Sucking in San Francisco (2 page)

“Meredith, I feel like I’m going to hurl.” Meredith panics whenever vomit is involved.

“Quick Lily, pack up your things and go home. Someone can cover your calls,” she says with a green pallor.

That was easy. Packing up my things is easy too because of the ‘no personal items’ rule and I quickly melt into the fog-enveloped night.

Aidan promised to wait for me, I repeat like a mantra. While I wait I wish I had a coffee to warm up. I must be the only vampire I know who is addicted to peppermint mochas. Even if our hearts barely beat we still feel the cold. We have blood running through us. It just runs on the cooler side.

It’s wet and foggy out and I’m thinking that’s what I get for being environmentally responsible by taking the bus instead of my car. Thank God San Francisco has excellent public transportation because it’s moments like these when I say screw it. Give me a gas guzzler as long as the heater works. I hope the bus hurries. I don’t like leaving someone on the bridge.

I shuffle my feet and take in my surroundings, cataloging them just in case I have to bolt. A vampire is always cautious that way. Across the street, a homeless man with dreads drags his shopping cart stacked high with plastic bottles and cans for recycling money and a tired looking woman who shifts her balance from one foot to the other waits for the bus at my stop. The building behind us has a beautiful mural painted across it. A huge rainbow for the store Earthsong. Otherwise the street is quiet, just an occasional car passing by.

You’d think I should have something better to do. But here I am, campaigning to save mankind instead of devouring them. It’s my little moral dilemma. I don’t have it in me to take another life. Did it once and eternity is a long time to live with regret. Vamps don’t have to kill in order to feed. I make up for leeching off the human population with my job and I have to eat but I do my damndest to ease my conscience between feedings.

While I wait, I keep an eye out for suspicious characters. There have been two vampires staked in the last month. Makes me nervous. They were nasty, ruthless blood suckers. Since I don’t follow the philosophy that humans are food on the hoof, I feel safer being among humans. Still, I don’t want to be collateral damage. Being anywhere near a staking is like a cow hanging out at a butcher’s shop. Just not going to happen if I have anything to do with it. I get anxious about leaving Aidan on the bridge for so long.

A taxi stops at the street corner and I flag it down. Taking my handi-wipes out, I scour the seat before I sit down and then tell him to take me to the bridge.

He gives me a funny look but says, “Whatever you want, lady.”

He’s one to look at me funny. He has a Spanish accent and wears a turban. A bobble head of Obama jiggles on the dash while Liza Minnelli blasts out sultry sounds from the stereo. I guess he figures he has all the bases covered. You never know what you’ll pull out of the hat in this city. I sit back and tap my foot.

I look out the windows as we drift past all the painted ladies, as the locals call them. The huge Victorians are as colorful as their owners. The Haight has just as many unusual shops as it does elegantly restored homes. Soon we pass the panhandle of Golden Gate Park and slip past it towards the Bridge.

I keep thinking what on earth am I doing? I must have lost it sometime between when I went on shift tonight and that phone call. My head buzzes with the ramifications of my actions. This is the kind of risk-taking psychiatrists always warn about. Hell’s bells. I’ll just meet him and talk him out of it. If that doesn’t work, I’ll grab him and feed on him. My body gives me little warning signs that I’m due to eat, a gnawing ache in my stomach, ready to hunt, all my senses hyper alert and sensitive. Screw that, I’m past the warning signs, I’m downright thirsty!

Altruistically speaking, my venom will leave him dazed and then I can take him somewhere safe and let the hospital check him in. I’m pretty confident I’m strong enough to just grab him and pull him to safety. Hopefully I won’t have to resort to biting. He did sound quite yummy though… mmm… FOCUS, Lily! I can’t believe I’m thinking about this. I’ve never even contemplated something like this before. Sure I feed every week, but never would I mix business with pleasure. Naughty girl! See the dilemma. Blood is pleasurable, intoxicating to vampires but deep down I feel like I’m still doing something wrong, even though I know I would die without it. My friends think I’ll outgrow it. I don’t think I will. If anything, my convictions have gotten stronger and more complicated as I age. I see the beauty in life and in the blood. The irony in it. It drives me mad at times.

The taxi takes fifteen minutes to get to the bridge. I pay him and he gives me a crazy look when I get out. Like it’s not normal to take a stroll on the Golden Gate Bridge at midnight. I have to use my hand sanitizer because I touched the germy door handle, but then I’m off.

