Authorized Entry

Originally written Saturday, January 7, 2006 (cont.)

When we returned to Trudy’s space, the trio had grown bored of BS and had moved on to Gin Rummy. Dennis and I could hear laughter reverberating through the halls, and we caught the end of one of Trudy’s personal fables, heftier in entertainment value than in veracity. Something about garlic and chickens and visiting her extended family’s farm. This time she wasn’t even trying to make it sound plausible; we all knew she had been an urban girl from an urban family.

Patrick already had a smile on his face from laughing at Trudy’s story, and as I came through the hallway, he flashed it at me amiably. But when Dennis appeared behind me, the smile suddenly seemed to… not exactly fade, but it looked as if he were deliberately keeping it from doing so. As we’d traversed the mostly darkened passages, Dennis had told me about how he’d tried not to worry or wonder about Patrick’s lack of communication over the past few days. He knew he was with Trudy on Wednesday but had only heard from him once since then, a text message that came through late Thursday night after he’d gone to bed with only the vaguest guesses as to his boyfriend’s whereabouts and a conviction to trust that he’d call if and when he could (in the process suppressing the suspicion that this conviction was a tad naïve). Now, it wasn’t as if Patrick was sad to see him; it was more as if he was disappointed to see him here. When Dennis came over and kissed him hello, Patrick was the one who grasped behind his partner’s neck and held him for an extra moment, taking Dennis’s hand in his free one and intertwining their fingers. “I missed you,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I didn’t call.”

“It’s OK. Marya explained.” It was a sweet, almost mushy moment.

But when Trudy broke in—“I gotta stop hanging around you fairies. That’s all you wanna do when you get together.”—and Dennis sank self-consciously into the seat across the table, Patrick switched gears and returned to his earlier jocularity.

Lacking a fifth chair, I stood at the corner of the table and surveyed my companions. This was the first time we’d all been in the same place at the same time, and it struck me that this was the perfect circumstance for a group meeting. With my back straight and my arms folded, I felt a little like a corporate CEO or a military general, ready to brief the staff on our next campaign, and it made me chuckle. If our lives were a melodramatic film or TV series and this a pivotal plot moment, then that is exactly what I would have been doing.

Instead, I dragged a few cinder blocks in from the hallway and built a makeshift stool. I sat down, got myself dealt into the game, and filled them in on my conversation with Richard.

Blockade

Originally written Saturday, January 7, 2006 (cont.)

We descended to the remote basement-level stacks, quiet and stocked with books in languages even I was not certain I recognized, devoid of reading carrels and lit by bare, low-hanging lightbulbs encased in cage-like enclosures. The lights were off when we entered; they operated on a thirty-minute timer that the visitor could set by twisting a dial and that would rattle down the time noisily until clicking to an end and casting the room back into pitch darkness. Because this is probably the least-frequented room in the building, the timer was practical; without it, each time a library patron forgot to turn the lights off behind him, the bulbs would likely burn out entirely before the next person arrived. In the corner of the room opposite the stairwell, there is a solid metal door labeled “Maintenance Personnel Only” and sporting a fallout shelter symbol. Although it has no lock, nor even a knob, it is very heavy and is mounted on tight springs that make it even more difficult to push open than its weight alone ensures. It also contains very little of interest—some mops, dustpans, and brooms, and a few crusted cans of enamel—and unlike the lights in the stacks, the bulb was not replaced the last time it burned out. Nevertheless, Dennis and I allowed the heavy door to swing shut behind us, leaving for illumination only the thin lines that seeped through the bottom and sides of the portal (and that would themselves disappear when the timer ran out). In the closet wall perpendicular to the first door, there is a second door; because the first swings into the closet and not outward, the second is only accessible when the first is closed. This door is unmarked (we couldn’t see it today because neither of us had brought a flashlight, but I’ve seen it on other occasions) and leads to a narrow corridor, about two feet across, that turns a sharp right immediately and shares its first six feet of wall with the maintenance closet while it slopes gently downward. After about a dozen yards and another turn of a corner, it opens into one of the larger arteries in the labyrinth of hallways and storage rooms that criss-cross the underside of the campus.

We’d arrived there without having unlocked a single locked door or crawled through a solitary ventilation shaft, and the only restrictions to access are library hours, university affiliation (necessary for library entry via ID card), and the (highly unlikely) presence of others in those particular stacks. There are many sections of the tunnels that remain in active use as storage facilities, but the vast unlit portions, the infestations of vermin, and the lineage of ghosts and vampires that have taken up residency over the years, as well as the sense of private pride and possession enjoyed by those few who brave the feeling of descending into their tombs and negotiating the complexities of keyless entry as we did today, keep the mortal traffic to a minimum.

