Annie of the Undead (27 page)

I had the good sense to shut up and listen, but
not the sense to quickly recognize the danger that he had. There
was a commotion coming from the dealer’s porch. I caught something
about “holding out on us,” an objection to that assertion, followed
by a threat and a classic “you know what we can do to you.” It
sounded like a standard organized-crime smackdown to me, and I was
about to politely suggest to Miguel that we continue on our way in
adherence to the don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy of the streets, when I
saw why he’d suddenly gone all predator in the middle of our
stroll. In the shadows of the porch I couldn’t make out the
stranger’s features, but as he turned to face us, for a second in
the glow of the street lights, his eyes flashed. They flashed the
way a cat’s eyes flash when they are struck by the light just so,
the way a dog’s or owl’s or any other thing-that-can
see-in-the-dark’s do. Those eyes glinted, and then their owner
stood facing us from the shadows, motionless, staring.

For a second, no one moved, not me, not the
dealer cowering against the wall nor the man whose eyes had
betrayed him as a creature of the night, and not Miguel. You could
have cut the proverbial tension in the air with that proverbial
knife.

Miguel was the first to move. He relaxed. His
stance eased. The hand holding the voodoo doll (of me) dropped to
his side. His shoulders un-squared. Then he simply stared, and then
and there I took a lesson in immortal social relations. He did not
take his eyes off the other. He did not nod or acknowledge him in
any way other than to watch, impassively, as though at a great
distance. He seemed utterly confident, calm.

The other was anything but. After a moment
looking like a treed bear, he bolted. He jumped the porch railing
and shot down the street like nothing I had ever seen, like a
cheetah…or like a gazelle. It was very clear what had happened
here, and his was not the action of a top predator.

The dealer, who hadn’t really had time to react
to any of this, vanished quickly into his house.

“Walk,” Miguel said.

“Walk where?” I asked quietly.

“With me.”

We did. We did not walk to the inn. We did not
walk back the way we had come. We walked to the next street and
circled around, back to the peopled areas, slowly, calmly. But
Miguel did not play. He put the doll into his pocket. He was
watching, listening, tasting the air. I could tell, because I knew
him.

“In a moment,” he said with no change in
demeanor, “I am going to take you over these rooftops. Do not
react. Keep walking.”

I obeyed, and very shortly we were airborne.

Vampires do not fly, at least, not that I know
of, but they can sure seem to if you’re human, and you see one jump
from the street to the top of a building, or if one carries you
fast, like if you’re me. I’d had a few of these opportunities, and
they generally involved fleeing the scene of something.

I hardly knew where we went. I just watched the
ground, the buildings, and the cars fly by like they were in
time-lapse. We zipped through the city and across a bridge over the
broad, dark Mississippi with cars and trucks running nearly abreast
us. I think that was the fastest he had ever carried me. The time
at the hotel he’d been wounded, but now he was well-fed and in top
form, which I would later learn is a really big deal when it comes
to vampire performance. They need their regular oil changes.

So was it fun, racing across the ceiling of New
Orleans in the arms of an immortal, flirting with gravity but never
really succumbing to it, dancing over people’s heads so nimbly they
never notice, like some invisible, blood-sucking sugarplum fairy?
All I can say, good people, is go out and get yourself a vampire.
Everyone, just drop what you’re doing, drop that remote or that
needlepoint or that porno mag, and go get one. Sell the truck, sell
the boat, sell the Mercedes if you’ve got one, and go get a
vampire. Get one now.

The trip was over all too soon, but I figured my
frequent flyer miles would have earned me another for later. Miguel
set me down on a patio, beside the biggest pool I’d ever seen, with
a house the size of a courthouse in front of me. It was new
construction, with all the chicness of the new south, with a stucco
exterior, big windows, and mood lighting coming from landscape
lights strategically placed in the verdure. It was a mansion with
all the trimmings, situated beside a tall levee on the Mississippi,
strategically-placed trees and shrubs and an imposing wall
concealing it from the prying eyes of neighbors.

