The Last Vampire (26 page)

She watched him sipping a vodka on the rocks. He’d ordered Stoli, then asked Bill a question that she had not heard. Bill had said very little to him, but she knew what it had been: “That’s the owner over there. Ask her.” So he was fortifying himself. She watched him throw the drink back. He turned toward her.

This was the moment. If he recognized her, she was going to be blown apart.

He met her eyes and came toward her.

“You’re a Stoli man,” she said as he approached. “You ought to try Charodei.”

Paul was so stunned when he looked at her that he almost lost his balance. In all his nearly fifty years on this earth, he had never beheld a woman who affected him more powerfully. She was a vision, just a damn vision. He loved noses, and she had one of those graceful, sweet noses with a tip that begged to be kissed. He loved complexion, and her skin was like frozen cream, a rich, deep white, perfectly smooth. He loved lips, and hers were exquisite, and they had in them the kind of small, amused smile that suggested a good personality. And eyes — her eyes were so calm, so gentle, so fresh-looking that he thought she couldn’t be a day over twenty. She was wearing dark blue silk that looked as if it cost a few bucks. And she owned this fabulous little place. It was small, but it was class.

“Please,” she said in a voice that would put the angels to shame, “have a seat.” She glanced away from him. “Bring him a Charodei, Billy.”

When she met his eyes, he found himself unable to look away. God, her eyes were frank. God, she was confident. He loved that in a woman.

“I want to see if you like it. It’s my little test.” Her smile — it was incredibly kind. That was the thing; this was a hell of a sexy woman, with those fabulous, beautifully proportioned breasts and that angelic face — but she was
kind
. You could see it in the gentle ease of the smile, hear it in the melody of the voice. In a place like this, he would have thought “pretty, but hard.” He knew special when he saw special, and this lady was
real
special.

But Paul was also a very single-minded human being. He was here to kill vampires, not to fuck-talk some kid into bed. He said, “I’m doing research on Ellen Wunderling,” but in his mind he was saying, “If I leave here without your phone number, I’ll kill myself.” Her smile turned, he thought, a little sad. “I didn’t catch your name, mister.”

“Ward, Paul Ward. I’m a journalist.”

“May I see your press credentials? I’m sorry to ask, but we’re almost a tourist attraction because of that story. It’s ironic, because we aren’t even involved in the Goth scene.”

“No, this looks like a very nice place. I wonder if you could tell me — ”

“Sir, I really think you should ask at the precinct. Detective Lieutenant Timothy Kennerly. They questioned every employee in this place at least three times.”

“Nothing ever came of it?”

“I saw her. We all did. She came in and got a Coke. She was sweaty; she’d been running or something. She seemed totally at ease. Not a problem. That was it.”

Paul realized that he was going to have to leave in a minute, as soon as she demanded the press credentials again. He had no credentials. In his wallet were driver’s licenses in five names from three different countries, and half a dozen credit cards, some of which might be good, all of which would flash red lights from Langley to Foggy Bottom the instant they were used.

Miriam saw that he was getting ready to stand up, and realized he was about to go. If he did that, she’d have to have him followed, but there was nobody here capable of doing it except Sarah. She did not want use Sarah that way; it was just too dangerous.

Ward himself was her key. He seemed so straight, though, that she didn’t know quite how to seduce him, or even if it was possible. She would do it by acting the young, innocent girl. Given the panting-dog expression presently on his face, it was a type he liked.

“Listen,” he said, “I’m working real hard on this. I think it’s a huge thing. There’s something incredible behind it — what happened to her. Almost certainly. And I’d like to enlist your help. What I want to know is, do I have any chance at all?”

“Try me.”

He knocked back the drink. Miriam pointed to his glass, and Bill brought another. At that moment, a crowd came in. Among them she saw Jewel and a rather nervous Ben Stiller. Good faces for the club. It would be a good night.

Paul watched the people disappear one after another into the back wall. It told him that there was a lot more to this place than he’d initially thought. He wondered what would happen if he suddenly got up and went through. This little girl sure wouldn’t stop him. When he’d first sat down, he put her at about thirty-two. Now he was wondering if she could even damn well legally drink the liquor she sold. Christ, though, she was lovely.

