Manitou Blood (33 page)

The shock of the picture was the woman herself, who was stark naked, and who was climbing into a large mirror that was hanging above her bedroom fireplace. One of her arms, like Alice's, had already penetrated the glass, and could dimly be seen inside the reflected room. She was looking back regretfully at her real bedroom and saying (according to the caption) “Farewell, My Mortal Existence.”

On the facing page, there was a paragraph that said, “In rural communities in Romania, when a family member lay dying of certain ailments, looking glasses were turned to face the wall, in order that, upon death, the spirit should rise unimpeded to Heaven, and that the deceased should
not be tempted to pursue physical immortality by entering the world of reflections. In the world of reflections, it was believed, one can live for all eternity. But the price of living for all eternity is eternal misery, since those who choose to enter it can never walk again in daylight, and can never find that perfect peace and spiritual contentment which only the Lord can offer us.”

Jenica read it, but then she passed it back to me with a shrug. “This tells us nothing.”

“It doesn't tell us a whole lot, I'll grant you. But it does kind of suggest that dead people
might
be able to pass through mirrors, doesn't it? Or
some
dead people, depending what they died of.”

“Perhaps. But there is no specific mention of
strigoi
, is there?”

“No—but it does say
certain ailments
, doesn't it? One of those ailments could be the vampire infection.”

“Yes, Harry, but this is always the problem with myths and legends. It is so easy to use them to support any theory you want them to.”

“But Frank saw this Susan Fireman woman stepping out of a mirror, and what do we have here? A woman stepping
into
a mirror.”

“I am not saying that you are wrong, Harry. Maybe this woman in the picture is
strigoica.
But it does not categorically say that she is. Also, it does not explain how you can discover if
strigoi
are hiding inside a mirror; or how to stop them from coming out of it; or if it is possible to follow them into this world of reflection, to pursue them, and destroy them.”

“Well, this is a book of popular beliefs, that's all. But at least it shows that there's a folk story about people going into mirrors. What you're talking about is a technical manual for hunting down vampires—you know, like the Catholics have for exorcizing demons.”

She shook her head. “I doubt if anyone has ever written such a book. Most Romanian clergy deny absolutely the existence of
strigoi
, even in the face of all the evidence. They prefer to be sweeping it under their carpets. Only the Romanian Tourist Board insists on keeping alive the legends of vampires, and what
they
are doing is ludicrous, with their balloon rides over the Transylvanian mountains and champagne breakfasts in Dracula's birthplace.”

“All the same,” I said, “I still think that Frank is telling it like it really happened, and that Susan Fireman
did
come out of the mirror.”

“I'm not too sure,” Gil put in. “I wouldn't go so far as to say that he was deliberately falsifying, but you have to admit that he was pretty delirious. I seen men like that before, in Bosnia. They used to rave about all kinds of things.”

“He's sick, for sure but—”

“He is much more than
seek
,” Jenica interrupted. “He is one of the pale people, not yet dead but already half
strigoi
.”

“But that's exactly why I believe him. He could have jumped on us at any time, couldn't he? He's burning up, and he'd do anything to drink our blood, but he's fighting it. He might be half
strigoi
but he's still half human, and that's what he's trying to cling on to. Why else would he warn us that the vampires can hide in mirrors? He doesn't want us to be taken by surprise, that's why. He's trying to protect us. He thinks it's the final human gesture he can make before he passes over, and becomes one of them.”

Outside, the last gleam of crimson sunset had been swallowed up by darkness, like the lining of Bela Lugosi's cloak. Gil looked up at the gilded clock and said, “Nine-thirty. I guess it won't be too long now before we find out what's really real and what really ain't.”

Jenica opened her embroidered bag and took out her
vampire-hunting paraphernalia—her crucifix and her holy water and her garlic paste. “All we can do now is to pray that the legend is wrong, and that the
svarcolaci
are deaf to their names being spoken.”

“How about a game of Hold ‘Em'?” asked Gil.

