The Last Vampire (5 page)

She disliked being driven by others in motorized vehicles, and this driver was typical of these wild folk. In addition, he would certainly remember a run with a Thai man and a European woman.

Her victim sat rigidly, gripping the handhold above his door. When he offered her a cigarette, she did not like what she saw in his eyes. Did not like, did not quite understand. Their instinct was to be drawn to the predator, to be fascinated.

She let him light her cigarette, inhaled deeply. Cigarettes didn’t matter to Keepers. Their immune systems swept cancer cells away like crumbs.

An impulse told her to give his cheek a sudden kiss. “Asia,” she whispered, “Asia is such a mystery.”

“I’m in outsourcing technology. No mystery there.”

“Your accent isn’t Thai.”

“My father was a diplomat. I grew up in London and then Burma.”

She remembered the days of the British in Burma, when they used to grow opium poppies on huge Crown estates. They had looked upon their laborers in much the same way that Keepers looked on humans. You could go out into those opium plantations and chew seed and take one picker after another, like an ape gobbling fruit. And then you could engage in the social life of the planters with their whites and their billiard rooms and their gin and tonics. Sometimes, you could even take one of them, for there were still tigers in Burma then and the corpse could be left suitably mauled.

Sweet nostalgia.

They arrived at the Royal Orchid, the cab at sea in an ocean of limousines. She went forward into the broad, echoing lobby. Women stared in open amazement as the fabulous clothes strode toward the check-in desk.

“I’d like a suite please.” She presented her — or rather, Marie Tallman’s — Visa card. The clerk ran it and gave her a keycard, his polite glance moving toward the next customer in line.

She had made no effort as yet to seduce her victim away from his uneasiness. He needed more subtle handling, and she had to accept that this might not be a successful hunt. She’d be damn mad if it failed, though, and the long journey to Paris would be hell.

She held out her hand to her victim. As sweetly, as innocently as she could, she smiled at him. He looked down at her hand. In it was a keycard. “Twenty-five-oh-seven,” she said.

When they were alone in the lift, he finally smiled up at her. His odor had not really changed, though. He was not happy to be here. He was acting.

She kissed him on the forehead. Now that she was committed to what was probably a very foolish kill, she decided that she might as well enjoy herself thoroughly. She would take him slowly and drain him to the very last drop. She gave him a stern look. “How much am I worth to you?”

“How much do you want?”

“A thousand dollars.”

His eyes widened, he reared back as if astonished. The lift came to a stop on the twenty-fifth floor. “Two hundred, miss. H.K. dollar.”

They got out. She would not bargain all that hard, but also she must not raise his suspicions. “Three hundred, U.S.” she said as they walked down the wide hallway.

“Five hundred, H.K.”

“It isn’t enough to cover my expenses, handsome.”

“You’ll do twenty men before the night’s out.”

She slid her keycard into the lock. Here she was, as magnificent a beauty as the earth might know, and this greedy little roach actually believed that she was going to give herself to him for the equivalent of about sixty U.S. dollars. He’d been afraid of her price, that was all. Wretched thing.

Sunlight poured in from the wall of windows that faced the door. There was a couch upholstered in yellow chintz and a huge vase of exotic flowers on the coffee table.

Far below, the wide Chao Phraya River shimmered in sunlight that shafted down between great banks of clouds. Tiny river taxis and long-tails wove the river with their wakes. Up the bank, she could see the spires of distant temples, Wat Phrathukhongka and, just visible along the Klong Phadung, Wat Trimitr, the temple of the Golden Buddha. Farther away, awash in glowing air pollution, were the graceful tile roofs of the Grand Palace and the pencil-narrow spire of Wat Po.

The two of them gazed in silence, both awed for different reasons. He no doubt thought it glorious; she was horrified and fascinated, as always, when she saw how vast were the works of man.

She sat down on the bed, drew her prey down beside her. Too bad she had to eat and run. Normally, she would have gone into the sleep that followed feeding, but this time she’d have to load herself up with amphetamines and do her sleeping on the plane. She’d book a first-class seat for this twelve-hour journey, no matter that the seats were in the most dangerous part of the plane. Still, the idea of entering helpless sleep amid a mass of humans was not pleasant.

She caressed her victim. He stirred, his clothes rustling. A moment passed, another. He had become still in the way human beings did when they were subconsciously aware of danger.

They were sitting on the foot of the bed. She took his chin in her hand and turned his face to hers. She looked into his eyes, looked deep.

What did the gleam in those human eyes mean? She always wondered that, right before she fed.

