An Unattractive Vampire (25 page)

“Great,” Catherine sighed. Her hands moved toward the buttons on her blouse instinctively. She then remembered she would be undressing in front of two horrible monsters and a small child and decided that she might as well completely ruin her clothes.

The two humans waded into the water. The water was just cool enough to be uncomfortable, especially in the night air. As the pair swam forward, a thousand concerns filled Catherine’s mind. Would the river current pull them under? Could there be crocodiles nearby? Did China have crocodiles? What about those parasites that swim up your pee? She’d only heard those horror stories involving men, but what if she peed and they got inside her?
Just don’t pee,
she told herself, though suddenly it felt urgent.

Seemingly an eternity later, they found themselves paddling through the cave entrance. Simon cracked a Halloween glow stick to better illuminate their surroundings, which they discovered were mostly just more water. Something fluttered near the ceiling, causing Catherine to wonder about bats and how up-to-date her rabies shots were. A few strokes later, she felt the stone floor brushing against her feet, and she stood. A little ways on, the small boy did the same, and they waded toward a central, raised platform of stone.

A body lay within a circle surrounded by Chinese characters. Through the faint green glow, Catherine could make out the tattered remains of a silk dress. Long, scraggly black hair splayed out in every direction. She, Catherine assumed it was a woman, lay faceup, her white eyes staring at an identical configuration of symbols on the roof of the cavern. Her skin glistened in a sickly way that reminded Catherine of wet cheese. Her hands, which had horribly long and sharp black nails, were folded on her chest, wrapped around one of twelve jade pins that protruded from her body.

Catherine and Simon pulled themselves out of the water. After giving the pattern of symbols carved into the rock a cursory glance, the boy moved to the woman, whom he examined more carefully. Catherine watched through her right eye, as her left had become unbearably itchy. Simon went from needle to needle, reading the symbol on each. It made Catherine feel like a bit of a slouch. She had taken four years of high school French and another three in college, and she could barely remember any of it.

Finally, the boy put on a pair of gloves. “We need to remove the needles.”

“I kind of figured,” Catherine said, reaching out. Simon made to stop her but was too late. She pulled out the most central needle.

The body came to life. It did not rise but began snarling and writhing on the ground. Catherine screamed, dropping the needle. Simon sprinted over, swept up the pin, and plunged it back into the creature’s chest. The woman fell motionless.

“We remove the heart pin last,” he cautioned.

“Y-yes,” she agreed, shaken by the ordeal. Simon moved to the opposite side and, with a slow reverence, slid a needle out of the lower abdomen. It was longer and thicker than a normal acupuncture pin and covered in an unidentifiable brown substance Catherine didn’t even want to think about.

Hesitantly, she moved to the side and gripped another “low” needle. She looked to Simon for confirmation that this was all right. He nodded, and with a yelp of disgust, she pulled it free, releasing an uncomfortable chemical stench, like antiseptic. They continued this way for a while, removing all the needles individually, always steering clear of the most prominent one until it stood alone.

“So, now what?” Catherine asked.

Simon reached into his pocket and removed two items, a small Ziploc bag, which held a yellow piece of paper covered in Chinese characters, written in what Catherine hoped but assumed was not red ink. The other was a thumbtack. The eight-year-old carefully removed the piece of paper from the bag and then thumbtacked it to the creature’s forehead.

“Don’t breathe,” Simon instructed. Then, holding his own breath, he removed the final pin.

The creature jumped up and then . . . stood there, unmoving. The humans watched it, also not moving. Catherine’s lungs began to burn with the effort and finally let out an audible exhale. Simon tensed, ready for the creature to attack, but nothing happened. Only then did he, too, begin breathing.

Simon barked something in Cantonese and pointed toward the cave entrance. The woman turned and, with her arms outstretched, hopped, literally hopped, into the water. Catherine could not help but laugh.

“Don’t get too excited,” the boy told her. “I doubt the chicken blood will survive the river.” They stood and watched as the head of the creature went up and down in the water, until it disappeared completely.

“Let’s go,” Simon said finally. Catherine noticed he pocketed all twelve needles on his way out.

