An Unattractive Vampire (31 page)

In a split second, a decision was made. Yulric brought his weapon around. Phantom leapt out of the way. And Berwyn found himself pushed forward.

“No!” Nora’s voice pierced the veil of rage in Yulric’s mind and coming to, he was shocked to find Berwyn, not Phantom, standing in front of him. For one horribly comical moment, they were both united in gaping at the large red cut through his midsection. Then slowly, he began to tilt.

“No!”
Yulric shouted. He dropped his ax as he reached out to grab Berwyn’s upper half, but the young vampire slid through his fingers, collapsing into a cloud of dust.

“I thought we were not supposed to kill the tellers of stories,” Tezcatlipoca said sarcastically.

Cebrian chuckled.

“Disgusting,” said Phantom as he sputtered and spat, trying not to breathe in his friend.

“You!” Yulric cried. The TV star found himself suspended in midair by a pair of bony hands.

“Do it then. Kill me,” Phantom said, closing his eyes.

Yulric scowled. Moment’s ago, in his rage, he’d been more than ready to unmake the arrogant idiot. But now, his rational mind had returned and, with it, a reluctance to harm the actor. Also, a desire to get an autograph.

Phantom smiled. He knew. “You can’t, can you? You’re too much of a fan. Get him, Nora!”

Yulric looked over his shoulder to where the vampiress stood holding the ax that moments ago he had discarded. There was a nagging sense of familiarity about the whole thing. This had happened once before, he was sure of it. On the show. Season three, episode twenty-four. The finale. Lord Dunstan, still evil at this point, had been holding a recorporealized Phantom by the throat when Nora appeared out of nowhere and ran him through with Excalibur.

Yulric remembered. Phantom remembered. By the way she gripped the ax, Nora, too, remembered. For a moment, it looked as if life would imitate art. But then she threw the weapon.

“N-Nora?” Phantom called out, not quite believing what was going on. “What are you doing? Get him, Nora.”

Nora shook her head. “You pushed him.” She walked past the elder vampires and down the hall.

Phantom began to panic. “Please. Please, Nora. Nora? Where are you going?”

She turned as she reached the stairwell door. “I’m going with them. At least they look out for each other.” And with that, she bumped the crash bar with her hips and exited backward. Nora was gone.

Now Phantom’s cool abandoned him just as Nora had. His eyes bulged, his voice squeaked, and he began to struggle madly against the steely grip that held him. He clawed and pulled at the hand in ever-increasing desperation. Yulric let him, again enjoying the emotion of his prey. Blood may have been a vampire’s food, but fear was what they truly lived on.

Yulric watched as the struggling subsided into hopeless despair. Tears welled up in Phantom’s eyes, and silently he pleaded for mercy. Yulric pulled him in close so that the two were face-to-face.

“Your mistake was in believing your own fiction,” Yulric whispered. “What you experienced before was a story. In a story, your friends always save you. In a story, Lord Dunstan is defeated. In a story, you never die.”

Phantom mouthed the word
please
.

Yulric began increasing the pressure of his superhuman grip. “But this is reality. Your friends are not coming, I am not Lord Dunstan, and you—”

With a monumental display of strength, Yulric severed Phantom’s head with his bare hands. Most of the former TV star fell to the ground and disintegrated. Yulric looked at the nine-pound head still in his hands as it crumbled around his fingers. There was so much he would never know. It was
The Canterbury Tales
incident all over again.

This is not what I wanted,
he thought.

Ha! That’s a lie,
replied a voice in his head that was not his own. Yulric slammed a door in his mind.
Hard
. Hard enough that from the other side of his mental barriers, he could just make out the sound of Catherine’s thoughts saying,
Ow!

Stay out of my head, woman,
Yulric thought.

Fine,
replied Catherine. Her consciousness departed, leaving only a lingering
be careful.

“Pah,” Yulric snorted. “Careful.”

“What was that?” asked Arru as the vampires re-formed around him.

“Let us go,” Yulric said, retrieving his ax from the ground.

Nothing could stand in their way. Not a hundred vampires. Not the cast of
Phantom
. And certainly not The Doctor Lord Talby. They were invincible. They were power. They were proper vampires. And, as the collection of Old Ones pushed through the double doors, they all had the same thought.