“Kiss me,” she said to the creature. He smiled a drawn smile, then lifted his face to hers, his lips going slack, his eyelids fluttering down. She laid her lips upon his, careful to keep the anatomy of her mouth concealed. Their tongues met, and she felt his muscles stiffen a little as he detected that hers was as rough as a cat’s. If he bolted, she would be ready. She was ten times stronger than the strongest human being, ten times faster.

A cat worries its prey because pain flushes muscles with hormones that season the meat. This was true also of her kind, and some of them were casually cruel to their victims.

Stroking his head and purring, she laid him against the pillows and opened up his pants with her deft hands. She took his member out, smiled, then kissed it.

Then she stood before him. She removed her blue silk jacket, twirled, then unbuttoned her blouse. He watched with steady concentration, a slight smile on his face.

Instinct made her sway into the death dance, her arms undulating, her hips moving gracefully. Each time she twirled, her body became tighter and harder, more and more ready. As she danced, she threw off her clothes.

She stood before him naked, like a wound spring, her hands ready to grab him. There was in his eye a sort of curiosity, for she was very pale indeed, as pale as a ghost and as slick as glass, more like a statue than a being of flesh and blood.

He would soon discover that she was also cold, very cold. She sat down beside him and kissed him. But something was not right. As she had kissed him, he had returned himself to his pants.

No matter, she was sexually excited now herself. That was part of her reality and what made her so very different from the others of her kind: humans excited her. She liked their bodies, the way they tasted and smelled, the way they looked, the curves of the females, the pert rods of the men. Perhaps this was because she had discovered that she was capable of taking them to states of pleasure that Keepers could not reach with one another. Sex between species could be a stunning aphrodisiac, if executed with skill.

She lay down upon her little man, snuggled him into her. He seemed to be struggling with himself, fighting an inner battle. She reached into his pants, to see if she could resolve the conflict for him. A few deft strokes, and he was ready.

The human male was not blessed with a large penis, and it probably felt strangely lost in her vagina. He would also be noticing the cold. In fact, she could hear him making little exclamations in his throat. He was becoming aware that something was wrong.

“There, baby,” she cooed, “little baby boy, all is well.”

He started heaving. He wanted out from under her. She was, of course, far heavier than she had appeared. She tightened her vaginal muscles, over which she had exquisite control. When she began undulating them, he yelped with surprised pleasure. He’d probably never felt anything like it before, not even in Asia.

Her mouth was pressed against his neck, her mucus flooding his skin with anesthetic. Her sharp teeth parted the skin so easily that he probably felt nothing at all. There was a bit of resistance from the wall of the vein. She made love furiously as she exhaled, made herself ready for the ferocious sucking motion that would consume his life.

His muscles worked, he twisted and turned. He would be feeling both the pain of penetration and the pleasure of sex. He grimaced, his eyes shut tight.

She stayed like that for a while, making love at first fast and then slow, bringing him close, letting him relax. She left her mouth wide open to the wound, letting the blood tick past, tasting it just a little, enjoying herself.

When he began to really squirm, trying to reduce what must be by now a quite noticeable pain deep in his throat, she pinned his arms to his sides and enclosed his legs in her own. Her strength was so great that it felt to her human lovers as if they were being encased in iron, or so they had always told her.

The penis, on the other hand, would feel as if it were being massaged by thousands of tiny, careful fingers. One man described it as the most divine sensation he had ever known. He begged her for it, even while he was dying.

She worked him to the edge twice more. His body was a roaring furnace; his blood was singing. She was deep in him, her drinking beginning to kill him. It was now, at this moment, that she was sure that she felt his soul.

She sucked massively and fast, the sound of it roaring through the silent, sunny room. He did not even have a chance to cry out. As he died, the pumping of his loins became disorganized, then stopped.

The blood came into her like living fire, like a flower opening in her gut. Then came the bittersweet flavor that followed the blood, that meant that the organs had also given up their fluids.

She got off him, sat on the bedside and lit one of his cigarettes. Taking a long drag, she enjoyed the sensation of absorbing his life. The males and females felt quite different. After consuming a woman, you had a ferocious sort of an energy in you. You felt as if you could tear the world in half. A man left the flavor of his strength. You got a heady, hard-edged high from testosterone.

She got up and strode to the window. The healthier they were, the more you got from them, and this creature had been very healthy. Her face got hot, her body flushed warm and pink.

She went over to the mirror and touched the reflection of her face. She had been a woman before; now she was a girl, fresh as dew, her eyes sparkling and innocent.

