Annie of the Undead (30 page)

Mark looked genuinely troubled.

“It’s dangerous knowledge. Werewolves are
serious trouble. Vampires don’t even mess with them. They’re
something you’re safer not knowing about.”

“I have a hard fucking time believing that. That
just what I need, some four-legged fuck walking around in a
man-suit, biting me on the ass because nobody bothered to fill me
in on his existence. Why the hell didn’t that dead fuck I’ve been
fucking tell me about this?”

“He probably wanted to protect you,” said Mark
quietly.

“Protect me? I’m the one who protected his ass.
I ice three fucking witches who have a stake jammed up his cold
ass, and he can’t wise up enough to warn me about things like
werewolves prowling around –things vampires don’t even mess with?
How fucking bright is that?”

Mark didn’t know what to say. He looked really
uncomfortable.

“I really shouldn’t have said anything,” he
said.

“Maybe not,” I said, glaring. “But now you’re
going to tell me everything –everything there fucking is, every
last evil fucked-up thing, or I am going to go back in there and
start screaming about hairy-dicks at the top of my lungs and get
somebody fired.”

Vampires, eternal unlife, slaughtering witches
in hotel rooms, insane trips south to a city that was right off its
rocker, shacking up with every bevy of gay men this side of the
Mississippi –all that I could handle, and I thought I had done so
admirably. But werewolves…shapeshifters…howling at the full moon in
your hair shirt –that was just too much.

“I’ll tell you what I know,” said Mark
unhappily, “but I’m really sorry you had to find out like
this.”

“So am I,” I assured him. “So am I.”

Miguel did not return that evening or all that
night, which was probably the only thing that saved his undead ass,
because I wanted to kill him. How could he not tell me about
werewolves, the ancient secret societies of immortal shapeshifters
who could change themselves not only into wolves, but,
occasionally, into other people, making themselves look old or
young, Asian or Irish at will? How could he not tell me about their
power and influence in the world, their vast wealth, or, best of
all, their strong dislike for the undead? How could he not tell me
that no vampire ever lived in the same city as a werewolf, or that
a powerful werewolf could make a mockery of a vampire like Andy’s
strength? How could he not tell me that a werewolf could fight a
vampire matched in all other things and win because, unlike the
vampire, the werewolf could heal a severed arm in seconds? How
could he not tell me, the one to whom he’d promised eternal unlife,
that witches were bad, but that werewolves were badder, and that it
was only because vampires stayed out of their way that the blood
drinkers were allowed to unlive at all? How could he not bother to
let me know these crucial facts so revealing of the true quality of
eternal unlife before he trapped me in it forever?

The devil’s in the details.

So what about the common myths? I had learned
some of the truths about vampires: they didn’t sleep in coffins.
Crosses were about as threatening to them as junior high
cheerleaders, unless they were made of wood, and even then getting
stabbed through the heart was only an inconvenience. The sun was
genuinely threatening, as were witches and fire and going without
blood. But what about werewolves? Were silver bullets useful in
their deterrence? No, Mark said. That was a myth. What about the
full moon? Did it make them crazy? No, that too was a myth, though
werewolves had a way of going crazy all on their own. What about
the biting thing? If one bit you, would you become a werewolf? The
biggest misconception of all, Mark said. Werewolves were born, not
made.

“So if they were born, where did they come
from?”

“It’s just like with vampires,” Mark said. “If
anyone knows, they’re not telling.”

“So what’s this business about lots of
werewolves in China?”

“Just that. There are lots of them. It’s one of
their places.”

“Where else are their places?”

Mark replied with extreme reluctance.

“Canada.”

“That figures.”

“They prefer cold places –the equatorial regions
not so much. That’s why vampires are better off in low
latitudes.”

“Supernatural fucking map of the world. So, let
me get this straight: Vampires in the tropics, werewolves,” I shook
my head at myself actually saying that, “at the poles, and witches
–where the hell are witches?”

“Wherever, I think.”

“Witches next door. Werewolves hate vampires.
Vampires avoid werewolves. Witches hunt vampires. Do they hunt
werewolves?”

