Shivaree (20 page)

FORTY-ONE

Corinne jerked awake. In spite of her best efforts to remain vigilant, the warm band of sunshine that had stolen through the crack in the curtains, combined with the sleepless night, had caused her to nod off in her chair. She glanced at her wristwatch. It was well past noon, and Dr. McAvoy still hadn’t come for a sample of the Judge’s blood.

She rose and went to examine Judge Lowell. If he had regained consciousness at any point, she was unaware of it. She thought again about the high dose of sedatives the doctor had administered. It was almost as if McAvoy had subconsciously hoped to help his friend pass quietly into death rather than recover. Again, Corinne had to combat a sense of distaste in order to take the Judge’s wrist. His pulse was still weak, although his breathing seemed less labored than it had before. He seemed to radiate an unexpected vitality that belied the gray clamminess of his skin.

The sound of men’s voices drew her to the window, and she pulled the curtain back an inch or so, in order to see the yard below better. The two goons who worked for the Judge stood outside talking, very nearly arguing. The dark, slim one, Frank, leaned back against their auto as the clown called Bayard strutted, waving his arms and pointing angrily at his companion. Corinne couldn’t make out their words, but the buffoon’s anger came through clearly enough.

When Lucille had introduced them, she’d said that McAvoy had sent them to assist with caring for the Judge. Corinne found herself shaking her head as she watched Frank light up a cigarette, puffing away with no sign of concern over his buddy’s tirade. What kind of care could these two possibly provide? What had she found herself mixed up in?

A sound, something between a moan and a whimper, caused her to turn back to the Judge. He seemed to be rousing, and was clutching tightly to the top of his sheets as if trying to drag himself back from a nightmare. He rose almost to a sitting position, his eyes open wide and flooded with terror. His lips moved, but no words came. Then he fell back and went still. Corinne rushed to his side and felt his wrist, following up with pressing two fingers against his carotid artery. After several moments passed, she closed his eyes and pulled the sheet over his face. Whatever the reason for his delay, the doctor would arrive too late.

FORTY-TWO

Bayard didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one little bit.

“Keep your head,” Frank said and puffed on his cigarette. His annoying habit of squinting as he smoked, something Bayard could usually ignore, made Bayard ache with a desire to draw his partner’s blood.

Frank opened the car door and climbed in. He sat sideways, hunched over, his legs hanging out.

“You
know
that scent,” Bayard said, nodding in agreement with himself. “It’s the same as how that Hollywood woman smelled.”

Frank flicked ashes from the tip of his cigarette and glared at Bayard. “All right. I know. Damn it. I know. Shut up, so I can think.”

But Bayard wasn’t going to be hushed, not this time. “They ain’t nothing to think about. Whatever was wrong with her was wrong with Ruby, too. And now it’s got the Judge.”

Frank didn’t answer; he just kept sucking on the damned cigarette. It wasn’t until it was mostly ash that Frank spoke. “We need to find out what’s keeping the doc,” he said and threw his cigarette to the ground. “You stay here and keep an eye on things. I’ll start at his house, maybe head down to the hospital in Tupelo if he ain’t home.” He swung around on the seat and cranked the ignition.

Bayard lunged forward and grabbed the top of the door before Frank could close it. “If’n he was home, he would have answered the four times you called.” Bayard blinked slowly, looking Frank up and down and asking himself how this pretty boy who thought with his cock had ever come to assume he was in charge. “And you ain’t leaving me here.” Bayard reached in over Frank and killed the engine. He took possession of the keys.

He had made the mistake of ignoring his gut in Hollywood. But unlike Frank, Bayard learned from his mistakes.

The memory of the day they’d spent in Los Angeles burned in him, and he suspected all the whiskey in the world wouldn’t put the fire out. He’d left Frank in the room where the King woman, Myrna, had put them. Twenty minutes had passed in that fancy movie star cage without a sign of her. While Bayard had spent the whole time pacing, Frank had just sat there, nearly as still as a statue. Contact with the actress had left him acting like he was drunk. Useless. He barely even nodded when Bayard told him he thought they should investigate instead of just sitting around. Realizing he’d have to take care of things on his own, Bayard had slipped down the hall, moving real quiet like he did when he sneaked into houses to watch people sleep.

He made his way down the shadowy hall in the opposite direction from which they’d entered it. He moved from door to door, poking his head around the casements of those he found open, trying with a cautious twist the knobs of those that were closed. Then he realized his cautiousness would make him look more suspicious if someone were to catch him. Not that that seemed to be an issue—the whole damned place was deserted. He could make as much noise as he wanted, he decided, and if anyone stopped him, he could just say he was looking for a place to piss. He couldn’t wait to find his boss’s daughter and get them all the hell back to Conroy.

