An Unattractive Vampire (2 page)

Anne looked straight ahead as their eyes bore into her. She wasn’t happy about the situation, though she’d known it was coming. She was always the chosen to try new potions. To question the Master. To remove her robes first. Hands reached out, intending to push her forward, but she had had enough. No one was going to volunteer her. If she stayed behind, it was going to be her own choice, goddamn it. She gave herself extra points for blasphemy and stepped up. Several pairs of outstretched hands missed, and the men behind them toppled over.

“I shall stay,” she said.

Behind her, the men applauded.

“Such courage, such devotion,” proclaimed Jeremiah Phillips as he picked himself up off the ground. “Of course, as your most loyal servant, my place is naturally at your side. However, I cannot bring myself to deny young Mistress Stevens the chance to prove her commitment to your cause, and so I cede my place to her.”

“Likewise,” followed Pastor Collins. “Though, as your second in spiritual authority and natural successor, I find myself moved, and so step aside to let Mistress Stevens provide for your needs in this, your death and eventual resurrection.”

The others followed suit, protesting that it was their right to remain behind while simultaneously renouncing said right so they wouldn’t have to. Yulric only smiled, having known how this would all play out from the beginning. As one of his “advanced” age had seen many times, events had a way of repeating themselves. Rather than be bored by their reactions, however, Yulric found them quite enjoyable. Like hearing a favorite joke.

He took Anne by the shoulder and guided her to the door.

“Wait for me in the cellar,” he told her. “I shall be there shortly.”

With an air of determined resignation, she gave him a bow and stubbornly marched off to her fate. The men all watched her go, remembering better days when her naked body had brushed against theirs.

A door slammed shut, a key turned in a lock, and the men returned from their Anne-filled reminiscence.

“Now, where was I?” said Yulric Bile, slowly moving toward them. “Ah yes, I was about to release you.”

• •

In the cellar, Anne waited patiently, completely undisturbed by the bloodcurdling screams far above her. They had it coming, after all, the groping old bastards. She gave herself another point for vulgarity.

Eventually, the Master did appear, his face still bloodstained in places, despite obvious attempts to clean himself.

“You will want to change,” he said, handing over her clothes. She took them and disrobed. She was not shy about it; though, even had she been, it would not have mattered. It had always surprised Anne how little attention the Master paid her naked form, which really was quite exquisite. It was
lithe
,
nubile
,
perky
—all sorts of words that Puritans disapproved of. Yet her body held no interest for Master Bile. She would have wondered about him, only he wasn’t exactly chasing after the strapping young men of the village, either. It was almost as if such considerations were beneath him. Anne didn’t understand, but then again, she was a Puritan: her entire existence revolved around sex, if only to condemn it.

She was just lacing her boot when the sound of breaking glass upstairs announced the arrival of the village mob.

“It is time,” the Master whispered close to her ear.

A desperate little gasp escaped her lips. Her breath quickened. Her heart raced. Her very soul begged her to flee, but she refused. She had made her choice months ago, when she had followed the wolf into the woods and knelt, prostrate before this hellish creature.

Anne braced herself and summoned the remainder of her courage. “Whatever you wish, Master. My life is yours.” A moment passed.

“What are you talking about, silly girl?”

She opened her eyes to find her undead lord staring at her with a quizzical brow. The sound of the front door crashing down could be heard above them.

“Well, out with it,” he pressed, in no apparent hurry. “What do you mean?”

“My life,” she explained slowly, trying very hard not to condescend. “I give you my life, to aid in your resurrection.”

“Oh. That,” he scoffed. “That is nonsense.”

“It is not nonsense. I am ready,” she assured him, offended by his dismissal of her willing sacrifice.

He waved her off. “No, no. Not that. The resurrection. The resurrection is nonsense.”

Anne opened her mouth. Anne closed her mouth. This news just didn’t make any sense. It couldn’t be true. It wasn’t true. The deaths, the spells, the naked dancing—what had it all been for if not for the resurrection of the Master? Why all the games? Why all the lies? Why was he jumping into a hole in the cellar floor?

Anne didn’t know what to say, and so, naturally, continued to argue her point. “But—”

Before being cut off. “I am immortal, silly girl. What need I with resurrection?”