Something about the naked men playing with foam
noodles in and around the pool suggested to me whose domicile this
was.

“Oh, fuck,” was all I had to say.

“Wait here,” Miguel said, and went inside.

“Oh, great.”

I pushed a puff of hair that had popped out of
its cornrow away from my face and eyed the naked men in the pool.
They eyed me back.

“Who is that?” one of them said.

“How should I know? I don’t travel on that side
of town,” answered the second with a British accent. He looked a
hell of a lot like the guy who had come into The Chow House behind
Yoki and I the day before –right before Andy had turned up in my
parking space. In fact, he looked exactly like him, which didn’t
surprise me.

“Oh, be nice,” said a third, with an islander’s
accent. “The poor thing looks lost.”

“She must be if she’s here,” said the first.

I was checking out their teeth. None of them
appeared to be packing…not in their mouths, anyway. Under the water
was a different story.

“Andy must have invited her.”

“Her?”

“Well someone should go talk to her.”

“Better you than me. I have no patience for
these things.”

The last man who had spoken got out of the pool.
He was dark-skinned and looked like a mutt like me, but unlike me
he was pretty. He had dreds about as long as my arm. At
forty-something, he was the oldest one in the bunch. Most relevant
to my situation was the fact that he was built like a fighter. He
had abs of steel, among other things.

He wrapped a towel around himself as he
approached.

“So,” he said, “who are you?”

“Annie.”

“You somebody’s friend, Annie?”

“As a matter of fact, I am.”

“Who’d that be?”

“Throw her in the pool, Max!”

“Yeah, throw her in the pool!”

The others were splashing, waving their
noodles.

“You try to throw me in the damn pool, and I’ll
break your dick off,” I warned.

“What did you say?”

“Oohoohoo!”

“Now you really have to throw her in the
pool!”

“I said, if you touch me, I’ll break your dick
off.”

Were these guys on anything?

“That’s what I thought you said,” he said,
regarding me suspiciously. “Who brought you in here? Did you come
over the wall or something?”

“You might say that.”

“Throw her in the pool! Throw her in the pool!
Da na, da na,
danadanadanadana…”
The others called in unison. Their
rendition of the Jaws theme was followed by much flailing of
noodles.

“Listen,” said the islander, “you’d better
explain yourself, or I will have to escort you out.”

Escort me out? Either that was really polite or
really patronizing.

“I was told to wait here,” I said, “and I am
going to do just that.”

The man’s patience had worn thin.

“Come along now.”

He reached out to take my arm, but I
successfully dodged. Then he got a hard look on his face. His
second attempt wasn’t going to be so casual. I could tell by his
face he had labeled me a threat, and I could tell by his change in
stance that he had labeled me a fighter too.

But I was half his size.

I wasn’t going to give him the chance to get a
hold of me again. I couldn’t fight this guy, or, at least, I
couldn’t win. My only choices were to beg, bolt…or draw.

I reached for the gun in my waistband.

A cold hand gripped my wrist, gently, and eased
the weapon back into the pancake holster at the small of my back.
Miguel stepped up beside me.

“Introduce me to your friend, Annie,” he said.
“Is he one of the trusted associates of whom Andy has spoken so
well?”

The islander’s face changed completely as he
looked at this new arrival. He backed up a few steps. He seemed to
just
know
.

“This is Max,” I said. “He was just inviting me
for a swim in the pool.”

I crossed my arms and eyed him ironically.

“This is Miguel, Max,” came a familiar voice
from behind us.

I turned to see Andy standing in the lighted
doorway in a white silk robe and luxurious white shag flip-flops,
still as big, blonde, and irate as ever.

“Miguel,” repeated Max with serious countenance.
The name apparently meant something to him.

“And this,” said Andy, with a gesture somewhere
possibly in my direction, “is Miguel’s. She will be staying
here…for a little while.”

With that, he gracefully turned and went back
inside the house.

I looked at Miguel through the puff of hair.

“No way.”

