AfterAge (21 page)

"Who the
fuck
appointed you judge?" Rita shrieked, leaping to her feet. "You annoying little
cockroach
! I could stomp you into the floor right now—"

"Vic," Anyelet said so softly that only she, Vic, and Howard heard the world. Howard cautiously edged away.

Gregory laughed, unperturbed by Rita's threats. “Hardly, dear. You're more mouth than muscle." The air between the two crackled.
Go on!
Howard cheered silently. If Gregory tore the bitch's head off, the dweeby CPA would solve Howard's worst problem!

Rita sprang like a deadly jungle cat, black and sleek and twice as fast as the feeling of scalding water on bare skin. Gregory rose to meet her, either in response or anticipation, his own movement rivaling the astounding killing strikes of the rattlesnakes on the old PBS nature broadcasts. Howard's stunned gaze couldn't even follow the blur as the two bodies hurtled toward each other.

Incredibly, Vic was there, stepping between them before flesh met flesh and collided to a point of no return. One immense forearm wrapped around Rita's shoulders and simply plucked her from midair; when Gregory would have attacked the imprisoned woman, Vic's fist connected solidly with his chest and knocked the smaller vampire back a good twenty feet. Howard's sweat-slimed fingers clenched in disappointment inside his pockets when Vic made no move to further punish the combatants, and he shivered and turned away; it was colder tonight than yesterday and he found it disconcerting to watch these horrific creatures battle without the slightest puff of steamy breath. They never seemed to notice the temperature. "I think I'll go check on the prisoners," he said to no one in particular. There was nothing more to see here anyway.

"Yeah," Rita said nastily. "Keep them
warm
." She made an angry strangling sound as Vic tightened his hold.

Anyelet finally spoke from the shadows. "Yes, Howard," she said in a liquid voice. Her quiet rage made him tremble. "That's a very good idea. I have things to which I must . . . attend."

Rita and Gregory looked suddenly sick, and Howard barely hid a grin as he left the lobby and plodded up to the third floor. Let the Mistress give that vicious bitch something to think about other than antagonizing him. In the meantime, he'd spent a good part of today cautiously searching for Rita's and Vic's sleeping places, and he planned to continue his hunt tomorrow.

Upstairs it was cellar-dark and the oil lamps he'd lit at dusk were nearly empty. It was cold, too, miserably so, and if he didn't drag out more blankets, most of these shit-for-brains would end up with hypothermia. If that happened, they'd probably die and all his progress would be undone; above all he had to look out for the woman and the teenager—he hoped—who were pregnant. Already he could hear moans and teeth chattering—a sound that pissed him off no end—from several of the lightless doorways.

Evening chores irritated him, though he realized tonight was his own fault for ignoring his charges most of the afternoon. He'd planned to be in his sleeping bag by now, warm, full, and in dreamland. All that good—good, hell, he'd been great!—sex today had exhausted him and he'd been too worried last night to sleep well. His eyes had opened at dawn, and with the sun slowly brightening the room he'd had the first inkling that had sent him looking for the hidden rooms where his two enemies spent their daytime hours in helpless slumber.

If he found them, it would be an easy task to kill them both.

REVELATION 18:4

Come out of her that ye be not partakers of her sins,

and that ye receive not of her plagues.

~ * ~

"
Stephen
."

"Go away," he said. He tried to say it with conviction, with command.
Please, God
, he begged silently and squeezed his eyes shut.
Save me from this female Satan
. If he prayed fast and hard enough, if he was truly,
truly
despondent, would she be gone when he opened them?

"Stephen,
look at me
."

He groaned. An hour ago he'd thought he couldn’t feel any colder or more miserable; now Stephen realized how wrong he'd been. She had come back to seduce him again and take his soul—
if
he still had one—a few more miles down damnation road. "Jesus!" he cried suddenly. "Why have You abandoned me?"