“I don’t know much about that.”

“Do werewolves hunt witches?”

“I hear they’re not really fond of them.”

“Boy, werewolves sound real neighborly in
general.”

“They didn’t seem to bother anybody in
China.”

“So werewolves like humans.”

“I don’t really know.”

“How can you not know this stuff? You protect a
vampire for a living.”

“We’ve never had any problems. They pretty much
leave us alone. Andy’s over two hundred years old, and he said he’s
only had a scrape with a werewolf once or twice.”

“But you train for them?”

“We train, yeah, but werewolves don’t bother
people who stay out of their business, and no witch has ever come
after Andy. The guys he had before us all retired never having even
seen a witch. The bad guys don’t come after guys as old as Andy if
they don’t make any trouble.”

Don’t they? Apparently he didn’t know about
Miguel’s little encounter.

“So what else is there, Mark. What else do I
need to worry about going bump in the night?”

“There isn’t really anything else. There’s
vampires who defend their cities, the packs up north, and witches
who mostly deal with people – they are people. That’s it. That’s
everybody.”

“No weretigers?”

“Nope.”

“No wereorangutans?”

“Not that I’ve heard of.”

“No weresea cucumbers? Because if I find out
that there are weresea cucumbers…”

Mark looked officially ass-whipped.

All right. So it wasn’t just Miguel and Andy and
some other nameless dead folk out there running around in the
shadows slitting throats. There was this whole other world with its
own weird rules, where a pine two-by-four does more damage than a
fifty caliber bullet, where werewolves teach martial arts, and
where tattoos offer as much protection as a bullet proof vest, if
of a different kind.

Yep, Annie, you’re in deep now, kid. You’re
going to have to start thinking about this whole undeath thing a
little differently. It’s not just going to be bloody fun and games
for all eternity. It was going to be bloody fun and fighting,
which, to that kid from the smoky boxing rings and seedy streets of
Detroit, was even better. We are talking about me here.

There was one more thing beleaguered Mark could
do for me, and I was pretty sure it was going to take a
razorblade.

I might have been smiling when I said, “So Mark,
let’s talk about tattoos.”

I spent the next few days taking it easy,
exploiting Andy’s begrudging hospitality, peddling lazily on his
stationary bikes, watching martial arts movies with his boys, and
refusing to wear the clothes he’d had bought for me.

It was fun watching Andy avoid me. I had figured
out which was his hall, and had also figured out that he had
started using another door to escape after meeting me strategically
positioned in the hall one evening, as much a camo-wearin’,
half-trash, gender-confused, para-military eyesore as ever.

Then I figured out something that bothered him
even more than ghetto chic. I started leaving things in places they
didn’t belong – little things like bottle caps in little places
like the sink drain. It was great fun. He’d made the mistake of
complaining to the boys about a single blade of grass I’d left on
the carpet, and that was the absolute end of his pristine white
peace. I moved pillows from one room to another. I switched the
arctic-white lampshades from the hall with the ultra-snow
lampshades from the den. I unfolded the throws and refolded them
crooked. I left toenail clippings in the carpet. Miguel had left me
here waiting for him with nothing to do. I could not be held
responsible for my actions. It was only the forces of nature at
work.

Mark was exceedingly helpful in all possible
ways. He cooked me breakfast, lunch, dinner, and even linner if I
wanted it. He answered my questions about vampires, werewolves, and
other domestic issues. He returned the pillows and lampshades to
their proper homes, picked up the blades of grass, and never even
mentioned the aggravation he must have been feeling. He would never
complain, and he would never stop helping. It was his nature. I am
convinced that if he had not been Andy’s bodyguard, he would have
been a physical therapist or a special education teacher or a guide
dog – when he wasn’t cooking gourmet meals, winning kung fu
competitions, or impeccably styling unruly half-breed hair.

His skills as an artist, on the other hand, and
the viability of the very unique commission I had, more with
belligerence than a silver tongue, coerced him into doing for me
with only rudimentary tools on the bathroom vanity? Only time would
reveal how effective an earthvine in scarification would be, or if
it was worth the cost in blood.

