Gypsy Blood (18 page)

Nobody glittered.

You ought to turn away boy. Think about baseball, or some other counting game.

Carnival stared. Poppa was right. He ought to turn away but he couldn’t. He didn’t want Maya to think her feeding bothered him.

That’s love, isn’t it? Not minding if you’re sweetheart forgets to close her mouth while she chews.

Love? Maybe. Carnival was disgusted. For the billionth time he asked himself why he was doing this.

“Do you have to do this every night?” he asked.

“Only if I want to stay living.”

Open your eyes, boy. She’s talking truth.

“I’ll bathe the next one,” Carnival promised. “What flavor of soap would you like?”

She smiled a great red stained clown’s smile that cheshired away as she looked at him. “You’re sure there’s going to be a next one?”

Carnival wasn’t sure at all. He didn’t like this feeling at all.

Oh honey, I don’t mind if you smoke. My asthma gets better every day.

Poppa was right, but Carnival couldn’t tell Maya that.

“I said I’d take care of you.”

“Because you want to? Or because you said so?”

“There a difference?”

He didn’t hear the next part. She was busy gulping. She made a real messy sound, like a sewer sucker and swallowed another gulp.

“He stinks of old wine,” she said. “I should have opened him with a corkscrew.”
Carnival had enough.

“Look,” he said. “I did my best, and all you give me is grief.”

“I’m just telling you how I feel.”

“No, you’re complaining.”

“I can catch better on my own.”

“Are you always this fussy?”

“I was ready to drain you, wasn’t I?”

Ouch. That hurts worse than her bite.

“Don’t say things like that. I love you, Maya.”

“Love? You draw that word out like a knife. What’s it supposed to mean? You bought me a couple of drinks — that gives you the right to tell me how I should live my life? That’s not love. That’s plastic surgery.”

She’s right. You’ve just got to get a grip is all. Stop washing your gloves in the butter dish.

Yeah, that’s it, Carnival thought. He just needed to get a grip. Maybe she could teach him how.

She’s sure got a grip on your wino. She’s clamped onto his throat like a pit bull with lockjaw.

He has a name, Poppa.

Had.

Carnival watched Maya work. She was being particularly nasty. He could tell. She was pissed off at him and taking it out on Elija. Revenge by placebo, and Carnival got to watch.

Lucky you. A spectator in the peep show of the damned.

Carnival looked at Elija again, lying there cold as a November tombstone. That's what death is, something cold and quiet with no coming back.

Usually.

“Don’t mind me," Carnival said. "It’s been a few days since I’ve slept.”

He wasn’t lying. He’d spent the last couple days on floating on a river of panicked adrenalin and cheap coffee. Come to think of it, Maya looked just as bad, like she hasn’t been sleeping. Was the gray hair there last night? Wasn’t immortality supposed to make you younger?

You ought to ask her about it.

Not while she’s feeding. Besides, Carnival felt good. He could take care of his girl. He could feed her. Couldn’t he? She looked up like she could read his mind, blood spilling down her chin and around the edges of her fine sharp teeth like sloppish lipstick.

“He was supposed to die,” Carnival said.

Maya looked up, a question mark arching her eyebrows.

“I asked Charon for a name,” He explained. “Someone who had to die. He gave me Elija. Elija was marked to die tonight, so what I did doesn’t matter.”

“Are you sure? How do you know you weren’t marked to kill him?”

Ha. Some fortune teller. She has you there. You tipped your own game.

Poppa was right. Carnival paled as the realization hit him. In killing Elija he’d just fulfilled Charon’s prophecy. There was no way of knowing if Elija had been fated to die this night, or not. He had wasted his silver.

“You ought to make up your mind,” Maya said.

She’s right. You need to make up your mind. Are you in love with a vampire or not?

Carnival dug at his throat, nervously. He forced himself to stop scratching. If I kept it up I was going to look like Elija.

Don’t kid yourself. As bad as you are, you could never look that bad.

Poppa was right.

“Look,” Carnival said. “We need to hide this body.”

“Why bother?”

“I don’t want to get caught.”

“You’re caught already, aren’t you?”

She’s right. You are caught. Like a fly in a spider’s web.

“So you’re not going to help me hide this body?”

“No,” She said, biting the word off like a finger caught in an iron door.

Carnival was on his own.

He was getting used to the sensation.

Strange Things Found on the Entrail Trail

T
he buildings in Carnival’s section of the city were crammed together tighter than potter’s field coffins, jammed in close for heat and shelter, leaning against each other for support. Every livable inch was sacrificed upon the altar of rent.

There’s just not that many places to hide a body.

I told you before. You should watch The Sopranos. Tony Soprano could teach you a lesson or two on how to dispose of evidence.

“You’re right Poppa. Not watching television will be the death of me.”

You have more than a misspent childhood to worry about, my son. Where will you hide this body?

Carnival wondered. There was a trunk in his back room but it was full of moldy paperbacks. Besides, it would attract bugs and flies and it would stink like the devil.

Maybe behind a wall. With a black cat and a tattletale heart.

“No good, Poppa. I’d have to break through the plaster. It’d make a mess and I couldn’t do it quietly. Sooner or later the tattooist from upstairs or the lady who took in sailors downstairs would wonder what all of the ruckus was about.”

Just trying to be helpful.

Carnival dragged Elija into the bedroom. He was a lot lighter without all the blood. You’d be surprised what a difference a few extra gallons can make.