"
Stop that!
" Anyelet said sharply. Stephens eyes widened. Had the Savior's name hurt her? Burned her, or stabbed her right in her evil, hellish heart? He desperately hoped so, but cowardice made him hang his head. How many saints had died for the Lord? And here he skulked, too terrified to even say God's name aloud.

Anyelet moved inside the doorway, her scarlet dressing gown rippling, and Stephen cursed his quickening pulse. He wondered if she wore anything underneath, then damned himself again and smacked his closed fist against his forehead, hoping that the pain would cut through his already building desire.

"Darling," Anyelet said, "what's the matter? Are you cold?" Her voice eased around him like oil, swelling above the damp, frigid air, making his heart race and stealing his breath.

"Get away," he said hoarsely. "I don’t want—"

"Oh, but you
do
want, don't you?" She smiled and stepped in front of him. "I think you want very much."

He closed his eyes again, this time in surrender. She smelled so sweet, like his mother's perfume—what had it been called?
Shalimar
. The memory brought back a dozen others: his parents laughing in the family room as they pieced together a jigsaw puzzle; countless meals in the kitchen; the smell of the bathroom after his mom had patted the final touch of perfume behind her ears. Like now.

Anyelet's mouth was on his neck and he breathed deeply, drawing in the scent of her as his hands, eager traitors that they were, moved to caress her shoulders. Just before her teeth sank sweetly into his flesh, Stephen thought he smelled something else.

Something like . . . rot.

~ * ~

Once again Anyelet had stopped just short of him becoming unconscious, just short of . . . what? Now he felt high, like he'd smoked a little of the weed that had circulated at a party he'd attended in high school, or had maybe drank too much beer. Why couldn't she kill him and be done with it?

He shuddered. Could she read his mind? He knew Anyelet had that ability, but would he
know
if she was doing it? He let himself think longingly of Jesus, His serene and compassionate face, the agonizing Fourteen Stations of the Cross, and of a salvation forever lost. Lying beside him within the folds of her own clean blanket, Anyelet didn't stir. That was good; he loathed himself enough without the chance that she knew how close he was to begging her to change him, to stop this nightly torture and give him her elusive hell.

Stephen stared up at the myriad cracks in the thick paint of the old ceiling.
Do I really want that?
he wondered.
Do I actually want to be like her, to feed on
people
?
He ground his teeth at the thought of some man or woman or—God forbid—child, cowering as he approached to fill his unholy appetite. Another question, disgusting and more than morbid, bloomed at the same instant he felt something black and sinister touch his mind:
What would it taste like?

"Shall I show you, Stephen?"

He gasped as Anyelet leaned forward and hoisted his limp form beside her with effortless strength, then smiled and held out one white wrist. As he watched in blank horror, she slashed deeply across its tangle of bluish veins with a razor-sharp fingernail; blood welled, thick and reddish-black, glistening like a strange and exotic dish.

"Drink!" she commanded.

Stephen shook his head, though try as he might he couldn't wrench his eyes from her tempting offering. Anyelet's cold hand slid sensually up the skin along his spine, then cupped the back of his skull. His vampire lover began forcing his face toward the wound in her skin.

"No!" Stephen choked and tried to squirm away, as much from Anyelet as to escape the diabolic thirst that exploded within him. But her brutal hold was impossible to fight; liquid, cooling and not at all the hot wetness he had expected, smeared his nostrils as she covered his face with her arm. Instinct made Stephen open his mouth to breathe, and the taste of copper and salt filled his mouth and made him gag, then swallow reflexively. Dark hunger filled him and suddenly he couldn't stop himself from clutching her wrist and sucking, his lips and tongue probing the moist gash in an obscene parody of a kiss.

He barely heard Anyelet's amused laugh. "Why, Stephen . . . you're drinking your own blood!"

REVELATION 3:17

And knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable,

and poor, and blind, and naked.

~ * ~

"Good morning!" the old man said cheerfully. “A fine and lovely day, don't you think? I'd like a nice, hot cup of coffee, I think. And a danish."

