Blood Groove (18 page)

Barker smiled, and then looked puzzled as Fauvette’s daylight-weakened but still potent nosferatic powers took hold of him. He released Zginski, punctuating it with a little shove to remind him who was in charge, then waved an okay sign at his partner down the alley.

“I’ll meet you around the corner in front of the movie theater,” Fauvette whispered to Zginski, her eyes locked on Barker. Zginski clenched his fists to control himself, then
turned and stalked away. Fauvette led the cop into the shadows.

On the next street Zginski found the theater she’d mentioned. The Malco sported a wedge-shaped marquee visible from either direction on the street, announcing an “early bird summer matinee double feature.” Although he was furious, the vivid posters behind the glass penetrated his rage and got his attention.

One was for a film called
Vanishing Point
. Printed across the top was the line, “Tighten Your Seat Belt. You Never Had a Trip Like This Before.” The image showed a stylized circle of young people in what looked like ritual ecstasy, clad in odd clothes and holding what seemed to be musical instruments. Bursting through the center was a modern automobile, surrounded by streaks to indicate motion.

The second poster, though, pushed aside all thought of his earlier encounters with the peasantry and focused his attention where it needed to be, on his immediate problems. It showed a hirsute Negro with his mouth open, displaying the unmistakable fangs of a vampire. He was about to drive them into the throat of a lovely young white woman in a nightgown.

Blacula
, the poster proclaimed. “Dracula’s Soul Brother!” ran the blurb across the top.

He lost track of how long he stared at the poster before Fauvette appeared beside him. Her hair was disheveled and her eyes blazed with fury. “We should
really
get you off the street,” she snapped, “until I can explain some things to you, like how to talk to cops.”

“So you finished that arrogant constable?”

“If you mean by ‘finish’ that I gave him a blow job to get him to go away, yes,” she said bitterly. “I hate doing that, you know.” And it was no understatement; once she, the backwoods good girl, had grasped the concept of fellatio, she spent three years doing little else to lull her victims before killing
them. The power it gave her over men made her head spin, until she realized she could get the same result without touching them, and without the disgusting smells and aftertaste.

Zginski was too distracted to notice her mood. He tapped the glass over the
Blacula
poster. “We must see this cinema.”

She did a double take at the poster. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No,” he said firmly.

“Why?”

“Because I need to understand how this era expects beings like ourselves to behave. If this is a serious attempt at showing a vampire in this modern world, I
must know
.”

“But you said everything the movies told me was
wrong
,” she pointed out.

“They were wrong about
us
, yes. But they will show us exactly what the
mortals
currently believe about us.”

“I suppose I have to go, too?” she sighed.

“Of course.”

“Great,” she muttered as they went to the ticket window. No matter how powerful he was, she had almost reached her limit of being Zginski’s pet.

D
ANIELLE OPENED HER
eyes. The sunlight blinded her, and she quickly closed them again.

Every part of her body hurt. Each joint, even the hinge of her jaw, felt clogged with ground glass. She tried to move, but the pain made her stop, and she managed only a pitiful whimper.

She took a moment to sense the world around her. She lay facedown, and felt hard concrete all along her body, which meant she was still naked. Her hips from waist to knees felt numb and sore, particularly her buttocks, although for the moment her scrambled memory could not recall why. Her mouth was excruciatingly dry, and her head thundered like buffalo wanted out of her skull. She smelled the odors of decay, garbage, and metallic by-products like oil and gasoline. She was also, despite the summer heat and the sunlight evidently shining on her, very cold.

Again she tried to move, but she simply lacked the energy to overcome the pain and numbness. She sought a diagnosis, an explanation of the symptoms, but her disjointed brain just wouldn’t work on that level. With a long, soft whine of surrender, she allowed herself to pass out again.

•  •  •

   For an early-morning show the theater was surprisingly full, mostly with black people. Zginski and Fauvette sat in the last row, which gave them a good view of both the screen and the sea of Afros and caps before them. Zginski was too absorbed by his own thoughts to sense the tension around them; Fauvette heard comments pass among the other patrons about the “crazy honkies” in the back row and slid down in her seat as people turned and glared at them.

At last the lights dimmed and the red velvet curtains drew back. The scratched trailer for snacks in the lobby appeared, accompanied by tinny, blaring music. Then the screen filled with a huge ampersand against the sky and the words “American International presents.”

As
Blacula
began, Zginski was enthralled not so much by the story, but by the sheer intensity of the visual presentation. The cinemas he recalled were indistinct, dreamlike experiences in flickering shades of gray; this was in perfect detail, glorious color, and, most amazingly, featured the
voices
of the characters. The actor playing the Negro prince, especially, had a rich, full, and commanding baritone. Compared to Zginski’s memories of silent films, this was like looking through a window on the affairs of giants.

He realized the gray-haired man treating the black prince with contempt was supposed to be Count Dracula, the titular villain of Stoker’s famous novel. Zginski had read the book, of course, and been impressed with its accuracy. He certainly never pictured the Count as this foppish, ham-fisted buffoon.

Then Dracula’s vampire followers appeared, looking like befanged refugees from a bad primary school production of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
. Zginski’s chuckles grew louder. When Dracula evidently drew out all of the black prince’s
blood in an instant, Zginski began to laugh in earnest, big guffaws that echoed in the theater and caused many angry faces to turn toward him.

“Will you
shut up
!” Fauvette hissed. “They think you’re laughing at the hero!”

