Manitou Blood (37 page)

“You have to ask Changing Woman to help you. Only she can call on her son the Monster Slayer, the People-With-Sun-Behind-Their-Eyes, and only they can kill the
strigoi
for you.”

“Is that it? That's all I have to do? Talk to the mother of all human creation?”

Singing Rock nodded.

“And what do I say—like, always supposing that I can get in touch with her? ‘Dear Changing Woman, I'd really appreciate it if you could send your boys around to kick some
strigoi
ass for me?' ”

“Why do you always mock?”

“Because I'm confused, that's why, and I'm scared shitless, and I don't think I've got what it takes to call on Changing Women or any other kind of gods. Sure, I believe you believe in all of this earth-mother stuff, and monster slayers, and I believe it all exists, in some reality, someplace. I've seen it, and I'm talking to you, aren't I, and by all the usual criteria
you
don't exist. But it's not my culture, is it? I don't have any affinity with it, I don't have any faith. It's like asking me to talk to Buddah.”

“You don't
need
faith, Harry Erskine. Changing Woman is real. You must have noticed that it grows cold in winter, and the earth grows tired. Yet spring always returns, doesn't it, and the corn shoots up? Changing Woman walks in the opposite direction, but you've turned around and seen her, haven't you, even if it was only a glimpse? You've seen her in the fields? You've seen her in the city streets? You know she's there.”

For a fraction of a second, I think I understood what he was talking about. You know what it's like, when you see a pretty young woman walking across the street, and the sun momentarily lights up her face, and she looks at you, and for some reason you feel that something important has happened, but you're not sure what. Singing Rock was saying that she really walks among us, the spirit of change, and that we've all seen her, even if we haven't realized it.

“All right,” I said. “Maybe she's real. Maybe I've seen her. But I don't have the first idea how to talk to her, do I?”

“Of course you do. Changing Woman is always looking for harmony. She was deeply saddened when her people were driven from their lands, but she recognizes that all things must change, and that there is brutality in the world, as well as compassion. Out of death rises new life. Out of cruelty comes understanding. Changing Woman grieves, yes, but she never seeks revenge—not like Misquamacus. If you are fighting for harmony, she will listen to you, and help you.”

“Okay. But
how?
What do I have to do?”

“If you wish to speak to a spirit, where do you go?”

The window suddenly filled up with sunlight, and all I could see of Singing Rock was the glistening of his eyes.

“You don't mean—?” I asked him.

“You have very little time. You must hurry.”

“Singing Rock—”

“No, Harry Erskine. I have already given you more guidance than I should. The living cannot always rely on the dead, or else they are as good as dead themselves.”

“But what if I need you again?”

There was no answer. Singing Rock was gone.

I wanted to go alone, but Gil said it was going to be far too dangerous out on the streets, even in daylight. The
strigoi
might be hiding away in their coffins and their mirrors, but the looters and the crazies would be out and about, and
maybe the military, too, who would probably have orders to shoot first and play
Wheel of Fortune
afterwards.

In case we got held up, and we couldn't make it back before nightfall, Gil double-checked that he had closed and locked all of the windows in the Dragomirs' apartment and broken every single mirror, so the
strigoi
couldn't get inside, and Jenica would stay safe.

Jenica had plenty to keep her occupied. In her father's desk she had discovered a Ruthenian book about dead vampires called
Oper,
and a pamphlet from Transylvania
Tales of Siscoi
—
siscoi
being a more localized name for the undead. She had also found seven volumes of her father's diaries, all bound in maroon leather, and dating right back to 1971.

“I shall be good,” she promised, “Don't worry. I have one more bottle of
palinca
, so I shall be happy.”

“Happy and unconscious,” Gil remarked, as we left the apartment. “I've got myself the Daddy Bear and Mommy Bear of all hangovers. It even hurts to
think
about it.”

