroidered pillows. I sat on the bed and unbuckled my shoes. Lord, but my feet hurt.

"Tomorrow I'll come up with a plan for Rinaldo," I said, looking up at him. His hair was damp, and curled around his ears.

He seemed almost as complacent and smug as he had back at Horace's, but something like curiosity or tenderness dusted his features. "And you'll expect payment in full?"

I shimmied out of my hose, completely ignoring Amir's delicately raised eyebrows. "I live in this town. I see what he does to all of us. I'm taking your money because it looks like you won't miss it. I'm helping you because . . ."

"I need it." He leaned on the bedpost and slid down beside me. "Even though I'm a complete bloody, ignorant misogynist?"

Oh, just give it up, Zephyr. Just kiss him.

So of course I said, "You're not human."

He shook his head. "Does that bother you, Miss Hollis?"

His nose touched mine, his hand caressed my neck. Without warning, the fireworks spread from my chest to my . . . I moaned, we fell sideways among the pillows. His heat, his smell, the overt signs of his Otherness had never bothered me. Now, they were doing a good deal more than that.

"Why didn't you use any of your powers against that vampire?"

He had been about to kiss me, but he pulled back. I wanted to kick myself. "I couldn't," he said.

How odd. My eyes fluttered shut and I felt his lips brush mine. He nibbled my pouty bottom lip. Gently, his hand rose from my neck to caress my hair.

He froze. "Zephyr . . . what on earth--?"

I laughed, but couldn't seem to open my eyes. Which was a shame, since his expression was sure to be priceless. "Josephine Baker," I said.

"Pardon?"

"Egg whites."

"Are you serious?"

"I think Aileen was."

He kissed me again, chastely, on the forehead. "Good night, chanteuse."

I fell asleep before he closed the door.

CHAPTER THREE

I awoke a few hours later, when the barest hint of sun was lightening the sky. I was in possession of a headache fit to fell civilizations, and so at first I imagined that the distant banging was occurring inside my skull. Then I heard the moans. I might have been moaning, but I was reasonably sure that my voice wasn't that deep. Unless Horace's bathtub gin was a hell of a lot stronger than even I had realized.

I heard it again--a thump, like someone falling against a wall, and a muffled grunt. Shaking off the last vestiges of sleep, I realized who that must be. He sounded like he was in trouble. Carefully, so as not to be blinded by the pain in my head, I stood up. The hallway was dark, but there was only one closed door at the end of it, and I could tell just from the ornate designs on the inlaid mahogany paneling that it would be Amir's.

Gently, I turned the knob and poked my head inside. At first I didn't see him amidst the ostentatious furnishings--more carpets, a massive canopied bed, and what looked like dozens of antique plates and vases, all lovingly displayed; even the discarded silk pajama top on the floor spoke of a profligate way with money. I clicked my tongue against my teeth and was about to launch into a familiar internal bromide about excessive personal wealth when another low-voiced groan reminded me of why I had come here. I opened the door fully. He was slumped against the wall beside an ottoman. His hair appeared to be standing straight up. His skin was rich as ever, but his color was ashen. He had squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fists, as though he struggled to rein in his temper.

"Amir?" I whispered.

His whole body began to tremble like a taut harp string. With an impossible, terrifying quickness he smashed his shoulders and head into the wall behind him, hard enough to rattle a Chinese vase sitting in the corner of the room. I flinched, but didn't jump back.

"Are you--"

"Go away," he said. His voice was quiet, but in a way that promised violence.

I ignored it. He hadn't opened his eyes. "But . . . has something happened?"

"Zephyr."
Definitely a warning.

I knelt and brushed his knuckles with my fingertips. It was enough, apparently. He flinched away from me as though I had stabbed him. He let out a roar that sounded more lion than human, and I became aware of the intense heat radiating from his skin. In fact, if I looked closely, it seemed almost as though he was glowing . . .

Smoke began to billow from his ears--great puffs of sulphur and charred orange. He opened his eyes, and I now understood the good sense he had in closing them: they had transformed into two burning orbs of flame. Their ashes smudged his cheekbones. I scooted a few inches back. I was reasonably sanguine about strange Other abilities, but this was a first even for me.

