AfterAge (13 page)

Hugh stumbled away, tripping among the plush furnishings until he found the far wall and pressed against the bamboo-textured wallpaper in wonder. He swept his gnarled fingers in wide circles along the wall, round and round, and began singing softly to himself. "Swe-e-et emoooo-shun," he crooned. "
Ba
-dap,
ba
da da da da." There were shadowed, moving things with him here, but they held no warmth or food and thus were of no use. But the music was a different thing: it was always there, always a comfort, always feeding energetic pulses through his hot and ravenous brain. Up and down, all the time, even in his sleep. Sometimes he could see the notes, dancing among his fingers like little animated figures from antique cartoons, each exploding into glittering showers when he caught and squeezed it.

The others watched for a few moments, then Anyelet sighed. "I understand The Hunger as well as anyone, but why turn an abomination like him into one of us?"

Rita snorted. "Maybe they thought it was a joke."

"Very funny. If I ever find out who did it, I'll laugh as I personally dig their teeth out." The redhead's sharp voice caught Hugh's attention and he wandered back, performing a clumsy two-step to music that only he could hear.

"I wonder how he feeds," Rita mused. "We don't let him near the people upstairs, and he doesn't have the sense to hunt . . . does he?"

"This damned place is
UGLY!
" Hugh suddenly screamed. He gestured frantically at the pink-and-lavender decor. "
Look!
"

Gregory, a sensitive-looking young man who had once been an accountant, spoke. "We should kill him and be done with it. He's a liability" His thin fingers stroked the collar of his sweatshirt as though searching for a lost tie, then carefully smoothed his sand-colored hair.

"I like him," Vic said stonily. His face had gone dangerously rigid and he folded powerful arms and stared hard at the smaller vampire. "He's
interesting
."

"Still—"

"If he amuses Vic, let him be," Anyelet interrupted. Greg shrugged his acquiescence. "Sure. Whatever you say."

Hugh moved in front of Anyelet, his wrinkled face earnest around eternally dreamy eyes. "I remember a place where there were paintings and sculptures from the old country, so beautiful—"

Anyelet started. "Old country? Which old country?"

“—not like this
shit
here, this damned
SHIT
they call decorating—“

"Hey" Vic said. "Calm down, Hugh." The old guy's arms were flailing like wet spaghetti.

"What does he mean, 'old country'?" Anyelet asked again.

Hugh frowned at her. Sometimes even the Mistress—and sure, he knew who she was, all right, she was the
BIG CHEESE
, the
MAIN MAN
, or the
DON
, as they would have said in the old country—even
she
was not so bright as he would have thought. "In
Italy
, of course," he said patiently. "Where else?"

"Where else?" Rita mimicked sarcastically.

The Mistress, Hugh suddenly decided, was very beautiful, like a holy woman he had once worshiped but couldn't think of now because doing so burned holes in his mind. It was only proper to surround her with beautiful things. He did a shuffling twirl in homage. "Da Vinci!" he sang merrily. "Van Gogh, Monet!"

"Well, well," Greg said. "He still knows the names of the artsy crowd."

Hugh stopped by Vic. "Let's go shopping now, everybody's shopping now, come on a safari with me-e-e!" His cracked voice wailing the altered Beach Boys tune as he hopped around made Vic wince. Hugh spun and abruptly dropped to his knees in front of Anyelet, his old bones making a hollow
thunk
as they hit the floor. "Let me escort you there," he pleaded, clasping his hands. "Its beauty is surpassed only by yours." He grinned, showing ancient fangs that barely held a point.

Anyelet gazed at him impassively. "What place is this, Hugh?"

Instead of answering, he pulled her hand reverently to his chest, crooning to it as though it were an infant.

"I think he means the Art Institute," Vic said. "That would make sense."

Rita rolled her eyes. "Nothing Hugh says makes sense," she sneered. "Besides, why bother?"

Still on his knees, Hugh let out a shrill laugh. "Might find other stuff, too!" he cackled.

"What?" Anyelet demanded. Her eyes turned sharp. "Answer me!"

"It's locked." Hugh looked up at her trustingly, his face old and strangely childlike.

"Are there people there, Hugh?" Anyelet persisted. “
Humans?
"

He nodded sagely as Rita's eyebrows raised. "Sure, lots of them. You should see the Warhol exhibit."

Greg made a disgusted sound. "The old fool is talking about the paintings. He wouldn't know a human if one bit
him
."

"I saw a body on the railroad tracks," Hugh said sweetly.

"You did?" Anyelet dropped gracefully into a crouch, like a panther settling on its haunches. "When?"

Hugh closed his eyes and began humming tunelessly, still clutching Anyelet's hand. Holding onto her made him feel secure and serene, like Tisbee had once made him feel.
Got to find that woman
, he reminded himself without pausing.
And switch that kid a good one for being gone so long. Fathers are so
unappreciated—

"Hugh," Anyelet commanded. "Open your eyes and look at me." She tapped his cheek and his eyes, wet and red, opened sleepily. She locked gazes, then went
inside
, deep into the recesses of his mind, searching for the memory he'd spoken of, trying to discover if it was real. Fragments spun and crashed in his thoughts—

a tall woman with dark hair and darker eyes holding a child Tisbee my son can't find them why can't I remember big gray stone buildings I'm not old and the so dark subway what do they mean Alzheimer's where is Tisbee find that boy can't happen to me can't remember what he looks like see that body on the tracks someone shot a hole right through its chest fall and all the leaves whirling around all dried red no food so many colors can't find Tisbee want to get in see the paintings I used to all that music but the door locked reinforced sounds so pretty don't care
—

—and Anyelet found it difficult to make sense of them. Severing the contact, she stood and hauled Hugh up; he chortled happily and pirouetted away, careening off a couch and into an end table.