I don't remember when I fell asleep, but I suddenly jerked awake and all of the candles had burned down except for one, and that was dipping and winking and just about to go out. I looked up and the hands on the gilded clock were pointing to twenty-five after one.

I was sure that something had woken me, but when I listened the night outside was absolutely silent.

“Gil?” I whispered. Gil was leaning sideways in his chair, snoring like a duck. Jenica had stretched out on the couch with her dress hitched up, and I could see her bare hip shining in the candlelight.

I eased myself out of my chair and walked across the living room to the shelf where we had left our flashlights. I switched one of them on, but I kept the beam aimed at the carpet. I didn't want to wake up Gil and Jenica unless I really had to.

Out of the window, I could see that the city was in total darkness. The buildings looked like monuments in a massive cemetery. The heat and humidity were overwhelming, and sweat dripped off the end of my nose. For the first time since this vampire epidemic had broken out, I began to be convinced that—sooner rather than later—we were all going to die.

I tippy-toed into the corridor and along to Frank's bedroom. He was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. I shone the flashlight in his face and whispered, “Frank? Frank, are you still with us?”

He didn't answer and he didn't move. I came up closer and I could tell at once that he was dead. He wasn't staring at the ceiling at all. He was staring at infinity.

“Safe journey, Frank,” I told him. “I think God's going to forgive you for playing God. It's better than playing the devil.”

“Sweet words,” said a woman's voice, right behind me.

My heart jumped up and practically hit me under the chin, and I dropped my flashlight onto the bed.

“Jenica! You scared the shit out of me!”

But almost instantly I knew that it wasn't Jenica. It didn't sound like Jenica and Jenica wasn't wearing white and Jenica was six foot tall. I scrabbled for the flashlight and shone it directly into the woman's face.

She made no attempt to cover her eyes. She was small-boned and very pale and her dark brown hair was tangled and knotted. She was wearing a plain white linen smock, more like a shroud than a dress. The front of it was splattered with brown and yellow stains, and there were burrs and thistles sticking to it, as if she had been walking through a waste lot, or a railroad yard.

“What are you doing here?” I garbled. I don't think I was even speaking English. “How the hell did you get in?”

“You shouldn't be frightened,” she told me, and she actually smiled. “I've come to collect Frank, that's all.”

“You've come to do what? Frank's dead.”

“No, no. Frank's passed over, that's all.”

“Listen, I don't know who you are, but you need to get out of here now.”

“Don't tell me that Frank didn't mention my name? Susan Fireman. Frank and me, we're very good friends.”

I edged carefully around the side of the bedroom, keeping the flashlight pointed at her face. Susan Fireman, shit. She didn't even blink.

“
Jenica!
” I shouted.

“What's the matter?” Susan Fireman asked me. “You shouldn't be frightened. I won't hurt you.”

“Oh, like you never—like you never hurt Frank?”

“Frank's been stubborn. If he hadn't been so wilful, he wouldn't have suffered at all.”

“
Jenica!
”

Susan Fireman touched her fingertip to her lips. One second she was standing by the door and then
blink
she was standing right in front of me, and I hadn't even seen her move. “There isn't any point in calling for help,” she said. “There are too many of us now, and every minute there are more.”

“So what are you going to do, Ms. Fireman? You're going to drink my blood?”

“Of course not!” She paused, and then she said, almost seductively, “Not unless you want me to.”

“Jenica! I need you in here now, Jenica!”

Susan Fireman turned and
blink
she was standing on the opposite side of the bed, leaning over Frank, and stroking his forehead.

“Frank,” she whispered. “Frank, it's Susan. We've come to take you home with us, Frank.”

At that moment, Jenica appeared in the doorway. She looked almost as pale as Susan Fireman. Gil was close behind her, with his baseball bat.

“Who is this person?” Jenica demanded. Susan Fireman didn't even look at her. She carried on stroking Frank's forehead, and breathing over his face. “Wake up, Frank. All of your pain is over now. The long, long night is just beginning.”

Jenica took two more steps into the room. “Harry, who is this? What is she doing here? How did she get in?”