When the pair returned to the shoreline, they found Yulric in deep conversation with the creature, now free from thumbtack and paper. All three vampires turned to them as they climbed up the bank.

“This is Xie Yu Mei,” Yulric said. “The only intelligent jiangshi I have encountered in my time.”

The woman, whose skin they could now see was pale and green, uttered something Catherine did not understand. Beside her, Simon responded, and while she could not understand the words, the way he was fingering his small hatchet made it clear that threats were being exchanged. Before they could come to blows, though, Yulric stepped between them and rattled away in Cantonese. Reluctantly, the Chinese vampire nodded and rather than attack outright, she flung the thumbtack at Simon’s feet. Clearly, this was not over.

“Let us return,” Yulric said. The vampires began to walk away, or hop away in the case of Yu Mei.

“One second,” Catherine called. The group halted, annoyed.

“I’ll be right back,” she told them and ducked into the dense foliage. She
really
had to go.

Amanda wasn’t really sure where she stood on the subject of heaven. Her parents had never been religious, and while she had clearly discovered supernatural forces at play in the world, somehow she had never given much thought to the possible positive implications of this fact. Of course she told her brother that their parents were in heaven looking down on them, but that was just what you tell kids, even ones as naturally cynical as Simon. Whether such a place was real, she more wanted to believe it was true than actually felt it was.

That said, if heaven did exist, she imagined it looked exactly like the set of
The Phantom Vampire Mysteries
.

“I can’t believe I’m here.” Amanda giggled as she stood within a row of back-lot buildings that made up the small town of Devil’s Cross.

“You can go anywhere you want,” Nora told her. “Just . . . not too far.”

“Oh my God! That’s Sandhya Amavasya’s shop,” the human turned to her guard/guide. “Is she really a ten-thousand-year-old alchemist, like on the show?”

“Sandhya? No, she’s just a vampire,” Nora replied.

“Huh. Oh! Is that—” Amanda ran across the empty street. Nora walked behind her, an amused smile on her face. This was the first time she’d seen their guest happy about anything since her meeting with the Doctor.

Amanda danced around a twisted willow. “It’s the tree.
The
tree!”

“Yes, it is,” Nora agreed.

“Take my picture. Take my picture.” Amanda posed against the side of the trunk while the vampire took a photograph with her phone.

“Can you send that to me?” Amanda requested.

“Already done,” Nora replied, hitting a few buttons. She didn’t put the phone away, assuming there would be more pictures to come. “Where to now?”

“Where’s the graveyard? I want to visit Phantom’s crypt,” Amanda answered.

“That’s actually inside the soundstage,” Nora said. “This way.”

She led her friend back through the streets, stopping for more photos in front of Berwyn’s motorcycle and the petrified statue of Carmilla. Finally, they turned at the bend in the road, where, behind some matting and a thick copse of pines, one of the studio buildings hid. Nora ushered Amanda inside the soundstage where most of the interior sets were housed. They passed through Sasha’s bedroom, which held no interest for Amanda, and the Sanguine Noir bar, whose operational beer taps the pair indulged in, until they came to the residence of everyone’s favorite fictional vampire ghost.

It, however, was not empty.

“Oh!” cried an African American woman in a bra, who rolled over and fell behind the sarcophagus in the middle of the room.

“Haha! Hey, Nora. Amanda,” greeted a shirtless and abashed Phantom, sitting up from the same plinth.

Nora fumed. “Interrupting. Something. Are we?”

“What? Of course not, I was just running lines with . . .” Phantom trailed off, obviously having forgotten the name the girl had given him. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see the crypt,” Amanda admitted, apparently caught between the mesmerizing sight of Phantom’s abs and the very clear distress Nora was feeling.

Phantom brushed his long hair back from his face. “Well, here, let me give you the grand tour.”

The girl reappeared on the far side of the room. “Sorry about that,” she said nervously. She had just managed to get her shirt back on, and it was inside out.

“Thanks for helping me, uh, run lines,” Phantom said.

“Yeah, no problem,” she replied, making a hasty retreat from the set. “I’ll see you on the set, er, Nora.”

Nora glared at the woman until she disappeared through the door.

“So, a tour . . . ,” Phantom began.

