Fairytale (39 page)

Food. Water. Shelter.

Those first.

And so he looked at the buildings he
passed—red brick or wood, no beauty nor art to them, with wide
openings in the walls that appeared to be empty but, he had
learned, were not. In the rain it was easier to see the droplets on
the hard, transparent walls. When dry, the things—windows, they
called them, made of a substance known as glass—were nearly
invisible.

And yet, not quite.

He moved closer to one of the windows, drawn
by the smell of food, only to pause as he stared at the image he
saw there. The image of a man, wearing exactly what he wore and
moving exactly as he moved. Clearly a reflection, he thought,
lifting his hand, watching as the image did the same. Much like
what one would see when looking into still water.

He tipped his head slightly and studied his
image in the glass. It was no wonder, he thought, that the mortals
were disturbed by him. He looked menacing. Wild. Standing in the
rain, letting it pour down upon him, while they all raced for
cover. He allowed it to soak his hair, his garment, his skin. And
he was bigger than most of them, too. Taller, broader. He sported
several days’ growth of beard upon his face. Dark it was, and
dense, and he noticed that most of the people he encountered kept
their faces shaved to the skin. A few had allowed their beards to
grow, but they were trimmed carefully, tame and neat.

He pushed a hand through his long, onyx-black
hair, shoving the dripping locks backward. And then he returned his
attention to the window, and to the people he could see beyond it.
They sat at tables, enjoying bountiful food that was brought to
them by smiling servants who seemed content with heir lot.

Finally something that made sense to him.

He watched for a while before going to the
door through which others came and went. As he started to push the
door open, a man appeared and stood blocking it. Skinny, but tall
enough, and smiling even though his eyes showed fear.

“I’m sorry, sir, but we’re full tonight. Do
you have a reservation?”

Utana looked from the man’s head to his
shoes, and up again. “I know not…reservation,” he said. “I wish
food.”

“Well, um, right. But as I said, we’re full
tonight.” He lifted a hand, a helpless gesture. “No room.”

“Bring food here, then. I wait.” Utana
crossed his arms over his chest.

“Um, right. From out of town, are you?”

Utana only grunted at the man, no longer
interested in conversing with him. Silence would best convey that
the discussion was over.

“Yes, I see. Well, the thing is, it doesn’t
quite work that way here. I do have a suggestion for you,
however.”

“I know not suggestion. Bring food. I
wait.”

“Why don’t you try the soup kitchen?
Methodist church at the end of the road. See? You can see the
steeple from here.”

He was pointing while he babbled, and Utana
only managed to understand a word here and there. He was learning
the language rapidly, but interpreting the words spoken in the
rapid-fire way of the people here was still difficult. He followed
the man’s pointed finger and saw the spire stabbing upward into the
sky. “Ah, yes, church. I know church. House of your lonely
god.”

“Yes. Yes, that’s it. Go to the church.
They’ll have food for you there, and a place to sleep, as well, if
you need one.”

Utana nodded, but he was more enticed by the
smells coming from within, and impatient with the man, who was
clearly trying to send him away without a meal. It was all very
good to know there would be a bed for him at the house of the
mortal’s singular god. But there was food here now, and he wasn’t
leaving without partaking of some of it.

So he simply pushed the skinny man aside and
continued opening the door. As he was about to enter, another man
ran up and pushed against the door from within. But Utana pushed
harder and shoved the man back hard, sending him flying into the
wall, where he caught himself with one hand, rubbing the back of
his head with the other.

Utana walked into the food place.

There was noise at first, people talking, and
the clinking, chinking sounds of their ridiculous eating utensils
and dishes. But as their eyes fell upon him, the eating and
conversation ceased, and dead silence ensued.

Utana eyed the tables, the food, the stares
of the stunned diners, no doubt surprised by the appearance of a
large, dripping wet man, dressed in what James of the Vahmpeers had
told him was meant to be used as bedding, but he cared not. He was
focused only on food, on sustenance. His nostrils flared as he
caught the scent of beef, and his gaze shot to its source.

