The Foul Mouth and the Fanged Lady (17 page)

Her eyes caught mine. “But I’m not a
woman.”

I shrugged;
maybe
she’s not so
horrible after all. “There’s always a damn string on the deal,
haven’t I learned.”

As she walked past, Annie B elbowed me in
the stomach hard enough that I forgot how to breathe. Yeah, and
maybe
I called it too early.

[CLICK]

I almost walked back outside. Whoever ran
the Embassy loved AC more than I did, which is saying something,
since I’ve been known to freeze out many an old lady shopping for
teapots. Again, not the best for sells, but it gives me some peace
and quiet.

“Santa’s hairy tits,” I mouthed since I
couldn’t speak on account of my vocal cords freezing shut. Didn’t
help the weirdness vibe when Annie B let go a little moan the
moment the cold air hit her. My only reaction was my balls working
their way up my prostate. I’d never expected to get frostbite on
this gig, but it had just become a possibility. Cold, very cold,
cold as Hope Hunting’s twat cold.

Annie B walked over to a closet right by the
door, pulled out a pair of gloves and handed them to me. There were
fur sweaters and thick jackets inside too, but I guess she didn’t
like me enough. Pair of gloves, that’s what I’m worth. “For our
human guests. We understand our differences concerning . . . bodily
needs.”

“Yeah . . . bodily needs,” I mumbled as I
put on the gloves that didn’t do a damn thing for the majority of
my needs. “I don’t think I’m ever going to pop a stiffy again after
this.”

A small smile cut her face as she led the
way down the hall. “I find that hard to believe given your
reputation.”

Fog dripped from my mouth, frosting the air
around me. Couldn’t even escape the gray indoors. “Even I can’t
overcome biology.”

“I can.”

Our steps were loud in the empty hall. Had
to be other people here, right? And how big was this place? It’s
San Francisco, realty was insane . . . but this place wasted this
much space. It was a sign, I guess. Along with the walls and the
cold, no one greeting you:
get out and stay away
. Annie B
headed for a pair of closed doors, but you’d expected a waiter or
something, like the little Igor asshole from the movies, scuttling
around like a cracked-out midget.

She can
, I thought. “I’m not rising
to the bait.”

She still answered. I would have dreams and
nightmares over the answer for months. The kind of crazy shit where
it mixes and you ain’t sure which it is, one moment it’s all good,
then you’re getting stabbed or ate . . . or a girl is telling you
she’s pregnant. Horrible stuff. “When I’m
inside
a human, I
can manipulate their blood flow just as I manipulate my own. How
strong it is . . . where it goes . . .” She gave me a look, tongue
tip finding her lip, “How long it stays there.”

“So . . .”

“Hours upon hours . . . no relief . . .”

Stay away from the pretty string, King
Henry.

We found our reception committee on the
other side of the doors. Finally it looked like a modern building
and not a medieval crypt. Desks and chairs, a television on the
wall, even a food setup that seemed to be sporting vamp enjoyable
food and drinks of iced tea and fruit slices chilled over a tray of
ice, even some kind of mushy looking ice cream the last color I
wanted to see at that moment—red. The room had dark wood, not stone
like the outside of the place or the hallway, and could have passed
for a doctor’s waiting room or a businessman’s office. Four
vampires sat behind their desks.

[CLICK]

A break again for me to give you a little
explanation on Vampire society that isn’t in
moron-being-led-around-by-a-vampire voice. I’ll keep it simple.

This is all the basic info you get from your
History of Elementalism
class first year at the Asylum, but
I suppose we all need a refresher from time to time.

Vampires, you need to know about vampires .
. .

The vast majority of vampires live in a
nomadic hierarchy where rank is dictated by ability level, which in
itself is often dictated by maturity. Real vampires—not the sparkly
ones who hate garlic—ain’t immortal; they simply live so long that
they might as well be. This means where you and I take twelve or so
years to hit puberty, vampires take a much longer time and even
then they have more than one change they go through. Certain
abilities are required for certain jobs, so you won’t see a certain
rank that isn’t tall enough to ride the rollercoaster as it were.
This means age matters a great deal, just like in the legends. Some
trees live thousands of years, vampires can live longer.