“But the villagers. The—the witchfinder?” Anne shuddered merely at the mention. That man scared her, and she was not easily intimidated. The weak-willed men of the coven, God rest their souls—Anne deducted points for sentimentality—had been terrified of him.

Even the Master winced slightly. “Yes, I am aware of Master Martin’s . . . thoroughness when it comes to his work. It is fortunate, therefore, that you got to me first.” He turned to where Anne knelt beside the hole and removed a long wooden stake from beneath his robes. “It was you who drove this stake through my heart.” He slowly plunged the spike into his chest, feeling his way around so it brushed just past the muscle in question. When that was done, he took a long, curved fingernail and ran it deep across his throat. He then tore away the flesh from his neck with both hands, until much of it had been removed. He spoke again, his voice now a low, chittering rasp that somehow vibrated its way out of his skull. “And it was you who cut off my head.”

Subterfuge did not come naturally to the Puritans. Even Anne, who was as clever as they came, sometimes had to have deceit spelled out for her. He stared at her pointedly until awareness dawned. “Ooooh,” she sighed.

The Master smiled, patting her hands and face tenderly in order to get his blood on her. “Go. Bring them to my ‘corpse.’”

Anne nodded and rose to leave. Something was still bothering her, though. A question she needed answered. The Master smiled and waved his hand, giving her leave to speak.

“Why me?” she asked. “You killed the others. Why spare my life?”

The Master considered this for a moment before shrugging. “The others were driven by lust. You yearned for power. That pleases me.”

“I wanted freedom,” she corrected.

He gave a dismissive wave. “As I said.”

She was about to argue the point when a cheer went up outside.

“Go now,” he commanded, “before they set fire to the house.”

Anne curtsied and left to fetch the mob.

Yulric lay down in his grave, resting his head at such an angle, with the back against the wall and his chin on his chest, so as to make it appear disconnected. It would have been a strain were any of the muscles in his neck intact. As it was, only the still-connected spinal cord could give the game away, and that was easily hidden with a flimsy piece of skin. Done arranging himself, he folded his hands, affected a dead stare, and waited.

In his mind, Yulric smiled. Everything was going according to plan.

Thunder. Fire. Pain. And then . . .

Yulric Bile, the thousand-year-old vampire, lay on his back surrounded by pink carpet. He was not entirely certain how he had found his way to the floor, only that it had hurt and he was not eager to repeat the experience. For now, he was content to remain where he was and stare up at the ceiling while he tried to remember the past few seconds. He’d misted his way through the window, glided across the floor, gone in for the kill, and then . . .

Somewhere beyond his feet, there was stirring. Despite a collapsed lung, Yulric sighed. He had to move. Lying in one convenient place was an invitation to his own demise. Without the use of muscle or gravity, Yulric floated up, turned toward the bed, and then . . .

A soft shag broke a surprising amount of his fall. Carpeting certainly had come quite a ways.

He lifted his head ever so slightly and received a glimpse of a scantily clad young woman, kneeling on her bed, holding silver in her hands. And then . . .

At least this time, the pain came at an angle. The force of whatever struck him managed to knock him onto his stomach. It also caused his jaw to fly off and bounce away beneath the bureau. No longer fettered by the confines of a traditional mouth, Yulric’s tongue detected a dusty tang in the air; one he associated with sieges and sea battles.

“Is that a pistol?” The question came out as an incoherent garble of vowels. He had forgotten he currently did not have a jaw.

“Why won’t you die?” came the reply as another shot rang out. This time Yulric was prepared, dissolving into a black mist. The bullet passed through him, shattering the window and lodging itself in the railing. Triumphant laughter erupted from the disembodied fog in the middle of the room, though a lack of pain wasn’t really something worth celebrating.

Now what?
thought the fog as it coalesced just this side of human form. On the one hand, Yulric did not want to be shot again. It wouldn’t kill him, but it still hurt like hell. On the other, he was loath to pass up his first meal in ages.

A little prudence, perhaps?
he concluded, disappointed. He had hoped to enjoy some primal gluttony before rational forethought took hold.

