Manitou Blood (23 page)

“Listen!” Gil shouted at them. “We know that you're all feeling pretty sick, and that you're thirsty for blood, but this is a big mistake! Me and my friend here, we're looking for a way to cure you, to give you your normal lives back! Haven't you ever seen a vampire movie, for Christ's sakes? If you kill us, you'll need to drink blood forever!”

I don't know whether they could understand him or not, but they took no notice. They kept edging forward, their knives and their sickles raised up, watching us closely for any sign that we were going to lose our nerve and make a run for it. Apart from their blood-spattered clothes and their staring eyes, they looked just like regular everyday people. I saw a man who could have been my accountant, in a red polo shirt and glasses; and a fiftyish-looking guy in a bus driver's uniform. I saw a woman who looked like Lucy's grade-school teacher, and another woman in a white silk blouse and pearls. They were ordinary men and women, the same men and women that you would pass every day in the street and never even glance at—but because they were so ordinary, they were ten times more scary than zombies in decaying tuxedos, or vampires wrapped up in tattered winding-sheets.

“How are we going to play this, Gil?” I asked him, trying to confident.

“There's only one way, Harry,” said Gil. “Them or us.”

“Hmm. ‘Them or us.'You know, I never really understood
what that meant. I mean, if it's ‘them,' does that mean that
they
win? And what happens if it's ‘us'?”

Gil said, “Just hit the bastards and keep on hitting them until they stop moving. You can worry about the grammar afterward.”

Without any warning, the man in the red polo shirt and glasses came running toward me, screaming. I had never taken any classes in martial arts, but I crouched down and whirled my scaffolding pole like a kendo thingy, and shouted out, “
Hai! Ahaki! Ahaki-waki-baki!
” Then I swung my scaffolding pole and hit the man on his upraised elbow.

It could have been a lucky swing, but it struck him so hard that his craft knife went flying and I think I might even have broken his arm. He dropped sideways onto the ground, making a high, piping noise, like a run-over squirrel.

“
Finish him!
” Gil shouted at me.

“He doesn't need finishing! He's finished already!”

“Finish him! If you don't finish him, the others will think that we don't have the stones!”

“For Christ's sake! I can't murder him!”

“Keep your back against me!” Gil ordered.

“What?”

Gil nudged me with his left shoulder, hard. Then he edged his way around until
he
was facing the man in the red polo shirt. I didn't have any choice but to edge around, too, to protect his back. With no hesitation at all, Gil hefted up his length of timber with both hands and whacked it into the man's face. It made a dull, wooden bang, and a nasty crack, too, which must have been the man's skull breaking. Gil pulled the timber up again, and the razor wire dragged half of the man's face with it, including his right eye and his upper lip. The man was screaming in a piercing falsetto, but Gil whacked him again, and then again, and then again, and bloody shreds of his face were flying around everywhere.

I was thinking:
Jesus!
But I didn't have time to think anything more. A bald-headed man in a sweaty gray T-shirt came ducking and weaving toward me, closely followed by a frizzy-haired woman waving a straight razor, of all things. I swung my scaffolding pole from side to side, trying to look threatening, but the two of them suddenly rushed at me, with two other men close behind them, one of them brandishing a carving knife.

Now I knew what Gil meant by “them or us.” I shouted out “
hakamundo!
” and struck the woman on the side of the head. She screamed and dropped to her knees, with her left ear smashed into scarlet gristle. The bald man stepped back in surprise, and as he did so I brought the scaffolding pole right down on the top of his skull, as hard as I could. The pole
rang
, like a bell, and I could feel the shock of hitting him all the way up to my shoulder joints.

The man fell facedown in front of me, dropping a horn-handled camping knife with a clatter.

One of the other men lunged at me, but I brandished my scaffolding pole in a furious criss-cross pattern. He managed to touch it with the tip of his knife, so that it went
ting!!
But then he backed away, and kept on backing away, and the crowd behind him started to back away, too.

