Sixteen Small Deaths (6 page)

She tosses him to the side and looks around, her eyes like two tiny dark mirrors. Two tattoos that resemble stars adorn her slender shoulders. She’s wearing a black tank-top and tight leather pants. When she sees my big baby blue in the center of the keyhole, I panic. She smiles again and I curse the night for bringing me to this apartment at three in the morning. I look around the room for an exit and only one is available.

I’m either tossing myself through the window or this destructive little woman is going to tear my limbs off like she just
did to one of the only friends I had. I count to ten, hold my breath at the last digit. Loud clicks and the bedroom splints and pops. Bits of wood fly through the darkness and in a matter of seconds I force myself through the bedroom window, eager night caressing my backside as I plunge to the ground. When my body hits the top of whatever vehicle was parked seven stories from the apartment, vision quickly fades in a mess of black and blue, the colors of a floating bruised peach.

#

Pulsating waves of static, wind scraping my face with delight. I open my eyes and liquid strands of moonlight greet me with a dewy slap. My arm in the air, fragments of broken windshield stuck in the skin like seashells in beach sand. I shake my head and let the panic escape my lungs with one last giant gasp. I look around me and see the chaos: more broken glass and long slivers of dented aluminum and steel. My head thumps with the recurring alarm, flashes of red shining in the corners of my eyes like a police siren. I can see the fire swimming out of Abel’s apartment, the lone representation of destruction in an otherwise perfect apartment complex. When the fire department turns the corner, I push my beaten body off the top of the car and into the bushes at the end of the parking lot.

The last thing I need right now is to be questioned by guys much larger than me, especially after a woman half my size brutally murdered a friend I had known for a decade. There’s only one place I can go at this point, and it’s Cale’s tattoo shop.

#

By night, I’m a bouncer at The December Club, a decently-sized bar off of Tremont Street in downtown Boston. The staff there like me because I never take breaks and I have no problem lifting a
drunk off his ass with one hand and tossing him out the front door. I guess another reason they like me so much is that I’m never tired, I never call in sick and I have no problem taking a punch to the face from an unruly patron.

Of course, all of these positive attributes are only part of my makeup because I’m a vampire.

The Ink Station is about a mile and a half from Abel’s apartment. It’s only when I pass a brightly-lit diner that I pause for a moment and take in what just happened. I saw one of my oldest friends picked up into thin air and destroyed by a beautiful woman who burst through the front door with a vicious eruption. I light a cigarette and watch its rosy tip cut through the night. A long drag and a little halo of smoke dissipates into moonlight. I close my eyes and force myself to keep walking. When I reach the outside of the Ink Station, Cale’s lone Hummer is the only vehicle in the tiny parking lot in the back of the studio. I knock on the front door twice, wait for the light hops of clanging guitars and gritty drums to pause before Cale opens the door barely an inch.

“What the hell are you doing here so late?” The tips of his jet-black eyebrows touch in intrigue.

I shake my head and push open the door. The familiar scent of new plastic and glycerin washes me immediately. “What a night, what a night.”

Cale closes the door and locks it, then scans me up and down. “What the fuck happened? You get jumped or something?”

My head resting gingerly on the back of the studio’s comfortable leather sofa, I crack my neck so loud that I imagine the ghosts in the room can hear it. “Abel’s dead, Cale.”

Cale nods once, and we both remain silent for what feels like hours. “Jesus,” he eventually says. “How?”

“I dropped by his apartment and within fifteen minutes, a little chick that looks like she’d come here to get inked exploded through the front door.”

“Exploded?”

I grunt. “Yes, Cale,
exploded.
Like, boom.” The great thing about Cale is that he’s not very good at conversation, but I’ve learned to deal with it. We’ve been friends since I moved to the city, only a few months after I caught the virus that made me what I am today.

He turns on the faucet in the corner of the studio and scrubs his hands. “You need any meds?”

I roll up my jacket sleeve and examine the slits where the windshield had broken into my skin. Most of the tiny lines of open flesh have healed. “No, I should be fine.”

“You’re taking this pretty well.”

I frown. “Abel’s dead, man. He’s gone. They tell you when you catch our disease that you’d live forever. What a crock.”

Cale’s been like this much longer than I. “We’re not human, but we’re not invincible. You know that, Charlie.” He turns off the faucet and starts to clean up his corner of the studio. “What did this woman look like?”