"Changed your mind?" he said. His voice was unrecognizably low; sparks flew from his lips. And I must be insane, because the first thought I had was how fascinating a kiss with him would be right now. Before my all-too-human body burnt to a crisp, I suppose.

His hands were still clenched; his body still trembled. Something was very wrong.

"Ah, no," I said. His heat was beginning to sear my skin. I coughed. "I don't believe I have."

He shook his head and the fire dimmed. "Go away, Zephyr." His voice cracked at the end of my name. He groaned and smashed his head against the wall again.

I tried to grip his hand, but the heat was too intense. "Is there anything I can do?" I asked. "And don't tell me to go away," I said quickly, "because I won't."

"Bloody do-gooder."

"You expect me to just ignore you when you're . . ." I trailed off when I realized what I had been about to say.
In so much pain.
Of course. That's what I was looking at. I felt slightly embarrassed. The lion roars and fire eyeballs had distracted me from what ought to have been obvious from the first.

"Where does it hurt?" I asked.

His lips stretched into a brief smile. "Everywhere. And you can't do a thing about it, I promise, so just go away." His voice had lightened until it was close to normal again.

"Will it stop?" I asked, settling beside him against the wall.

He nodded slowly, like a drunk attempting to preserve his balance. "Always has before. I maintain optimism."

"How long?"

"Generally last six hours or so. I'm about three hours through."

"Oh."

He turned his head toward me. The flames in his eyes had receded to the point where I could faintly see his familiar, dark irises.

"You're an ifrit?" I hazarded.

He drew himself up a little. "Amir al-Natar ibn Kashkash, prince of the Djinni, at your service."

"No kidding?"

I looked around his room. The Chinese and Ottoman vases seemed, upon closer inspection, to be several centuries old. A prince? Yes, either that or his daddy was a Rockefeller. And I hadn't ever heard of a Rockefeller whose eyes could double as torches.

"It's an honor, your highness. Too bad you seem to waste your hereditary wealth on useless antiques--"

"There is nothing useless about my collection. You're looking at some of the finest examples of Ming and Ch'ing dynasty art in the world."

Really? Despite myself, I stood to take a closer look. "Who made them?"

He frowned at me. "Who?" he asked, as though the question had never occurred to him. "I usually don't bother with the artists. I just take what I like."

"Why does that not surprise me?"

I felt a sudden blast of heat from him, and he crushed his knuckles into his hands. "If you're going to stay," he said, "at least do something useful."

I considered it. "Would you like me to sing?" I asked. "Or I could tell you about the latest suffragette meeting--"

"Sing," he commanded, very prince-like. And, well, I obeyed.

I knew Aileen had woken up when I heard her violent vomiting down the hall. I could only hope she had made it to the toilet. Amir had collapsed into a profound sleep, his body so relaxed (and cool) that I knew his mysterious attack had finally ended. I helped him to his bed and left him there--I couldn't do anything more for him now and I had a feeling Aileen would not be her cheerily cynical self this morning. In any event, she had apparently located the commode, which was adjacent to the kitchen. I looked around this place curiously, for it occurred to me that I did not know much about djinn, and I couldn't quite imagine what they ate. Infidel babies?

"Not since the Crusades, surely," I muttered, and then laughed. I would have to tell that to Amir. The kitchen didn't look like any actual cooking had taken place in the last decade . . . at least, it didn't resemble any of the kitchens I was acquainted with. No stains on the cutting board, no patina of smoke and grease and steam coating the floors and ceiling above. The electric stove was spotless, the tiled floor unblemished as a catalog spread. It seemed unbelievable, but then again, I did not spend much time in the homes of the wealthy. For all I knew, such godly standards were de rigeur for the upper crust. Lily might find the state of Amir's kitchen deplorable. Or, more likely, she would find it extremely vulgar to ever set foot in a kitchen at all.

Aileen had been in there for a while. I walked back to the bathroom door and rapped lightly.

"Is death imminent?"

She coughed and spat. "Do you have a knife?" she said, shakily.

"Oh, dear," I said, mimicking her accent, "but your wrists are your best feature!"

She laughed. A little hollow, perhaps, but certainly an expression of humor. "But apparently my neck is the really hot ticket."

Oh, Aileen
. "I'm going to find us some food," I said. "Wish me luck. It feels a bit like I'm raiding King Tut's tomb."