We stepped out onto the streets, and here we were, back in a 1970s science-fiction movie, walking through a brown, photosynthetic smog, with cars and garbage strewn everywhere, and crows still picking over the corpses. The city was utterly silent. I was pretty sure that there were plenty of people left alive—thousands, probably—but I guessed that they were all cowering in their apartments, just like us. The only difference was that they didn't know that they had to break their mirrors, to stop the
strigoi
from getting them, and we had no way to warn them.

“You should go see your wife and daughter,” I told Gil, as we crunched up Hudson Street over a sidewalk covered with broken glass.

“I will. But first let's see if we can contact this Changing Woman broad. At least I'll feel that we've started to hit back.”

“Suit yourself.”

As we crossed Morton Street, we saw four or five people
in the distance. They were kneeling on the sidewalk, flapping their arms and howling like wolves. Gil squinted at them through his binoculars, and then handed them across to me.

I could make out three men and two women, all naked, or nearly naked. Their skin was covered in huge red blisters, and smoke was pouring out of their hair.

“Pale people,” said Gil. “They're all burning up, the same way that Frank was.”

“Well, let's get going before they see us. We know what the pale people want, don't we, and that's blood.”

We saw nobody else before we reached Christopher Street. Nobody else alive, that is, although we came across a heap of bodies on the corner of Barrow Street and the whole heap was heaving with maggots.

Around the side of Christopher Street Cashmere, I pressed the shiny brass doorbell for Amelia's apartment and then we waited, wiping the perspiration from our faces with the backs of our hands.

“What if she ain't in?” asked Gil. He didn't add “or dead” because he didn't need to. I was just as worried as he was that the
strigoi
might have reached her already.

I pressed the buzzer again, and almost immediately Bertie's voice said, “Who is it?”

“It's me, Bertie. Harry Erskine.”

“Harry! What the hell do you want now?”

“I need to talk to Amelia. It's really important.”

“You need to go away and leave us alone.”

“Bertie, if you don't open this door and let us in, we're going to knock it down and come in anyhow.”

There was a very long pause, and then the door opened.

Inside the Carlsson apartment, it was hot and airless and flies were droning around, just like everyplace else. Bertie was wearing a blue and yellow-striped bathrobe, the Swedish national colors, although his face was crimson.
Amelia came out of the bedroom in a floaty white linen cloud with white flowers embroidered on it.

“Harry,” she said. “And—Gil, isn't it?”

“You got it, ma'am.”

“Did you get to see Razvan?”

“Razvan's in Bucharest right now, but we got to see his daughter, and she knows as much about
strigoi
as he does.”

“You said it out loud.”

“What?
Strigoi?
Yes . . . according to Jenica, it doesn't matter too much, so long as they're not very close by, like right outside your window, or hiding under your bed, and provided they're not especially thirsty. You just have to be careful about mentioning their individual names.”

“Well, this is a great relief,” said Bertie. “Especially since I don't know any vampires by name.”

“Don't make a joke of it, Bertie. You don't know how relieved I am to see that you're both okay. These
strigoi
characters can get in almost anywhere.”

“Not here. Nobody can get in here. My alarm system here is state-of-the-art.”

“I think you'd better sit down,” I told him. “You too, Amelia.”

As briefly as I could I told them how we had discovered the coffins in the vaults under St. Stephen's Church. I also told them how Gil had come across Frank, and brought him back to the Dragomirs' apartment, and what Frank had told us about mirrors. I told her how the
strigoi
had climbed in through the windows, and how Vasile Lup had appeared in the hallway.

“But Vasile Lup's spirit was brought to life by an even stronger spirit. Misquamacus.”

Amelia stared at me in disbelief. “Is this some kind of a joke?”

“I wish it was. I saw him with my own eyes, Amelia. Living head dress, trophy-cloak, everything.”

Amelia stood up and walked across to the window. On
the sill stood a blue glass vase with five dead lilies in it, surrounded by fallen petals. She looked down at the street below, and there was a look on her face that I had never seen before—the look of a woman who has tried to escape the fate that has always been waiting for her, but failed.