The events of this day to be continued...

Demands of Reinvention

Originally written Saturday, January 7, 2006 (cont.)

“What did you learn? How? What happened?”

“I can’t tell you right now. My house isn’t safe anymore. I’m living in my office.”

My pulse stirred. “Rick, tell me what happened, at least.”

“When can I come over? The vampire still doesn’t know your place, right?”

My rush of adrenaline tapered then, and wariness returned. Whether or not he’d seen Moshe the other night as he’d reported to my email inbox, or whether he’d seen him that night at the museum weeks ago, he still didn’t know the whole truth of the matter and was probably still lying. The main difference, it seemed, was that he was doing a better job of it than before. Since the demands of reinvention spill so easily into those of invention, however, I’ve never had much trouble in that regard, and so I said, “No. Not as far as I know.”

“Is Thursday OK?”

“Should be, but why wait so long?”

“We need to stay apart for a few more days. Kay knows you have a piece, and now that she knows I have one too, I don’t want to lead her to you.”

“Kay?” The adrenaline came back like lightning up my vertebrae, leaving an electric, tingling buzz at the base of my skull (not far from where she’d crushed it). “Who’s Kay?”

The texture of his reply was something between ice and ice cream, simultaneously firm and deliberately enticing. “I’ve told you all I can for now. We can talk more on Thursday. I’ll come over right after work.”

He was trying to end the conversation then, but I managed to squeeze in a final inquiry: “What night did you say you saw Moshe? I know you emailed me about it, but I can’t remember.”

“Sunday. We can talk about that on Thursday, too.”

I don’t know what to make of his reduction in anxiety. Perhaps it’s only because we were speaking on the phone and I couldn’t see his nervous tics—the head swiping, the knee shaking—but even while he was indicating awareness of a concrete, viable danger—Kay—he was speaking more self-assuredly, knowledgeably, than at any other point during this series of events. I was also impressed with his mastery of the art of the cliffhanger. Rather than hanging up frustrated or impatient with his reluctance to divulge anything new or useful this time, I did so with a sense of curiosity. His confidence was infectious; he left me with no doubt that if we stayed apart for the next five days, we had nothing to worry about.

Dennis arrived, and I led him through the circuitous series of library stacks, stairwells, and unused maintenance rooms to return to the others. He had never come to the tunnels alone and still didn’t know many of the access spots, having always relied on Patrick to lead the way. I made certain to explain the route while we navigated it so that he would not have to rely on either of us in the future. Access to the tunnels under the college is barred to most by physical means in some places but by psychological means in others. The latter applied to the library route.

The events of this day to be continued...

Within Reach

Originally written Saturday, January 7, 2006 (cont.)

He answered with a look again, a variation on the glare, but without the bitterness.

“There’s another one.” I pushed my sleeve up my arm to show him the rose quartz. “Another two, actually. We think the third belongs to your friend Kay.”

He shook his head. “These two were talking about that name before, but I don’t know who that is.”

“The woman who took you away, what was it, three weeks ago now? You said her name when you saw her. Or maybe it’s not her name, maybe you meant the letter K. But that’s what you said right before she took me out.”

Patrick backed him up and said, “Yeah, he must’ve already been zoning when he saw her. We’ve already been over this.”

This time, I rolled my eyes underneath the lids. “OK, so what’s the next step?” I asked the room in general. Just then, my cell phone gave a brief chirp. “2 New Voicemails,” it read. Of course, there’s no reception underground, but for whatever reason, voicemails still register. I excused myself from the group and ascended to listen to my messages. The tunnel access point closest to Trudy’s living space is through the library. The library itself is as old as the hills, though, with stone walls several feet thick, and I needed to head all the way outside to get a reliable signal.

The first was from Dennis, asking where Patrick and I were. It hadn’t occurred to me that he might not know; if I’d thought about it I probably would have assumed Patrick had contacted him. Even magically bound to Moshe, could he really not have found a moment to emerge long enough to phone his boyfriend?

The second was from Richard. I’d forgotten to return his previous calls. Now that Moshe was back, I was curious to know what happened when they’d met. The vampire surely wouldn’t remember.

I called Dennis first; it wouldn’t take long for him to join us, since he had Patrick’s van. This meant Patrick must have taken the bus to join Trudy on Wednesday night. This also meant that I could conveniently return Richard’s call while waiting outside the library for Dennis.

