The Vampire Files - Bloodlist Part 2

In Memory Of JONATHAN RUSSELL FLEMING.

I was glad no sentimental phrase was carved under the date, nothing would have been appropriate. A man like Grandfather or the family's feelings for him could not have been so neatly summed up.

When I was eight, my puppy died. Like me it had been the runt of a litter of seven, and for that reason it was my favorite. With the dreadful practicality to be found on working farms, the body was disposed of in the trash burner. Unable to accept the idea, I hid under the porch all day holding the limp little ball of fur and wishing it back to life again. When the family missed me, I ignored their calls. After all, they'd ignored me and it was only fair.

In the end Mom found me and dragged me out, promising certain doom on my backside as soon as I dropped my britches. Even at that early age I was mulishly stubborn, refusing to partic.i.p.ate in my punishment and resisting all efforts to be separated from the puppy.Grandfather interfered.

"Not this time," he told Mom. "I'll take care of him. I'm not as mad as you are."

He took my hand and we walked down to the graveyard and sat under the oak tree.

"You shouldn't have hidden out, Jack," he said at length.

"No, sir. But they were going to burn Pete, and I don't want him to go to h.e.l.l." I held my breath; it was the first time I'd used a bad word.

Incredibly, Grandfather nodded. "I see what you mean. Would you feel better if we buried him proper?"

"Yes, sir, but I don't want him dead."

"Neither do I, but there are a lot of things we can't do anything about, and death is one of them."

"Why?"

The old man considered the question awhile, trying to gear the answer for an eight-year-old mind. "You like summer, don't you?"

"Yes, sir, no school."

"But if it lasted all the time you might get tired of it, don't you think?"

"I dunno."

"When school comes along in the fall and you get to see all your friends again, aren't you glad of the change?"

"I guess."

"And when winter comes you do different things because of the snow, and that's a nice change, too."

"Yes, sir."

"Well, now-this is the interesting part, Jack-dying is a change, too, just like the seasons. People live in the spring like you and your brothers and sisters, they grow up to a long summer and autumn like your parents and me, and then sooner or later they die, and that's like winter. It's not a bad thing-it's only a change."

"But don't people go to Heaven?"

"Sure they do, but they have to change, they have to die to get there. Some folks are even glad of the change because it means they'll have no worries and something different to do. When your Grandma was dying years ago she was hurting and tired; she was ready for a change. We were sad when she was gone, but we also knew she wasn't hurting anymore. We knew she's gone to Heaven and was happy."Grandfather's voice had cracked. I was stunned to see tears rolling down his lined face. He pulled out a bandanna and wiped them away.

"Now, I don't know everything, but I'll just bet you Pete was hurting somehow and knew he needed to die, and when he did, he didn't hurt no more. He didn't want to make you sad, but he just couldn't help it."

"So he changed?"

"Yes."

"So he's in Heaven?"

"I don't see why not, but it doesn't really matter what happens to his little body, it's all the same to him. The part of him that you loved isn't here no more-he changed. What really matters is that you know about this and that it's all right to feel sad. It's also good to be happy when you remember how he made you happy while he was around."

I thought about it hard while we buried the puppy near the oak tree, ringing the small grave with some stones. Halfway through the job I started crying, and Grampy loaned me his bandanna without a word and went on with the work. When he finished, he looked up at the northern horizon and took a deep, cleansing breath.

"I think winter is coming," he said, and winked at me. It was only September; I didn't understand. I did the next morning when we found he'd died in his sleep. I was the only one who didn't cry at the funeral.

I couldn't help but think of my own change. "What would you think of me now, Grampy?" I whispered at the stone. I could almost sense the big bones resting in their pine box, patiently waiting for the Second Coming.

I tossed the broken shovel back in the barn and stalked down the lane, the two thirty-pound bags swinging light in my hands.

The return trip to Chicago was boring, but easier to get through with the earth packed into the trunk with me. Rested and more confident about vanishing, I spent most of the night sitting on top of the baggage reading a dime magazine. I could almost ignore river crossings, and when daylight came I was able to truly sleep, or whatever it was. The dreaming had faded. The presence of the earth even dulled the next night's hunger down to a low-level ache.

It took a good half hour to claim my trunk. The Chicago station was very busy, just as it was when I first arrived. There was a week-old trail to pick up on, but I had a good idea about where to start.

The trunk was laboriously loaded into a cab, and the cab took me to a small hotel the driver knew about that was within walking distance of the Stockyards. It was a cut above the fleabag I'd last stayed in. For ten dollars a week I got heavier curtains, a fan that worked, a radio, and a private bath. Its proximity to the Yards must have had an effect on the price and the presence of luxury extras.

Not bothering to unpack or even drop off the key, I left the hotel to get some dinner. My visit this time was more discreet; I knew the lay of the land better and trusted my disappearing trick to keep me out of trouble. It was taking a little practice to get it just right, but I was catching on fast. Learning to wiggle my ears as a kid had taken a lot longer.