Still enjoying the taste of blood that lingered in her mouth, she rifled through the man’s clothing. She’d get his money, then dispose of the remnant and go straight to the airport. She could still make her Paris flight. The European clan was not as big as the Asian, but it was wise and ancient, not like the adventurous Americans. Europe had fixed the Transylvania situation by transforming true vampire lore into myths and stories. Europe would know what to do.

She drew a fat brown wallet out of his hip pocket and tossed it open. Poor wife, smiling so desperately, will you miss this man or feel relief that he has gone? And here were children — damn!

She was furious with herself for looking at the pictures. She never looked at the damn pictures! She held the weathered print of the kids, wondering how old they were, poor little things. She stuffed it back into the wallet, pressing it deep into one of the pockets.

It was then that she noticed a rather strange card. At first, she thought that it might be a Thai driving permit, but when she looked more closely, she found that it was very far from that.

Lying in her hand was an identification card. She stared at it, reading it carefully. It was in French, English, and Chinese, not Thai at all.

The sunken husk lying on that bed over there, now nothing but forty pounds of bones and drum-tight skin lost in a pile of sheets, was no innocent Thai businessman. Lying there were the remains of Kiew Narawat, police inspector with Interpol.

Her breath came short, her skin grew hot and dry. She felt dizzy, her bowels threatened to let go. She threw on her clothes, settled her wig on her head, and applied a smear of lipstick to reduce the glow of her fire-red lips. Going deep into her purse, she pulled out three yellow-and-black bennies and threw them down her gullet. Sleep would drag at her now, but she must not let it come, not until she was in her plane in her seat and covered with a blanket.

Forgetting the remnant lying on the bed in full view, forgetting everything except escape at any and all cost, Miriam Blaylock made a mistake of spectacular proportions, one that she had not made in three thousand years upon the earth. Indeed, it was a mistake so rare that it could bring a Keeper the penalty of confiscation of property.

So distressed was she by the events of the past few hours — the discovery of the disaster in Chiang Mai, and now this horrible discovery, so loaded with dreadful implications — that she left the remnant where it lay.

There was only one thought in her mind: Get out of here. She hurried into her clothes, barely even stopping to see if she had left any of her possessions behind, and took a taxi straight to the airport.

W
hen Paul Ward had first realized what the confused Interpol e-mail was about, he’d felt as if the entire Petronas Towers complex were about to topple into the streets of Kuala Lumpur. But the towers were fine. Only his program had collapsed.

Jesus God, he screamed silently, they were like roaches. He had cleared them out of the whole continent, sanitized it. And now, instead of cleaning out his office in Kuala, preparing for departure to the States and the start of the endgame against them, he was racing through the streets of Bangkok in this clanking old embassy Caddy.

Paul Ward was dealing with one smart breed of animal. How smart, he had just plain not understood, not until now.

He pressed himself against the seat of the limo, instinctively keeping his face in shadow. It was always possible that they knew him, he thought, that they would recognize him. He watched the people thronging the streets and wondered if Bangkok, or any city, would look the same if its inhabitants knew that predators a thousand times more dangerous than the tiger or the shark might be walking just behind them.

The damned thing of it was, he’d even run his traditional victory celebration, with all the traditional goodies, stolen in all the innovative ways that his crew could come up with. There had been a couple of cases of Veuve Clicquot borrowed from the Sûreté outpost in Ho Chi Minh City, a couple of cases of beluga borrowed from the KGB in New Delhi, and a whole bunch of dancing girls who came to the crinkle of the dollar — counterfeits made in Myanmar and borrowed from Pakistani intelligence by the redoubtable Joe P. Lo, who could steal venom from a cobra.

They’d been saying good-bye to the General East Asia Pest Control Company. Good-bye and good riddance to their ironically named front organization. This had been a miserable, exacting, assignment, and an extremely dangerous one. Will Kennert, Addie St. John, Lee Hong Quo, Al Sanchez — these were just a few who’d died fighting the vampires.

If he hadn’t needed to be totally and completely centered for the task ahead, he would have told the driver to stop at a bar. He’d go in and suck sacred Stolichnaya like a Russki at the nipple of his still. He’d get a massage that lasted all night. Masseuses in relays. Every sin he could think of and — thanks to being in good old Bang-yer-cock — some he probably couldn’t.

“Goddamnit!” he suddenly said aloud.

“Sir!”

The driver didn’t know that he talked to himself. Why would he? People didn’t know Paul Ward, not even embassy people. They weren’t supposed to. “Sorry, son.”

