Delilah walks just ahead of us, one step at a time, waddling with care.
Lydia is leading the way, gun first, poking it into every open door on every landing.
– Insane. I should. Insane.
I trip down a couple steps, grab the banister.
– You were the one that wanted to be public.
She takes the turn on the second floor landing.
– We always thought it would be an announcement. A press conference. Not a SWAT van driving on an officer-down call and finding a Vampyre concentration camp. It was. We wanted it to be organized. Controlled.
– Sure, a civilized declaration that Dracula is real and there are a lot of him and, oh yeah, it’s communicable.
She leads us down to the ground floor, stepping carefully through the bodies.
– It’s information. We needed to shape it, control the definitions. Why shouldn’t the signified define the signifiers?
– You sound like Terry.
Her head snaps around, gun barrel in parallel.
– Don’t.
– It was never gonna happen like that. No one was ever gonna buy that. It was always going to happen, and it was always going to be a mess.
I step away from Ben, use the wall, start for the back of the building.
– At least this way we blew it up ourselves.
I find the back door, find the ring of Cure house keys still in my pocket.
– Could have been someone else blowing it up under us.
I start trying keys in locks.
Lydia puts a hand on the door.
– How was this better? How is it better we blow ourselves up?
I grin.
– I don’t know. I guess it just feels better than letting someone else do it.
She starts to frown, but it turns to a grin of her own.
– Yeah. Alright. So let’s go deal with the rubble.
I find the right keys and pop the locks.
She pulls her hand away from the door.
– So those enforcers don’t know about the back way?
I shrug.
– Probably they do.
She stares at me.
I shrug again.
– My bet is all the little piggies got called home as soon as Digga hit Coalition HQ.
– And if not?
I point at the basement door.
– If not, that’s plan B over there. Your call.
She pulls the door open and we step into the alley, Ben and Delilah waiting to see if we get gunned down from the rooftops. We don’t. And we don’t get shot up on the street when we come out the front of the Cure-owned building that faces onto Seventy-second. And the Impala is where I left it on First Avenue. And I haven’t lost the key in all the business of the night. And there’s still a couple hours to daylight.
A small collection of miracles.
None of them a cigarette.
You can’t kill the worm.
Wound it, it’ll never be as bad as the hurt it does itself with every bite. It’ll just keep chewing. Digesting itself over and over again.
Calling the cops, sending them into Queens. Blowing it wide. Does that rip a hole in the side of the worm? Will blood run from it? Or does something like that make it stronger? More madness.
A sudden fun house mirror skew to the world. Everyone looking at the new reflection, asking, Do I really look like that? Your friends and neighbors, seeing them with those new eyes, Who are they? What are they?
How bad will it get?
How fast?
Figure it will get as bad as it can possibly get as fast as humanly possible.
Figure it this way. With or without Amanda’s research, once they have actual Vyrussy Vampyres in their labs, someone will come to the same conclusions that she did. So if our very existence doesn’t push the madding crowd over the edge, the idea of rewriting the history of life with sanguivores as the wellspring should be good for at least one holy war.
Then again, I’m maybe not the one you want sitting judgment on humanity. People being inclined as they are to see their own natures in everyone else. A world full of me? Who wouldn’t push the button?
The worm.
You can’t kill it.
It can only kill itself.
– I know about you.
I ignore that.
– As much as he talked about Percy, he talked about you almost as much.
I ignore it some more.
– He made you sound like the world’s baddest man. John Shaft with white skin.
In the front passenger seat, Lydia turns and looks at me when she hears that.
– Go ahead and smile, Joe, no one’s ever going to flatter you more than that.
Next to me in the back, Delilah shakes her head.
– Just said that was the picture my dad painted, I didn’t say it was accurate. Look at you. Look like you were something made to be beat on. It’s like nothing he ever told me was true. Like it’s just one big mess of craziness is all it is.
She shakes a fist at no one.
– I will not stand for more craziness.
I tug on the stump of my left ring finger.
– Girl, you got yourself into a world of craziness the minute you fucked a Vampyre, the rest of this is just what comes with the package.
Delilah slaps Ben’s shoulder and the Impala veers slightly.
– You have nothing to say to that?
Ben straightens the wheel and keeps his eyes on the road.
– Baby, I’m new to the whole experience myself. If I was comfortable with the way things are done, I wouldn’t have been looking for someone outside the infected community. To my eyes, it’s all been crazy. Being infected. Meeting you. Getting into the whole undead scene with you. ‘Cause you know I love you, and the role-playing is fun, kinky, but talking like that all the time, it wears me out a little. And now. Becoming a dad. Crazy is the least of it.
Delilah sniffs.
– If you don’t care to embrace your true self, you need not be burdened by myself or the child.
– Hon, that’s not what I.
She raises a hand.
– I’d prefer silence.
Lydia leans into her headrest.
– More craziness.
I rasp my whiskers with my fingernails.
– Price of admission.
• • •
There’s another price to be paid.
– You are so full of shit!
– Delilah, my dear, I was only trying to reassure myself that you were safe.
– Fuck that! I’m not talking about that! I’m talking about all your bullshit about these people!
Ben ducks the pointed finger as it swings his way.
– Baby, I’m not sure that’s the kind of language you mean to be using.
Her finger changes into a flat palm that she shoves an inch from Ben’s nose.
– Ben, baby daddy, shut the fuck up unless you want the remaining romance in this deal to go running down the drain.
Ben shuts up and takes a step back.
She turns to Chubby.
– Have you ever spent any time with these psychos? They. You made it sound like an adventure!
Chubby has his arms extended, showing his palms, fingers pointed down, supplicant.
– I was trying to entertain.
– I was a kid, for fuck sake!
– Entertain a very advanced child with very mature tastes.
– Don’t blame me for this shit.
– I am not. Your mother and I, our business. Of course your own interests were exotic. A bedtime reading of The Cat in the Hat was hardly in order.
She gives him the palm treatment.
– Just. OK. I don’t want to. Because I will just get.
She steps to him and shoves as hard as she can, failing to budge him an inch.
– We almost died! Over and over we almost died! And my baby, they would have killed my baby!
Her shoves turn to slaps, smacking his face side to side.
– You and your bullshit ideas of what being a dad is. Trying to show off. You and your secrets. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit!
Slaps turn to fists and Chubby has enough.
Grabs her by the wrists.
– Woman.
Ben steps to, draws a look from Chubby, and steps off.
Chubby pushes his face close to his daughter’s.
– You wanted adventure and romance. I obliged. You showed up with your young man and your predicament, and I gave you my best advice and counsel. Get rid of them both. Boy and baby. Because you are my daughter and I want what is best for you. But you are not a little girl, you are all grown up. Making your own decisions. That you judged reality by your bedtime stories bespeaks your own personal weaknesses. That you chose to indulge a predilection for dramatics, which is excessive to say the least, bespeaks your desire to dodge responsibilities. Now you have seen all this, what would you like me to do? What can I do to make up the past for you? Can I tell you a fresh fairy tale? One with a happy ending for you and Ben? From what I understand, that will not be coming true. We’ll need to hide you both, more than ever. You and your baby. You will be a mother soon. Time to stop worrying about the past. Time to worry about the future.