On the way back, I stopped at a newsstand, bought some local papers, a copy of the one I'd worked for in New York, and a street map. The vendor gave me directions to the nearest Western Union office. The place was open with two fresh-faced young clerks in command. I filled out a telegram to my parents saying I'd arrived in the Windy City and managed to land a' terrific job at an ad agency and they'd advanced me some money for one of my ideas. Along with the message, I sent twenty-five dollars. They'd been having hard times since the Crash, and hardly a payday pa.s.sed that I didn't mail them five bucks or so to help out, but this time the amount was conspicuously large. They might think I'd turned to bank robbery, which wasn't too far off the mark, but the truth was hardly something I could tell them about.

I went back to the hotel. While the tub was filling I read the headlines and funnies and jotted notes on the rates for the personal columns. Using the hotel stationery, I printed out my usual message, all seven words of it, then shut off the tub taps and went downstairs.

This place actually had a bellboy on duty. He was reading a comic book in an alcove with his wooden chair tilted back on two legs, making more dents in the floor.

I asked him if he wanted to make four bits. He put away the book. It took a minute to straighten things out. His usual type of errand for a guest was to either locate a female companion or a bottle of booze or both, neither of which I had much use for at the moment. I gave him the four bits and enough money for him to place my message in all the papers I'd bought. It would run for two weeks.

He promised to do it first thing tomorrow. I told him to bring me the receipts in the evening and he'd get another tip.

Upstairs, my room had steamed up slightly from the bath water, so I opened the window and turned on the fan the thoughtful management had bolted to a table. It stirred the air around and felt good against my skin as I stripped.

By now the bruising was nearly gone and the scar over my heart was fast disappearing. My body was making good use of the fresh blood I'd imbibed.

I studied the tub warily before stepping in, grimacing at the flash of apprehension it caused. It was only the free-running stuff I had to worry about, really. Nothing happened when I stepped in and soaped up, it just felt like something ought to. I sank back and thought about the beach... perhaps with the water around me I could go back... the stars had been so bright, the lake stretching on forever...

silver and black. Before the peace of the beach there had been crushing darkness...

hard pressure pushing from all sides, weight dragging me down... smothering pressure, growing worse- I was on my back on the bathroom floor along with a lot of water. The pressure was gone, but my left hand twitched as though electricity were running through it.

My body trembled uncontrollably. It lasted a moment more, scaring the h.e.l.l out of me, then abruptly stopped.

If it brought this kind of reaction, I wasn't so sure now I wanted to remember my death. I dressed, nervously tried to push the incident from my mind, and vowed never to relax in a tub again.

It was past midnight when I stepped out into the humid air and turned right. The address I wanted had been in the phone book and the map said it was on the same side of the Chicago River as my hotel. After spending the last two nights cooped up in a trunk I wanted a long walk. At least it would save on cab fare.

Forty minutes later I reached the warehouse offices of International Freshwater Transport, Inc. There was no dark green Ford in the street. I didn't know whether to be disappointed or relieved.

The front door was a thick, no-nonsense steel thing. I tried to go through the metal, but found it to be more dense than building bricks or my trunk and couldn't pa.s.s until I slid under the thin gap between the door and threshold. I felt like sand dribbling through the skinny part of an hourgla.s.s.

This operation had no budget for extras. The reception office was a small area divided from the warehouse by wood planks nailed to two-by-four framing. There was a steel desk, some broken-in chairs, and a couple file cabinets, suspiciously unlocked. The papers inside were routine and therefore useless.

The desk held the promise of a single locked drawer that I opened with the help of a letter opener. Inside were two ledger books, the last year's and this year's, and a half-full fifth of whiskey. After looking at the books, it became obvious the drawer had been locked because of the whiskey. IFT, Inc. was just what its name suggested: shipments came in, stayed at the warehouse, and then continued to their destinations. Most of the traffic was between the U.S. and Canada, hence "international" in the t.i.tle. Maybe it looked good on the letterheads. Maybe Sanderson's car was stolen, in which case I was wasting my time.

I flipped through more papers lying on the desktop. Nothing. The blotter on the desk was a giant calendar. It was the last week of the month and covered with old doodles and odd notes. The first Monday was circled in red with an underlined notation. The ink had gotten smeared by something wet, so the specifics were lost, but there was one clear name in the mess.

Mr. Paco. Something or other-Mr. Paco.

Sanderson's boss. At least there was a connection, so I went through all the papers again more carefully, but had to give up. Aside from the single name on the blotter he wasn't mentioned again, but I went through the tried-and-true motions. I noted down names and addresses, anything that might prove useful later on. Taking no chances, I wiped away my fingerprints on the unlikely idea they might call the cops when the broken drawer was discovered. Finished with the office, I checked out the warehouse.

It was big, of course, and despite my now-excellent night vision, gloomy, but that was only an emotional reaction. The actual level of light was more than sufficient.

