Helens-of-Troy (42 page)

The monster he was becoming was not
lost on him. It seemed like yesterday, he had been minding his own
business, playing a little basketball in the driveway, when the
fight had begun. And he knew he should be grateful that he was
given another chance at life—or a reasonable facsimile of one—but
darn it all to hell, he just wasn’t feeling very appreciative
today.

He was feeling particularly unloved.
SHE didn’t miss him. No one missed him. He had only lived in the
stupid town a short time before his humanity ended. It had been a
truly bad move, landing in that neighborhood. His mother was dead.
No one had offered her another life. And come to think of it, SHE
could have.

“Things could have been so different,”
he lamented. He might have even been a friend of the behemoth,
Ryan. He could see himself riding around in that beat-up car with
him and the guy with the perfect hair. He might have been able to
make things right for the British girl, the one with all the
secrets. But none of that was going to happen now.

“You bet your Mrs. Harbinger it’s not,”
he sighed. He glanced over to the spot his eyes had been avoiding
for the past few hours—the corner where his latest prey was lying
limp like a wet doormat. Just before he had knocked her out
earlier, he had felt something he hadn’t felt for a long time.
Emotion.

“It makes me want to throw up,” he
said, heading towards the bathroom stall. He went through the
motions of retching, even though he knew damn well it wasn’t going
to happen. He had always had a solid constitution.

He sat on the cold toilet and hung his
head, trying not to think about the girl. He wasn’t ready for her,
but she mustn't stumble upon that tidbit of information.

Ellie lay semi-conscious on the cold,
hard, cement floor. She opened her eyes and waited for her sight to
adjust to the dim light around her.

Her head was pounding from the blow she
had taken earlier, and just opening her eyes gave her migraine-like
pain. But being awake and hurting, she knew, was better than being
dead. She tried to stop her world from spinning. “Earth to Ellie,”
she told herself. “Come in Ellie.”

There was no one in her direct line of
sight, but she had the sense she was not alone. “Where did that rat
bastard go?” she wondered, peering into the unknown surroundings.
Slowly, her eyes adjusted to the dimly lit room and she was able to
see things more clearly.

The walls surrounding her were painted
an industrial shade of green that was starting to flake off in
spots. There was graffiti on the wall beside her. Whoever Mary Ann
Martin was, she was evidently a girl of many talents, as noted by
the likes of “Bad Bobby Braun” and someone named “The
Whip.”

“Why can they never spell?” she
commented, wondering how anyone could get the word penis
wrong.

She turned her head and noticed the
large wash basin beside her. Behind that, was a y-shaped pipe
leading down to a low, ten-foot long trough. “Good God,” she
surmised. “I’m in the boys washroom in St. Mary’s Shrine of the
Little Hellhole High.” The only thing missing was a
crucifix.

She tried to sit up, and was startled
by the sound of a chain dragging across the floor. A chain that was
attached to her right leg and then to the ring pedestal of the
fountain.

“What the hell?” she
wondered.

“Poppet,” she heard the voice sneer,
“you’ve come to your senses. I’ve been waiting for you.”

“I am not your PUPPET,” she hissed at
him, turning her body towards the voice. She recognized her captor
as the vampire in her dream and the thug that had hit her at the
police station.

“I said Poppet,” he insisted. “But
really it means almost the same thing. It’s my pet name for you. I
heard that English girl call your little next door neighbor that
once. I like it. Makes my lips pop when I say it. Pop-pet,” he
smacked.

“Then learn to ENUNCIATE through those
drooling fangs of yours.”

“Now, now, Poppet,” he sighed. “Why
can’t you just sit chained in the corner like a good little girl
and leave me alone to think?”

She struggled to her feet. “Maybe
because I’m not a little girl, you sorry excuse for a freak of
nature. Come out where I can see you.” She gritted her teeth and
looked for him in the shadows.

