Despite the fact that many party hounds still sat at home whimpering into their doggy pillows, a steady stream of handsome men, beautiful women, and gorgeous men dressed as women moved up and down the sidewalks. Braving the unseasonal chill, even more revelers sat together at the tables that lined the walk, enjoying the company, the booze, and the cheerful glow that came from twinkle lights lining the frames of their patio umbrellas.
Lucky for us, Liliana and her goons had to wait in line before Club Undead's bouncer, a 21st century version of Frankenstein, let them in. That gave us the slack we needed to secure a parking space in an open lot just down the street. We left the car and joined the crowd, sauntering as close to the club as we dared before finding a spot in a darkened doorway beside a closed deli to make like cuddling lovers.
I stood in the circle of Vayl's arms, fighting distraction. This whole new spectrum of color had opened up to me, but I couldn't relish it. I felt like a security guard at the Louvre, forced to watch the potential thieves when I really just wanted to stare at the Mona Lisa. As it happened, that lovely little side effect was just the first in a series of brushstrokes that would eventually reveal an entirely new picture of my life. The second had just begun to show its shadow, a creeping feeling of immense imbalance, when Vayl interrupted my inner inventory.
"There is something else you need to know." His voice rang loud, almost strident, in my ear. "I did not kill my sons."
"Do I look that gullible?" I asked. "Geez, Vayl, I don't believe half the things you say and I trust you."
I didn't realize he was holding himself rigid until he sighed and slumped against the wall at his back.
"I was nearly 40," he began as he kept vigil, his chin just level with my nose. "My boys were almost grown. Hanzi was fifteen. His brother, Badu, was thirteen." Vayl spoke their names as if they were holy. "Liliana gave me five children altogether, but Hanzi and Badu were the only ones to survive infancy. And so… we spoiled them." He lapsed into silence. I felt my heart break a little for the couple he and Liliana had been, desperately sad for their lost children, desperate to make sure their living children survived.
Something near the apex of my aching ribs started to quiver. I felt like I was about to get a really grim phone call. And though Vayl was laying out the story of his tragic life for me because some warped vampire rule said I deserved to know, I knew the feeling wasn't coming from him.
"They grew wild right in front of my eyes," he continued, "and by the time I mustered the courage to tame them it was already too late. They went from teasing dogs with sticks to breaking windows with stones. When they drove into camp one afternoon in a wagon they had stolen… I snapped. I raged at them. I whipped them like toddlers. I forced them to return the wagon with their apologies."
The modern girl in me thought, Vayl's family was camping? What, were they trying to save on hotel bills? The next thought, riding a sea of embarrassment, washed over me with the speed of a tidal wave. They were gypsies.
"What happened?" I asked.
"The farmer they had stolen it from shot them both before they had a chance to explain."
"Oh, Vayl." I held him tight, and not just because my heart bled for him. That feeling of wrongness had intensified. The little girl in me urgently needed a teddy bear. "That's awful," I murmured.
Vayl made a sound in the back of his throat, a primal distress signal, the kind of sound you might hear from elephants as they mourn over the bones of lost brothers. "I wanted to kill the man, because I could not kill myself. I blamed him completely, heaping my own weakness and self hatred upon him until just shooting him would not be enough. I wanted him to die slowly, over days, even weeks if possible. I wanted him to sink into horror as if it were quicksand."
"What…" I swallowed, sick with this nameless feeling of dread, appalled by Vayl's story, "what did you do?"
"I became the horror." His voice dropped to a whisper. "It was so easy. My family," he frowned, "my father, my grandparents, you have discerned by now that they held certain… powers?" I nodded, Cirilai warming my finger like a living thing. "Though I had never felt the call to take part in their rituals, I had watched them work all my life, lifting curses, saving souls. Now I simply did the opposite."
"How?"
"I took three wooden crosses, profaned by the blood of murdered men, my own sons in fact. I set them in a triangle and stepped into its center. I called upon the unholy spirits to send me a vampire."
"And?"
"They sent him all right. But they made sure he met my wife first."
"I'm so sorry."
"It was a long time ago, lifetimes ago. There is no need for you to be sorry."
"Well, I am, but that's not what I was talking about."
"What then?"
"I'm sorry I have to stop you telling a story that was so hard to start. But we have to go. Now!" I grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the shadows, onto a sidewalk lit by street lamps and some other source my new vision appreciated but could not pinpoint. I led him to the corner where we stood facing a stoplight, the music from a heavy metal band blatting through the walls of the bar behind us.
"What is it?" Vayl asked as we waited for traffic to clear.
"Hard to describe." I squeezed his hand, trying to stay calm, to separate new shades of neon and the screaming street music from the barely leashed panic that made me feel like jumping out of my skin. "That song," I finally said, "by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Remember the words?" Oooh that smell.
"Yes," Vayl said quietly, his eyes darting around the street, fixing every person, every street sign and park bench in his mind.
"That's it. I'm smelling that smell, the slow descent into misery and helplessness. And beside that, the scent of vampires. Something foul is going down behind Club Undead." And I'm afraid to go look.
But when the light changed we moved. Halfway to an alley that festered like an infected sore behind all those festive lights and decorations, I began to cough. The closer we got the more the coughing turned to gagging. By the time we reached the first dumpster I felt like someone had locked me in a hot car with a rotting carcass. I puked beside a trio of dented silver trash cans and wished to God that Umberto's had shut down before I'd had a chance to eat an entire plateful of their spaghetti.
I squeezed my eyes shut, more a reflex of the upchuck than a need to see in the dark, and when I opened them the alley glowed, not just green now, but muted yellow and blood red as well. God, what's happening to me?
I stood up, Vayl steadying me as I looked around. Small piles of garbage huddled next to overflowing trash bins like a bunch of freshmen who hadn't made the dance squad. Potholes full of greasy water marked a path down the alley only a staggering drunk could have followed. A couple of three-legged chairs leaned against a brick wall under a rusty fire escape. And in the middle of it all stood a vampire who must have spent part of his past battling Neanderthals and wrestling mammoths. Long, dark hair and a full beard hid most of his features. His mountainous frame blocked ninety percent of my view of the alley behind him. But the man laying at his booted feet showed up fine.
Another vamp knelt beside the prone man, gripping the edges of his torn shirt as she pulled him toward her bared fangs. I blew out a disappointed breath when I realized her hair was short, curly and real. Not Liliana after all.
The moment stretched into another plane, where time froze as we all tried to plan our next move. My attention riveted on the downed man, whose slow-blinking, unfocused eyes and blood-soaked collar bore witness to the attack he'd just survived.
Oooh that smell.
I looked at him closely, trying to pinpoint the source of his scent.