Predictably, it was filled with hundreds of wooden crates, each labeled and neatly stacked. Some were marked as farm equipment, others as spare parts, nothing there was of a perishable nature. I pried open a box and rooted around in the packing material, finding new metal junk that did indeed look like spare parts to something.

The operation looked well organized and aboveboard, and nothing, absolutely nothing, was familiar to me.

It was a quarter to four when I got back to my room. I thought I should feel tired, but wasn't, that I should be hungry, but there were no pangs. All the things one usually felt after an extended errand weren't there, and I missed them. I missed being human, even the physical discomforts would have been welcome. I was depressed and couldn't even get drunk to forget it.

My trunk was unlocked.

I stopped being depressed and got scared instead.

The lid flipped up. I was hardly aware of doing it. My eyes vainly tried to focus on something that should have been there but wasn't.

My precious bags of earth were gone.

In their place was a folded piece of hotel paper. I grabbed it up. The paper was covered with cramped, precise handwriting.

Dear Sir: You do not know me but, as you may gather, I know something of you. If you would learn more, meet me at the address below. I shall be there until dawn. You should have no difficulty locating the street, as it serves the Stockyards.

Hopefully, A Friend

Chapter 3.

WITH GREAT CARE I refolded the paper, thinking furiously. I knew no one in town, unless I counted Fred Sanderson, and the note sounded too high-tone for his ilk. The writer was certainly aware of my nature since he'd taken my earth. He also had to be crazy. Who else but a complete nut would want to make friends with a vampire?

The map verified the meeting place was indeed only a few blocks from the Stockyards, no more than a ten-minute walk.

I made it in four.

Clearly aware it could be some sort of trap, I wavered awhile, torn between curiosity and caution. Grabbing the trunk and running back to Cincinnati was an attractive option, but the ident.i.ty of my correspondent would remain a mystery, and probably one I couldn't afford. Somewhere down the line I'd been very careless.

Curiosity and the need to recover my earth won out, but I still checked the area before going in. It was a business district, with small stores at street level and a scattering of offices on the upper floors. Many of them were empty, the rest were struggling hard to reach the prosperity which was supposed to be just around the corner. I circled the entire block of buildings slowly, making sure there were no surprises trying to hide in the shadows. Except for a few parked cars with cold motors, the place was deserted and asleep.

There was one lit window in the building I wanted, up on the second floor. Blinds were drawn over the gla.s.s. I could see nothing from the street.

Inside, I climbed the stairs as quietly as possible, but the caution was wasted.

Between the odd loose board and my shoes, the squeaks were deafening to my ears.

At the landing were two doors facing each other with opaque gla.s.s panels set in them and numbers painted on the gla.s.s. The one with light shining on the other side was on the left. I went still and listened; in the room beyond a single set of lungs pumped shallowly.

Pressing hard against the wall to present a narrow target, I turned the k.n.o.b slowly and pushed. The door swung open easily and without a creak. I could hear a heart now and it began beating rapidly. His lungs worked faster to keep pace. Given the circ.u.mstances, mine would be, too, if they still worked regularly.

The man's voice was belyingly calm. "I gather you found my note. Good evening to you, sir. Would you care to step into the light so we might better see each other?"

He had a very distinct British accent.

I hadn't any better ideas and eased away from the wall. Inside was a small, plain room with a single wooden desk facing the door. The man standing behind it was in his mid-thirties, tall and on the thin side, with a bony face and beaky nose. His sharp gray eyes were fixed on me and gleaming with excitement.

On the floor next to the desk were my two bags of earth. He followed my look and took on an apologetic tone.

"I hope you weren't offended by the theatrics, but it was the one thing I could think of that would guarantee your coming here."

I was angry and let it show. He stiffened and clutched at something on his desk.

Whatever it was lay under an open newspaper. It was too big for a handgun and the wrong shape for a rifle. I made myself calm down; he'd gone to considerable trouble and risk to get me here, I'd at least hear him out. A few moments pa.s.sed with the two of us waiting for the other to make a move. His breathing evened out and I relaxed my posture.

"You seem to know who I am," I ventured."I only know the name you gave on the hotel register. However, I do know what you are."

"And what do you plan to do about it?"

"That depends entirely upon yourself." He gestured with his free hand at a chair near the desk. "Perhaps you would like to make yourself more comfortable, Mr... tell me, is it really Robinson?''

"Jack will do for now, and I like it out here well enough." I was acutely aware of the man's scrutiny, as if he were expecting something from me.

"Then it is true."

"About what?"

"That you cannot enter a dwelling without an invitation. I occasionally live here, you see."

I was liking the situation less and less. "Just tell me what you want."

"Yes, I see I'm being unfair, but I don't know you and have no reason to trust you."

"I could say the same thing." No invisible force like the want of an invitation was keeping me outside, only natural caution. I first wanted to know what he was hiding under the paper, and it did no harm to have him underestimating my abilities.

"Indeed, but then you are a much more dangerous person than I am if all the stories are true."