Nora spun on him. “Who was that?”

Phantom shrugged. “Just a PA. We were going over notes.”

“What notes? We’re not in production,” she spat at him. “Ugh. And on the set, no less.”

“Please,” he whined. “Like you’ve never got it on on the set.”

“Ew. No,” Nora replied. She turned away, trying to control herself. “I can’t believe you.”

“What? What can’t you believe?” Phantom retorted. “What’s your problem?”

“My problem?
My
problem?” Nora was now in his face.

“Yes, Nora,” said Phantom. “Your problem. After all, it’s not like we’re together . . .”

Anymore.
The word hung there in front of the pair of them. Again, a moment passed between them as they stood far too close to each other, their fiery words urging them toward the fiery passions. Phantom leaned in, ready to give in to this desire. Nora, however, rocked backward. She had been down this road with him one time too many.

“Come on, Amanda. Let’s go,” she said.

There was no reply.

“Amanda?”

The vampires glanced around the crypt set. They were completely alone.

“Dammit!” Nora cursed. She sprinted off at an unnatural pace. Within seconds, she was outside the building, searching the grounds. She managed to catch up to Amanda, chatting with the PA, trying to follow her out.

“Amanda,” she said, appearing in a blur in front of the human. “Going somewhere?”

“Oh hi.” Amanda smiled. She made a big show of being surprised to find herself almost off the studio grounds. “Sorry. Katie and I were talking about her job, and I guess I lost track of where we were going.”

Nora gestured back toward the main building. “After you.”

“Bye, Katie.” The human waved. “Her name’s Katie by the way. So, did you and Phantom have it out?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Nora replied.

“Well, of course not.” Amanda laughed. “You’re sober. But of course we can fix that.”

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” Nora said, eyeing the gate.

“Put someone else on the door if you like,” Amanda suggested as they walked back to her apartment. “But honestly, there’s no point. I wouldn’t miss hearing this for the world.” That was her fifth escape attempt.

“So what brings you to Ghana?” asked Raquel Gutierrez, the American doctor with the impossibly gorgeous smile.

“We’re collecting stories,” Catherine answered as she followed the woman through the small village to the huts where she and her fellow Peace Corps volunteers were staying.

“Stories?”

“Folklore,” Catherine responded.

“Mommy is the preeminent folklorist for the Miskatonic University,” Simon said, trying very hard to sound like a normal child, despite his use of the word
preeminent
.

“I’m compiling folktales from all over the world,” Catherine explained. “Iraq, China, Tibet, India . . .”

“Sounds like you’ve been productive,” said the aid worker.

“Actually, we’ve run into a bit of bad luck lately.” Catherine laughed. Their last two trips had come up empty. Tibet, especially, had been frustrating for their undead companions. At least in India, the Brahmarakshas had been slain proper, like a vampire should be. The Preta, though, had merely refused on moral grounds and disappeared in a puff of karmic redemption.
⁵⁶

“Well, I hope you have more luck here in Ghana.” Dr. Raquel smiled.

“I’m sure we will,” Catherine said, admiring her dimples. “You haven’t heard of something called an Adze, have you?”

“Ugh, the Adze,” the doctor groaned. “My older patients won’t shut up about it. They go on and on about how it’s feeding on the children, making them sick. You try and tell them that it’s just malaria, but you’re only a doctor and they heard it from their great-grandmother, who saw one once.” A heavy sigh managed to wipe away much of her frustration, returning most of her smile. “Still, good for you. I’m sure they’ll enjoy having a willing audience.”

There was a clatter from behind them as a pair of volunteers dropped the heavy wooden box they were carrying.

“Careful with those,” Catherine called back. The volunteers looked back at her glumly, having carried the heavy container all the way from the bus.

“Do you always travel with so much gear?” Raquel asked, glancing at the three long boxes.

Catherine shrugged. “I’ve collected a lot of stories.”

“If that’s what failure looks like, I’m not sure you can afford much more success,” the doctor joked.

“Not without a forklift,” Catherine quipped back.

She and the doctor shared a good laugh. She saw Simon cringe, then he returned his gaze to the local villagers; all were staring at him, the only child to be seen.