“Susan Fireman,” I told her. “Frank's dead, and she says that she's come to take him home.”

“
Strigoica
,” breathed Jenica. Then she screamed out, “
Strigoica!
Get out of my house!”

Susan Fireman looked up at her. “Quiet. You don't have to get hysterical. You'll only make things worse for yourselves.”

“Hold up a minute,” said Gil. He disappeared, and I heard him going from room to room throughout the apartment, banging doors.

Susan Fireman said, “I don't want to do you any harm. I
want to leave here with Frank, that's all. Frank's new life is waiting for him, don't deny him that.”

Gil reappeared. “Kitchen window, that's how she got in. Though Christ knows how she climbed up there. It has to be eighty feet, minimum, and not even a rainwater pipe to hold on to.”

I slowly approached the bed. “You listen to me, Ms. Fireman. This isn't what Frank wanted. Frank struggled hard to stay human, and when you're human, dead means dead. So he's not going anywhere, except a crematorium.”

“You don't know
anything
, do you?” said Susan Fireman.

“I know one thing for sure. I'm not going to let you take Frank.”

I heard a noise in the kitchen, a pan being knocked over. Gil turned around and said, “Jesus! There's more of them!”

A tall, white-faced man appeared in the hallway behind him, dressed in a heavily bloodstained sweatshirt. He was closely followed by a young woman with wild red hair, and another man, shaven-headed, in dirty mechanics' coveralls. I caught the shine of knives in their hands.

Without any hesitation, Gil tilted back against the wall and hit the white-faced man with his baseball bat. The man collided with the girl behind him, and as he was trying to regain his balance, Gil hit him again, and again. I heard a sharp crack and the man's forehead suddenly split apart, and blood sprayed across the wallpaper.

I took hold of Jenica's sleeve and pulled her back behind me. Then I frantically looked around the bedroom for something to use as a weapon. All I could see was a three-legged stool, so I picked it up and swung it around my head. One of the legs hit me on the forehead and I almost concussed myself.

Susan Fireman—
blink
—was back on the opposite side of Frank's bed. She knelt on the floor and cradled his head in her arms. But right now I couldn't worry about Frank.
The white-faced man had collapsed onto the carpet in the hallway, but the red-haired girl was lunging at Gil with a ten-inch kitchen knife, and the man in the coveralls had blinked himself into the bedroom, waving a craft knife at me. I could see another man making his way toward us, and then another two women, one of them gray-haired and wild-eyed, like a lunatic Gloria Steinem, and another one smothered in dried blood, so that her hair stuck up like a punk.

They were all making a low, needy noise—
urrrrhhhh, urrrhhhh, urrrhhhh
—as if they couldn't wait to cut our throats and start drinking our blood.

Partly out of anger, but mostly out of panic, I started to lose my self-control. I lifted the stool clear over my head and struck the man in the coveralls on the shoulder. He dropped his craft knife and I struck him again, right on the bridge of the nose. I hit him again, and then again, and then again, until he was down on his knees, and then I swung the stool sideways and caught him in the side of the head, and this time
blink
he was out of the bedroom and crawling back along the hallway toward the kitchen.

Together, screaming with rage and terror, Gil and I began to beat the
strigoi
back toward the kitchen. They were panting for our blood, but both of us were in a frenzy, and right then I don't think that there was anything natural or supernatural that could have stood up to us. I hit the Gloria Steinem woman straight in the face, and she staggered backward, bringing down the blood-covered girl behind her, and then I went mad on both of them, hitting their arms and their legs and their heads until they were mewling in pain.

When we reached the kitchen door, we found that it was crowded with twenty or thirty
strigoi
, and more were climbing in through the window. It was only open about six
inches, but somehow they managed to slide through it,

“
The door!
” shouted Gil. We kicked two
strigoi
away from the door, and then we slammed it shut, and Gil twisted the key. Immediately the vampires threw themselves at the other side of the door, and we heard the panels crack. We probably wouldn't be able to hold them in there for long, but a couple of minutes would give us time to get away.