"Do mummies eat people?"

"Mostly they stay dead. But the reanimated ones like scarab beetles."

"Avoid the crawlies, then."

Just another type of zombie, Daddy had said during one of his lectures. "But the damn wogs wouldn't know how to bring back a cat if Mohammed bit one on the tail."

He has a way with words, does Daddy.

Aileen groaned and I left her to it. Back in the kitchen, I noticed a curious squat porcelain white box, nestled against the wall beside the regular cabinets. When I paid attention, I realized that it was the source of the steady hum that filled the room. I pulled it open. A rush of cold air hit my face and arms. Water condensed on the countertop nearby. I looked inside more closely. A self-cooling cabinet? Where on earth had Amir found such a marvel? I realized it must be akin to the mechanistic cooling systems used by the reformed meatpacking industry, but I had never heard of a unit for home use before. What a flagrant waste of money! He probably used this kitchen a handful of times a year. As usual, food trumped indignation and I was soon pulling out carafes of milk and a carton of fresh eggs. The rest of the cold-cabinet had been filled with six or seven unmarked cardboard boxes. Curious, I opened one.

Sausages. Well, no, upon closer inspection they had not even that dubious pedigree. Long, pink and one partially eaten . . .

"Hot dogs!"

I giggled until I could barely breathe. Hot dogs! A prince of the Djinni with a cabinet full of street-corner frankfurters! What a delightful discovery. I couldn't wait to tease him about it. I shook my head and closed the cabinet. A loaf of bread was in the pantry above the stove, and I set myself to making breakfast.

Aileen wandered back into the daylight as I was putting the first slab of French toast on the griddle. She looked so pale and fragile beneath the crumpled red of her evening gown that for a moment I wondered if she would pass out. But she settled herself against the wall and stared at me with baleful gray eyes.

"Where's that boy of yours?" she asked, her voice oddly flat.

I flipped over the slice. "He's hardly a boy."

"Of course not. Did you two exhaust yourselves last night?"

There was something hard beneath her words. I remembered the worst moments of the last few hours, when Amir had burned so hot he singed the carpet beneath him. "He's asleep," I said quietly. "We didn't do anything."

Aileen laughed. This time, it held no humor. "Whyever not? Isn't that why you warned me away from him? Why you sicced me on that delightfully rich vampire? What a wasted opportunity."

I dropped the second slice of bread into the pan so abruptly that drops of oil burned my skin. "I didn't know."

"You shouldn't let that get around. The vampire suffragette not recognizing a sucker? It'll ruin your reputation."

I flipped the slice; more oil splattered. "
I didn't know.
You think I'd have let you walk into that if I'd even suspected? He was old, he knew how to hide. Jesus, Aileen, I try to
help
vampires, not hunt them--"

"Funny how you're so good at it."

I whirled on her. "Aileen--"

She was crying. "I know."

I ran and hugged her. After a moment she returned the embrace, her entire body trembling. It was enough to make me wish I could kill that vampire again. After a while she pulled away and wiped her eyes with her sleeve.

"I think your breakfast is burning."

After I had stuffed myself full of slightly charred French toast and powdered sugar (surprisingly delicious), Aileen and I headed back home. I left a note on Amir's pillow telling him I had an idea of how I could infiltrate Rinaldo's gang and he should find me whenever he woke up. His face was beautiful in sleep--chiseled and cold, an Arabian prince. I thought it odd that seeing his eyes erupt into orbs of flame had done nothing to ease my attraction. His hair dipped over one eye. I pushed it back and then left.

After I retrieved my bicycle and shook the snow from the seat, we headed home. Aileen perched on the handlebars and I attempted to be slightly more cautious as we barreled through the melting snow. She even managed to keep her balance when I had to kick the wheel straight after sharp turns. We must have been a sight, really, to all the respectable ladies exiting their Deusenbergs at the shops on Madison Avenue. I felt a distinct urge to blow a raspberry at their fur-lined hats. A few blocks away from Ludlow Street, a roadblock forced me to plow to a halt. Emergency workers were lifting a gurney into an ambulance. Not in itself unusual, but the gurney was covered with a thick black shroud used only in rare cases of vampire burning.