The nomadic part of their society stems from
chasing the temperature they need in a habitat to operate at
efficiency. Anything over seventy which doesn’t have industrial AC
is out. You’re not going to see vampires in Africa, South America,
or Australia, at least not more than one here or there who has been
ordered to be there. Mostly it’s North America, Europe, and Asia,
the northern part during the summer, drifting down during the
winter. Only the Vampire Embassies are stationary, manned by a
small staff all year long.

As far as the hierarchy goes, the first rank
is
servantman
or
servantwoman
, sometimes just
shortened to servant. That’s the bottom floor, the just born
vampire: new body, confused, getting used to their new world. A new
vampire is never born into a Joe-Anybody. That doesn’t happen. They
live a long time, they’re harder to kill than cockroaches, but they
don’t spawn at a high rate. We’re talking a century between splits
and centuries more before a vampire can reach the ability to
procreate. When a vampire knows they’re reaching that time, they
pick out a target that’s needed for vampire politics or something
of the sort. Hence the servant—they keep living their normal life
pretending to be human while actually helping out their new
species.

The next rank is
gentleman
or
gentlewoman
, which is where most vampires stay at, the most
common rank, usually those that are fifty to one-thousand years
old. A gentle is a vampire that has done its time, entered society
wholly and steps away from its human life without anyone watching
their every move.

Then come the job titles.
Baron
,
marquess
,
count
, and
duke
, and of course for
the ladies,
baroness
,
marchioness
,
countess
,
and
duchess
. A baron is a kind of U.S. Marshall or Texas
Ranger job, they go around finding vampires out of line or people
messing with vampires and then they deal with them, usually with
the harshest punishments. A marquess is in charge of money matters,
checking up on embassies, and navigating estates for vampires
keeping wealth in the modern world where a person must ‘
die
’
every eighty or so years. A count is in charge of military matters
when he is called upon by a duke to protect an embassy against
outside threats: most likely being a Were Nation out of control or
a certain mancer who is causing problems . . .
ehm
. A duke
runs an embassy, he’s in charge of the staff, visiting vampires,
and with keeping his area quiet, he also communicates with other
local dukes to know which vampires are coming his way.

There are also higher ranks . . . but I
didn’t know of them back when I first met Anne, so it’s not fair to
mention them, I suppose. We’ll stick with what I’ve said. Back to
the moron out of his league.

[CLICK]

I started a slow pooling of anima the moment
I stepped into the room. I wasn’t exactly expecting trouble, but
it’s best to be prepared for anything, especially when you’re
surrounded by creatures that want to eat you—it’s a mancer rule
too, not just a pussy-devoided Boy Scout one.

Four vampires sat behind their desks. Two
were men and two were women. Unlike Annie B, they were dressed like
normal people, not pornstars out for a night on the town. My gaze
judged each in turn, looking for vulnerabilities and weighing
whether they were going to give me shit. Judging intentions had
always been a gift.

The woman closest to us stood the moment we
stepped into the room. She was a short little thing, blond and
blue-eyed with a strong, straight nose splitting her face, just
attractive enough to be a problem but not so beautiful she scared
guys away, which means she’s constantly asked out every time she
comes in contact with single men. She had a very emotive face that
hinged upon what her mouth was doing and now it was in a full grown
frown, the whole of her face and forehead going along with it.
Lady-in-charge who’s sick of men asking her out, ability to give
me shit:
lots
.

The second woman sat farthest away from the
door and didn’t bother to move, only continued to type at her
computer screen, refusing to pretend we existed as long as she had
work to do. Some kind of latina, not sure which country, but she
had dark hair cut short, big black eyes and skin a color that
battled over the border of bronze and full out gold.
Secretary,
ability to give me shit:
only if I need someone to get me a
drink
.