She also knew a little something about Ellen Wunderling that she hadn’t disclosed. A flicker in the edges of the eyes had been his tipoff. He wished that he could interrogate her freely. She was an innocent little thing. You wouldn’t even need a rubber hose to get her going. A light slap would set this powder puff to babbling.

He wanted to get in her pants, and it was distracting him. This damn town had to be full of vampires, ripe for the killing, and if this bitch was holding back about Ellen, maybe she was also holding back information that would lead him to them.

“Let me ask you this,” he said. “In the New York
Times
story — do you know it?”

“Of course.”

“It suggests that there are people who think they’re vampires. Who actually drink blood. If I said, maybe such people drank Ellen’s blood — how do you react to that?”

“The vampire scene is dead.”

“Not for these assholes. They think they’re getting something from the blood — besides AIDS, I mean. Some kind of life force. The soul, I guess.” As he spoke, she thought of how he looked behind a gun. She remembered the hate in his eyes, the eager spark as he killed. This creature
loved
his work, damn him. When she let Leo feed on him — and she would certainly do that in the end — she would make her go very, very slowly.

“Soul eaters,” she said. “Wow, that’s heavy.”

“I know it’s heavy, but it’s true — I mean, in the sense that it’s what they believe. Of course, it’s all bullshit — ”

“Of course.”

“But they believe it, that’s what’s important. You look at the stats. A lot of people disappear without trace, don’t they?”

“I don’t know.”

“In the U.S. in a year, over three hundred thousand.”

“You’re kidding . . . walking out on their debts, or a spouse they don’t like, that’d be most of it, I’d think.”

“There’s plenty of foul play, Miss — what’s your name?” Beautiful, he was. Gracious, not. “Miriam Blaylock.” “Miss Blaylock.” He paused. His eyes were searching hers. How hungry he was. She realized that he was an innocent. Incredibly, his sexual curiosity was that of a boy.

She said, “You look like a soldier.”

“Is that good?”

She laughed, raised her eyebrows, delivered a slowly developing smile. “Is it?”

His left hand came into view as he brushed his cheek with the tips of his fingers.
For God’s sake,
he thought,
let her see there’s no ring
. She was talking to him like a person, here. She was being nice to him. He was beginning to think to himself, maybe he should lay off work for a little while. Lie low here in Manhattan. Let some personal life develop for once. He’d been married to the damn Company for too damn long. He was ready for a little real life.

He tried an opening line.“So, how long have you been in the club game?”

She took out another cigarette, offered him one. She lit them both with a lighter that looked as if it belonged on the
Titanic
. It was tiny, gold, and complicated. He wouldn’t have been surprised if it had blown up in her face.

“Lemme see that.”

She handed it to him.

“How old is this?”

“I bought it in a shop. I thought it was cute.”

“Well, it could be dangerous.”

She tried to recall how long she’d had the damn thing. Seventy, eighty years, at least. She’d never had occasion to get a new one. She took the lighter back. “It’s fine.”

“I’m gonna get you a real lighter.”

“It’s fine!”

“No, I’d like to. I’d really like to.” He’d go to Bloomingdale’s, spend fifty bucks. This lady had to be impressed. He could not let her slip through his fingers.

She looked at him out of lowered eyelids. There was even a little hint of Asia in her miraculous face. He loved the way Asian women looked; they were just so damn beautiful. She was more beautiful.

He just plain wanted to kiss her. But how did he get there? Maybe she’d drink with him. He said, “Listen, lemme buy you one a these Cordiers — what are they — hey, this is great vodka. And coming from me, that’s high praise.”

How pathetic he was. For the moment, his attraction to her was pushing his fanaticism aside. If she kissed him, she wondered, would it draw him closer or scare him away?

“What do you actually do for a living?”

What was this, he wondered. Was she evaluating him? What if he told her he was CIA? Sometimes that was a major turn-on; sometimes they hated it. Usually, they thought you were a complete asshole.

“What I really do is — I’m a — well, I’m not a reporter.”

“I know you’re not a reporter, and I’m getting kind of pissed off, since you won’t show me any kind of credentials and I’m still waiting.”

“You’re waiting, and I’m gonna — well, this is not kosher at all. This is really against regs — ” “You are a cop. I thought you were.”

“No, no.” He pulled out his wallet, opened it to his ID card.

Miriam took the wallet, looked at the card. She thought that it appeared entirely legitimate, and it was certainly not a good piece of news. Her opposition was apparently governmental.

