Paint It Black (19 page)

'So, you hate Morgan and want me to get him out of your way, is that it? Funny, Pangloss came to me with a similar proposal three years ago. Since you two - or should I say three? - are such good friends, I'm surprised he didn't tell you. You fuckin'

Nobles are all the same - too afraid to get your own hands

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) dirty! I couldn't care less about how you feel about Morgan.

Oh, I'm going to kill him all right But I'm going to do it for me, not some gender-bending bloodsucker! Oh, and Luxor? Once I've done him, I'm coming back for you. Both of you.'

I know I'm being followed. I felt my 'fan club' stalking me long before I left the West Village. And, from what I can sense of its mind, it isn't human. One of Luxor's by-blows, no doubt sent to keep an eye on me and find out where I'm dossing down. Well, it's going to discover that I don't like being watched - the hard way.

I pretend I don't notice him, making sure to screen my thoughts, just in case the dead boy on my tail actually has some esper muscle. I saunter along the streets, leading him in the direction of Alphabet City, my hands stuffed in the pockets of my leather jacket, whistling a tune between my teeth. I stop in front of a store on First Avenue and study an artfully arranged display of Day of the Dead figurines. A papier-mSche and pipe-cleaner skeleton dressed as a surgeon opens up a skeleton patient; a skeleton groom marries a skeleton bride, while a skeleton beautician washes the bare skull of a skeleton patron. I smile, charmed by such naive, and practical, interpretations of the After.

Even though it is going on four a.m., there are still people on the streets. I pass a handful of party-goers standing outside one of the Korean delis, clutching thirty-ouncers to their chests as they try to figure out where to head to next. A severely drunken man with a Jersey accent is bellowing into a nearby pay phone at the top of his lungs.

'Fuck you! Fuck-fuck-fuck!'

He tries to slam the receiver into the cradle, but misses.

This makes him so angry he uses the receiver to beat the pay phone's protective metal shell.

'Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!'

The party-goers back away, uncertain how to handle their companion's slide into alcoholic rage. The pay phone abuser then tries to throw the receiver at a passing cab, but it doesn't go very far. However, the momentum of his swing throws him into me as I walk by. The sound he makes as I casually slam him back into the phone is meaty, like that of a dog struck by a speeding car. He stops shouting 'fuck'. The party-goers, their eyes suddenly wide and sober, clear the sidewalk as I pass.

I feel my shadow hesitate. The unconscious drunk is tempting, especially since his companions for the evening have abruptly abandoned him to whatever fate might come his way. I don't want it to think I'm paying attention, so I keep walking towards First and Houston.

The entrance to the F train stop is in the middle of an

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) asphalt wasteland that claims to be a recreation area. A narrow strip sandwiched between Houston and First Street, it boasts a neglected swingset, a tiny handball court, a couple of fiberglass chickens set on oversized springs for toddlers to ride to nowhere, and a basketball court without a net Or a backboard. The rest of the area is painfully bare - except for when the homeless and the street hustlers set up their pathetic thieves' market on the weekends. But it is way too late for anyone to be interested in playing b-ball or picking over other people's rubbish. The early morning emptiness gives the area genuine urban menace.

I head down the stairs leading to the subway, switching from low to high gear. When I mingle with humans on their level, I often feel as if I'm moving underwater, like a thoroughbred horse racing with a handicap. But every so often, when no one is looking, I shed all pretense and move between the doors of human perception.

I flit past the token booth, pausing for a fraction of a heartbeat, staring into the bulletproof cage at the bored Transit Authority worker inside. To my eyes she is moving even slower than in real time, if that's possible, her index finger frozen as she pages through a copy of People. If she senses me at all, it is as a brief shudder of gooseflesh, nothing more.

No alarm is raised as I vault over the turnstiles and dash towards the uptown platform. I glide down the stairs, keeping to the shadows between the thick red columns that hold the crumbling roof aloft.

A bare concrete platform runs the length of Houston from First to Second Avenues, broken only by a single wooden bench and a center-post inlaid with red and white tiles. The platform is empty except for a bum, forced to sleep upright on the bench because of the wooden dividers that split the bench into individual seats.

There's a puddle of vomit between the bum's busted-out army boots. If I was a human, I would no doubt be nervous about waiting for a train in such a station.