I got to know Max and Mark pretty well. I
learned that Max’s grandfather had been a sort of witch doctor or
priest down in Haiti – practicing voodoo, and that Max had actually
seen a zombie once. I had been about to give Mark hell for not
telling me about zombies, but Max explained that zombies were sort
of a local phenomenon, one that Mark couldn’t really be expected to
know about. Max wouldn’t give me any more details on the matter,
though he did not escape my pestering for further knowledge. I
learned that Mark was born on Tonga, a sovereign island nation of
western Polynesia, the whereabouts of which I only really got when
he got on Google Earth and showed me, to a Chinese father and a
Tongan-Scottish mother. He’d lived in Fiji, Hawaii, China, and
several countries in Europe before coming to the states to hold
down the fort for Andy. His father was kung fu master, and his
mother was an architect. He had an ass-kicking kung fu sister who
was attending the University of Paris.

I learned almost nothing about Monty, the
so-called ex-British Secret Service guy, which probably had
something to do with the fact that he was an ex-British Secret
Service guy. He was polite enough to me, but did not seek out my
company. He seemed to read a lot.

I finally met Marvin. I think to date the man
has said ten words to me. What I got out of him during that first
introduction was a terse hello before he went on his way. He was of
medium height and sandy-haired, with a rough, unshaven face and an
extremely vertical and capable posture, made all the more
capable-looking by the iron in his muscles. He was beasty for sure,
and I was immediately jealous of Andy for having such a man in his
corner.

It bothered me that Miguel was still gone. I
know that now, but I never would have admitted that at the time,
especially not to myself. If I had known about the trouble I was
about to have, maybe I would have worried a little more about
myself and a little less about my vampire.

The day the trouble happened, Mark and I had
just finished working out. I’d taken a shower and emerged to find
my clothes missing. In their place was a skinny pair of leggings, a
slinky shirt with no sleeves in some insane swirl of colors, and a
pair of boots –not the workin’-hard kind of boots, the
hardly-walking, fuck-me-please kind of boots. I knew immediately
that I’d been set up. Max had been prowling around looking
suspicious all morning, and after three days of vain efforts to get
me into some of the clothes Andy had bid him put me in, he had
finally resorted to dirty pool.

I wasn’t, as an ass-kicking brute, about to be
forced into what I considered cross-dressing. I slipped on a house
robe, and dropped my pistol in my pocket out of reflex rather than
any prescience for what was about to happen. I went in search of
Mark, who had headed to the indoor Zen garden – yes, Andy had one.
Mark’s mother had designed it, with a glass ceiling, a shallow pool
populated with rocks, a trickling fountain, and a sandbox with
rakes – the whole shebang. Mark had this idea that he was going to
teach me to meditate. I had this idea I was going to take a nap –
unstoppable force meets unmovable object again.

“You oughtta do something about that damn
islander.”

“What?” Mark said, turning around. He was
already in crocus position or chrysanthemum position, or whatever
that contortionist’s fantasy is called.

Mark knew nothing about Max’s little scheme.

“Oh, I forgot our hydration,” he said suddenly,
popping up from his bamboo mat, “What do you want. Gatorade?
Vitamin water? Fiji?”

“I can just stick my face in the pool…”

“Oh, please,” he begged, putting out a hand.
“I’ll be back.”

He left the room with as much vigor as he had
greeted my sleepy head with that morning. He was the battery
bunny.

It’s no trouble. That was Mark’s tagline. If he
was an action figure, which he kind of already was, you’d press a
button on his ass and he’d happily say, “It’s no trouble!” and cook
you breakfast, kick your ass, show you some new moves, talk
supernatural shop, fix your hair, and like every minute of it.

And yet he was Andy’s. All of them were Andy’s.
How was that possible?

I didn’t have time to give myself a headache
over it, because my phone rang, and the real headache, the
splitting migraine-cluster-fuck headache that would last for the
next two weeks, suddenly began.