“Black and Blondeˮ Part 2

 

She said her name was Tess. Shit, he thought, even her name is pretty.

Pretty or not, there was a problem. She wouldn’t be alone with him, and he had an aversion to public places. He finally decided to take her to the all night diner where he was a semi-regular; after the bars closed, he often took a seat at the counter and sipped tomato juice until dawn.

The regular patrons were night crawlers as well: pimps and hookers and small-time dealers, outcasts of society who accepted him as one of their own. Tess tried not to look like a tourist, but she was clearly out of her element. He thought it funny how her effort to be inconspicuous wound up attracting attention. Maybe he was the problem. He wasn’t prone to bringing in women from the outside. Showing up with a fresh face was going to cause a stir.

“Hey, Vlad,” one of the girls hooted from a back booth, “what’s with the newbie? Getting tired of the locals?”

“As if I could ever get tired of you, honey,” he retorted.

“Tired of teasing, you mean.” The hooker’s chortle became a wet, hacking cough that dissuaded further banter. Black nudged Tess toward a brown vinyl booth. Despite her resolve, she was a little too wide-eyed to fool the crowd into thinking she belonged.

“She knows what you are,” she whispered in astonishment.

Black took the seat opposite. “Why not? I know what she is.”

“But—”

“We’re all friends here,” he said abruptly. It was hard to be patient with some people.

The waitress came to take their order. “Coffee’s good,” Black told Tess, who ordered a cup, with cream, and a slice of lemon meringue pie. Black settled for his usual.

She forced her gaze to meet his though the scenery behind him was far more entertaining. “Do you ever take your sunglasses off?” she asked.

“The light bugs my eyes. Tell me why you think a vampire did your man when the cops say it was suicide.”

The sudden change of subject startled, but got her focused on something other than the freak show at his back. “There were marks.”

“On his neck?”

When she shook her head, her pale hair shimmered a dozen shades of gold. “The report says that he cut his wrists in the shower.”

“You don’t believe he did?”

“I know he didn’t. He wouldn’t.”

“Religious, was he?”

“No, just stable. Happy. There was no reason for him to kill himself. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Suicide rarely makes sense to the ones left behind.”

Pie and coffee came. So did a large tomato juice. Black reached for the pepper.

Tess ignored her order. “You think I’m in denial. You might be right. I still expect him to come home after dark. Sometimes I make cacciatore for dinner because it was his favourite. His car is still sitting in the garage. I dream about him trying to reach me, to tell me something. I think I could let him go, except that I don’t believe he’s letting me go. It sounds crazy, even to me.”

“Tell me about the marks,” Black said.

She bared her arm to the light and ran a thumb along the network of veins running blue beneath translucent skin. Black’s mouth watered without warning. He covered by swigging juice from his glass.

“The slashes went from wrist to elbow, not side to side,” she said. “When I saw him at the morgue, there was bruising on either side of one wound, near the heel of his hand. The doctor said it was probably due to pressure from the initial cut, but it didn’t look right to me. It looked like the skin had been punctured.”

Black ran a hand over his mouth, collecting the saliva that had leaked at the corners. “Are you a pathologist?” he asked.

“No. I’m an artist.”

“What do you know about vampires?”

“Only that they exist, and people are becoming more aware of their existence.”

“Then you know they’re in danger of being hunted to extinction.”

“One is,” she said fiercely.

Black smiled without humour. Like so many of her kind, she would allow all save the one who had shattered her life to go unmolested. But for every pretty blonde with a murdered mate, a dozen more waited and wished for vengeance. Death was not always accidental, but it was rarely necessary. “Your man was keeping secrets,” he said.

She stiffened. “You didn’t know him.”

“Neither, apparently, did you. Vampires don’t kill on a whim. If you’re right, and he didn’t take himself out, he was killed for a reason.”

“So you agree that he might have been murdered.”

“It’s possible.”

“Then you’ll help me.”

“I’m still not sure what you think I can do.”

She lost her composure to a blast of exasperation. “You’re a vampire, aren’t you?”

“So you say.”

“Don’t give me that—I know you are. I saw you bite that girl. That hooker called you ‘Vlad’—”

“That’s not my name.”

“So it’s a nickname; pretty weird for a normal guy, don’t you think? I’m not out to get you, truly I’m not. I just want you to help me find the one that killed my lover. Why won’t you?”

“One, because I don’t know you from a hole in the wall. Two, because vampires don’t join social clubs and hang out together. Three, because what I said is true: vampires don’t kill on a whim. And four, because vampires don’t hunt other vampires, for any reason. If you’re so sure that your man was murdered, take it to the police. Let them find the culprit. Leave me out of it.”

The vehemence deserted her. She shrank before him, growing small in her ratty denim. Her eyes closed on a wince and when they opened again, her lashes were beaded with tears. “I can tell them about you,” she said, taking one last stab at blackmail.

“What are you going to say? Drugs killed that girl.”

“I’ve got the pictures. She had wounds in her throat.”

He started to feel sorry for her. “Look, sweetheart, you’re hurting to make someone pay for your man’s death. Taking me down won’t do either of us a damn bit of good. I’ll ask around. Maybe I can find someone who knows something. I’m not making any promises, okay? I’m just—Christ, you’re so pitiful—Have you got a picture of him?”

She dug into her purse. A black leather shoulderbag, it looked more like an airport tote than a purse. Not a good idea in this neighbourhood. She was asking to be mugged.

The picture she produced was a Polaroid taken at a summer barbecue; the man in the deck chair wore shorts, shades and a captivating smile.

“What’s his name?” Black asked.

“Travis.”

Tess and Travis. Cute. Like many couples, opposites attracted: where she was small and blonde, he was—had been—lean and dark. Not a beer drinker, though. The bottle in his hand was a wine cooler. Sometimes opposites just looked that way.