He sounded unusually relaxed over the phone. I couldn’t remember a time since we saw the Jane Austen movie when he wasn’t an anxious wreck. But now, his words sounded almost buttery in their smoothness, as if I were the one needing my nerves massaged. “I know I’ve been hard to talk to lately,” he said. “I’ve been up to here with everything going on. But I have news. I know where the third charm is.”

My mind went completely nonverbal, filling only with images of exclamation points. I had to develop a response before delivering one, uncertain whether to answer as if I’d been truthful to him up to this point or to confess my mendacities in the face of this stunning information. My silent pause must have communicated enough, though, since he went on:

“And I have a feeling I know what they’re for.”

The events of this day to be continued...

Soft Focus

Originally written Saturday, January 7, 2006 (cont.)

Before he could ask, I instructed, “Now, tell him to relax his neck and shoulders.” He did, and Moshe obeyed. I began to talk him through a very simple exercise, not much different from what some holistic healers or hypnotists would use to ease their patients’ pain, only with some variations necessary for the vampire’s physiology (deep breathing, for instance, would still help for improving his focus, but would not provide any respiratory benefits). It was combined with a lesson for Patrick, as well. “Don’t just search for what you want him to do, search for why you want him to do it. Let go of rationale. Your focus has to be just a bit off-focus and surrounding what you’re aiming for.” The only sounds were my voice, Patrick’s echo, and the steady flow of air through Moshe’s ineffective lungs. Patrick himself seemed to be ensconced in a hypnotic state, but I recognized it as no more than a near-meditation.

Eventually, it was time to draw them both back out. “OK,” I said, “take off the charm.”

For the first time in twenty minutes, he looked uncertain about my directive. “But he’ll…”

“He’ll be fine.”

“I thought this was for his headache.”

“It’s for both. His headache and his, um, leash.”

Once Patrick had turned his attention from Moshe to me, Moshe had stopped the rhythmic inhalations and seemed to be listening.

“If there’s a problem, we know how to get him back.”

Patrick sighed and reached behind his neck to release the clasp. I twisted my charm back around to its safety position. Moshe’s calmed expression didn’t change, but he picked up the cards he’d lain in front of him. “Whose turn is it? What number are we on?”

Patrick’s eyes widened. “What did we just do?”

“How’s your headache?” I asked.

Moshe surprised himself by saying, “Uh… it’s gone.” He said no more, but the way he was examining our faces and the coral crescent now on the table communicated the questions he was not asking. Trudy, however, had been quietly observing the whole interaction and while subdued by the spell, her memory had not been disrupted. She did his asking for him:

“OK, so what happened to the free will thing?”

“This was the only way to help him,” Patrick muttered reluctantly.

“Whatever this thing is we’re all involved in, we have to be prepared to let our values be compromised sometimes,” I decreed. “And we knew he wanted the headache gone.” To Moshe, I said, “I assume you didn’t want to be tied to Patrick’s neck, either.”

He looked like he wanted to get up and walk away. He could have, and no one would have stopped him. It was daytime, but as I’ve said, the tunnels afforded their residents a fairly broad range of sulking space. Instead, he asked, “What is that thing? That’s what you were gonna show me the last time I saw you?”

“Yeah, it is. Except for that, we don’t know, but you’re linked to it somehow. Doesn’t look familiar?”

The events of this day to be continued...

Soft Focus

Originally written Saturday, January 7, 2006 (cont.)

Before he could ask, I instructed, “Now, tell him to relax his neck and shoulders.” He did, and Moshe obeyed. I began to talk him through a very simple exercise, not much different from what some holistic healers or hypnotists would use to ease their patients’ pain, only with some variations necessary for the vampire’s physiology (deep breathing, for instance, would still help for improving his focus, but would not provide any respiratory benefits). It was combined with a lesson for Patrick, as well. “Don’t just search for what you want him to do, search for why you want him to do it. Let go of rationale. Your focus has to be just a bit off-focus and surrounding what you’re aiming for.” The only sounds were my voice, Patrick’s echo, and the steady flow of air through Moshe’s ineffective lungs. Patrick himself seemed to be ensconced in a hypnotic state, but I recognized it as no more than a near-meditation.

Eventually, it was time to draw them both back out. “OK,” I said, “take off the charm.”

For the first time in twenty minutes, he looked uncertain about my directive. “But he’ll…”

“He’ll be fine.”

“I thought this was for his headache.”

“It’s for both. His headache and his, um, leash.”

Once Patrick had turned his attention from Moshe to me, Moshe had stopped the rhythmic inhalations and seemed to be listening.