But then he found the white room. Even after all these months, every time Bayard closed his eyes he saw the room, with its glossy tiles that covered the ceiling and walls. The floor was concrete and sloped a bit inward toward a large drain at its center. He realized in an instant all the possibilities such a room could hold. Through his fantasies, he’d come to associate the bleach smell of the room with a feeling of happiness.

It was there in the white room where he’d found Ruby, bound to a gurney by thick leather straps, straps that looked way sturdier than what you’d need to hold down a slip of a thing like Ruby. He crossed over to get a better look at her, drawing his knife to cut the straps as he did so. Her eyes were open, but they were all glassy, the black spots at the center way bigger than they ought to be. He waved his hand over her face, but she gave no reaction. She was alive, he could tell, but they had her on something. That much was for sure.

He raised his knife to start cutting through the straps, but his eyes landed on another gurney that had been pushed into the corner. This one was empty. It was bent in the center, warped like it had been twisted in some kind of vise.

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Myrna said from behind him, her voice still sultry. He forced himself not to react, even though her silent approach had thrown him. “They can be so unpredictable when they reach this stage.”

“What the hell have you been doing to her?”

Myrna didn’t respond to his question. Instead she looked at him and smiled. She drew near and held out her hand, palm up. “May I?” she asked, looking at his knife.

Without a second thought, he held the handle out to her. She took it and held the knife’s sharp blade to the light. She weighed it in her hand, seeming to admire its perfect balance. “Very nice,” she said, then handed it back to him. He took it from her, a sense of amazement filling him. The thought hit him that he could love this woman.

“So you’ve come in search of this little chickadee?” she asked, crossing her arms and tilting her head as she did. Bayard felt his head nodding in reply. “Well, this is indeed a first.” She turned to the gurney and traced a finger along Ruby’s jawline. “Then this was a mistake on my hunter’s part. I insist that only those who are alone in the world be brought to me. It helps us avoid so many complications.” She looked back at Bayard. “Don’t worry, the hunter will pay for his error.” Her eyes sparkled, as if the thoughts of just how she’d make that happen excited her. “He’s supposed to bring us the broken ones. The addicts. The penniless. The ones without family. Perhaps it’s time for me to consider replacing him. He’s artless in all this, you know.” She raised her hands and motioned around the tiled room. “To him this facility is just a functional setup, a place to administer treatments and dispose of the . . .” She paused and seemed to search for a word. After a moment, she gave a girlish giggle and a slight shake of her head. “The empties, if you will.”

She left Ruby’s side and came closer. “But for an artist such as yourself, it could function as a veritable atelier.” He didn’t understand her ten-dollar words, and she seemed to read the confusion in his eyes. She traced her fingers down his forearm, across the back of his palm, along the flat side of his blade. “A place,” she explained, “for you to work your
art
. To create your masterpiece.” She raised her eyebrows, posing a question without saying the words. Somehow she had read him all the way down to the roots of his soul, and she liked the darkness she saw there. “It’s even soundproofed, you know. As long as the door’s kept closed, no one’s gonna hear a peep. No disturbances, no need to creep around. You could conduct a symphony of your own creation.”

“What kind of treatments?” Bayard asked. He never lied to himself, especially
about
himself. He was strong, but he didn’t have much in the smarts department. He knew he would be willing to do anything she asked of him, but he worried that he wasn’t mentally equipped to rise to the challenge. He felt now that he’d rather slit his own throat with the knife he held than disappoint her.

“Do you find me beautiful?” she asked, ignoring his question. Of course he did. He found her so beautiful he couldn’t even form the words to tell her. Her smile told him that she understood. “Time is the thief of beauty. Every rose must fade.” She turned and took a few steps away, and the separation physically pained him. She glanced back over her shoulder at him. “Or at least I used to think so. But I made friends who showed me it wasn’t necessarily so.” She spun around to face him. “Tell me. Do you believe in the supernatural?”

He shook his head, not in denial, but to show he didn’t understand.

“Ghosts, witches,” she said, the words very nearly reminding him of the dread he’d felt before stepping into this room, “vampires?” Her eyes widened as she said the last word in a breathless whisper.

“I don’t know,” he said, a part of his brain telling him he needed to shake it off, grab Ruby, and get the hell out of here. There wasn’t much a man like Bayard feared, but his mama had scared him at night with stories of the witches who’d come and take him if he didn’t stop pissing his bed. “Maybe,” he said, realizing his grip had tightened on the handle of his knife.