The fog is thick as it wraps its breathy mist around me. I pull my jacket closer as I start out. Despite my mission, I admire the lights strung on the support cables and along the walkway as they shine, muted in the fog. The bridge gently sways on its suspension. It’s eerie and somewhat sad. What a lonely place to end your life. I promise myself I won’t let him do it.

All I can hear is the soft thump of my Nikes as I walk steadily on, the lapping of the waves, no heartbeat, no breathing. I see a blue light shine from the center of the walkway. It must be some kind of beacon.

“Lilith, is that you?” a voice asks in perfect Queen’s English.

“Yes, Aidan, it’s me.”

“You’re early - I appreciate that,” he answers in a rich deep voice.

“You can thank the exceptional taxi driver who gave me a ride. I didn’t want to wait for the bus.”

He laughs softly.

“Aidan, it’s freezing out here! Do you think we could finish this conversation somewhere over a coffee? My treat.”

By now, I’m almost to him. The blue light must be right behind him because he looks like he glows with it.

“How rude of me to forget, you must be bloody cold. I suppose we could go somewhere else. I have to admit I’m surprised you came. Just when I thought there were no surprises left.”

“The world may still hold a few surprises,” I say and smile at him.

“Indeed it may.”

I’m right next to him and am positive that he glows a faint iridescent blue. The fog distorts it, but my vampire vision is excellent. He’s beautiful, gorgeous, eye candy to the max. He’s tall and lanky, wild sun-streaked hair in a boyish style. Ocean - colored eyes. His eyes take me in, all 5’4” of me, and I try to stand a little taller and stretch my short frame as much as possible. There isn’t much I can do about my strawberry blonde hair, it’s short and curly and does its own thing. My eyes are bluish green and I have good cheekbones and pouty lips going for me.

Something strikes me as odd. He doesn’t smell right. No luscious human smell. No rich blood flowing anywhere. What is he? Everything about him is wrong. I suck in a deep breath trying to find a scent. For the hundredth time, I wonder why I’m doing this.

“How are you?” I ask.

The hair on my arms stands up.

He thinks about it for a moment.

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether or not you’re going to tell me why a vampire is hunting down suicide victims in the middle of the night,” he says.

The acid in his tone could eat through the cables of the bridge.

Oh boy.

“What’re you talking about?”

He waves his hand at me and my body seizes like it’s in a vise grip. I can’t move a muscle except for my head. I struggle with every thing in me without letting him know. I don’t want him to know how scared I am. What is he? Is this how those vamps died? Please let me just make it home.

“You know damn well what I’m talking about, blood sucker.”

“What about you, glow-boy?” I sneer.

That startles him. Good, maybe he didn’t realize he glows to vampires. I’m sure he knows I haven’t a clue to what he is. Oh God, he might be the one staking vampires. I can’t move a flipping inch. All my senses are on overload with fear. I can taste the salt in the air and fog as it continues to roll in. But I can’t get a fix on him. No heart beat. No blood. He smells of sunlight, a sharp contrast with the night sea air.

He keeps me from looking away with his intense stare. “I want to know if you make a habit of luring your victims from your hotline. That is one of the lowest tricks I have ever witnessed from your kind and I have witnessed a lot,” he practically spits at me.

I can’t stop staring into his eyes. God help me, they are mesmerizing. Mesmerizing and filled with hate.

“Hey, whoa, buddy. You wanted to meet me here. I came against my better judgment. I would never take advantage of someone in this kind of situation.”

He’s quiet for a moment.

“What did you plan to do with me once you got here?”

I stifle my guilty thoughts about my little feeding-as-a-last-resort-plan and all my lusty thoughts before I answer. I struggle against my invisible restraints.

“I don’t know. I thought I could talk to you. Maybe talk some sense into you. If not, grab you and take you to the hospital.”

He raises his eyebrows as he walks around me, looking me over. He takes his time as if making an inventory. He definitely did not expect my answer. How the hell did he know I was a vampire? I still haven’t admitted to anything yet. I don’t think that fact has escaped his notice. Or is this all an act before he pulls out his sharp stick?

“What kind of leech are you?”

