Bill The Vampire - 01 (32 page)

“Have you ever met them?” Ed asked from up front, his eyes meeting ours in the rearview mirror.

“No. Nobody in our coven has. James is the closest we get to them and as long as we fly under the radar, that's the way it'll stay. Supposedly there was this coven up in Westchester about seventy-five years ago. Their leader got called in to meet with the Draculas. I don't know what happened, but he must have insulted them in some way, because, by the next week, the entire coven was wiped out to the last member,” she said with wide eyes.

“
Supposedly
?” queried Ed.

“Well, that's what I heard, anyway. It was a little before my time.”

Ed was still not buying it. “Then how do you know it's not all just bullshit? For all you know, these Draculas are just a bunch of toothless old geezers gumming their victims to death.”

“It doesn't work that way,” insisted Sally. “Bill, you've seen James in action.”

I nodded and replied, “Damn straight. That guy's all sorts of scary. I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of any hurt he was dishing out.”

“Exactly!” Sally confirmed. “Generally speaking, as vampires get older, they get more powerful. Well,
all
of the Draculas are older than James, some of them a
lot
older.”

“Okay, well that's kind of... frightening,” I said. “And you said James was summoned by them?”

“One of them,” she continued. “The Khan, to be exact.”

Before she could say another word, she was drowned out by the voices of three Star Trek geeks simultaneously shouting, “KHAAAAANNNNN!!!”

When we had at last died down she asked, “Do I really want to know what that was about?”

“Doubtful,” Ed answered.

“So, this Khan dude,” Tom piped in, “are we talking Space Seed or Genghis?”

Sally looked perplexed. “Space seed? Whatever that is, I'm thinking probably not. And no, he's not Genghis Khan.”

“I didn't think so,” Tom said. “That would just be silly.”

“He's Ogedei Khan,” Sally continued, “Genghis' son.”

Tom got a blank look on his face, and then replied, “Oh, of course. That's a lot less silly, I guess.”

Sally shot back, “Be thankful! If we had turned Genghis, humanity would probably all be living in cattle pens right now. Ogedei was just as good of a leader, but a bit mellower.”

“Okay, so that makes sense, I guess,” I said. “James said he represents the Draculas in these parts. So, where is he?”

“According to this?” Sally glanced down at the paper. “The Gansu province of China.”

“
China
? Why the hell is he in China?”

“That's where the Khan is.”

“I get that. But why did he send for James? That seems like it's a little outside of James' jurisdiction,” I pointed out.

“Because the Khan is James' sire,” Sally explained. “When the guy who made you is also one of the high muckety mucks, you tend to pick up when he calls.”

This piqued Ed's curiosity, and he asked, “So, what? Did he turn James when the Mongols were busy trying to annex the rest of the world?”

“I don't know the specifics,” Sally admitted, “but from what I've heard, it was a bit after that. Supposedly James met the Khan in China.”

“So, what was James doing in China six-hundred plus years ago?” I asked. “I don't think it was a big vacation spot back in those days.”

“James once told me he was traveling there with Marco Polo, as a member of his expedition.” She then added, “Pretty mind-blowing, huh?”

There was a chorus of affirmation within the car. Mind blowing was kind of an understatement. About a month ago, I was battling ancient beings with either a twenty-sider, or a computer mouse. Today I was actually hobnobbing with living pieces of history. Stuff like this, one needed to sit down and contemplate. Unfortunately, now was neither the time, nor the place.

It was Ed who broke the reverie. Like I said earlier, shit just doesn't faze him like it does other people. “This is all fascinating, but why did the Khan recall this James guy all the way back to China? Was he jonesing for some baked beans and clam chowder?”

Sally grinned. “Maybe James was jonesing for some genuine Chinese food.” The grin faltered, and then she continued, “Unfortunately, though, it doesn't appear either is the case. From what I can understand, the report states that some of the covens under the Khan's personal stewardship had been attacked. The Khan wanted people he could trust to investigate.”

“Who would be insane enough to attack vampires?” asked Ed.

“Kung Fu masters,” Tom answered. Then, after we all stopped to stare at him for a second, he responded with, “Why not? This is China, we're talking about.” I love him like a brother but, goddamn, Tom can be a fucking moron.

Before he could say anything else stupid, I chimed in with, “Other vampires? Those guys in Queens had no trouble coming after me.”

“No way,” Sally said. “Coven wars happen from time to time, but none of us would be insane enough to do this with one of the Draculas in the immediate area. This was someone...
something
else.”