A man in an odd white hat came through a
swinging door in the back of the room, bearing in his arms a tray
laden with so much bounty he could barely carry it. Each dish was
covered by a lid of shining silver, and yet the aromas escaped, and
Utana’s stomach churned in its need.

He did not hesitate. He strode toward the
small, food-bearing man, who froze at the sight of him. His
frightened eyes darted left and right as he debated whether to stay
where he was or to retreat. In three strides, Utana was there,
taking the tray. Then he turned and walked back through the room.
People rose from their tables, backing away from the path he cut.
Two people stepped forward instead, and tried to block his way, but
he moved them aside with a simple sweep of his powerful arm,
sending them tumbling into a nearby table. The table broke, its
contents toppling into the laps of the diners who sat there, even
as they scrambled to escape. A woman screamed.

Utana moved past the ruckus to the door.
Servants shouted after him, asking what he thought he was doing.
But he ignored them all, carrying his bounty into the street and
through the pouring rain, in search of a sheltered spot in which to
eat.

In a moment he spotted one of the humans’
wheeled machines, a large one, with a back like a gigantic box and
a pair of doors at the rear that stood wide open. Utana marched
straight to it and easily stepped up into the box. He set his
bounty on its floor and pulled the doors closed behind him. Making
himself comfortable, or as comfortable as he could be while still
wet and freezing cold, he lifted the shining lids one by one,
bending closer to smell. He had no idea what most of the dishes
contained, except for the one that hid the large joint of beef he’d
been smelling. It was still warm, brown on the outside and oozing
with juices. He picked it up and bit in, and the flavor exploded in
his mouth. Tender and luscious, pink in the middle, the meat was
the finest meal he’d had since reawakening to life. He leaned back
against the metal wall of the box, chewed and swallowed, and sighed
in relief.

One need, at least, had been met this
day.

Washington, D.C.

“Congratulations, Senator MacBride,” the
Senate Majority Leader said.

He’d just sailed into the room where she’d
been waiting for over an hour, hand extended as he crossed toward
her.

Rising, she accepted the handshake. He wore a
huge smile—one of those toothy crocodile smiles she’d learned how
to identify her first week in office. So she prepared herself for
the storm of bullshit that was sure to follow.

“Thank you, Senator Polenski. And might I ask
what is it I’m being congratulated for?”

The veteran senator just waved a hand in the
air. “Your new appointment. But please, sit down. Relax. I’ll ring
us up some refreshments and tell you all about it.” Walking to his
desk, he reached for the phone. “What would you like? Coffee?
Perhaps something a bit stronger, to celebrate?”

“I’d really prefer to know what I’m
celebrating first, Senator.”

He set the phone back down and perched on the
edge of his desk. She was still standing right between the two
cushy chairs in front of the desk, on a carpet that was so deep,
her sensible two-inch pumps nearly became flats.

He met her eyes. “You’ve been named head of
the Committee on U.S.-Vampire Relations.”

She lowered her head, laughing softly. “Fine.
Fine, I’ll have coffee. You can tell me all about it as we
sip.”

He was stone silent until she had stopped
laughing. She weighed the tension in the room and realized that he
hadn’t been making a joke. Lifting her head slowly, she met his
eyes, tiny blue marbles beneath a head of thick white hair that
always looked windblown. “Come on, Senator Polenski, you can’t be
serious.”

“I’m completely serious. Word is out that
they exist, thanks to that idiot former CIA operative and his
tell-all book. Most of them—and a good number of ordinary human
beings, as well—have been wiped out by vigilante groups at this
point, but our intelligence agencies believe there are a handful
remaining. Surely you’ve been following all of this in the
news.”

“I…I didn’t think it was…real.” She sank into
one of the chairs, the wind knocked out of her. “I thought the
official stance on the late Lester Folsom was that he was demented
and suffering from delusions.”

“It was. Unfortunately, no one bought it. So
now we need to own up. They exist. It’s real. John Q. Public is
terrified, and scared citizens are dangerous citizens, MacBride. We
need someone to get a handle on this. To calm the public. To see to
it that these…creatures are contained, monitored and dealt
with.”