You could market this as a diet aid. Lose weight fast and painlessly through vampiric exsanguination. Your profits would be murder.

“I didn’t kill him, Poppa. You pushed me. Even Maya, I think she pushed me too.”

Own up to your own bodies, my son. Who held the knife?

“Charon said he was supposed to die tonight.”

Fegh. Open your eyes, boy.

Carnival looked at Elija’s body. What could he do with him? Is he even a ‘him’ anymore? Wasn’t he more of an “it”?

Why don’t you hide him under your bed?

It was a stupid idea but Carnival was desperate. He shoved the body under the bed. There was nothing but dust buffalo to keep him company.

Then he had tried lying on the bed to sleep.

It hadn’t worked.

Ha. You’ve made your bed, but can you sleep in it? That mattress will lump you to death with guilt.

Correction, this was where he’d sleep today. He couldn’t sleep in the night. He had Maya to feed.

Now the details are telling on you. So many logistical problems to calculate. A bird and a fish can fall in love but where will they live?

Carnival thought about that. How would he do business like this? Hi, come on in, don’t mind the blood spatter?

That’s right. Look at the bright side.

Carnival shook his head. “This is a bad idea.”

Did you just notice? My boy, fast as dead snails. Slower than frozen molasses, sliding uphill.

Carnival laid back down. He felt Elija’s eyes looking up through the cot.

Why not close them with pennies? Or better yet, Krazy Glue? You could invest in a deep freezer. Just swing open the door and drop him in.

Swing open the door…

Carnival sat up. He looked down at the floor. Elija’s hand lay there, peeking out from under the cot like a dirty little secret. He dragged Elija’s body back out from under the bed.

“Okay Elija. I need to find a place to bury you, and you’re going to have to help.”

Carnival pulled his knife out. It was funny how many uses he’d found for this knife in the last couple of days.

Never leave home without fire and steel. A knife, a pack of matches, a Zippo lighter. I told you this when you were young. Aren’t you glad you listened?

“Right Poppa. You sound so wise and nearly as sincere as a late night infomercial.”

Carnival dragged Elija’s shirt up. It stuck in parts. There were sores on his skin. He’d been in pain. This was a good thing.

A good thing. Right you are, Martha Stewart. Why don’t you write a book about it?
One Hundred Creative Ways
To Mutilate The Dead?

Carnival unsnapped his knife.

Do you need this? To desecrate the dead? Is this truly necessary?

Was Poppa right? Was this really necessary? Couldn’t he make up mind without relying on the dubious benefits of divination? Carnival couldn’t say for sure.

When you are up to your ass in alligators, it’s important to try and remember that you originally set out to drain the swamp.

Carnival pushed the blade into Elija’s lower abdomen. The skin had rubberized in death. He had to work the blade to get inside. It isn’t nearly as easy as they show in all those horror movies. Dissection takes strong forearms. That’s why coroners have meat saws. He made an X in the belly flesh. It wasn’t messy. Maya had drained everything there was to drain. Then he reached inside and drew out Elija’s intestine.

We are what we eat. A man’s appetite tells more about his person than any other feature.

“Find your home,” Carnival whispered to the entrail.

Like a pink latex snake the intestine regurgitated itself along the floorboards, playing out until it found the trapdoor. The intestinal compass ran along the floorboards, oozing out in slow contortions like a wet pink worm. Carnival could almost see it sniffing out its way like a long tubular bloodhound. He could see the trapdoor, now that Elija’s dead entrails had pointed out the way. Maya’s trapdoor was back again right where it had been. Under the bed only it changed. It was a big old thing, like you’d see in a movie, with a great big iron ring for a handle.

It’s heavy, boy. Heavy with sin and undigested regret.

How long had it been there? He’d looked this morning and it hadn’t been there.

Maybe it had something to do with the time of night. Or maybe the visceral divination had turned the trick.

How can you know for sure?

He couldn’t. He dragged the cot aside. He nearly threw his back out while he was at it. Then he opened the trapdoor. There was a big long iron ladder going down a tunnel that looked strangely organic. He couldn’t see the bottom. There was only one way to do this and it wouldn’t be pretty. He shoved Elija into the hole and let him drop. He hoped the corpse didn’t land in someone’s living room.

Or someone’s coffin.

There. He was finished. No he wasn’t. He had to go down there. He had to find out what it looked like. How much room was down there. He had to plan this out, only he didn’t want to.

I never knew my boy had claustrophobia.

“I didn’t either, Poppa.”

It wasn’t claustrophobia. He was just scared shitless.

Ha! Some kind of shuvano you are.

Carnival stared at the trapdoor hole. It looked like a big open mouth just waiting to swallow him whole. What if Elija was alive down there?

He looked dead to me, going down.

But what if he wasn’t? What if he was waiting down there, zombified. Waiting to grab Carnival by the legs and pull him down.

That’s the thing about resurrections. There are always some people a body just doesn’t want to see coming back from the dead.

“Who do you fear, Poppa? Who would you hate to see come back.”

No one. I fear no one.

“Liar.”

Carnival moved closer to the trap. He didn’t want to, but it was like the damn hole was talking to him. Calling him closer. Calling him down. He lowered himself down the ladder. The rungs were round and slippery. He slipped and caught myself. He nearly popped a knee. That’d be a hell of a finish. Lying in some sub-cellar on top of Elija’s corpse with a broken leg. Or neck. Or worse.