"I, Vampyre" - Chapter Five

CHAPTER FIVE: The Big Bloody Apple

 

            I gazed out the tinted windows of the limousine, watching the nighttime lights and sights of New York City flash by.  The car sped away from Park Avenue, cruised silently down Eighty-something-eth Street, and then turned left on 5^th Ave.  Bellissima wasted no time in popping the ‘moon-roof,’ and her joyous laugh could still be easily heard as she stuck her upper body out into the open air.

            We drove by The Met, and my thoughts inevitably turned to where there had been another art gallery… in a certain, distant New England lighthouse.  My melancholy thoughts of Siren were mercifully brief, however, as Spike was a welcome distraction.  I couldn’t help but notice that we didn’t seem to hit any red lights; the sorceress was flicking her fingers, as if playing an invisible video game, flashing her trademark wicked-grin.

            We passed the Central Park Zoo -- a nearly overpowering menagerie of aromas assailing our sensitive noses -- and soon we were in the très-expensive shopping district. Belli pounded on the roof of the limo, trying to get Renfield’s attention… unfortunately for her, per Ad’s strict orders, a stop at Cartier or Tiffany & Co. was not on the to-do list.

            We continued on, and I watched uncomfortably as Spike kept trying to sneak a nibble (or perhaps more) from Adrianos.  He dodged and weaved… jesting as he did so, trying to make a game out of it… but it was obvious that Spike was getting more and more frustrated that Ad wouldn’t let her have a little bite.  Thus distracted, her stoplight-defeating enchantment must have lapsed, because the limo came to a halt at an intersection near St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

            I saw Bellissima’s legs move, as she twisted her body to take in the sight of the awe-inspiring church.  My thoughts drifted up toward the black, infinite sky overhead, the stars obliterated by the garish light of the metropolis.  I wasn’t a vampiric telepath, either, but I knew exactly what Belli was thinking about at that moment, all the same: her precious sanctum, the place that meant so much to her… to me, to us… the Cathedral.

            I lost my breath for a moment -- wordlessly cursing the fact that, as a (relatively) young vampire, my once-human body still tricked me into thinking it needed to breathe -- and that seemed to catch Spike’s attention.  She reached out and patted a hand on my trembling knee, just as the limo started moving again.  “What’s wrong, Nevi?”

            “Adrianos is dying.”  I blurted it out.  Lord Adrianos did not look pleased.

            Spike recoiled as if I had cracked my ‘Slayer whip at her.  “What do you mean?”  She looked sideways at her fellow Elder, fear and disbelief on her face.  “Ad?!?”

            Adrianos turned his now-sullen gaze from me to Spike, and opened his mouth as if to speak.  Instead, his eyes bulged as he grabbed the handkerchief from his suit pocket, coughing ferociously into it.  I surmised that he’d been stubbornly holding that one in for a while… when he pulled the kerchief away from his mouth, it was a blackish-red mess.

            When Spike worriedly reached out for Ad’s hand, the one clutching the bloody hanky, he quickly jerked it away, hissing angrily.  But his countenance quickly softened. “Spike, mon petite, it’s just that… I didn’t want you to worry unnecessarily.  I do not know what this is yet.  And… I fear it may be contagious.”

            I felt myself shrink away from Adrianos, pushing my back firmly against the black cushions of the padded seat.  Boldly, lovingly, Spike instead hugged him tightly, and kissed him lightly on the cheek.  “How did this happen?” she asked, whispering.

            Adrianos spared a glance up at the open moon-roof, but Bellissima seemed unaware of the bombshell that had just been dropped in the limo’s interior.  Her legs continued to dance a music-less tarantella, as she contorted this way and that to take in every possible vista of the city.  I realized, just then -- she’d never been to New York before.  It truly must have been a feast for her ‘young’ eyes.

            Ad’s infinitely-old eyes fixated on me yet again.  “It was a bounty hunt,” he said, in answer to Spike’s plaintive query.  “One I never even should have undertaken, but… the ennui of the immortal can be a sickness itself.

            “I tracked the target down in Philadelphia.  A fledgling vampire, hardly seeming worthy of the large bounty on his poor, condemned head.  It was an easy kill.  But something was not right, because his blood tasted… ‘funny.’

            “I knew something was wrong right away -- when I tried ‘porting home, I was miles off-course.  That hasn’t happened in…”  Ad’s voice trailed off briefly, and I imagined he was trying to express an adequately long unit of time.  “In a very long time,” he finished.

            “It’s gotten worse in recent weeks,” he continued, clenching one hand into a formidable-looking fist, while gently stroking Spike’s hair with the other.  “I’ve been losing my powers altogether.  I cannot teleport, cannot fly, can’t take other Forms.  I hardly had to sleep when I was healthy, but now I can’t sleep at all.  And, of course… that…”  He indicated the blood-soaked kerchief, which now lay in a guilty-looking pile on the limo’s floor.

            Spike rubbed Adrianos’s arm as she held onto him; it looked like she was trying to stroke the mysterious contagion right out of him.  “Do you think it was a trap?” she asked, and it seemed rhetorical to me.

            “Yes,” Ad agreed, staring out the back window of the limo, at nothing.  “That vampire was infected, somehow, and now the debilitating affliction has been passed to me.  I imagine a lesser vampire would’ve been dead already…”

            Spike choked back a wail, burying her face in Ad’s broad shoulder.  He looked over at me again, his bloodshot eyes ghastly.  “Let’s still keep this from Bellissima, if we can,” he said in a low voice, glancing upward again.  “I think it would upset her even more than poor Spike here… and we don’t like Belli when she’s upset, do we?”

