The Falstaff Vampire Files (18 page)

“Oh, that’s not necessary.”

“I insist. Our offices are well concealed. You’d never find us on your own. I must go, the sun is rising.”

“Fine. I have to rest now too.” But he had already hung up.

Larry dropped by a little later in the day with a shopping bag full of food.

“It’s traditional, Kris,” Larry said as he unpacked the bag. “You won’t feel like cooking, but you need to eat. Bram took off for Arizona, but he made me promise to look in on you. Are there any relatives coming in? Any funeral planned?”

“I’m going to go through her phone book in the next day or so, but Larry, could you not mention this until I see what’s going on with her relatives? Her lawyer called today and I’m going to see him Friday. It might be touchy.”

Larry nodded. “I’ll do whatever you need, just give me a call. I didn’t know Vi well, but she was a great lady. Do you have someone coming over to help out?”

I hated to admit how few friends I did have—none at all who would understand this. After Mark died, the friends we saw as a couple drifted away. In recent years I had settled into a routine with Hal as my lover, Vi and Larry as my closest friends. Hal was gone. Vi might be back, but that was not comforting. “I’ll be fine.” The word “desolate” popped up in my mind to replace “fine.”

My thoughts must have showed on my face. Larry gave me a big hug, “Give yourself some space to grieve, but call me any time you need to talk or just someone to sit with. I could tell Bram was worried about you—I think he likes you, as we used to say in junior high.” He winked.

“He’s a wonderful person.”

Larry volunteered to see some of my clients, and I didn’t realize till he said it how much of a relief that was. I was in no condition to listen attentively to someone else’s problems. After they left, I thought about how my friendship with Larry had lasted over several years—and in each of our cases several boyfriends.

I had met Larry at a retreat for Jungian therapists. Just the sort of thing I would normally avoid. My resistance was so low for the year after Mark died that I made it a point to stay upwind of any kind of salesmen or conference organizer. The few times I encountered one they instantly honed in on me like wolves attacking the weakest in the herd.

Larry had presented himself with his deceptively quiet face and ironic tone, brimming with more positive energy than I had seen in years. “My name is Larry Segovia, and yes, I come here often. Practically every bloody weekend as a matter of fact, and it has made a wasteland of what was once a modest social life. You might as well get used to me. You can tell me about yourself now.”

I was so shaky and Larry radiated such warmth and kindness under his arch tones that I blurted out that my husband had just died. Larry said, “Oh, poor baby!” And without an instant’s hesitation put his arms around me and comforted me with a hug. I hadn’t realized till that moment how much I needed to be hugged. We became friends over the weekend. Our friendship deepened over the years.

And now I was lying to him about Vi’s death.

The usual way to deal with death is to gather your loved ones around you, share memories of the person who had died, and keep busy making funeral and memorial service arrangements. I felt a flash of anger at Vi for embracing all things vampire and putting me in this situation. That was followed by a wave of guilt. If I hadn’t led Sir John to her doorstep, Vi would still be alive.

I had some idea how to deal with death and no idea at all how to deal with a vampire best friend. Who was to say that the vampire life was better than no life at all? Until a week ago I wouldn’t have said it was even possible.

A moist velvet nose nudged my hand on the chair’s arm. Ariel, the little black tuxedo cat, had hopped up onto the table next to a long-cold tea mug, landing so softly that I hadn’t known he was there. He stepped over to balance on the chair arm and looked at me with his intense green-eyed stare. He had a white chin, neck and chest that really did look like formal evening wear, and long white whiskers. I reached out and petted him, and he moved forward to my lap, curled up and began to purr. Soothing.

Sly emerged from his hiding place as well and moved onto the other arm of the chair. He started purring when I petted him. I relaxed a little more. A few minutes later Hamlet emerged from hiding under the chair I had been sitting in and stretched out on the floor, like a miniature black bear rug resting his head on my foot.

These particular friends weren’t much on conversation, but they provided an unexpected amount of comfort as they settled in to wait with me through the next few days.