“You loved him.” Meant as a question, it didn’t emerge as such.

She nodded, wiping her eyes with her fingers. An amethyst set in gold winked on her left hand. Not a wedding ring. He wondered how well she had known her man.

“What did he do for a living?”

“He was part artist, part musician.”

“Into drugs?”

“Recovering from cocaine. He’d been clean for a year when I met him.”

“Had he fallen off the wagon at all?”

She shook her head. Black didn’t take it for truth; addicts were experts at concealing their habits from their nearest and dearest. Could be Travis had slipped off the rails and she never knew it.

“Can I have this?” he asked, brandishing the photo.

She hesitated. “I guess so.”

“I want to show it around,” he explained.

Tess nodded. “Do you think it’ll help?”

“It won’t hurt.” He cracked a smile. “You haven’t tried your pie. I hear it rocks.”

She managed an answering smile and picked up her fork.

 

* * *

He was mad at himself for agreeing to help her. He hadn’t the vaguest idea how to go about it or where to start. Though vampires were everywhere, they steered clear of each other to avoid public scenes. The world was beginning to acknowledge their existence, but humans prided themselves on having no natural predators. Faced with a race of blood drinkers, the mortal tendency to jump at conclusions was running wild and, in some cities, murders were happening with vampires—or suspected vampires—as the victims. And people were getting away with it. There was no protection without legislation, and since no one was about to start up a World Vampire Fund or canvas Greenpeace to save the vampires, Black and his kind were on their own.

Some found acceptance on the fringe of society with the rest of the flotsam. Black had made himself a fixture on the waterfront and earned the trust of those who had learned what he was. He did not have to kill. He was fed by donation—and it had surprised him how easily donors could be found. There was no shortage of mortals eager for the thrill of having blood pulled from their veins, as long as it was guaranteed not to cost their lives. The wilier ones bargained for cash or drugs, but many wanted nothing more than the experience. Black preferred the hagglers over the freebies. If he had something to offer in return, he was less likely to be exposed. That Tess had tracked and trapped him so easily was a concern. How had she known where to find him?

“It’s this fine fanny of yours,” Aurora told him, patting his rear for emphasis. “A woman with half an eye would pick you from a crowd and follow you into the jaws of hell. So what gives? What does she want?”

Black filled her in as they walked, hoping she might have some insight. Aurora had contacts all over the place; she was fond of saying that networking was the best way to learn new tricks. She even knew a few vampires, though Black was the only one she trusted. She listened intently, chain-smoking Marlboros and sipping coffee from a styrofoam cup. Her eyes were as black as the coffee. Toss in two creams and it would match the colour of her skin. He liked the deep brown gloss she wore on her lips, but not the marks it left on the styrofoam. They looked like old bloodstains. Old blood was disgusting.

“Could be her man was into some kinky stuff,” she suggested when he was finished talking. “One vice leads to another and all that. If he ran afoul of a vampire, would death be a given?”

“Not a given, not without reason. Threat of exposure or extortion are the only things I can think of—and extortion,” he added with a wry smirk, “probably doesn’t warrant murder. Does it?”

Aurora ground the butt of her cigarette under a stiletto heel and fumbled, one-handed, in her bag for another. “Guess not, else his trophy blonde would be in the grave with him instead of avenging him.”

He laughed at that. Trophy blonde.

“Let’s see the picture,” Aurora said, lighting up.

Black pulled the Polaroid from his jacket pocket. Aurora’s brows rose. “You know him?” Black asked.

She snorted, blowing smoke like a dragon. “I wish.”

He laughed again. No one made him laugh easier than she did. They both glanced up when a wasted youth approached and asked if Black was holding. “Not tonight, college boy. Even if I was, you’re in no shape to pay me for it. Come back in a week.”

The youth cursed him and bumbled away. Aurora rolled her eyes and returned to the subject. “What can I do, Black? Want me to ask around?”

“Yeah. See what you can find out—but be careful. If a vampire is involved, I don’t want you getting into trouble.”

She shrugged. “You’re the boss. Right now, I’d say we’re running out of night.”

He looked up. The sky was still overcast but the clouds were shifting from black to gun metal grey. The street was growing quiet. Time for the night crawlers to burrow deep and let decent people run the world for another day. “Need a lift?” he asked.

She smiled, printing lip gloss on the end of her cigarette. “Will you let me smoke in the car?”

“Those things’ll kill you,” he scolded, taking her arm and escorting her the few blocks to where his car was parked. The door groaned when he opened it for her. “Sounds like the bed when you sit on it,” he remarked with a wan smile.

“Honey, I don’t sit on my bed,” she retorted, rolling down the window. She looked at him when he got behind the wheel and sat for a moment, feeling suddenly tired. “Black? You okay?”

He hesitated, then nodded. “Just a wave. I’m fine.”

“Want me to drive?”

“You can’t handle this thing,” he said, shoving the car into gear and starting the engine. A ’74 Duster in need of serious medical attention, it came to with a belligerent roar and chugged away from the curb. He appreciated the distraction of getting Aurora home in one piece. The lure of the rising sun, even through heavy cloud, was annoying, and he was painfully aware of her living, breathing flesh in the seat next to him. Aurora didn’t do drugs. The worst thing she inhaled was tobacco smoke, and caffeine was her primary stimulant. Hers was probably the healthiest blood on the stroll. Sometimes he tired of feeding on junkies. Sometimes he longed for a mouthful of pure blood, healthy blood untainted by chemicals and cheap booze; sometimes he thought if he found a font, he would drain it dry and still want more. Sometimes all was not enough. If the blonde’s lover had happened on a vampire with similar need, there was no reason for his death but greed.

But Black would never tell her that.

 

to be continued ...