The vampire was amused by her bravado.
He emerged from behind one of the stalls and crept towards her,
licking his lips as he did so. “Look at the little girl trying to
be all big and scary,” he laughed. “Oooh, I’m shaking.”

“Try this little one on for size,” she
said, making a fist and daring him to come nearer. “Look at the
vampire trying to be all big and scary,” she said, throwing a punch
towards his face. “Shake this.”

“Nice try,” he said, catching her wrist
with his left hand and pulling it behind her back before she had
time to think twice. “No more wrestling channel for you, unless of
course you’d like a cage match.” He gave her a good look. “That
would probably be more fun when you’re older.”

“Ow!” she cried.

“Hurts, huh?” he taunted. “And they say
wrestling is fake. Say uncle, Poppet.”

“Uncle,” she said reluctantly. “Uncle
Poppet.”

The vampire released her. “Always with
the sarcasm. Now you see why I don’t need to tie down all of your
extremities. Only the one. But I will, if you keep it up. Your
choice.”

He took his long, bony finger and gave
her shoulder a little push, causing her to fall back to the floor.
“Amateur,” he said.

She defied him and stood back up, this
time a little quicker. “Leech.”

He smiled. “Synonym for a dark
blood-sucking creature. I like it. You’ve got spunk, I’ll give you
that.” He pushed her back to the floor “You don’t really want to
play teeter-totter all day, do you? It gets kind of boring. The
heavy kid always wins in the end.”

“I’m getting the hell out of here,”
Ellie said, getting up once more.

“Noohoo you’re not. You’re getting
maybe three feet away from that wall. That’s where the chain ends.
And if you don’t shut up and be quiet, it’ll be shortened the next
time you have the nerve to doze off in front of your host. Bad
manners, girlfriend.”

“You knock me out, kidnap me, and chain
me to an ancient form of water torture, and you have the nerve to
question my politeness? And I am so not your girlfriend,
sister.”

Gaspar smacked her hard in the face,
his fingers stinging her in the eye.

“What did you do that for?” she
asked.

“Because I can, little girl cry-baby,”
he taunted, noticing she was tearing up. “I didn’t ask you to enter
my world. But you did. Three times. First with Willie and then with
HER, and then with your pro-ball friend.”

“You hit me again, and you’ll be
sorry.”

“Why? What are you going to do to me?”
Gaspar laughed at her. “Seriously, what exactly do I have to be
afraid of?”

Ellie mulled this over. He had a point.
Hurting his feelings wouldn’t work. Pain probably wasn’t an issue
with him, but there had to be another way to get to him. She only
hoped she had enough time to figure out his weakness. “Who’s
Willie?” she asked, stalling for time. “One of your sabre-tooth
pals?”

“The man you were with on the
bridge.”

“Shadowman? You know the
Shadowman?”

“His name’s Willie. Trust HER not to
tell you.”

“Who’s HER? I mean, who is
SHE?”

“Don’t play stupid with me.

“I’m not playing anything.”

“You’re pretty bitchy for someone in
chains, Alice.”

“
Look. I don’t know who
these people are that you’re talking about,” Ellie said,
exasperated. “Are they your stand-ins for some ‘Spawn of the Dead’
play you’re rehearsing?”

“Liar. You came to live with HER. You
and that other woman.”

“HER is my grandmother?” she asked.
“Helena?”

“Your grandmother? Well then, that’s
even better. SHE’s really going to miss you, now that I’ve got you.
You’re not just some stray she took in from the street. SHE does
have a habit of doing that, you know. Waif adoptions. The orphanage
on Maple Street, a.k.a. the LaRose Naturopathic Clinic.” He sighed.
“A rose by any other name...”

“You took me and you don’t even know
who I am? Thanks for making me feel special.”

“Get over yourself. The ‘you’ wasn’t
important. I just wanted to re-stock my pantry for the winter with
someone SHE’d chase. I didn’t know you were related to
HER.”

“Look, I don’t know what your problem
is, but I’m sure there’s a self-help book out there that covers
this. Why don’t we just go to the local bookstore and find one for
you?” she quipped. “I’ll buy.”

