Bring On the Night (6 page)

Now that I had his full attention, I said, “Can I talk to you about my term paper on the way to class?”

“Sure.” He shrugged on his dark brown leather jacket. “Did you plan to pick a topic before the end of the semester?”

“Ha-ha. Yes, I decided on the Legion of the Archangel Michael. The Romanian Iron Guard?”

“Oh, dear.” He motioned for me to precede him out of his office. “You know, just because I’m Jewish doesn’t mean you get extra points for Holocaust topics.”

“That’s not why I picked it.” I kept pace with him down the polished floors of Craddock Hall, passing under a hand-painted banner supporting the Sherwood men’s lacrosse team (Division III defending champions—go Bog Turtles!). “I picked it because out of all the fascist groups, the legion was the only one that used religion as the major motivator.”

He lifted his chin. “Ah, so this is part of your crusade, so to speak, to demonstrate the evils of faith.”

I ignored his jibe. “You know what was so fascinating about them? They didn’t believe they’d find salvation
through slaughter. They didn’t think there’d be thirty virgins waiting for them in heaven, or that they’d be canonized for destroying the enemy.” As we descended the marble steps outside the building, I pulled up my hood against the evening breeze. “They knew that the murders they committed were a sin, and they accepted their damnation. In their minds, they were sacrificing their souls for the sake of the fatherland. Isn’t that wild?”

A grunt was his only response, so I continued. “Usually people like that rationalize their evil—they convince themselves it’s what God wants. These fanatics were completely unapologetic.”

As we crossed the grassy commons, Aaron looked to the right, into the dark woods surrounding the western edge of Sherwood College’s campus.

I continued my well-rehearsed pitch. “Most religions are all about the next world. Not your religion, of course. But Christians, Muslims, Buddhists—their earthly lives are less important than the afterlife. So for the legionnaires to sacrifice eternal salvation, their patriotism must have verged on insanity.”

Aaron craned his neck, still looking back into the woods.

To see if he was paying attention, I added, “Unless they thought they were already damned. Or that they were immortal.”

No response. Aaron’s face seemed unusually shadowed.

Wondering how long it would take him to notice, I riffed into the ridiculous. “Did you know they drank blood in their initiations? And hey, Romania. So put it all together, and what do you get? Vampires.”

A few seconds later, Aaron finally turned his head to look at me. “Wait. What?”

“Or maybe they just used the vamps as hit men.”

He stopped. “Are we still talking about the Iron Guard?”

“I don’t know. Are we?” I gave him a playful smirk.

Aaron shook his head. “Sorry, it’s been the weirdest day of my life, which is saying a lot.” He tugged me off the path so the other students could hurry by. “This morning after my workout I was on the way to Craddock Hall. You know that path through the woods that leads from the gym?”

I nodded, though I’d never voluntarily gone near any venue of structured exercise.

“I was about halfway there” —he pointed toward the line of trees to our right— “when suddenly I caught this hideous smell, like scorched meat. It got so bad I almost turned back.” He lowered his voice. “That’s when I saw the body.”

My gut tightened. “A human body?”

“Human shaped, what was left of it. The whole corpse was burned head to foot. No clothes, no hair, no shoes.”

“Just a skeleton?”

“I wish.” He rubbed the side of his nose. “Its flesh was—it was welded to the bones.”

“How horrible.”

“I say
its
flesh because I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman.” He dropped his hand from his face. “Whoever it was, they died screaming.”

I remembered something I’d read in the paper. “Maybe they were murdered and then burned. Like in a gang killing? Maybe the fire stretched the face so it looked like it was screaming.”

He stared at me for a moment. “I guess hanging out with vampires, you’ve seen a lot.”

“Unfortunately.” Too much of it had involved fire.

“But gangs, here in Sherwood?” Aaron spread his arms.

“The high schools have a major heroin problem. The kids usually go into Baltimore for the drugs, but maybe the dealers are coming out here now and fighting for territory. What did the cops say?”

“Not much. One of them threw up. They took my statement and let me go.” He brushed his hand over his chest. “I had to shower again and change my clothes to get the smell out. But I swear it’s still in my nostrils.” He checked his watch. “And now that I’m done grossing you out, it’s time for class.”

We headed into the building without another word. I thought of a time years ago when our little world had gone up in flames and Lori’s undead boyfriend Travis had been consumed.