The flight from Kuala had exhausted him — just sitting in that damn seat, waiting through what seemed an eternity. He’d tried the phone, but it hadn’t worked. The Gulf of Thailand was still an empty corner of the world. He hated empty places, dark places. He hated small places even more. Recurring nightmare: he comes awake, starts to sit up in bed, and
wham,
his forehead hits something with such force that he sees stars. Then he realizes that the air is heavy with his own breath and he can’t sit up without braining himself. He knows, then, that he is in a coffin.

He knew a CIA guy called Richie Jones, who’d run afoul of the Khmer Rouge and been buried alive. Somebody who’d been in that prison compound had reported that you could hear him screaming for about half an hour. From Ohio State to a lonely hole in the jungles of Cambo. Had Mr. President ever been told about Richie? Had Mr. Director of Central Intelligence known or cared? Weep a tear for the Buckeye state, for it has lost a son.

To die the way covert ops died in the field, damn hard and damn alone — Jesus God, pass the bottle. And to do what he and his crew were doing, to live the way they were living, chasing these monsters in the sewage and the filth of some of the world’s most terrible cities, getting yourself eaten if you weren’t careful — Jesus God, pass the bottle again.

He was tired. They were all tired. It had been a hard operation, soaked in the blood of fine men and women. And what a death. It’d be better to be buried alive by a bunch of twelve-year-old Khmers with AK-47s and dead eyes, than to be stung in the neck by one of those filthy things.

Long before he’d been forced to come back, Asia had been a place he wanted to put behind him. Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, 1971 to 1973. In those days, life had less value than dirt out here, especially American life, and most especially the life of a clean-cut CIA virgin with a buzz haircut and wire-framed glasses. He had made it through the Parrot’s Beak massacre when Danny Moore had been pulled apart between two backfiring tractors. He had lived through six weeks in a bamboo cell with nothing but roaches and rats for food, while Betty Chang was methodically raped to death and George Moorhouse starved. He had survived because he was too ugly to rape and so cussed that he could crack rats and drink ’em, blood, guts, and all.

He fumbled in the little cabinet that was supposed to be stocked with booze. “Got any vodka in this thing?”

“No, sir.”

Of course not. A CIA officer didn’t rate booze in his car. This was the U.S. Government. The foreign service kid driving this thing outranked him by a damn country mile. The kid and the limo had appeared at the airport only because there hadn’t been time to find a conveyance shitty enough for a CIA field officer. Had he been from State, there would have been booze and ice both.

“The goddamn bastards.”

“Sir?”

“Nothing.”

Paul wished they’d sent a girl driver. He wanted the scent of a woman in this car. He wanted, he thought, what all men want. He wanted deliverance.

He closed his eyes. Instantly, he saw an old and hated vision, the prairie grass dancing in the moonlight. He opened them again. He could not go there, no. Better to stay with the wartime memories or the memories of sterilizing those filthy dens with acid. How in hell was it that these things looked so much like people? How had they evolved? Had God gone nuts?

The prairie grass dancing in the moonlight, his curtains billowing with moon wind, and in the distance, the most beautiful voice singing: that was the beginning of a life woven from nightmares.

Paul slapped his breast pocket. Pillbox in position. He’d take two tonight, maybe three. Black sleep, please.

“Shit,” he said softly, and then, “Shit!” louder.

“Sir?”

This kid would chatter that he’d had to drive a muttering old crazy man to the Royal Orchid Hotel, and then he’d try to find out just who this VIP third class was.

He would not find out.

The State Department could not tell anyone about Paul Ward because they could not tell anyone about the vampire project. If they did that, they would also have to explain that humans are not at the top of the food chain, that we are prey, legitimate prey, just as nature intended. What is worse, they’d have to explain that the predator is damn clever and has evolved some very remarkable camouflage. The predator, you see, looks just like you. Except that his skin is as pale the light of an October moon, and he will sing to you and dance for you, and comfort you in his arms while he kills you. As far as looks are concerned, you can’t tell the difference between a vampire and your postman or your doctor, or your own damn brother.

No involved division of any involved government had questioned the secrecy of this operation.

He stared balefully at the back of a stopped truck. Was it parked, or what?

“Can’t you hurry?”

“Sir, this is Bangkok.”

“Mind if I drive?”

“You want to drive, sir?”

“I need to get there before dark, for Chrissakes.”

“Look at the street!”

“Son, excuse me, but get me there now!”

The car shot forward, slamming up onto the sidewalk. An enraged pedestrian hammered the window as they smashed through a food cart.

“You damn fool! That was that guy’s rice bowl!”