“Werewolves?” Ed offered, but Sally just waved her hand in dismissal.

“Sorry to break it to you guys, but werewolves don't exist. They're just a myth.”

There was a chorus of disappointed voices in the car. That sucked! Werewolves were kick ass.

“Hold on!” I said. “What do you mean they don't exist? Didn't you and James tell me that myths had a basis in reality?”

Sally gave me an eye roll (
it had been a few hours since the last one, I was almost starting to miss them... almost
), and replied, “
Some
myths are real. Some are just the result of someone getting high off the local fauna and having a bad acid trip.”

Yeah, I guess that made sense. Forget myth, there was some seriously weird shit that popped up from time to time in the news. No doubt a good chunk of it could be explained away as someone watering down their hooch with a little too much antifreeze. “Fine, no werewolves,” I said with a touch of regret. “Then what attacked those covens?”

“How am I supposed to know?” Sally sniffed. “We're vampires. We have enemies. Not all of them are human.”

Remembering something from the other night, I asked, while trying to sound more knowledgeable than I was, “Does this have anything to you with your war against
the
feet
?”

That seemed to catch her by surprise as she rounded on me, “Where did you hear about that?”

“Around,” I coyly replied. “So, does it?”

“I don't know,” she said quietly, as if in contemplation.

Of course, then Tom had to go and ruin it by chiming in. “Feet? Is there some kind of demonic foot fungus at work here? I hear they sell spray for that.” That more or less killed the mood, and any chance I had at getting answers to a question that... well okay, a question I hadn't given a second thought to before now, but hey, knowledge is power. Maybe I should have listened to Sally's earlier advice and just left my roommates at home.

Sally shook her head and said, attitude returning, “It's not important. What is important is that James is out of the country, and what's
very
important for you, Bill, is that it's for an indeterminate amount of time.”

I felt a little tingling at the base of my brainstem as she said that, but I thought it best to ask rather than assume. “It's important to me, why?”

“Because you're under James' protection. With him gone, Colin or another vampire will step in to do his duties, but protection is another matter entirely. That's not transferable. If he's not around, it's as good as out of sight, out of mind.”

“But you said indeterminate,” I replied, grasping at whatever straws I could. “That means he could be back a year from now, or he could be back tomorrow.”

“It doesn't really work that way for us,” she pointed out. “If James was called in from five-thousand miles away and not given any time to settle his accounts first, that means whatever is going down is pretty big, and the Khan wants someone he can trust to look into it. Whatever James is going to do for him, you can bet it'll be with a fine-toothed comb. Immortals can afford to be thorough.”

“Which means...?”

“Which means that if I was a betting girl, and I am, my money would be on not expecting to see James again for at least six months... probably more.”

“But if Jeff snuffs me now...”

She cut me off, “Then who's to say he didn't do it two months from now? You think anyone in the coven is going to officially rat him out? Not likely. Being a coven leader has its perks, not the least of which is that he's going to be given the benefit of the doubt.”

“All of this assumes he knows James is out of the country,” Ed pointed out.

Sally turned to me to answer, “Remember back there when I said that Jeff and I both knew Colin?” I nodded in return. “Well, we do. That means that if I knew how to grease Colin's wheels...” that caught Tom's attention, and he turned back toward us with wide eyes and rapt attention. “With money, you pervert!” Tom turned away, suddenly losing interest. “If I knew how to get Colin to talk, then Jeff obviously does, too.”

“If he suspected...”

“Oh, stop it,” she snapped back. “Jeff may be stupid, but he's over a hundred and twenty years old. He knows how to play the game. Even if he didn't, Colin's not known for his sense of humor.”

I nodded, but Ed asked, “What do you mean by that?”

“I kinda, sorta might have joked to him, as we were leaving, that I reformatted his computer,” I admitted.

“But did you actually do it?” he asked.

“It doesn't matter,” Sally said, “guys like him have massive egos. Most vampires, once they get a few centuries under their belt, lose the ability to laugh at their own expense.”

Ed got it. “So, even if Jeff didn't grease the wheels, so to speak, you think this Colin guy might give him a call and spill his guts just as a farewell ‘fuck you’.”

“Yeah,” she answered. “Petty revenge is pretty much his middle name.”

“I guess there's something to be said for occasionally letting the other guy get the last word.”

“Yeah,” I replied. “I'm beginning to think maybe I should occasionally just keep my mouth shut.”

“Kinda like a smoker who decides to quit after he’s already found out he has lung cancer?” Tom remarked.

“Better late than never, I guess,” was the only answer I had for that.