Chapter 51

Kristin Marlowe’s typed notes

August 23rd

For three days I put down enough food
for five cats, but I didn’t see the two female ferals Vi had dubbed “the furry princesses.” They must have waited to eat until I left the room. Ariel, Sly and Hamlet had no such scruples. They claimed me as their honorary can opener and litter box emptier, and clustered around me at every opportunity. Petting the cats soothed me better than any therapy I could imagine. When they purred I felt better, and they wouldn’t brand me as delusional or give away Vi’s secret.

I didn’t realize that I was starved for human contact until I found myself replying to an email from a man who answered my online personal ad. The thought of Bram’s kisses and his hands on me drove away any interest in online flirtation. I replied to Mister-Latte that there had been a death in the family and a lot of personal complications, so I was not available.

He didn’t seem discouraged, and replied that I should feel free to email anytime. I recalled that his reply to the question about marital status had been odd. I looked again. He had written, “It’s complicated.” Oh. Probably married, but who cared? It only made me feel better about deleting his emails. As I did so I realized I hadn’t thought of Hal in days.

Chapter 52

Kristin Marlowe’s typed notes

August 23rd

A black Mercedes sedan car
arrived at the appointed hour with two men in the front seat. The driver was white—deathly pale, in fact, while the man in the front passenger seat was ebony black with a detached air. He came up Vi’s front steps to ring the bell. “We’ll take you to Mr. Morford’s office,” he said, and turned slightly to beckon me down to the car.

“Just a minute.” I took a photo of both men and the car’s license plate and emailed it to myself and Bram—captioned will call later, or use this info. “Just so you know that there’s an official record of this ride.”

Neither man replied or even acknowledged that I had spoken. The black man held the back door open. After I was seated he returned to the front passenger seat. They said no more until we reached our destination. I looked at the backs of their heads and hoped I wasn’t going into a dangerous situation.

At Forest Hill Station the black man opened the door for me to get out, closed the door and nodded to the driver, who drove away. My escort led the way through the early evening Muni passengers down the funky steps to the train platform. He went to an obscure door I hadn’t noticed and tapped in a code on a keypad. The door opened. He led me along a concrete-floored tunnel leading down. We seemed to be well below the level of the trains when the corridor leveled off. He opened another door that didn’t seem to be locked, and surprisingly we walked into a marble-floored hallway that looked like a conventional old-fashioned office building, a hallway of wooden doors with frosted glass panels. One door read Morford & Bates.

The outer office contained only five straight chairs lined up against the wall opposite two more doors. A tall, thin man with black hair and eyes came out of one of the doors. He was dressed in an old-fashioned black suit.

“I’m Edgar Morford, and you must be Kristin Marlowe.” He gave me a very cold hand to shake and nodded to my escort, who sat down on one of the chairs against the wall. Morford ushered me into the inner office and gestured to a chair across from a desk that looked as if it were made from solid ebony.

He leaned back in his chair and looked me over for a few seconds. “First of all, you’ll be happy to hear that Violet Semmelweis did rise as we had hoped, at dusk this evening.”

“She’s alive?”

“She is undead.”

“Can I see her? Where is she?”

“You’ll see her very soon. She assured us that you could be trusted to help her. What we are about to discuss must remain confidential—for Violet’s protection, and your own.”

“She’s my closest friend—of course I want to help. But I’d like to talk to her.” Preferably away from Edgar, who did not inspire trust.

“One thing at a time, please.”

“I saw her die, and those strange men came and took her.”

“That was the beginning of the process Sir John set in motion. She’s ready to make decisions about how to handle her . . . new existence.”

“She’s—one of them.”

“One of us. Yes.”

“But she always bitched about how fictional vampires are all young and built like strippers.”

The lawyer spread his hands and a smile suddenly rose out of nowhere. I didn’t see any fangs, but it was not a very broad smile. I got the feeling he didn’t show amusement often. “Violet did ask if there was a dress code.”

“I’ve always wondered that too. What’s with the formal evening wear?”