In an instant, the girl on the bed was engulfed in tendrils of smoke. They wrapped around her, not quite solid but more than air. She let out a gasp of desperation as she tried to bring her gun to bear. Darkness filled her vision. She prepared for the worst. And then . . .

• •

Amanda opened her eyes. The fog had once more taken form, a form that was absentmindedly clicking its reattached jaw into place and examining something smooth and silver. She looked down at her now-empty hands and gulped. Carefully, she moved from the edge of the bed, back toward the pillows. Without taking her eyes off the creature, she felt beneath them and came back rearmed with a spritzer bottle and butter knife.

“Get out of my room!” she demanded, her voice filled with a confidence she didn’t much feel. The figure stopped looking down the barrel of the gun and focused on her, the strong, independent woman ready to make him damp and butter his toast. Old World politeness kept it from laughing outright in her face, but the patronizing smile sunk her self-assurance lower.

“I mean it,” she said. She let out a spray of mist and turned the knife so it glinted in the moonlight.

He stared at her and sniffed, the air now filled with perfume of a very specific buttercup. He looked at the knife, finely polished and ready to spread, then at the weapon in his hand. He fumbled with it for a moment, pressing things at random until he managed to eject the clip. It clattered to the floor, and the figure knelt to examine the gun’s death-filled payload. Its
silver
death-filled payload.

“You believe me a werewolf?” Yulric asked.

“Yes,” Amanda answered.

The two of them stared at each other in silence.

“A werewolf?” he said again.

“Yes,” she repeated.

“Me?” he asked incredulously.

“What do
you
think you are?” Amanda said.

“A vampyr,” Yulric answered. Amanda giggled. “I don’t think so.”

“’Tis true,” he growled.

“Okay . . . ,” she agreed condescendingly.

“I am!” he barked.

This time it was her turn to display the smug, patronizing smile. Amanda enjoyed the irony. Yulric failed to see it, since the situation was not particularly ironic.

“The sign downstairs gave a vampyr leave to enter this room. Why would a werewolf respond to an invitation so clearly meant for a vampyr?” asked the supposed vampire.

“Because werewolves hate vampires. Everybody knows that.”

This was news to Yulric. He had always gotten on quite well with werewolves. They were good for a laugh, knew the latest drinking songs, and made for very convenient scapegoats.

“What makes you think I am a werewolf?” he inquired.

Spritzer bottle at the ready, she rattled off her list, “It’s a full moon. Your clothes are in tatters. Your appearance is grotesque. Big claws, big ears, big teeth.
All the better to eat you with, my dear.
”

Amanda gave herself points for quipping under pressure. Her satisfaction, however, was short-lived under the unresponsive gaze of her assailant.

“All the better to eat you with?”
she repeated. Nothing. “‘Little Red Riding Hood’?”

“What does riding wear have to do with eating?” asked Yulric.

Now it was Amanda’s turn to stare. Her hands dropped to her sides, the potential danger having been overcome by surprise. Not that it mattered. In Amanda’s mind, nothing this stupid could possibly be dangerous.

“You don’t know ‘Little Red Riding Hood’?” she said in disbelief.
“Grimm’s Fairy Tales?”
Yulric did not respond.

“‘Snow White’? ‘Hansel and Gretel’? Violent tales watered down to make animated musicals?”

“Are we still discussing the red hood?” asked Yulric.

Amanda let out a huge sigh. “‘Little Red Riding Hood’,” she quickly summarized, “a story of a little girl in the woods. She talks to a wolf. The wolf goes, eats her grandmother, and dresses in the old woman’s clothing. The girl arrives.
What big teeth you have. The better to eat you with.
He eats her, too. Sometimes they escape. Moral, kiddies, don’t talk to strangers. Or don’t have sex. Depending on your age.”

It took a while for the rattled-off story to sink in with Yulric. Even when he’d finished going over it in his mind, he had to ask, “And how is this pertinent?”

“It’s a wolf,” blurted a frustrated Amanda. “A wolf like a man. A werewolf. It’s a werewolf story.”

Amanda received no reply. Deep inside Yulric’s mind, a heated debate raged. One side logical; the other side less so.