“If there’s a problem, we know how to get him back.”

Patrick sighed and reached behind his neck to release the clasp. I twisted my charm back around to its safety position. Moshe’s calmed expression didn’t change, but he picked up the cards he’d lain in front of him. “Whose turn is it? What number are we on?”

Patrick’s eyes widened. “What did we just do?”

“How’s your headache?” I asked.

Moshe surprised himself by saying, “Uh… it’s gone.” He said no more, but the way he was examining our faces and the coral crescent now on the table communicated the questions he was not asking. Trudy, however, had been quietly observing the whole interaction and while subdued by the spell, her memory had not been disrupted. She did his asking for him:

“OK, so what happened to the free will thing?”

“This was the only way to help him,” Patrick muttered reluctantly.

“Whatever this thing is we’re all involved in, we have to be prepared to let our values be compromised sometimes,” I decreed. “And we knew he wanted the headache gone.” To Moshe, I said, “I assume you didn’t want to be tied to Patrick’s neck, either.”

He looked like he wanted to get up and walk away. He could have, and no one would have stopped him. It was daytime, but as I’ve said, the tunnels afforded their residents a fairly broad range of sulking space. Instead, he asked, “What is that thing? That’s what you were gonna show me the last time I saw you?”

“Yeah, it is. Except for that, we don’t know, but you’re linked to it somehow. Doesn’t look familiar?”

The events of this day to be continued...

Alternate Channels

Originally written Saturday, January 7, 2006 (cont.)

It seemed we’d have to find a way to disconnect Moshe from Patrick. It was far from ideal for either of them for Moshe to be dependent on Patrick for his presence of mind and for both of them to be living in a basement on that account. One thought gave me heart—that both Trudy and Patrick had witnessed Moshe drinking in moderation, while under the spell, no less. If we have the right theory about what the charm does, and if one does not act against one’s nature while affected by it… of course, I may be assuming that based on my own experience. I am exceptional for many reasons; perhaps this was another. But if it is true for others, then Moshe is not a killer. I thought of what Jeanine said about the woman at the Crypt overdosing. I’d need to work that into the conversation at some point, bring it up with Trudy. As for cutting the umbilical cord, so to speak, between the young men, I spoke out loud, “Patrick, I think you should try channeling energy through the charm after all.”

“Bullshit,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

Trudy picked up several cards in the middle of the table, revealing her four aces. Patrick groaned and collated the pile into his hand. They’d resumed their game while I was lost in thought. His invective had not been directed at me.

“Really? What—what do I need to do?” he inquired.

“We’ll wait until you’re done with the game.”

“Oh, I’m just about to lose anyway. Or Migraine Guy is about to win.”

“Heh. Now I’m not,” laughed Moshe bitterly. As cold as he was to me, he and Patrick seemed rather comfortable with each other. It occurred to me that they had not, to my knowledge, formally met until this week. Patrick’s brief visual contact with Moshe at the Crypt hardly counted as an introduction. “You just had to remind me of that. Now all I can think about is my headache.”

“Hey Moe,” I directed, “look at me.”

He gave me a brief sidelong glance and then rolled his eyes back to the game.

“No, I mean really look at me.” I took his chin in my hands and tried to turn his face toward mine.

He swatted my hands away. “Don’t fucking touch me!” he growled. I guess I’m less threatening without a stake nearby, and he’s extremely grumpy when I’m less threatening.

“Look at me. Patrick, tell him to look at you.” I quickly twisted my stone bangle around my wrist and looked authoritatively at my student. Patrick stammered a little, eyes darting between us, but he pressed his charm to his chest and quickly said Moshe’s name, and the vampire snapped to attention. Trudy was lazily straightening and rearranging the cards in her hand. Patrick appeared a little bit nervous, but there was some excitement building up under the surface, as well. He looked at the languid pair, seeming uncertain about what to do next.

The events of this day to be continued...

Aphrodisia

Originally written Saturday, January 7, 2006

Moshe was staring at the table, but this made him start chuckling. “She gave me her number. Then she went back inside. I don’t even know her name. Just her number, and I only know it’s hers cuz these two saw her give it to me.” Voluntary mortals seem to experience vampires’ bloodsucking as erotic in a way that vampires only sometimes do; while I’ve seen older vampires choose their prey as if attractive members of the preferred sex were singularly valuable conquests, and while some (like Trudy at the Crypt) may approach those they find appealing because they desire more than a hearty meal, most I’ve known have described the actual ingestion as a fairly utilitarian process.