“Hey, no need to call names,” I say through clenched teeth as I try to move. “I’m just a person who cares about her fellow man. Life wasn’t so kind to me before the Big Bite either.” My voice cracks. Dammit.

He snorts. “Sure you care. I’ve never met a parasite yet that has.”

“I said no names. I’m not like most people. I don’t know who you’ve met so far, but they don’t sound very nice.”

“No, you’re right, I haven’t met any nice vampires. Very few nice people either,” he says thoughtfully. He dusts his hands off as if he has touched something foul.

“Looks like you’ve been hanging out with the wrong crowds, Aidan.”

He studies me for a minute and snaps a wicked grin.

“It seems I have and that I might be mistaken. Forgive me,” he says.

In one second he’s there and the next he’s gone. The binding grip is blessedly gone, too. My knees give way - I fall in the dark, in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge, in the middle of the night, wondering what in the hell has just happened. How did he do that? Who had I just talked to? And why, for all that’s holy, when he smiled did I get warm in that special place?

A vampire, by definition, cold blooded. A philanthropic vampire? A gorgeous, do-gooder vampire whose passion tantalizes like the breeze through orange blossoms? I must be insane. Me, a djinn, destined to walk the world alone or serve in slavery has just let a sworn enemy go. I’ve spent my life destroying vampires. Ever since the Djinn - Vampire war of 917. The vampires had made a campaign out of binding djinn using us to fight against each other. They adored sabotaging each other’s djinn. Never mind the pain and harm to the jinni. They starved us of energy to make us more ruthless, or so they thought. In fact it only made us weak and fueled our desire to kill our masters. It was a horrific time in djinn history. Hundreds of jinni were used up during that war, damaged or weakened beyond repair. Their essence simply drifted away. Joined the cosmic energy. Ceased to exist.

The vampires think of djinn as slaves. When they lose one, they bind new djinn to take their place. I swore to kill all the evil vermin I come across. My skin starts to crawl whenever I get near one. Good vampires don’t exist. I’ve never seen one and I’ve seen all of this world, watched humanity evolve. Why didn’t I destroy her? I’m befuddled. I’ve been miserable. That has to be the reason. I’m not thinking clearly. Her face haunts my mind. Of course, all the vampires I’ve met have been easy on the eyes - it seems to be a club requirement of theirs - but a beautiful, kind vampire? Entirely out of the question. I’ve seen every kind of blood sucker imaginable.

I once ran across one that was particularly nasty. Feasted on children, drained them and left them lying where they fell. They lay scattered like dolls, with their ashen faces and pale lips. The villagers thought a wasting sickness was passing through the village. It was disgusting. I blasted him, and regretted I couldn’t do it over and over again. Then there was Mathilda, a classic wicked step-mother, married about twenty wealthy men throughout Europe. The men died quickly and the children never made it past fourteen. I could go on for hours. They manipulate, intimidate, bewitch and seduce their victims and then gorge themselves when they only need a small amount of blood to survive. I’ve never met one that was worth saving. Yet I let this one live. I goaded her and she didn’t retaliate. She didn’t lie. There was something about this one. I can’t put my finger on it. I will find out. She wanted to help me. I could taste her sincerity.

I need to walk. I need to feed and a person’s energy is what I feed on, the more eccentric or intense the emotions the better. Swirling in the energy auras relaxes and stimulates me at the same time, like good jazz. The Castro at this time of night is a high-energy place to be. It’s effortless for me to blend in. A Gay Mecca, with its rainbow flag flying high. The Castro is filled with imaginative stores and bars. One of my favorite places is Cliff’s Variety Store, there are always a plethora of people coming and going from there or Hot Cookie. Both are closed this time of night, but the bars are open. It’s always good to be around people and this community has more than the usual flavors. People here are not afraid to experiment and try all lifestyles. It’s like going to Baskin-Robbins. I especially like energy that’s been stirred up a bit.

I wander into a drag show. It’s steaming with energy. The performer looks more like Marilyn than Marilyn did. Everyone in the crowd is dressed up, trying to be something different for the night. So much energy, I’m feeling better already. I see a woman who reminds me of Lilith. The way she holds her mouth, defiant and beautiful.

My meeting with Lilith has stirred me. Awakened a desire for mischief that I thought couldn’t be rekindled. Tonight I thought I was done in this world. I am curious for the first time in centuries.