“SHUT UP!” he demanded.

He studied her face. It was young and
it was pretty, and oddly familiar. “You know I should have figured
it out earlier. You look like HER. Those same green eyes that try
to look right through you. I knew I had seen eyes like that before.
That same coal colored hair that would grow back even longer if one
were to rip it from your head by the roots.”

Ellie felt around her scalp.
Thankfully, all of her locks seemed to be in place. “You’re still
into tugging girls’ hair? Isn’t that kind of grade
three?”

“I love HER and I hate HER. How can
that be possible, Poppet?” he asked a hint of despair in his
voice.

Ellie paused. His face was inches from
her own, and yet he had held back from further confrontation,
preferring to wait for her to answer. Did he really expect her to
offer advice under these circumstances? “You suffer from
heterochromia,” she finally said.

“I don’t suffer from anything,” he told
her, but she could see he was troubled by her remark. “That’s a
pretty big word for someone your age. What’s my eye color got to do
with it?”

“Colors. Plural.” She glanced again at
his irises. It was odd enough that they were different colors, but
if she wasn’t mistaken, they were the same two colors the mangy
dog’s had been. The dog that had trapped her in the van her first
night in Troy. “Woof,” she said, expecting a reaction from him.
“You’re genetically mixed up.”

The vampire remained ominously
quiet.

“You’re a deranged sociopath, you know
that? “Why did you kill those two kids? What did they ever do to
you?” she asked.

“They didn’t have to do anything to me.
I’m a vampire. Why don’t you humans get that we are not nice
people? We’re not people at all.”

Ellie stared at him blankly. For her,
it was one of those moments when there really was nothing you could
say to make things better.

“What? I’m not all bad. I let one get
away. That Lachey kid. I could have kept you both, but I didn’t.
That should count for something, shouldn’t it?”

“Ryan?”

The vampire laughed. “Ryan? What the
hell would I want with Ryan? I had the nerdy one. And just to make
you happy, I left him where they’ll find him. I think. If it’s not
too late.”

“What’s wrong with Ryan? What’s wrong
with Stan for that matter? He’s not nerdy. He’s just a
kid.”

“Let me explain this to you,” The
vampire began. “You know how sometimes you open a bottle of wine
and it’s corked? Of course you don’t. You’re just a child. Well,
take my word for it. Stan’s corked. It was pour him down the drain
or let him go,” he shrugged. “You should be happy I chose the
second option. I poured him down something.”

Ellie’s hand grabbed near her heart.
“I’m truly touched. Not.”

“I broke his seal, took a couple of
sips, and something wasn’t quite right. He went all melanoma on me.
I had to spit him out. I hate it when that happens.”

“I think you mean melalactic, you
idiot,” Ellie challenged. “I’ve seen those wine shows on PBS. And
it’s not always considered a bad thing.”

“Whatever,” the vampire replied. “I
thought he was going to be a bottle I could keep in the cellar to
age for a few months. But I was wrong. He started to coagulate. I
HATE THAT.” He paused and studied his prey. “You really don’t know
what happened, do you?”

“No.”

“Your friends. They betrayed you,” he
whispered vindictively, mimicking her and clutching his hands to
his own heart. “How does that feel?”

“What are you talking
about?”

“Pro-boy wanted to trade your life for
his brother’s. Pretty-boy’s two-timing you, and the one with the
perfect lips? Well, she’s got the biggest mouth on the planet—don’t
tell the Helens, don’t tell the Helens—and as for your
grandmother…”

“Let me try to explain this to you,”
Ellie snarled. “SHE never has loved you. SHE never will never love
you. SHE will always hate you, because you have no redeeming
qualities.” She rose the middle finger of her right hand and gave
him an F-salute.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Poppet,” he
said sincerely. “I have one big redeeming quality. No one will feel
the need to cry for me when I’m dead, dead. It’s too bad we can’t
say the same about you.”