With great effort Zginski controlled himself. After this introductory scene the titles began, weird animation that reminded him of Dr. Wiene’s German film about the carnival hypnotist. After that, he sat in silence, mouth open, unable to believe what he was seeing. The vampires presented in this film were ludicrous in both their appearance and behavior. The female vampire racing in slow-motion toward the camera might frighten a nervous child, but no one else. Yet there was no hint that these proceedings were intended to amuse; for all intents, the story was grimly serious, and the depiction of vampires meant to terrify.

Not that it frightened the audience around him. As Fauvette said, they saw the black prince as a hero, and whenever he took a life they cheered and catcalled at the screen. Conversely, they also cheered whenever the mortal Negro protagonist was rude to his white superiors. It took a few occurrences before Zginski understood this: they simply enjoyed it when any black character triumphed over any white one. He wondered if this film was, in fact, made by Negroes for their own kind, or was it a white enterprise designed to give them a vicarious outlet for their passions.

And yet, despite the foolishness, the African prince-turned-vampire earned Zginski’s sympathy. Here was a man who was a ruler in his own kingdom, turned revenant against his will and, like Zginski, locked away in a coffin without benefit of being truly dead. Like Zginski, he emerged ravenous and seized on the first source of blood he found, although Blacula was not careful enough; discarded like so many empty wineskins, his victims formed a veritable band of vampires without his knowledge or interest. Zginski, at least, was
pickier about his companions and far more careful with his victims.

Finally, though, the black prince was undone by the sentimental weakness of love. Dispirited, defeated, he staggered into the sunlight, denying his enemies the satisfaction of dispatching him. The ending brought a chorus of “boos!” from the crowd.

Beside him, Fauvette huddled in the stiff seat, knees drawn to her chin, softly crying. Despite all that had happened to him, and all the evil things he had done, the black prince had known love, both as a mortal and as a vampire. In that sense he was blessed. She felt the pain of his loss in the great unloving, unloved emptiness of her own heart.

That brought up the memory of the gray powder’s deadening peace. If she’d had the bag with her at that moment she would’ve consumed it all, Zginski be damned. So what if it meant her final destruction; what purpose did her empty existence serve anyway?

She risked a glance at Zginski. He was enraptured by the images on the screen. She felt even more alone.

Then the second feature started. Bulldozers rumbled up to block a desert highway. Grim, dusty people watched from nearby buildings. And at the first roaring engine, Zginski sat up, eyes wide.

He had some trouble following the story; the time frame seemed to be disjointed, so that scenes from the past followed those from the present. Yet the individual sequences enthralled him, especially those that featured the main character’s automobile in action eluding the constabulary. The Polish driver seemed to be one with his vehicle, handling it with calm efficiency even in the direst of circumstances, much as the great Towarzysz Husaria horsemen had once done.

In the driver’s travels, Zginski also saw an America he’d never imagined: flat arid landscapes, verdant mountainsides,
ocean-pounded beaches. The Pole did not move among the upper classes, but navigated with impunity through the dregs of society, both white and colored. A black man spoke into machinery that transmitted his voice to the hero through the same device Lee Ann’s car sported, and Zginski went colder than normal at the memory of Sir Francis’s signalman broadcasting his demise that long-ago day in Wales. A woman lived naked in the desert, her display of flesh considered neither unseemly nor even unusual. People had all sorts of motorized transportation devices, some with only two wheels like bicycles.

He grew more confused as he watched. Was this Pole actually driving through the same world, the same culture, that had also produced
Blacula
? Could one time period contain such disparate concepts as old-world superstitions and up-to-date vehicular technology? Or had society stratified into those who believed the ludicrous suppositions of
Blacula
and those who strove for the mechanistic future world implied by
Vanishing Point
? If so, then where would he, Zginski, belong? For that matter, in which world was he
now
?

And then, the end: car and driver, in a last act of defiance or madness, crashing full speed into the bulldozers seen in the first moments of the film. No triumph, no explanation, just an end that seemed inevitable. The point had vanished, indeed.

And in the silence following, the voice of one patron, speaking no doubt for many: “Say
what
?”

The auditorium doors opened, sending bright shafts of sun down the aisles. The overhead lights came on. The audience members filed out, muttering and laughing, many of them pausing to glare at Fauvette and Zginski. No one said anything, though, for which Fauvette was immensely grateful.

“Can we go now?” she said wearily. “I’m exhausted.”

“Yes, we shall return to the motel. Then we shall rest until evening, when we will meet your friends.”

She put a hand on his arm before he could stand. “Wait a minute. I want you to promise me something. I know you can kill us all. I know you’d kill me without a second thought. But I want you to promise you won’t.”

“Kill you?”

“Kill
them
.”

He smiled at her utterly serious expression. “And what would my word be worth to you?”

“I’m betting a lot. I think that under that arrogance you might still have a shred of honor. These people are my friends, and if they die because of me, I’ll be forced to seek justice for that. Which means I’ll die, too, I’m not kidding myself. And I don’t want to, not like that, not after all this time. So I’m asking for your word that it won’t come to that.”

Zginski couldn’t hide his surprise. The strength of her conviction, emanating as it did from a young teen’s body, took him off guard. He saw no need to point out that she was wrong, that his honor had died when his physical self did and his priorities, now as always, extended very little past his own skin. Instead he nodded and said, “Very well. They will come to no harm through me.” In a pinch, he could always claim that he actually meant “k-n-o-w” instead of “n-o.”