“This is the same Misquamacus that you fought with earlier?” asked Bertie.

“There's only one Misquamacus, I'm afraid.”

Amelia turned around. “I suppose you've talked to Singing Rock?”

“First thing I did.”

“And Singing Rock said?”

I told her all about Changing Woman, and her son the Monster Slayer, and the People-With-Sun-Behind-Their-Eyes.

Amelia listened patiently, but then she said, “Why can't
he
communicate with her—Singing Rock? He's far better qualified than I am. He's a Native American, after all, and he's a medicine man, too.”

“I know, but Singing Rock has two serious problems. One, he's a Sioux, and I don't think that the Navajo and the Sioux are exactly bosom buddies. Two, he's a man, and Changing Woman doesn't answer to men.”

“This is making me insane,” said Bertie.

“Better insane than exsanguinated,” I told him.

“Harry,” said Amelia, “I don't think I can do this. I've read quite a lot about Changing Woman, and she isn't like the spirit of somebody's Aunt Mildred. She's a
deity
.”

“I know. But from what Singing Rock told me, she's a very sympathetic deity, as deities go. And she's very much in favor of life, as opposed to having your throat cut and bleeding all over the rug.”

It was then that Bertie stood up, and went over to Amelia, and took both of her hands in his. “Amelia,” he said, “you should do this.”

“Bertie?” I said. “I didn't think you believed in any of this mumbo-jumbo.”

Bertie spoke with surprising dignity. “Just now, what
I
believe in is not very important. You only have to look out of the window to see that the city is dying, and that the authorities have abandoned us. If nobody is coming to help us we must help ourselves, and if this is the only way that has been suggested to us . . . well, we must try it.”

Amelia said, “I don't know, Bertil. I really don't think that my psychic power is strong enough.”

“How do you know, Amelia, unless you try? This Misky Marcus, you fought him before, didn't you, and you sent him packing? If you did it once, you could do it again.”

Amelia looked across at me, but all I could do was shrug. “It's your choice, sweetheart.”

So it was that we sat around the glass dining room table, underneath a Scandinavian chandelier that was made out of dozens of triangles of blue and white frosted glass. It was almost midday, and the humidity was so high that we were all dripping. Bertie started to fan himself with a table mat, so that the chandelier tinkled, but Amelia said, “
No
, darling . . . you mustn't disturb the air.”

“So I should melt?” asked Bertie, irritably.

“Think about an ice-cold Coke,” I suggested.

Amelia reached out and we all held hands. She closed her eyes for a while, and then she said, “I am calling on any spirit who can help me.”

It always made my scalp prickle when she said that. She had an echoey quality in her voice, like she wasn't here at all, but standing in another room. No matter how many times I talked to Singing Rock, or tried to summon up other spirits, I could never make my voice sound like that.

“I am calling on any spirit who can guide me to Changing Woman. I am calling on any spirit who can touch her shoulder and ask her to speak to me.”

We waited in silence, with our hands growing sweatier and sweatier. I could feel a drop of perspiration roll off the end of my nose, and fall onto the table, and I could feel another
one building up to follow it, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. The link between us couldn't be broken.

“I am asking to be taken to Changing Woman, to pay my respects to her, and to beg her for a favor, in the names of those who gave her life, Sa'ah Naaghaii and Bik'eh H-zh-.”

I had to hand it to Amelia, she always knew her stuff. She had said offhandedly that she had “read quite a lot” about Changing Woman, but knowing her, that probably meant that she had graduated
summa cum laude
in Navajo mysticism.

“Changing Woman, I honor you. Changing Woman, I give you my respect. Changing Woman, I implore you to speak to me.”

By the expression on his sweaty, deep red face, I could tell that Bertie was beginning to grow increasingly uncomfortable, but it was obvious that he respected Amelia's talents, even though he found it so hard to believe in spirits and vampires. I might have thought he was an asshole when I first met him, but that was only because I was jealous. I could tell that he loved her, damn it.