“Someone take him outside before he knocks over a candle and sets the place on fire." Anyelet struggled to sort through the images still flitting in her mind. The man was insane, but apparently he
had
seen the body of a murdered human by the Art Institute last fall, though her guess was that it had probably rotted away by now. But there might be humans hiding in that building, and Hugh was simply unable to convey that idea. It was worth investigating.

“Come on, old one," Vic said. He grasped Hugh's frail-looking wrist with a massive hand. "Time to go."

"Sure," Hugh agreed. "Let's go to the opera!" He tipped his head back and let out a howl that sounded like nothing so much as a dying wolf.

Anyelet watched them go, then turned to Rita and Gregory. "We'll go to the Art Institute tomorrow night." Her eyes matched the glittering candle flames reflected in the glass cases along the lobby walls. "We've been lazy—there're plenty of humans in this city that we should be catching and breeding. The ones here won’t last forever."

"Especially with that pig Siebold," Rita interjected.

"True. It's time we considered our future. Our own recklessness will be our suicide." She settled onto an upholstered chair and stared at the candelabra on the table. Closing her eyes, she listened to Hugh's fading, faraway singing, wondering at the things in his mind.

~ * ~

Vic led the old man down the riverfront sidewalk to Wells Street, then gave him a little push toward downtown. "Go on now," he said. "Find yourself something to eat."

"Hungry," Hugh complained. He took a few steps, then stopped and turned back. He smiled crookedly. "Tisbee will fix dinner in a little while. You're invited, too."

Vic looked at him sadly. "Tisbee's gone, Hugh. She's never coming back." How many times had he said those words?

"Gone?" Hugh looked puzzled. "Where would she go?" He ambled away, already forgetting about Vic and the others.
Wh
y, Vic wondered,
couldn't fate be more merciful and let the sun catch Hugh in the morning?
Dark instinct, in Hugh's case, seemed stronger than insanity.

A half block away, Hugh began singing again. The unnatural silence in the city made it easy for Hugh's voice to carry.

“
One is the loneliest number
. . ."

Vic jerked around as he recognized the Three Dog Night song from decades ago. Where in the hell had the old man learned all these rock-and-roll songs? He couldn’t help straining to hear the next line.

"
Twooooo can be as bad as one
. . .”

Staring after Hugh, Vic realized what he hated most about being a vampire.

He hated not being able to cry.

REVELATION 18:2

And he is become the habitation of devils,

and the hold of every foul spirit,

and a cage of every unclean

and hateful thing.

~ * ~

"One of these days I'll take that bitch down a peg or two," Howard Siebold said loudly. No one answered and in frustration he lashed out with his foot at a battered vinyl-covered chair. He yelped, scowled, and flexed his bruised toe before pacing the ten-foot room once more.

Siebold rubbed his hands briskly up and down his flabby arms, trying to warm the skin through his stained sweater. It was Rita's fault he was cold; if she hadn't pointed out to the Mistress the way he'd beaten the new woman, that same woman would have helped raise his body temperature before he'd come home to this damned little icebox. They would've had a fine time, you betcha. God, how he despised this ancient monstrosity of a building. Eighteen floors—plus a tower if a man was crazy enough to actually climb that high—of little besides cramped, drafty offices and tiny shops split by endless, echoing halls and the occasional cavernous showroom, thousands of rooms smashed into a shape resembling nothing more than a shoebox four blocks square upon which a bored architect had centered a leftover peak. He kicked out again, this time at the empty propane heater. What he ought to do was crawl into his Quallofil sleeping bag and get some shut-eye. In the morning it would be warmer and he could ride his bike over to Morrie Mages Sporting Goods and fill a backpack with propane canisters, and more cooking fuel, too, if the worms on the third floor were going to get something besides cereal and cold soup. He dreaded it, though; it would take him a laboring half hour to get there, and longer to return carrying a load. He wished he had a car, but none of the ones around here would run.

Siebold wished he had
company
. "Shit!" The room was so small that after only a few steps, he had to turn around. He'd already staked out one of the south-side showrooms on the fourth floor—only one floor above the prisoners but still high enough where he could feel comfortable at night . . . most of the time, anyway. A few more weeks and it ought to be warm enough to move to those bigger quarters and get the hell out of this little pit. He'd wintered in a small room because it was easier to heat, but most of the time he didn't need a heater; he had great natural insulation and the sleeping bag was enough unless the temperature dropped below ten or fifteen. He was cold now because he was horny and had expected better.

"Bitch," he repeated, but with less vehemence. The bodybuilder, Vic, was another problem—no love lost there. The guy had never liked him, but after coming out of the woman's cubicle—and with a full belly, too!—he'd looked like he wanted to kill Howard twice as bad. But Vic hadn't said anything, and that was somehow worse than Rita, who never missed a chance to voice her hatred. The way Vic watched him was scary, like the man was just waiting for a chance to . . . what? Howard rubbed his throat and the crusting sores, remembering Rita's open attempt to throttle him. It might be best if he curbed his more . . .
vigorous
appetites for a while and concentrated on trying to breed the women, stop wasting virility on the guys who pissed him off. If he could get a few of the gals knocked up, it wouldn't matter what Rita thought. In warmer weather the prisoners wouldn't be so miserable all the time; not only were his chances better with a healthier broad, they'd be more fun when they had energy to do something besides lie there. Even using self-restraint, Howard thought he could still have fun.

Vic could still be a problem, but the two vampires would obey Anyelet, and Howard was positive she would protect him if he did his job well. He
had
been apathetic and self-indulgent—blame it on the weather—but he'd turn things around.

He wedged himself into the sleeping bag, then blew out the single candle illuminating the room. In the darkness, Howard couldn't resist rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

There could still be hot times in the cool nights to come.