“Your girl there.” She motioned toward Ruby. “She came here oh so willingly. She was excited to taste a little opium. Ecstatic at the thought of participating in a scandalous little black-magic ceremony.” She looked up, her excited eyes meeting his. “She has quite the taste for the outré, you know. Of course, in Hollywood, she and her beautiful boy are hardly unique. Finding young people looking to sell their souls to become stars is quite an easy thing to do. No, really. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. A never-ending stream of fresh, bright faces for your pleasure.” Her eyes narrowed as her lips pulled into a thin smile. “She flung herself at us. Oh, but she thought she was so clever. She thought she’d worm her bumpkin way into our lives, turn our secrets to her profit. Thought she could control us through her petty homespun machinations. She didn’t realize we could see right through her small-town schemes and tiny ambitions.” She cast a glance at Ruby. “Now did you, dear?”

“It don’t make no sense to shoot fish,” Bayard heard himself protesting, but he wasn’t sure if he’d said it out loud. If so, she didn’t seem to hear, or perhaps she chose to disregard him. All the same, a small part of Bayard’s brain had begun to protest. This woman was working on him, just as surely as she’d charmed Frank.

“I assure you, all of the purportedly imaginary creatures I’ve mentioned are quite real. Even vampires.” She gave him a moment to consider what she’d said. “In fact, your young lady here is halfway on the path to becoming one. My associates, you see, have managed to reintroduce a being that had been hunted to extinction, wiped, as far as we can tell, from the face of the earth.”

Bayard felt a cold shock jolt through him, then his armpits began to dampen. He cast a wary glance at Ruby. It was true; she didn’t look quite right. Her skin shone a silvery blue and looked kind of waxy. The weirdest part was her eyes. Besides being too big, the black bits in the middle were dotted with tiny specks of blue, looking like they were about to break free and rise to the top, like bubbles in water that was nearing a boil.

“The movies don’t get much right when it comes to vampires, but they are correct on one point. They can live forever, unchanged, immune to the ravages of time.” Myrna returned to Ruby’s side. “To ingest . . .” she began, but then chose a more familiar word, “to drink a vampire’s blood can turn you into one of them, allowing you the gift of eternal, healthy youth.” She winked at him. “Of course, there are drawbacks. First of all you fall utterly under the creature’s thrall. Were I to taste the blood of a true, full vampire, I would be turning my will completely over to the beast.” She reached her hands up to her temples and wiggled her fingers. “It allows them to get in here. To take control of your thoughts and actions.”

She lowered her hand, and leaned in toward him as if she intended to share a secret. “And if that weren’t bad enough, were you yourself to turn, to develop fully into a vampire in your own right, you’d combust at the touch of the sun and be forced to spend your ‘life’ as a leech, a captive to your own hungers.” She reached over and ran her fingers through Ruby’s dark hair. “Some might be willing to make such a trade-off, but I’m not one of them.”

She tapped her index finger on the tip of Ruby’s nose. “I’m just not one for extreme measures, now, am I?” she asked as if there were a chance Ruby might answer. “But my friends have stumbled upon a happy medium. Just as how they’ve learned to re-create the vampire, they’ve also rediscovered the method that allows one to reap several of the benefits of vampirism, without many of the worst drawbacks.” She looked away from Ruby, returning her gaze to him. “The allure of eternal youth and the ability to influence those around us made any risk seem acceptable.”

“Why’s she so blue?” Bayard asked, wondering aloud at the unnatural tone of her skin. It seemed unlikely a body with an ounce of life in it could have that color.

“It’s a rather lovely color, I think. I’m considering redoing the drawing room in a similar shade.” A smile curved on her lips that made him wonder if she was only pulling his leg. When he didn’t react, she shrugged. “A person exposed three times to the blood from a full vampire will most likely become a vampire themselves. But by employing certain measures, this transformation can be slowed down.

“We take advantage of the vampire’s innate allergies, certain metals, like silver in its colloidal form—the cause of the bluing of her complexion—and natural phenomena, such as sunlight.” Bayard didn’t understood a word she w
as saying, but his eyes followed when she pointed to some kind of opening in the ceiling above Ruby. She flipped a switch on the wall. “These things help to keep it in a weakened, manageable state. A few moments a day beneath this skylight, in heavily filtered sunlight, helps keep the beast at bay,” she said as a panel lowered, exposing a window covered by a red shade that was thin enough to let a dim light pass through.