“That was trouble we encountered tonight,” he
said to me. “I need time to investigate it.”

“You’re gonna have to tell me more than that,
sugar.”

Miguel glanced at Max. The man apparently read
Miguel’s mind, because he moved away. He gestured to the naked men
swimming to wrap up the show and get inside.

When they had gone, Miguel went on.

“We saw an immortal tonight, and he saw us. We
know little about him, but he knows your face, and I cannot be
certain of your safety on the street.”

“We know he’s in the game. We know he thought
you looked like the antichrist.”

Miguel got a look on his face just then that I
had never seen on him before, but immediately knew what it meant:
revulsion.

“He was weak, young. He poses me no threat, but
the weak ones do not always follow the rules. I cannot trust him
not to attempt to harm you.”

“Trust him? Rules? Miguel, what are you talking
about?”

“Consistency. Honor. In eternity, our
reputations are all we have.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Andy will not harm you. You will stay here
until I manage this.”

“I will stay here until I walk my happy little
ass out the front door. I’m not gonna be some little kept pet. Not
for one second. You should know that.”

I didn’t bring up the saving his ass thing. I
didn’t need to.

“Annie,” he said, and I could tell that he was
“tasting” me through the air, “I would regret your death for a very
long time. Do not ask me to risk you.”

Hmf.

I wasn’t going to ask him anything. If I chose
to, I would get gone. But he would not have brought me here if the
possibility of danger were not substantial. After all, he hadn’t
moved me from the Banana Grove before now, not even when he’d
butchered the witch. But I hated Andy. I hated that hot, dead son
of a bitch more than I’d ever hated anybody in so little time. We
were the kind who were born to butt heads. Like Max could of
Miguel, I could just tell.

Miguel seemed to read my next thought.

“Do not antagonize him. He has opened his house
to you. Do not make me rue having asked this favor.”

I dug my toe into the patio. I favored it with a
frown. Finally, I looked up.

“You’ll apprise me of everything that’s going
on. You won’t leave me here one minute longer than necessary.”

He nodded.

“You won’t kiss any strange girls. You won’t get
yourself killed and eaten.”

He shook his head.

“You’ll remember to brush your teeth every night
and…”

“This is not the first time I have dealt with an
immortal.”

“Yes, but it’s the first time since you became
my vampire. I intend to keep you that way.”

He flicked the puff of hair on my forehead. He
smiled down at me.

“Andy is doomed…I may be away several
nights.”

Then, he walked into the dark. I did not see him
leap into the air. I was not with him. I was stuck here on the
ground. Human.

I must have sat out there under the stars for
hours unconsciously waiting for Miguel to return. Eventually, I
drifted off, and when I awoke, the sun was rising.

Someone had thrown a blanket over me, which
immediately pissed me off for a variety of reasons. I threw it off
and rose. I made a vain effort to get the now double-sized cloud of
hair out of my face as I checked my phone for messages. None. I
stretched out the stiffness of having slept in a chair as I headed
for the door to the house. No one was around. I needed to find
someone to ask about Miguel, though something told me he would have
awakened me had he returned.

I didn’t want to go inside Andy’s House of
Horrors. Who knew what I would find in there? Bottled blood? A
blood fountain? Male Living magazines? Massive quantities of
gayness? Who was I kidding? That was a given.

I slid the door open and stepped into another
world. The room into which I walked was eye-popping white. The tile
that ran through the traffic areas was pearly and white. The carpet
in the sitting areas was white-white. The mosaic designs running up
the high walls, depicting subtle, abstract designs –like embroidery
that you didn’t really notice unless you really looked, were
various shades of white. The furniture, modern-looking, low-profile
stuff was only very just slightly accented in off-white. The whole
effect was that of coolness, calm, and above all, cleanliness. I
might have had microscopic vision and not seen a single mote of
dust in the place. It was awe-inspiring design, overpowering cool,
unbearably stylish.

The vampire touch was that every single ray of
sunlight was sealed out by the equivalent of storm shutters over
every window.