And unlike that corpse in the woods, when vampires burn, nothing is left—no bones, no flesh, no skin. No ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Nothing but nothing.

What Is and What Should Never Be

Shane’s “wake” was just starting as he and I arrived at the station that night. Five vampire DJs (all but Monroe, who was on the air and avoided social gatherings, anyway) had gathered in the basement lounge. Cigarette smoke hovered thick, making the ceiling look like an overcast sky.

His maker Regina was slow dancing with Noah to the Police song blasting over the boom box—one of the crossover tunes between Regina’s punk and Noah’s reggae. Their relationship was off and on (mostly off, due to Noah’s being a generally decent guy). I needed a baseball-style box score to keep up with their breakups and reconciliations.

Leaning her head on his shoulder, Regina twisted one of the dreadlocks cascading down his back, her ebony-lined eyes closed in contentment. Noah’s eyes were open, probably so he could avoid stepping on the rug seams.

Fifties rockabilly DJ Spencer stood at the card table, which had been shoved to the wall to make room for dancing. The refreshments were all liquid, other than a bowl of crumbled tortilla chips and a store-bought ranch dip. Spencer shifted the bottles, arranging them in a configuration only he understood. As the oldest WVMP vampire (next to Monroe),
his compulsions were the strongest. Most of his brain was stuck in 1959, like the ducktail in his dark red hair.

Jim stood alone in the corner, watching the rest of us. Tonight he wore traditional hippie garb—tie-dyed shirt and flowing white bell bottoms—instead of his usual Jim-Morrison-reanimated outfit of leather pants and black shirt open to the navel.

But what Shane had told me on the phone last week was spot-on. Despite his peace-and-love getup, Jim looked less balanced than ever. His gaze shifted between me and Jeremy—the only humans in the room—as if we were the two tastiest-looking entrées on a buffet, and he was deciding which to sample first.

There was a time when Jeremy would’ve jumped on the plate and handed Jim the fork. He’d been enthralled with the hippie vampire since the moment they met. But over the last six months, their relationship had cooled. Now it was positively subzero.

Jim sauntered over to where Jeremy was setting up his laptop on top of our new LCD projector. He slowly brushed back the bleached blond hair that swooped over Jeremy’s face.

To Jeremy’s credit, he didn’t flinch or spook, knowing that sudden moves can make a vampire pounce. He simply pretended Jim wasn’t there, even when the vampire’s hand traveled down his back, over the belt loops of his black skinny jeans, then up under his vintage Jawbreaker T-shirt. (Jeremy’s classic emo garb, along with his black guyliner, fit his radio show, which featured the music of the recently deceased decade.)

“Look at me,” Jim said to him.

“I’m busy.”

“Look. At. Me.”

Regina stopped dancing and turned to watch them, her nostrils twitching with worry. Noah kept his hands on her shoulders to hold her back. Jim was not only volatile but stronger than anyone else in the room, due to his age.

Stronger than anyone except Spencer, that is. But the older DJ was captivated by the task of pouring drinks. He squatted to bring his eyes level with the six glasses, making sure they contained an even amount of whiskey. Spencer frowned at the glass on the right, then used a set of tongs to add another ice cube.

“What’s your hang-up, man?” Jim asked Jeremy. “I said I was sorry.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I’m sorry. There, I said it.”

“You don’t even know what you’re sorry for.” Jeremy was fighting to keep his voice down, though the battle for privacy was long lost.

Jim made no effort to lower the volume. “I’ll make it up to you. What do you want? Dinner? Drugs?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? That’s not fair, when you give me so much.” He grabbed Jeremy by the back of the neck and lifted him up on his toes. Then he pressed his mouth to Jeremy’s throat.

We all gasped, and Regina stepped toward them. “Jim, knock it off!”

Feeding on Humans Rule Number One: always bite below the heart. If Jim sank his fangs into Jeremy’s neck while he was standing up, it could cause an air embolism that could instantly kill him.

“It’s just a game we play,” he growled, as Jeremy’s eyes flashed with fear. “Mind your own business. He’s my donor.”

“He’s my donor, too,” Regina said.

“Not anymore.” He put a possessive arm around Jeremy’s waist. “I don’t want to share.”

I looked at Spencer, who was dribbling a few more drops of whiskey into the left-hand glass.