She memorized the card, and the information on the driver’s license, and the number on the one credit card that was visible.

“Are you offended?”

“I’m curious. I mean, this is — it’s so weird. What the hell was Ellen Wunderling really up to, that she rates attention from you people?” She motioned to Bill, who gave him a fresh drink — lots of vodka, less ice. “I mean, this vampire thing seems like something pretty stupid for the CIA to take an interest in.”

“What if I told you it wasn’t stupid at all?”

“I wouldn’t know what to say. But I wouldn’t be real interested, either.”

Paul found that a very unexpected reaction. He sat back and regarded her. Given the past few minutes of conversation, he decided to revise his opinion about little Merry Blaylock. He’d bet thirty years in clandestine service that this kid did not know a single useful thing about Ellen Wunderling or vampires or anything connected with them. But the way she was looking back at him, with that dee-licious little smile — well, her innocence told him that conversation should go in another direction entirely.

The smile widened a little, played very fetchingly in her eyes. He could practically see her deciding that she thought his being CIA was kind of cool. The damn tag had worked for once. Damned amazing.

“Would you like to see my club?”

“They say it’s the most exclusive club in New York.”

She reached over, touched the back of his hand with the tips of her fingers. Then she laughed, a deliciously suggestive little bell-note, one of her favorites. “Oh, it is. Very, very exclusive. But if I like you, then you can come in. Welcome to the Veils.”

I
t looks like a wall — I mean,
just
like a wall.” Paul extended a large hand toward the entrance.

“Doug Henning was a master.”

“Isn’t he the one who died? Kinda young, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, he was.” He’d been a delicious young man.

She took his hand and stepped through with him.

Techno music hit him like an avalanche — one made of pure sound. The space was dark, milky with smoke. Lasers played in time with the very fast music, revealing random slices of a whole lot of dancers. On a small stage, its floor glistening like a mirror, was a shadow capering behind the most complex set of control panels and turntables he’d ever seen in a club. The dj was faceless, even his head was covered. He appeared to be as thin as his bones, but that was probably some sort of an illusion.

The intensity of the music was completely beyond anything in Paul’s experience. For a few seconds, he was virtually unconscious, reeling through a fog of reefer and crack and crys so thick he felt himself getting high on his second gasp for air. The next thing he knew, the music swept him up, seeming to yank his soul right out of his body and levitate him across the floor. He cried out, he knew it, he could feel it. But the music was so loud, the beat so intoxicating, the rhythm so danceable that his consciousness lost control of the primitive parts of the brain and his body began to move of its own accord. He thought voodoo, the shaking of priests, the trance of the gods.

He was dancing, and he could not do anything but dance. He was helpless to stop himself. The lasers showed sweating faces all around him, beautiful faces, goddesses, gods, and he thought he’d gone to some Olympian mountain. He thought he had risen above the ocean of life into the air of life. He was so happy, his heart was exploding with happiness, and it rushed through him as if fire had replaced the blood in his veins.

It was sorcery, he thought, it was magic. Satan’s hooves were trampling him, but Satan’s soft hands were also stroking him. He saw the girl — Miriam — standing there beside the stage with two other young women — both lovelies as well. Then a guy came out and began racing around the room like he was in some kind of a major seizure. He was wearing a magician’s coat, black with red sequins and green sequins in the shape of a pentacle on it, and he ran in a jerky, unnatural way, striking dancers with a sparking wand and making them cry out.

Then Paul saw that most of the dancers were stark naked and there was a girl shooting a huge syringe straight into a guy’s mouth, the needle penetrating under his tongue, and his eyes were flickering like a dying sign. There was sweat in the air with the smoke. There were pills rolling on the floor. The drugs were more plentiful here than anything he had seen in Paris or Bangkok.

It was hell, it was heaven, he was happy, he was scared to death, and he felt as if Satan were right there in this god-for-damned room and he was being butt-fucked by that NVR interrogator again in Muang Sing. Jesus wept, why had they done shit like that to him? The music got louder still and tighter still, driving, driving, crushing through his heart, burning through his brain, and then the magus struck him with the wand and the blow felt like an incoming mortar round.

The lights changed from lasers to white slits, and huge shadows swept over the dancers. When he looked up, he saw into a tremendous sky full of cloud towers and in them there was the Hindenburg exploding and burning, and from its belly there fell sparks that were people.