Gil was still furiously waving his length of timber, but after they had seen what he had done to the man in the red polo shirt, the rest of the crowd had clearly lost its appetite. Part of the man's nose was still dangling on the razor wire, and whatever pain these people were going through, and no matter how much they thirsted for blood, they didn't seem to think that it was worth losing their schnozzes for. They stepped back—grudgingly at first, one step at a time, but then Gil screamed, “
Come and get it! Come on, you freaks! Come and get it!
” and took two or three steps toward them. Without any more hesitation, they all turned around and hurried away down Houston Street, their feet pattering urgently on the tarmac. At the corner, one of the women let
out a hair-raising, vixen-like shriek, but I think she was crying out in pain rather than frustration. These people were hurting too badly to waste any more time on Gil and me: They needed blood and they needed it quickly, before their burning became unbearable.

Gil threw down his length of timber and said, “Good job, Harry.”

I was sweating and shaking and I could hardly keep my balance. I had never had to fight for my life like that, not hand-to-hand. In fact I don't think I had ever hit anybody since Jimmy Ruggio in the second grade. But I managed to give my scaffolding pole a last defiant flourish in the air before I threw that down, too, with an echoing clang. “Them or us, Gil,” I told him. “Them or us.”

It was well past eleven o'clock. “Why don't you go back to see your family?” I suggested. “Give me a call before you come back out again. If this Romanian guy isn't home, or if he doesn't want to talk to me, you don't want to risk running into those ghouls again, do you?”

Gil gripped my shoulder so hard that it hurt, although I didn't let on. I've never had too many friends, especially friends who were capable of beating the crap out of people, but that night I believed that I had found a friend in Gil. I really liked his straightforwardness, and his complete lack of cynicism. He was GI Joe, right out of the box. But most of all I liked him because he had shown me that
I
could beat the crap out of people, too, if I really needed to. He had made me feel brave.

He said, “Okay then, I'll catch you later.” Then he turned and walked back toward Seventh Avenue and I walked off in the direction of Leroy Street, although I had to stop on the corner, and drag out the tail of my shirt, and wipe my face with it.

Along this stretch of Hudson Street, every store window and restaurant had a smashed frontage. Only one fluorescent
light was still flickering, the lettering outside the Hudson Street Grill, and out of those only three letters were left unbroken—the “l” of “Grill” and the “up” of “Suppers.”

I stopped and stared at it for a few moments, but Singing Rock had already given me my message, so I didn't think that “l up” could mean anything.

Razvan Dragomir's house was a tall, narrow brownstone in the row between Washington Street and Greenwich Street. Two well-clipped bay trees stood in huge ceramic pots on the front steps, secured with chains that you could have used to dock the
Mauretania.
I looked up and down the double row of shiny brass doorbells until I found a bell marked
R. Dragomir
in mauve ink, right at the top, and pushed it.

There was no answer, so I pushed it again. It would be just my luck if Amelia's friend was out of town. When people try to save the world in movies, everybody they ask for help is always at home. But in real life it never works out that way.

I had already turned around, ready to leave, when the intercom made a popping noise and a woman with a strongly accented voice said, “
Da?
Who is it who is there?”

I jumped back to the door. “Oh! Hi! Sorry to disturb you! My name's Harry Erskine, I'm a friend of Amelia Crusoe. Well, Amelia Carlsson, as she is these days. I'm looking for Mr. Razvan Dragomir.”

“Oh, yes. Mrs. Carlsson called earlier to say that you might be coming. I'm sorry but my father is away for two weeks in Bucharest.”

“I see. Is there any way I can contact him? I really seriously need his advice.”

“Mrs. Carlsson explains this all to me. About this epidemic, the people who are dying. I can help you.”

“
You
can help me? Really?”

“I am my father's daughter. What my father knows, I know. Wait, I will let you inside. Top floor, take the elevator.”

The door release buzzed and I pushed my way inside.
The hallway was gloomy and smelled of lavender polish and musty old plaster and mold. I turned around and saw this scruffy-looking deadbeat standing right next to me, and almost had a heart attack, but it was a mirror, hanging in an alcove.