Everything is going according to plan.

The Doctor Lord Talby looked up from the end of a long conference room table. “Ah, be with you in a moment,” he said in Latin. He turned back to the lawyer standing next to him. “What’s next?”

“Sign there,” the man instructed pointing at a piece of paper. The Doctor did. “And on the next page, you need to initial—”

Where he needed to initial, they did not learn, for at that moment, Yulric’s ax separated the man’s head from his body. The body fell with a thump. The head remained balanced on the blade of the ax, which was now imbedded in the wall.

Talby looked up at the suspended, severed head. “That was uncalled for.” He finished signing his papers. “There. Shall we talk surrender?”

The elder vampires laughed.

“You think we should surrender?” Yulric snarled. His body tensed with power and magic as he prepared for the final battle.

“Oh no. I was speaking of my surrender,” Talby answered.

“What?” the vampires uttered. They looked from one to another, confused. Their kind did not surrender.

“I am surrendering to you. Unconditionally.” The Doctor smiled pleasantly. He picked up the papers on his desk. “That’s what these are. I have officially signed over all my assets and holdings to you.”

“This is a trick,” Yulric accused.

“Afraid not,” Talby indicated the six chairs around the table. “If you’d like to have a seat, I thought before you killed me, we should go over the details of the
empire
you now command.”

In a flash, Yulric was on the good doctor. With one hand, the older Englishman held the younger’s head to the table; with the other, he retrieved his ax from the wall. “I think not.” Yulric raised his weapon.

Cold, hard fingers wrapped themselves around his wrist. Yulric turned to find Arru firmly holding his arm back. “Let us hear more.”

Turning from her to the others, he realized his misstep. In his fury, he hadn’t noticed the slight emphasis Talby had put on the word
empire
. And now greed had subtly wormed its way into their minds. Just as the Doctor had undoubtedly intended.

Reluctantly, Yulric released Talby. The Doctor stood, straightening his suit. “Please, have a seat.”

They vampires spread out along the table. Yulric took the space on the end opposite Talby. He did not sit.

“Now, before we get started, can I offer you anything to drink? Coffee? Tea?” The Doctor paused strategically. “Blood?”

“Blood,” said Cebrian and Tezcatlipoca at the same time. They wheeled their chairs away from each other, as if proximity had betrayed that they had something in common.

“Anyone else?” the Doctor asked. Slowly, more hands were raised.

“Well, in that case . . .” Talby smiled. He pressed a button, and a few seconds later, some excited young people entered through a side door. Seven, to be exact. They were dressed mostly in black, with mostly black hair, and black lipstick, also mostly. There was nothing
mostly
about the amount of eyeliner present.

The leader was a short young woman with curly black hair, slightly more filled out than her companions, who all looked as though Famine had just ridden by. She went straight up to the Doctor and, with a frightened glance at those watching, curtsied.

“My lord,” she said, “you asked me to bring my coven?” She shook, obviously unnerved by the collection of horrors the room provided. All manner of thoughts passed through her head, primarily involving the Doctor betraying her and feeding her and the others to these . . . things. To her credit, she almost managed to keep the fear out of her voice.

“Do not worry, Cassandra. You are perfectly safe, I promise you.” The girl breathed a sigh of relief at the Doctor’s words. “I have afforded you a great honor. For your good service, you and your coven shall be the first to pledge themselves to the elder vampire lords.”

“Oh,” Cassandra replied. Her eyes fell back upon those sitting at the table, as did the gazes of the other black-haired mortals. There was less fear this time and more awe.

“They have traveled far, from foreign lands, and”—he looked at Yulric—“suburban basements, to be here today.”

“My lords,” Cassandra said with another curtsey. The members of her coven followed suit, bowing and dipping as necessary.

“And ladies,” prompted the Doctor.

For a moment, Cassandra gave the Doctor a look as if to say “Really?” but that moment passed, and she did in fact say, “And ladies.”

Then, without prompting, the young people spread themselves out, one for each vampire at the table. “In respect of your wisdom and power,” Cassandra recited, “we of the Black Crystal Coven of Orange County offer this gift to you.”