His whole self was torn away and torn out of him — his name went, his sense of being, the presence of and pain over his father, his place where his mom lived in him and said, “You’re a good boy, a good boy” — all of his innermost self was torn out of him and swept away in the sea of smoke and the goddamnest best, most exciting, genius-level rock and roll he had ever heard in his life.

Then there was a girl there, one of the lovelies who’d been with Miss Blaylock. She had dark bangs and the kind of shape you wanted to put your hands around. She came dancing up to him and started undressing him, dancing with him and pulling off his clothes. He thought,
You know what I’m doing? — I am letting this happen, because this is the most fun I have ever had or known about.
He helped this exquisite girl with the light brown brush get every stitch of his clothes off and toss them down on the floor.

Nobody gave a shit, nobody stopped, he was dancing in a wonderful ocean of vibrating pricks and sailing boobs, and all the faces of all the gods and goddesses of the dance were smiling on him.

He yelled out, “I’m blown away! I am just plain
blown away!”
Then he remembered that he’d been carrying. The gun — had it been in his pocket or where did it go? Well, it wasn’t his lookout anymore, and anyway, who gave a damn? He was not hunting vampires now.

This was not like any kind of damn club he’d ever heard of before. This was some kind of magic shamanic demon hole, this was.

Cool!

The room changed again, and this time he screamed bloody murder because he could not help it, he could not even think about stopping it; he screamed and he stumbled forward because the floor had disappeared and he was standing a thousand feet
above
Manhattan, and down there the traffic was racing as fast as the music, and little puff clouds were shooting past beneath his feet. The illusion was so perfect — man, it was so perfect! — you did not believe that you were standing on anything. That music, that wonderful, driving, animal-perfect, jungle machine music just totally blew out his nerve endings, so he was not a body with weight and age but an eternal light-being flying over the city.

Somebody knelt in front of him and started blowing him, and for the first time in his life, he just enjoyed it without worrying about who was there. He didn’t care if it was a girl or a guy or a damn gorilla; he just loved; he loved with all his blood and his hammering, crashing heart, and the little light in the middle that was him.

Then he did look down and he saw the naked woman from the limo on Houston Street. She was giving him a hard-sucking blow job in the middle of the goddamn dance floor, and it was the best damn blow job he’d ever had.

The pleasure was so intense that he could not stand, his knees started to give way. Somebody held him up, somebody strong as shit, so he just let himself go limp. The hands were long and thin and cold against his skin, but the arms were as steady as steel rods. No way was he gonna get dropped. The pleasure swept up and down him, crashing like great waves from the top of his head to the singing tips of his toes.

He closed his eyes, and in his mind he saw not the woman blowing him, but Miriam Blaylock. How could she be that beautiful? How was it possible? With this club, she was some kind of magician, some kind of demon, but God love her, she was so beautiful.

Then he noticed that he wasn’t being blown anymore. Hell, that was tough, that was intense to leave him with his gob half down the chute. “Shit!” he yelled aloud.

The music snatched him up like a wave. His balls were aching from him being hard too long with nothing happening but the
music;
the music just did not stop, did it? He was dancing again, they were all dancing again. When he looked over at the stage, he saw six women and six men dancing in front of the consoles, and behind them the dj had his hood off. Paul noticed that his eyes were yellow.

Miriam Blaylock was dancing, too; he saw her. She saw him and her eyes sparkled; then she saw he was naked and she cocked her head and gave him a mock-angry look and wagged her finger at him. Oh, she was just the cutest little girl he had ever seen. God love her for letting him into this wonderful place where he was dancing with the beautiful. She must actually like him. She must be impressed. Actually. He’d tell her he was the damn CIA director, if he had to. He never wanted to leave this place as long as he lived.

Then it was total dark, total silence. He stumbled, almost fell again, but nobody else moved. Everybody else just stayed still. He couldn’t hear a damn thing, not after that music.

The lights came on, and all of a sudden the magical beings were just people. They were boys and girls in their teens, mostly. Some older ones. There were famous faces here and there, not people whose names he knew, but the kind of faces you recognized from TV or the movies but you didn’t know exactly who. He’d never been in the same room with famous people before.