At the end of the hallway I found a rickety old elevator with one of those handles that you swung up for “Up.” It slowly cranked me to the fourth story, although I was sure that I could hear the wires twanging, one by one. When I forced open the door and stepped out, I found myself in large apartment, dimly lit by pierced brass lamps. There was nobody there to meet me.

The deadbeat that I had encountered in the lobby had come up with me, because there he was again, reflected in a huge full-length mirror opposite the front door. The mirror had a dark mahogany frame that was carved with all kinds of fruit and vegetables, apples and cabbages and summer squash.

“Hallo?” I called out. I could smell cloves, and stale tobacco, and something sickly sweet, as if somebody had burned a panful of condensed milk.

I slammed the elevator door. The Dragomir apartment looked like a Romanian folk museum. It was crammed with blood-red velvet couches and blood-red velvet chairs and embroidered footstools. Every wall was hung with gilt-framed mirrors and Oriental rugs, and between the mirrors and the rugs hung oil paintings of frowning men with magnificent moustaches and felt hats with peacock feathers spouting out of them; and dark-eyed women in white lace headscarves and richly decorated blouses. The place was knee-deep in shining brass-topped tables crammed with ornaments and family photographs, and shining brass storks, and feathery ferns in shining brass vases.

“
Hallo?
” I repeated.

“Welcome, Mr. Erskine,” said the strongly accented voice. From behind a heavy velvet curtain that was draped
over one of the doorways, Razvan Dragomir's daughter appeared, as if she were making an entrance in a 1930s horror movie.

She was tall, over six foot one in her shoes, at least as tall as me and probably taller, with short, black glossy hair that was severely cut around her face, Vidal Sassoon-style. Her eyes were slanted and deep set, and she had high, sharply defined cheekbones, and belligerently pouting lips. She was wearing a very short black shift, with red embroidery on it, and puffy little sleeves that accentuated her very wide shoulders, and her legs went on till next Labor Day. Her breasts were huge, but far too heavy and complicated in their movement to be anything but natural. In her cleavage hung a five-pointed gold star, studded with garnets.

She held out a hand with rings on every finger, including her thumbs. “My name is Jenica Dragomira, but of course you can call me Jenica.”

“Harry Erskine, but of course you can call me Harry.”

“Mr. Harry, you have hurt your face. It is bleeding.”

“Oh, that, yes.” I touched the plaster that Laticia had stuck on my cheek. It was soaked with blood, and hanging half off. The cut must have opened up again when I was fighting with the crowds in the street.

“Here, Mr. Harry, come with me,” said Jenica. She drew back the curtain again and indicated that I should walk through. I hesitated for a moment, but then I did as I was told. As I passed her, my arm brushed against her breasts and I breathed in her perfume, which was like crushed roses and Turkish Delight, combined with that musky aroma of warm hair. I don't think I could have dated Jenica, even if she had agreed to go out with me. I would have spent the whole evening trying to hide my hard-on.

“This way.” Jenica ushered me along a narrow, wall-papered corridor. At the very end, she opened another door, and then she took my hand as if I were a child and led me inside. I found myself standing in the most amazing
bathroom that I had ever visited. It was decorated like a Moorish temple, with pillars and arches and peacock-blue mosaic tiles, and it had green stained-glass windows with herons and leaping fishes on them, and it echoed. Jenica opened up her elaborately carved medicine cabinet and took out some cotton pads and a bottle of lurid yellow antiseptic.

“You are brave?” she asked me.

“A little pain never hurt anyone,” I told her, gritting my teeth.

She dabbed my cut with antiseptic and it stung so much that I couldn't help yelping.

“You will have to very, very brave to face
strigoi
,” she murmured.

I looked at her cautiously. “You said the word. You said it out loud.”

“Of course. Some ignorant people think it is dangerous to say the word
strigoi
. But it is only dangerous to speak the name of any particular
strigoi
.”

“I see.” I realized then that I hadn't yet received the whole message. Singing Rock had told me that I was looking for a vampire, but I didn't yet know
which
vampire.

Jenica and I stared at each other and we both knew that we weren't really looking into each other's eyes. We were staring into the abyss.