Hugh straightened his tie and sat military straight on his stool in the Pedway Cafeteria beneath Marshall Field's. The tie, a nice red-and-black-dotted bow-thing he'd found while rummaging through Karroll's Men's Shop last night, was more tangled than knotted, but he was positive it looked just right, though he couldn't be sure because none of the mirrors worked anymore. Or maybe he was ill—every time he checked his reflection, like now, using the mirror behind the refrigerated pie case, he got dizzy. High blood pressure? He'd have that checked at his physical next month. Anyway, someone should tell the manager that the case wasn't working and all the food in it was black and covered with colored, fuzzy mold. He remembered that same case being broken some time ago, when the weather was still warm, and hadn't there been a whole slew of disgusting bugs swarming inside it? He'd never liked insects and his mind shied away from the thought. "Excuse me," he said loudly. "Can I get some service?" He shook his head in irritation; he didn't know why he kept coming back here. The service had been bad for months, ever since . . .

Ever since what?

Hugh frowned and looked at the other tables. The manager was apparently trying to save on electric bills and Hugh certainly understood that, but he could still easily examine the entire restaurant. He waited at the counter by the register—and that was another thing, the counter was
dirty
, and didn't these damned bastards know about soap and water? Tables and chairs, some upended, stretched into the empty western end of the cafe. Was he the only one here? Where was the waitress? He snorted; Tisbee would never stand for this. Why, she'd have—

And where the hell
was
she? He peered at his watch anxiously and the little numbers stretched multi-fingered hands and waved, moving too fast for him to tell the time. He tried to look at them sternly, so they would behave and let him read the clock face, but they were just too cute and when they started singing a Supertramp song that his son—and where the hell was
he
, besides?—had often played on the stereo, Hugh first began giggling, then dancing, and finally singing in time to the music.

"Don'tcho look at my
girl
friend!" Whirling now, faster and faster, until his concert was abruptly cut when he crashed into one of the Plexiglas windows that separated the cafe from the lightless expanse of the pedestrian way, a tunnel that ran from Michigan Avenue until it connected with the subway and ultimately the Daley Center and City Hall. It branched other places, too, like the Brunswick Building to the south, or the State of Illinois Center, though he couldn't go there because you had to go through the Daley Center and for some reason the doors at that end wouldn't open. His poor little clock people shattered and fell to the floor in jagged pieces when he hit the window, their wonderful rock-and-roll voices exploding into brief shrieks before the silence settled around him again.

"Hell," he said indignantly as he snapped his fingers—one! two! three! "I'll take my business
elsewhere
! I
certainly
don't have time to put up with this
shit
, you know!"

Hugh felt his way out—sometimes it was hard to see where the windows started and stopped, even with his darktime vision—then began skipping toward Marshall Field's. Where the basement entrance to the store and the subway met, he chose the subway tunnels instead, since he was hungry and food could sometimes be found down there if he was quiet and real careful. He crept past the ticket window on all fours so that the dried-up and scary-looking thing inside couldn't see him, then descended the frozen escalator on silent feet, down to that part of the tunnels where daylight had never, ever reached. There were
things
down here,
monsters
that had once been like the shadow things above which he sometimes visited. But these monsters were driven by starvation and insanity, and although in rare, lucid moments Hugh knew that most of his own mind had disintegrated, he was still a world apart from them. Existence in the bottom levels of the subway was all they had left, a place that offered occasional food and solid protection from a sun they no longer had the strength to avoid on their own and the only place Hugh himself could successfully hunt. Desperation had heightened their malnourished senses beyond his, and only an elemental sense of self-preservation kept his constant litany of music silent on these visits and made his movements mostly undetectable. Sometimes the tables turned and he became the hunted instead of hunter, but his better-fed frame generally let him simply outdistance his pursuers. For that, he knew, he had the boy to thank. Every so often his mind would clear and Hugh would find him; then they would talk like they had in the old days and