“About five-foot two, if that. Pale skin, brownish hair. Tattoos on her shoulders.”

Cale stops what he’s doing and closes his eyes. “Tattoos?”

“Yeah.”

“Were they black stars?”

I stand up. “Yes! How did you know that?”

Cale’s face looks like that of a tired ghost. He drops a bundle of packaged needles and immediately locks the deadbolt on the studio’s front door. He presses one eye against the keyhole and leaves it there for a full minute. He leaves the door and drops the thick velvet curtains down in the two front windows of the shop. Pacing a few steps back and forth, he turns to me and gives me a look I’ve never seen on his tanned face.

“What? Tell me, Cale…”

“Sit down.” He points to the couch.

I take a seat in the corner of the couch and ignore my instinct
to frenetically rub my hands together out of anxiety. A cigarette is what I need. I pull one out and offer it to Cale but he waves it away.

“Charlie, we both need to be careful.” He leans back into the couch and pushes his sandy locks out of his face with both hands. “That woman, fuck, I can’t even believe this is finally happening.”

“
What
is happening?” My words are quick and clear.

Cale takes a deep breath. “We’re being hunted, that’s what’s happening.”

“Hunted? Why?”

“I know a lot more about our kind than you think, Charlie. I’ve been hearing rumors about this for the last two years, little rumblings that something like this would start to happen again.”

I’m already on my second cigarette and it’s only been two minutes.

Cale crosses his legs, then uncrosses them. “They’re called suicide angels. And they’re a lot older than you and I, my friend.”

I tilt my head in confusion. “Angels…”

“They’re almost legendary, Charlie. We’ve only heard rumors of their kind, like they were some type of mythical creature that only existed in the imaginations of a million diseased creatures.” He pauses, then motions for a cigarette. I lit one off the tip of my own and hand it to him. “You ever wonder why our population is dwindling overseas, more so than in the States? Why you never see as many cross the Atlantic to come to the States?”

“I thought it was just an issue of sustenance, you know, the way we need a specific type of blood, maybe the risk of being on a flight without a meal…”

“That’s only the beginning of it. Have you been anywhere else since Abel’s apartment?”

I twist in my seat. “No, just walked straight here.”

“Did she see you?”

“Of course she did.”

“For how long?”

I slide forward on the couch cushion. “Jesus, Cale, she burst into the goddamn room and in a matter of seconds I was hiding behind the door to Abel’s bedroom.”

He shakes his head. “Then she’s most certainly looking for you now. Neither of us are leaving the shop tonight. You can take the couch. I’ll find a blanket somewhere in the back.”

“What makes you think we’ll be safer in the morning?”

“Suicide angels are averse to daylight,” he says. “Or, at least that’s what I’ve heard.”

#

I dream of a million black clouds above a purple sky. I’m sitting in a pool of dirty puddle rain, mud and sand stuck to the bottom of my jeans. A comet trails across the sky and penetrates the moon with a single glittery blow. Ice and snow sparkle into a fiery sideshow of dust and bright green explosions. Abel stands next to me, binoculars glued to his eyes like they were a part of his skin. He removes them for a second and drops them to the ground. The black plastic shatters into a million tiny piece, little shards scampering away like an army of imaginary ants. Abel points to the sky and a thick gray ooze slithers out of his eyes.

“They’re coming,” he says.

#

I wake to the sounds of humming needles and soft whispers, the fuzzy reminders of sleeping somewhere other than home. I jerk upright and quickly realize I’m lying on the couch in Cale’s tattoo shop. A woman with hair as black as tar sits across from me reading a newspaper. She’s covered in about a gallon of ink, two full sleeves of dragons, koi fish, roses and skulls. She pushes down the paper and smiles at me, nods at the steaming mug in
the center of the coffee table.

“Cale poured that for you a couple minutes ago,” she says. “Drink up, it’ll make you feel better.”

I rub the slumber out of my eyes and slowly sniff the contents of the mug. If it’s from Cale, it’s coffee with milk and whiskey. The first sip is bliss, pure awareness mixed with a quick jolt of sweet amber. I tilt forward, rest the mug back on the coffee table. I’ve met the girl in front of me at least a dozen times and I can’t remember her name. Soon enough, I hear Cale’s voice and I know I won’t have to involve myself in meaningless conversation.