“You told me to!”

“I didn’t tell you to hurt people.” Above all things in the world, Paul hated to hurt. He would put a fly out the window rather than swat it. He would watch quietly as a mosquito gorged on his blood, then brush it off when he thought it was getting greedy.

Ironic, in a man who had killed so much. When he slept at night, his legions of dead would steal near: the kids who’d died in the dark corners of Vietnam, the victims of the vampires, the crew members who had not returned. They would call to him; they would stroke him with their cool hands; they would beg him to return them their lives.

He would wake up awash in sweat and choking with terror and regret. He would go to the brutal light of the bathroom as to an altar afire with candles, and gulp the pills of oblivion. Black sleep.

Asia had made him love certain very bad things, chief among them opium. Better than hash, better than grass, better than coke or any of the new designer drugs, far better than the brute high you got off horse. Opium was a deep pleasure, something wonderful that connected earth and soul. It made you feel at peace with the eternal world. He loved the mechanisms of an opium high: the long pipes, the sweet vapor, even the tickly lice in the greasy old sheets of today’s few real opium dens.

Paul Ward had sunk deep and sinned hard. Why not, my friends? Tomorrow we die.

Well, that was what they’d thought back in the seventies, listening to Kissinger on Armed Forces Radio. It had seemed hard then, before he knew about vampires, but it had really been easy.

The Jungle Jamboree. No way could you do opium then. He who tripped died.

Still true now, at least for him and his crew. Killing vampires was horribly dangerous. They were quick, so quick that they could throw a knife at nearly the speed of a bullet.

They could not be killed with normal gunfire. You could empty the biggest, most evil weapon in your arsenal right into one of the damn things and it would just stare at you with its deceptively calm eyes, waiting for your bullets to run out. You had to destroy the head.

If you cut them open after they’d fed, they would gush blood like exploded ticks.

The Book of Names had identified twenty-six vampires in Asia. He and his crew had burned out or poisoned or dismembered twenty-four vampires in Asia, and found the remains of two ruined lairs, creatures that had lost their lives on their own.

Accidents happened even to vampires. They weren’t perfect. Statistically, if you live long enough, you will meet with some sort of accident. That was their disease — statistics.

That’s why vampires did not travel. They were highly territorial and obsessed with accidents. So the trick was to kill them all in a given area as quickly as you could, then move on before the others realized that they were gone.

Paul’s next target was going to be Europe. There were many references to Paris in the Book of Names. He’d been looking forward to working out of Paris. Not that he disliked Kuala, but he could use a little less humidity and a little more familiar beauty around him. The Musée Marmottan with its magnificent collection of Monet water lilies was a favorite. He considered Monet to be one of the most evolved of all human beings, on a par with the D. T. Suzukis and Foucaults of the world. From those paintings, a man could obtain the true balm of peace. The light that shone in from the garden at the Marmottan, that light was holy.

“God help me!” he cried out loud.

“Yessir!”

“Please, son, be quiet. And stop running people down.”

“I didn’t run anybody down. I just got around that truck.”

“You need to go back there later. Give that guy some dough for his cart.”

“Sir?”

“Without the cart, he and his wife will starve. Their children become prostitutes. Do you understand that?”

“Sir, I hardly think —”

“Do you understand that?”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

Could this be a marine out of uniform? No, look at the hair. Foreign service all the way. He was just yanking Paul’s chain with his military lip. He’d be sneering later with his State Department buddies about the old CIA asshole he’d driven around.

With his cart wrecked, that fruit vendor might as well open his veins, and Paul knew this kid would
not
go back, he would not give the guy the twenty bucks it would take to put his life back together again.

Funnily enough, Paul was in his work because he liked people. He’d seen the CIA take such incredible shit over the years and save so many damn lives. The Company could not defend herself, not without giving away secrets she was bound to keep. So she just took it. He’d seen the effects of all the Company bashing in his own life. There’d been a time when the merest hint of a Company connection brought women swarming like darling honeybees. Not anymore.

The car swung around another corner, and the Royal Orchid Hotel finally appeared down the smog-hazed street.

What the hell was he about to find? This would be the first actual victim they had ever had a chance to study. The vampires were obsessive about destroying remains. Except, apparently, this time.

Still, there was something very bad about all this. He could smell it, but he couldn’t quite see it. A place is wrapped up, finished. Then, suddenly, it ain’t finished.

Okay, think. Think it out, Paul: All of a sudden, they leave evidence in a hotel. The hotel is on a continent that has just been sterilized of their presence.