“We find it useful to spread a bit of—how shall we say? Disinformation. Think of it as media hype. After all, you’d be on the alert if some gentleman in sideburns and an opera cape and an exotic lady all in black moved in next door, right?”

“Well, this is San Francisco. That wouldn’t be too unusual.”

“Yes, but you get my point. We focus attention on a cliché that doesn’t exist. It would be more disturbing to think that anyone out after dark could be a vampire. The ordinary citizen behind you on the bus could be undead.”

“So where do you keep the old ladies?” I kept arguing to keep from shaking, I was so nervous.

“At this hour they’re out riding the buses, looking for a meal.” He paused.

“I appreciate the effort at humor.” I hoped he wouldn’t try it anymore.

He raised an eyebrow. Maybe that hadn’t been humor. “Some walk, take taxis or drive. At this hour most of them will have finished, or be pursuing their first meal upon rising.”

He smiled again, and I began to see that he smiled when he was uncomfortable. “By our nature we are not subject to any kind of equal opportunity regulations. We make our own laws—and enforce them.” He paused for emphasis, the smile gone. “It just happens that fewer senior females form relationships with vampires that then—transition into the undead state.”

“Hmm. I wonder why.”

“Kristin—may I call you Kristin?” He paused, didn’t seem to breathe—did they breathe? I was pretty sure I remembered Sir John coughing and breathing. But this quiet office made me realize how much quieter vampires were than humans.

I nodded. “All right, then I’ll call you Edgar.” Somehow I doubted that I would.

“If you wish. Kristin, our organization protects an extremely vulnerable group. To put it bluntly, dead people have no rights. Even our charter as a foundation is framed in such a way as to evade scrutiny. Your friend Violet was lucky enough to die with property. Remember that old saying, ‘You can’t take it with you’? Our goal is to educate new vampires and find ways to protect our members’ possessions, so they will have a small measure of security in their undead state.”

“That makes sense. Rogue vampires would probably bring some heat down on you.”

“They could bring us attention that would cause all of us to be destroyed. By educating new vampires we protect our existence.” His voice was stern. “Sir John is a case in point. Did he tell you the story of how he became a vampire?”

“You mean being hanged and burned as a martyr and rescued by a vampire?”

“Yes, he’s told me about that too.”

“He doesn’t really seem like the religious martyr type.”

“Is there a type? I always thought it was a matter of being stubborn in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Morford cleared his throat.

“I know. I saw the woodcut.”

Edgar smiled a little more broadly, still no visible fangs. “If that is true, it’s one of the earliest documented examples of Vampire Disinformation—and a brilliant one, it’s in the history books. But that may be as close as we’ll get. After so many centuries, it’s hard to know the real truth. Sir John is as much rogue as vampire, and I’m not sure which came first. But I do believe his story that he entered vampire life with less than the clothes on his back, and he has survived with grace and wit and inspired immortal plays and operas. Believe me, his recommendation is a high one.” He cleared his throat, a little misty at the thought.

“I haven’t seen Sir John since the night that Vi, that Vi—” My voice broke, determined not to show weakness in front of this man.

“Sir John always strays, but he shows up again.” He pushed a box of tissues toward me, and I took one and quickly dabbed at my eyes. He cleared his throat. “Vi is awake now and impatient to see you, but we want to establish a secure nest where she won’t be disturbed in the daylight hours. The logical choice would be the Clement Street property that she owned in life. We’re completing the paperwork so she can transfer it to a special trust the SFUFO has set up.”

“I don’t see how it’s possible, since she’s dead and you say your organization doesn’t exist in the real legal world.”

“Technically all of that is true, and the date on the document might be suspect if it weren’t for the fact that the signature on the will and trust documents are completely valid, as are those of the impeccable witnesses. First let’s discuss the terms of Vi’s will, or as we refer to it, her Undying Declaration.”

He tapped the document spread out before me. “She hopes you can manage daytime feeding and caring for the cats. That includes spending at least an hour with the cats during the day, grooming, veterinary visits—interest income from the estate will cover the cats’ care. It’s all outlined in the document. During the evening, you can simply leave the basement door open and Vi will take care of them.”