She must have given away her gut-level
reaction to his words, because he averted his eyes, and added, “As
fairly and humanely as is practical, of course.”

“Of course,” she said.

He nodded. “You will act as the conduit
between the CIA and the Senate. You’ll gather all the information
available and ride herd on the man in charge of this mess, Nash
Gravenham-Bail. Freaking mouthful. Rest assured, he isn’t going to
accept your involvement easily. You’re going to have to ride him
hard, do your own digging, know when he’s holding back and how much
and push for more.”

“Get him to tell me everything. I
understand.” Rafe Polenski shook his head. “Gravenham-Bail will
never tell you everything. But get as much as you can. Bring the
rest of us up to speed, put together your committee members and
with them, come up with a plan of action for us to consider.”

She blinked three times, shook her head and
looked away.

“Well? What do you have to say?”

She drew a breath, opened her mouth, closed
it again and drew another, searching her mind for words as her
brain clogged itself up with questions. Clearly no one in their
right mind would want to take this on. This was the modern-day
equivalent, she thought, of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and God
knew that hadn’t gone too well. For the Indians, at least.

Vampires. Good God. Vampires.

They were pushing this assignment onto a
junior senator from the Midwest. Someone they thought was too naive
to know better. Someone easily manipulated, easily controlled. She
was none of those things. But she hadn’t been in office long enough
for them to realize it. She knew exactly what was happening here.
This wasn’t going to succeed, and someone was going to have to take
the fall when the shit hit the fan. She had just been appointed to
be the one.

She knew all of that.

And she also knew that she couldn’t turn the
post down. One did not turn down Senator Rafe Polenski. The man was
a legend.

“Well?” he asked, waiting, already knowing
her inevitable answer.

She met his calculating eyes, and knew she
was well and truly trapped. But maybe knowing what was going on
would give her an advantage. Maybe she could outwit the snowy fox
himself and live to tell the tale. Maybe she was a little smarter
than this old-school, old-boy network member knew.

“Your decision, Senator MacBride?” he asked
pointedly.

“Scratch the coffee,” she said. “I’ll have
vodka.”

Mount Bliss, Virginia

Jane Hubbard exited a taxi, and stood looking
at the front of a massive and beautiful building. Winged angels
made of stone flanked the tall, wrought-iron gate, which had opened
to let the taxi enter. It had proceeded along a circular drive with
a giant fountain in the center, where a statue of the beautiful St.
Dymphna stood, holding a lighted oil lamp—with a real flame, no
less—in one hand, like something straight out of Aladdin, and a
sword in the other. The sword pointed downward, its tip piercing a
writhing dragon at her feet, and water spurted upward from the
slain serpent, arching gently back down again into the pool
below.

The building had once been known as the St.
Dymphna Asylum, as attested by those very words engraved into the
white stonework above the entry doors, but was now known as the St.
Dymphna Psychiatric Hospital. A more modern sign just beyond the
gates said so.

But the place didn’t look modern. It looked a
century old. Maybe two. And as comforting as the angels and the
saint were, Jane felt a shiver of apprehension when she studied the
chain-link fence that enclosed the manicured lawns.

Melinda, at her side, squeezed her hand.
“It’ll be like a vacation, right, Mommy?”

“That’s right, honey. That’s right.”

Jane had no reason to mistrust her
government. The official who had shown up at her door had been
female and kind. She’d known about Melinda’s condition—the rare
Belladonna Antigen in her blood. Jane had known, too. She’d known
that the condition made her baby bleed like a hemophiliac. She’d
known that it made donors extremely hard to find. And she’d known
that it meant her daughter, now seven, probably wouldn’t live to
see forty.

What she hadn’t known—had never even
suspected—was that it made her a favorite target of creatures that
were not supposed to exist. Vampires, the federal agent had told
Jane, were real. All the hype in the news of late had been true.
And while most of the monsters had been killed by the vigilante
movement sweeping the nation, there were still some at large. Any
human being who possessed the Belladonna Antigen was at very great
risk of being victimized by them.