Together, in motions that were obviously practiced, all seven of them produced a small crystal goblet and a silver dagger. They raised their blades high into the air, then lightly placed the tips at their elbows and pressed. Blood welled up from the wounds, more so as each of them hit the veins. The goblets were positioned to collect the blood as it flowed down their arms and dripped from their fingers. Once each was filled, the cups were offered to the vampires, who drank. Mostly.

“Is there a problem, my lord?” asked the one blond member of the coven. There was a strong and clearly intentional resemblance to Amanda.

“I can get my own,” growled Yulric, even more annoyed. He did not like being mocked.

“Y-yes, my lord,” she said with an obsequious little bow.

“I don’t suppose you mind if I . . . ?” asked Cebrian. He stretched out his hand, and the girl moved to pass her cup to him. Yulric, out of sheer contrariness, slapped the goblet to the ground. The girl backed away, muffling sobs of fear and disappointment. This, more than anything, caught the vampires’ interest. Not only were these mortals willing to give their blood, but they were actually upset if you rejected it.

“You may go, Cassandra,” said the Doctor, drinking deeply from her cup as he did so. “See to your wounds. I will buzz if we need any more.”

“We live to serve,” she said. All of them bowed and slowly walked out of the room, holding their arms.

The Doctor Lord Talby began handing out prepared folders. “Apologies. I wasn’t aware of your origins, so this may not be legible to all of you. Copies will, of course, be made available in your respective native languages. Now, if you’ll turn to page two, you will find statements outlining both my personal holdings and those of this studio.”

“Never mind that,” said Adze. He indicated the door through which the humans had exited. “Tell us more about them.”

The Doctor smiled. “What would you like to know?”

“Do we get them, as well?” asked Cebrian, licking his lips.

“Naturally,” answered the Doctor. “With control of my assets comes control over the vampire community, both mortal and immortal. All those willing to shed their blood for you are yours.”

“Willing.
Ha!
” barked the Yu Mei.

“Willing, yes,” responded the Doctor. “And you must do your best not to kill them.”

“And why should we do that?” responded Arru. The vampires all eyed the Doctor suspiciously, and Yulric could feel their moods shifting back to a quick beheading.

“Well, first of all, because it’s a waste of blood. No need to overtax a system that works so well.”

Tezcatlipoca glared significantly at Cebrian, who refused to translate this.

“And then, of course, there is the danger to your own lives.”

“What danger?” asked Arru.

“From the mortals, of course,” the Doctor made a big show of looking around the table in disbelief. “Has he . . . Has he not told you?” He pointed an accusatory finger at Yulric. The others eyed the elder Englishman suspiciously. “The world has changed, my friends—guns, flying machines, horseless carriages. You’ve seen some of this for yourselves?” The vampires nodded. The Doctor, however, shook his head. “You have not seen the half of it. They can communicate with each other instantaneously from anywhere in the world. They can track each other’s whereabouts with machines in the sky. And guns. Guns are everywhere.”

Yulric interrupted. “Vampyrs cannot be—”

“Killed by guns?” the Doctor finished for him. His face was stern, but the old vampire could see a smile lurking just beneath the surface. “Well, what about machines that spit flames? What about fire that can melt metal in seconds? What about explosives that can destroy entire cities? Can these kill vampires?”

Silence fell across the room. None of them had ever heard about
this
part of modern life.

“Mortals have devised new and more deadly ways to kill each other,” explained the Doctor, “and in doing so, have discovered new and undeadly ways to kill us, as well. We can no longer risk being monsters. People kill monsters.

“Of course, as your humble servant, I can assist you. Be your guide to this brave new world. All I would ask, my lords and ladies, is that until such time as you have no use for me and dispatch me, as is your right, you allow my experiments to continue. After all, what is an empire without an army of minions behind it?”

The word
minions
set off a number of nods. Suddenly, those hopeless dreams of leading an army of vampires didn’t seem so hopeless. Had they not slaughtered just such an army, on their way in?

“You’ve been awfully quiet, Master Bile,” Talby said. “Do you approve of this arrangement?”