A guy came onto the stage. The dj. There was a faint sound like rustling leaves, and Paul applauded, too. Had the music fucked up his hearing or what? He’d listened to plenty of loud rock in his life, but this had been something more. This had been music that blew you so far out of yourself that he now felt as though some sort of internal reset button had been pushed. He felt blank, a deprogrammed soul.

In the light he could see people were getting dressed, and they were still doing drugs, right out in the middle of everything. Some of them were even still making love. Guys were still hard, thinking nothing of it. Some of these kids were not even teens. They were, like, teenyboppers. There were friggin’ children in this place, drinking and doing drugs, naked with naked adults. It was total, amazing, awful sin.

“Hell,” he said to two of them standing nearby, “this place almost got Bangkok beat!”

Waiters came through two big doors and started laying out food and wine. They brought it in on huge gold trays, in golden bowls and crystal bowls, and the utensils and the plates were all gold, too.

“Christ,” he said to another couple, “those pots must be worth a million bucks!”

He hadn’t noticed that he was the only one making any noise until a guy held his finger over his lips.

“Be quiet?”

The kid nodded.

Hell, he didn’t want to be quiet. He wanted to talk dirty to some frail. He wanted to get finished getting blown. But, hell, he was okay with it; this was what they wanted to do. He was the damn newbie, looked like.

Sarah watched Leo pull Miriam away from the dj’s stage and heard her say, “Miri, that
man!
He’s utterly dreadful!”

Very quietly, Miriam said, “He’s also utterly alone.”

Leo seemed not to comprehend. “Well, just get him out of here, please. He’s pissing everybody off.”

Sarah marched over to her and said,“We don’t talk to Miriam like that.”

“What? About him? She was an idiot to bring him in. He even had a gun!”

Quickly, Sarah took Leonore out of the room. The hard lights of the kitchen were a better setting for this discussion. “Listen, Leo. Do not
ever
make demands of her. What’s been done to you doesn’t give you the right. In fact, it does the opposite. Before, you were her friend. Now, you’re her possession.”

“You know something, Sarah? You’re a complete asshole.” Leo flounced off through the doors.

Sarah was amazed at how angry she felt, watching those doors swing behind that arrogant little ass. It was a calm, dispassionate sort of anger, a deep anger. The idea that she would have to live years and years with Leo interfering between her and Miri was just plain awful.

Before Leo, she had not been loyal enough. She had been unable to shake the scruples she’d brought from her old life. Miri had stolen her from herself. But because she was not a volunteer but a captive, something else was also true. Miri was responsible for her. Miri, also, belonged to her. She had rights in this relationship. She had her place, and did not intend to be disloged.

She went down to the office and stood at the one-way mirror, where she could see the dance floor. Everybody was eating, gobbling away at the braces of honey-dipped sparrows and other exotic foods that Vincent had prepared at Miriam’s instruction. Miriam had little interest in human food, but it wasn’t as if she didn’t know about it. Her recipes spanned three thousand years. Honey-dipped sparrows had been the hot dogs of Elizabethan England.

Sarah watched the man. He was, in a way, beautiful — huge, muscular, his eyes extremely intelligent. She’d gone out on the floor and sucked him for a little while. She imagined that his ample organ would feel really nice inside her.

“You’re drooling,” Miri said as she came in. “And get your clothes on, you’re the only one still naked except for that big slab of ham you’re drooling over. Want to eat him?”

“What’s the deal with him?”

Miriam sat down behind her desk. She tossed a small suitcase on it, clapped her hands. “Chop chop.”

“The count, already? It’s only two, Miri.”

“Rudi’s bag got too full. You’ll have two counts tonight.”

“I thought it was gonna be good.”

“You want to know what the deal is with him?”

“Yeah.” Sarah was sorting, preparing the pile for the count. It was over a hundred grand, though; she could already tell that. Money came to Miriam like metal shavings to a magnet. Ancient Keeper magic, Sarah thought. “So, what is it?”

“I don’t know if I should tell you.”

“Please trust me, Miri. It’s agony for me when you don’t.”

“It’s agony for me when you forget your place, child.”

Sarah sorted bills into neat stacks of fifties, hundreds, a few twenties.

“I’ve been thinking about that. I want to ask your forgiveness. I want you to know that you’ve got my absolute loyalty.”

“Now that there’s a replacement threatening, yes. I wish you’d come to me before I blooded her.”