The two guys were each bigger than the last.
One looked like a linebacker that loved him some grilled food; red
hair, green eyes, had a kind of ZZ Top beard going on that hadn’t
been in style since the Civil War, and a gut of fat hanging
just
so
against his shirt where you barely noticed it. You got to be
careful with fat people in a fight. Sure, they might tire, but on
the other side, a fat gut can take some serious punches without
feeling a thing. It can also hide muscles on their arms and legs
and they might
not
tire out.
Muscle/thug, ability to give
me shit:
a sure thing unless I distract him with a
milkshake
.

The second guy was a perfect mound of
muscle, brown hair and brown eyes, another beard belonging in the
Civil War, one of those on-the-sides-but-not-the-face kind of
flaring sideburn jobs. The way he held himself, he thought he was
something special and everyone else in the room should be bowing
down before him in awe of his superiority, the kind who doesn’t
like it when you don’t bow, especially if you are smaller than he
is.
Second-in-charge, ability to give me shit:
hit the
bastard in the balls the moment he looks your way
.

The first woman, the little blond thing,
addressed us—well . . . addressed Annie B. “Baroness, such a
surprise . . . we were not expecting you again so soon,” she
apologized for the lack of greeting at the front doors.

Annie B’s expression conveyed that if anyone
gave her shit she’d shit right back on them, and she’d be using a
sewage truck. “I told you this wasn’t finished yet.”

“But—”

“Did you disturb the crime scene?” Annie B
asked, pausing only long enough to be answered. I was right on her
heels, figuring it’s the safest place. Not the time for my mouth to
start up. Despite popular opinion—I can control it.

“Of course not, Baroness . . . but we agreed
that—”

“No we didn’t,” Annie B snapped. So, she
was
a baroness, guess I should have figured it. Made sense
given how tough-no-nonsense she’d been and given that she seemed to
be dealing with a theft of some sort. Funny thing about that rank,
it’s the first step into the extended hierarchy of vampires, but
it’s the only one that gets to tear down the whole system if it has
a bug up its bunghole. “You assumed this was finished, Gentlewoman
Moore, I knew it
wasn’t
.”

“But we agreed our geomancer could not track
the item in question and that it is pointless to continue
exhausting him,” Gentlewoman Moore tried another route to get where
she wanted to go. Her frown only made her cuter, which is hard to
pull off. It wasn’t the frown of a stupid person, just the frown of
a smart person at work.

“Yes,” Annie B agreed, “Your geomancer is
worthless and barely graduated from their school
and
is
addicted to three different narcotics. Even if he
could
manage it, I wouldn’t want to use him. There are, however, other
methods and
other
mancers in this world.”

Three Vamps looked my way, the secretary the
only one too busy with her work. The mound of muscle with the
freaky sideburns asked, “That what the little human is? A
mancer?”

The other guy, the fat linebacker, grinned
down at me. “Looks like he’s just your dinner from the night
before—look at him, low on blood. Don’t suppose you brought him
back to share?”

Gentlewoman Moore glanced at my neck, her
face going tight. They could really tell just from looking? Could
have been worse . . . they could have seen my
Carebears
band-aid. “We would have provided you with a donor, Baroness,” she
murmured. “It’s our duty despite your belief in our failure.”

Annie B said nothing and Sideburns filled
the void, “Look at the pissed off look he’s giving us, like he
thinks we can’t rip him in half and eat one side for breakfast and
the other for lunch.”

Linebacker agreed, slowing inching towards
me. “Wouldn’t make much a meal though, so maybe he should know his
place as a human and turn his eyes like a good little treat.”

Annie B studied my reaction as intensely as
Ceinwyn Dale ever had. Me? I just shrugged and kept on staring at
the pair of them, but I spoke to Annie B, “You know the problem
with beating so much ass in a row? You just get tired of doing it.
Then, when a couple of morons come along looking to measure dicks .
. . it just bores you out of your mind.”

“Regretfully, Gentlewoman,” Annie B said
across our standoff, “Events kept me from returning for a donor. I
was unpredictably pushed beyond any limit I’d expected to
near.”