“Jim, take it easy,” Shane said. “We know you don’t want to hurt anybody.” His grip on my hand belied the calm in his voice. “That would defeat the purpose, right?”

Jim’s eyes turned to dark slits. “Depends which purpose you’re talking about.”

“Donor loyalty. You keep messing with Jeremy’s head, he might cut you off.”

Jim turned back to Jeremy. “Is that true? You’ll cut me off? Try it, and I’ll cut you off.” He drew his finger across Jeremy’s throat. “I’ve done it before, and I’ll—”

Spencer moved, his dress shirt a white blur. He grabbed Jim and pinned him face-first against the wall.

“Never. Threaten. A donor.” Spencer’s voice was low and even. “Hear me?”

Jim struggled in his grip, with as much success as a bug in a Venus flytrap. Jeremy stood next to the projector, rubbing his neck and breathing hard.

“I asked”—Spencer slammed Jim’s forehead into the wall—“if you heard me. But I missed your answer. Maybe I’m goin’ deaf.”

“I heard you,” Jim choked out. “I wasn’t threatening—”

Slam!
The wood paneling buckled under the impact of Jim’s head.

“Okay, I was threatening him and I’ll never do it again. Swear! Now let me go.”

Spencer shoved Jim’s knees into the floor, so hard the foundation seemed to shake. “How about you blow out of here, son. Take the night off.”

Jim sprang to his feet, swaying. “I’m not your son. And this party is Dullsville, anyway.” He stumbled for the door, snapping his fingers at Jeremy. “I’ll wait for you in the car.”

When he was gone, we let out a collective sigh of relief. Spencer went back to the table, then handed out the drinks he’d poured. I noticed there hadn’t been enough glasses to include Jim if he’d stayed.

“You are not going with him, I hope?” Noah asked Jeremy.

“No way.” He gave Regina a pleading look through his round, black-rimmed glasses. “Hey, if you turned me into a vampire, I could fight him off.”

“No, you couldn’t,” she said. “He’d still have ten times your strength. And then you couldn’t escape him during the day.”

He made a noise like a little kid. “I turn twenty-seven next month. It’d be perfect timing.”

The DJs were each twenty-seven when they were turned. We play up that fact to the public, comparing our jocks to the Club of 27, the long list of rock stars who left this world at that mythical age.

“You don’t want to die on your birthday,” I told Jeremy. “People will look at your tombstone and think it’s a typo.”

“Shut up,” he snapped.

Regina patted Jeremy’s cheek. “We’ve had this talk before, yeah?”

“Yeah.” He glanced at Shane. “Guess I have to threaten suicide to get you to save me.”

Her fingers tightened on his jaw, but her voice stayed
sweet. “We’ll discuss it later. Over a drink?” Her gaze on his neck told me what kind of drink she meant.

“Maybe.” He pulled out of her grip, only because she let him. “Maybe not.” He stalked out of the room toward the back hallway. He didn’t take his coat, so he was probably just headed to the bathroom in as drama queeny a fashion as possible.

“What a child.” Regina yanked a packet of cigarettes from her spike-heeled police boots. “He only thinks about himself. Not one fucking thought for what it would do to me.” She lit the cigarette and sucked in a harsh puff.

“He doesn’t understand what you’ve been through.” Shane rubbed her shoulder, avoiding the long prongs of her studded leather collar.

Her face softened, and she almost leaned against him for support before straightening up and turning away.

If I didn’t know her progenies’ history, I’d think her momentary vulnerability was an act. The first was Shane, who made her the weapon of choice in his final suicide attempt; at the last moment she changed her mind and brought him back from death with her own blood. Later she turned a female friend to protect her from an abusive fiancé. That had ended in tragedy and almost got Regina, me, and several others killed by the vengeful aforementioned dickhead.

David and Lori entered the lounge from the back door, each carrying two stacks of clear plastic food containers.

“Leftovers from our meeting with the wedding caterer.” David set the food on the end of the card table.

“You’re a godsend.” I opened a dish of pasta-peanut salad. “Vampires suck at snacks. I think that ranch dip expired when Spencer was still human.”

“Hi, Shane.” Lori sent him a cheek-puffing, trying-too-
hard smile. “Happy, um. You know.”

“Thanks.” He leaned over to kiss her cheek. “And thanks for feeding my girlfriend.”