            I slowly shook my head.  No… no we didn’t.

            Right on cue, Bellissima plopped back down on the seat next to me, a child-like grin on her beatific face.  “What an amazing city!” she enthused.  “The skyscraper we just passed… I couldn’t believe how tall it was!!”

            Adrianos frowned at that.  “The Empire State Building?  Renfield, turn us around!” he called to the driver.  “We have to go back to the New York Public Library…”

            The android (oh, enough with the artificial-person crap, he was a damn ‘droid!) nodded tersely, turning the limousine onto a quick detour down Twenty-something-eth Street, and we were soon heading back up 6^th Avenue.

            “Why the Library?” I asked, duly perplexed.

            “It’s where the ley-line that leads to the ‘Club is at the moment,” Adrianos explained.  Spike nodded as if that statement made all the sense in the world, sniffling and rubbing her eyes.  Bellissima gave her a sudden, askance look.

            “What’s going on?” Belli demanded, her nimble fingers nervously fidgeting with the ruby necklace.  “Spike, have you been… crying?”

            Spike rubbed her eyes and shook her head.  I took that moment to stealthily cover Ad’s bloody handkerchief with the sole of my boot.  “Yeah… hehe… I was laughing so hard at a joke that Nevi told us, I had tears in my eyes.”

            Bellissima turned to me, overtly disbelieving.  “And what was this hilarious joke, Nevik?”

            Suddenly on-the-spot, I had to think fast… but the only thing that came to mind was a terribly silly joke that a much-loved friend once told me: “Time flies like an arrow.  Fruit flies like a banana.”

            Spike snickered, Adrianos coughed softly, and Belli just continued to stare at me.  “That was supposed to be funny?” she deadpanned.

            “We’re here,” Ad announced, and the limo came to a smooth stop.

 

* * *

 

            Scant minutes later, the four of us were staring at the stone lions that ‘guarded’ the front of the library.  “GET HER, Nev!” Spike suddenly exclaimed, and I couldn’t help but chortle.

“So… what exactly are we looking for?” I asked, turning serious again.  “A laid line??”

            “You cannot see a ley-line, youngling,” Adrianos admonished, and I gritted my teeth in response to that condescending diminutive.  I started entertaining some dark thoughts at that point… like how, with Ad in his current condition, it might actually be a fair fight for a change.  “You just have to know that it is there.  And where it will lead you.

            “Follow me,” Adrianos said, and we did.

As we approached the dark, buttoned-up building, a security guard preemptively opened the door.  “Sorry, folks,” he said, amiably enough, “the library’s closed.”  Something about us must have spooked him, though -- what, we’re just four bloodthirsty vampires, for evil’s sake -- because his right hand dropped to the flashlight on his belt like it was a gun.

“Do you want to take this one, Belli?” Spike asked, tickling her fingers across Bellissima’s bare back.  The assassin stepped forward, her eyes darkening to a deep, midnight-blue.  She simply smiled at the woefully overmatched human, not saying a word.  He literally fell to her mesmerizing Glamour, sitting down on the concrete and shining the flashlight into his face, as if he could illuminate some hidden secret about his own pitiful existence.

Belli passed through the doorway, followed closely by Adrianos and Spike.  I brought up the rear, pausing briefly to whisper in the guard’s ear: “You got off easy, my friend.”

            The interior of the library was unlit, but we could see well enough with our ‘enhanced’ night-vision.  “Lead the way, Spike,” Adrianos suggested, and the sorceress set off with the determination of a bloodhound, her white hair trailing behind her like a beacon.  She was certainly, of the four of us, the most attuned to the strange ways of the arcane.

            As we all chased after her, the countless bookshelves quickly became a muddled blur.  On some primitive, instinctive level, I came to realize that we weren’t even in the library anymore.  Even though I had thought we were on the lowest level of the NYPL, we were descending… walking down what had become a creaky, iron-rod staircase.

            I wasn’t entirely sure we were even in New York anymore.  Somehow, we were outside again, though I could no longer detect the faux glow of the city.  Spike made her way through a maze of narrow alleyways… walking faster now, practically running.  Bellissima was looking about in unabashed wonder, just as I was, trying to keep up, while Adrianos had the calm and confidence of someone who had been here before.

            Then, as if all the paths inexorably led there, we came to a large building, a tavern, an inn -- ‘The way to the cage is out through the inn,’ echoed in my mind, and I shook my head to clear out the mental riff-raff.             

            A huge, ugly green monster was standing in front of the door, holding a ginormous battle-axe.  I would’ve said it was a troll, if I believed trolls existed.  The creature eyeballed us as we approached, but then grunted and (reluctantly, it seemed) stepped aside.  Adrianos held the door open for Spike, and I felt a weird sort of disconnected déjà vu as she said, “This is still one of my favorite places to get away from everything!”

            Bellissima turned back to look at me, unbridled excitement oozing out of her every pore.  She was so beautiful.  “This is it, right?  The Underworld Club!”

            I nodded, scarcely believing it myself.  “Shall we?” I asked.

            Belli clapped her hands, and dashed inside.  I stood there for a longish moment… telling myself that she had just failed to see the proffered loop of my arm.

            The troll brusquely nudged me in the back, and I stepped inside as well, the heavy wooden door closing behind me.

            And I could already smell her.

 

* * *