“How do you feel?” He wipes ink off his light purple latex gloves.

I nod, the caffeine circling through my body. If there are two things that can bring me to life, it’s caffeine and blood. “Not bad at all. I think I’m going to head to my place for a while. Not sure if I should work tonight or not.”

Cale smiles. “Take this.” He hands me a black business card with raised blue lettering. “His name’s Davey. An old friend of mine from back in Philly. He called this morning and told me that something similar happened near Citizens Bank Park late last night.”

I scan the card, feel the punching touch of his name: Davey Rain.

Cale puts a hand on my shoulder. “He’s driving into town right now. He’ll be at the club in the afternoon. Make sure you’re there.”

I shove the card deep into my front jeans pocket. “What did you tell him about me?”

“Only the things that mattered,” he says. “He’s been around for a long time…a long,
long
time, Charlie. There’s news coming out of New York and Philly about this. It’s best to stay informed…and safe.” His eyes reflect the pale rays of sunlight peeking in from the front shop window.

“News?”

“Suicide angels.” He nods, pulls me aside. “Davey told me that at least three others were killed in Atlanta over the weekend. Two more in D.C. And, of course…one in Boston last night.”

I sigh for Abel, one of the only true friends I had. “Call me later,” I say, pushing the front door open. I pause when the cool winter wind hits my face. I’m being hunted, we’re all being hunted. Hundreds of years of living like unknown legends and now the minutes are numbered.

#

I was twenty-six years old when it happened. I can even remember the tune playing in the club. What I don’t recall is who infected me. “Psycho Killer” was ringing in the corners of The Roxy, reverberations of twangy guitar and David Byrne’s voice fizzing with angsty glee. I stepped outside for a cigarette, mild summer air a pure signal of heaven. The shadow approached within a second and when I felt the bite, the
sting
of new life enter my veins, I dreamt for a full day. It was like a black-and-white celluloid version of my life, the life that would never be again. I woke up in my apartment, limbs numb and lifeless. It took a full hour for the virus to greet me with dead, open arms. The hunger doesn’t resemble anything like that for human sustenance. It speaks your name with the voice of a dying child, whispers in the most remote corners of your brain. It consumes you, asks you to do anything for a single goddamn drop.

Here’s the thing about being me: it isn’t as easy as find, kill and drink. We’re not supernatural creatures that lurk in the shadows. Sunlight affects only those who prefer the darkness. The blood in our veins remains, but when it hits the air it reflects a steel gray quality that most people don’t even notice in daylight. The only way you’d know I am who I am is if you put an ear to my chest. You’d hear
nothing,
not even a single thump of my heart.

If my heart could beat, it’d be on overdrive. I can remember every inch of her body, the sweet smell of danger and lavender as if it were stuck to my skin like morning dew. Fourteen seconds were all it took to destroy Abel’s body like it was fluffy doll. Fourteen seconds were pastel beauty blasting through the door. Fourteen seconds were death and destruction.

I take hurried steps along the pavement, careful not to knock over any kind pedestrians on the busy Boston streets. My apartment is two blocks off of Cambridge Street in a part of town that’s often crammed with tourists and children. Some would say it’s not the perfect place to live for someone like me, but I have no complaints. Two major train stations are only a few minutes away, and the highway is a stone’s throw away from my front door. If I wanted to, if I
needed
to, escape is only a moment away. When I reach the apartment, I scan the alley before the door out of habit. There’s nothing there except for the dumpster and a few stray beer bottles.

My apartment is warm, immediate waves of comfort as soon I step foot into the living room. I bolt up the three deadlocks behind me and slam the door. I’m not taking any chances, even in the calm light of day. It’s been over twelve hours since my last dose and my body is starting to ask for it. The whispers are almost real, as if a dozen ghosts were blowing kisses from inside the walls. I shake them off for a moment and walk into the bedroom. I push the bed a full foot towards the wall and lift up the crimson rug from the wooden floor. It wasn’t an easy device to install, but a hidden dorm-sized refrigerator is the only place to store my stash. I plug in the combination and two floating rivers of cool mist escape from the hinges. I thumb through the clear plastic packages. The top layer of blood is all O-positive. The dozen or so packs below it are what I need: AB-positive.