Nonetheless, there’s a kind of phenomenon that lends a perverse sort of credence to some Darwinian theories. That is, the sexual draw some mortals have toward giving of themselves to vampires is specifically what allows the latter to survive until their souls begin to deplete: some of the ensouled truly don’t care enough to worry, but most of those who remain connected to humanity need some sign that their “partners” (for lack of a better word) are, well, getting something out of it, too. And although I obviously don’t know if there’s any actual biological chemistry to take into account, with pheromones or some kind of equivalent, it does seem as if vampires, as a species, have evolved to be attractive to humans, or to a critical mass of them. It makes quite a bit of sense: the most attractive are also most likely to pass on their “genetic” (or whatever) material to those humans they spawn into further vampirehood. Ms. Bite-and-Bail had to have possessed much of this material, since Moshe, in only a month’s time, had developed into a much more intriguing individual than he’d been when I first met him.

“Yeah, actually I didn’t make it over until after the number-giving thing. He wasn’t gonna kill her.” Patrick seemed completely certain about this.

“Yay for me,” deadpanned Moshe.

“Well, congratulations, kiddo. Guess you’re not the one I’m supposed to watch.” I was speaking to Patrick and referring to Medusa’s warning about letting mortals channel the energy. It didn’t sound like that’s what he was doing, strictly speaking, though. It was impressive, at least, that he hadn’t tried.

“I figured.”

“And you don’t remember anything at all,” I said, recapping the important part of Moshe’s story. Instead of responding verbally, he just gave me that glare again, heavy-lidded, eyebrows raised.

Trudy jumped in again to offer, “He’s been drinking human blood for a while.” She would have been able to tell if she’d taken note of it when she and Patrick first found him. The comment sounded slightly non sequitur. I was sure it didn’t seem that way to Trudy—his unconscious dining habits would certainly be relevant if his first human quarry, the woman at the club, was more representative of them than his last, the woman at the diner—but it sounded almost like she had been waiting deliberately for the moment to report that part of the story.

The events of this day to be continued...

Insomniambulism

Originally written Saturday, January 7, 2006

I was supposed to get together with Patrick and Dennis this morning for our usual weekend lessons, but Patrick called before I left the house to tell me to meet him at Trudy’s. I arrived to find him, Trudy, and a very beaten-down-looking Moshe playing cards at a heavily duct-taped folding table. The mismatched chairs they occupied were evidence of a long night of dumpster-diving. Trudy motioned to me to take the one empty seat. Moshe practically rolled his eyes when he saw me.

“So,” I said. “Someone’s got a tale to tell.”

I hadn’t directed the comment to anyone in particular, but Moshe immediately drew up his defenses. “Not me.”

“Not unless you want to hear him bitch about his headache again,” clarified Trudy. “But if you do, couldja take ‘im somewhere else? I’m sick of hearing about it.”

“God, isn’t there a version of Tylenol for the underground market?” Moshe whined into the hands he held over his face. “These don’t do shit.” He knocked a little plastic bottle off of the table. It rolled into a corner, one remaining tablet rattling around inside.

“I told you they wouldn’t. I told him,” Trudy assured me.

“How long have you been back? Have you tried to get some sleep?”

He glared at me through pained and narrow eyes. He plainly didn’t care to waste his time with me and my pointless questions; the card game appeared to be distracting him from his suffering. “What’s it been? Two? Three nights?” he asked the others.

“We picked him up Wednesday night,” Patrick said. It seemed like quite a while for no one to have contacted me.

“I couldn’t sleep right now if I tried. I mean, I have been trying. I just feel like I’ve been asleep for two weeks.”

“Huh. Maybe you have been,” I speculated.

“He was up and walking around when we found him,” said Trudy, not catching that I’d been hypothesizing about the effect of being under the spell.

“Where?”

“Applewood, of course. Near the diner,” said Patrick. I looked at him directly for the first time since I’d come in and noticed he was wearing the charm around his neck. I didn’t know whether to laugh or lecture him. He caught me looking, though. “I have to keep it on. When I take it off, he goes all zombie-like again. Or if I go too far away.” The air mattress in the corner that I’d thought looked like one I’d seen at Patrick’s house must have been his after all.

“It’s been working, then?”

“I guess. I haven’t even been giving instructions with it or anything. It just keeps me from getting sucked in when he’s under.”

“What about him?”

“Uh, we found him, um… drinking. A stoned girl. Her friends were in the diner, I guess. And she seemed, um… she seemed cool with it. Once I started talking to him, he snapped out of it. And so did she. Just tied her scarf around her neck and went back inside.”

The events of this day to be continued...