I climb up one of the red columns and squat amongst the cross-beams, surprising a rat in its nest. It squeals at me and shows its teeth. I grab the animal and snap its neck in one clean motion, silencing its complaints. Satisfied, I peer down between my boots for my shadow's arrival. I don't have long to wait It is a male. Looks to be thirty-something. Dressed nondescript but respectable. A banker, maybe. Perhaps some variety of accountant Something very unobtrusive, but not worthy of contempt That is what vampires strive for in their camouflage - at least that's true of the majority. Only the older and more powerful ones flaunt their differences and risk drawing attention to themselves.

The vampire, like myself, is operating on high gear, which

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) means he's practically invisible to the human eye. If the bum comes to or another passenger walks onto the platform, all they will see is a blur at the corner of their eye. Perhaps, if they are particularly astute, they might feel anxious and be in a hurry to leave.

I watch, amused, as my shadow flits back and forth along the platform, snarling in frustration at my apparent disappearance. It seems Luxor has sent one of his duller drones. I wait

until the vampire is almost directly under me before dropping down. I tap him on the shoulder as I land, causing him to spin

around in confusion. I'm pleased by the fear and surprise on his face. It's been a long time since anything last got the drop on him.

'Lookin' for me, dead boy?'

I catch him with a left to the jaw and the corpse just takes it! His lower jaw swings free like a busted gate as I plow into

him, punching his gut hard enough to lift him off the ground a foot or two.

The edge is off the surprise, however, and the dead boy shrieks and claws at me, catching the side of my face and slicing it open to the bone. The mask of Marvin Milquetoast boy executive, crumbles and I find myself tangling with a gaunt red-eyed, noseless ghoul with three-inch fingernails and breath that could knock a buzzard off a shit wagon at ten paces.

We hit the ground, spitting and clawing at one another like a couple of wildcats in heat. Luxor's drone is strong - I'll give it that - but it lacks stamina. It's used to battening on hapless commuters and frightened street people, nothing more. It sure as hell isn't used to having a real fight on its hands.

I straddle the dead boy's chest, wrap my hands around its milk-white throat and begin to hammer its skull into the concrete.

I know I should take out my switchblade and do the deed and leave the rotting excuse for a bloodsucker's head on his master's doorstep as a warning, but I stay my hand. I want to kill the wretched piece of shit, but I want to do it slow.

'Freeze, punk!'

There is a gun pressed against the side of my head. I look up and find myself staring into the business end of a Glock, held by the bum that had, until a moment or two before, been unconscious on the bench. The bum, dressed in reeking rags stuffed full of newspaper, holds up a badge in a battered leather wallet. Great, just my luck! I was so preoccupied with the vampire, I hadn't bothered to check to see if the bum was real.

I let go of the dead boy and stand up slow. The muzzle of the Clock is barely an inch from my head. I could probably

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) take the cop, but I don't want to chance it. A bullet in the head's fatal, vampire or not.

The cop grabs me by the scruff of my jacket and throws me up against the nearest column. 'Okay, you! Hands up where I can see 'em! Keep those fingers spread out or I'll fuckin' break

'em, unnerstand!?'

Keeping one hand on my shoulder, he turns back to look at my opponent. 'Are you all right sir? I've got backup on the way -- do you need an ambulance?'

I hear the approaching sirens already echoing in the subway tunnels, like the screams of banshees rushing to a feast. So can the dead boy, and it's making him nervous. His assignment has turned out bad. Bad enough that his master would no doubt do something very unpleasant to him. Something worse than being dead.

'Sir, can you answer me? Do you need assistance?'

The dead boy moves towards him and the undercover cop gets his first good look at the so-called 'victim'. The sight of the vampire's dislocated lower jaw and his gore-smeared skull makes the cop shift his weight uncomfortably.

'Uh, sir?'

The vampire's on him in less time than it takes to swallow.

The cop screams as the dead boy sinks his fangs into his throat, somehow managing to squeeze off a couple of rounds into his attacker's midsection. The Glock punches huge, ugly wounds in the vampire's front and out his back, but it doesn't seem to faze him.

I grab the bloodsucker by the top of his head, peeling him off his victim like a leech. The undercover cop's lost a substantial amount of blood, but he's far from drained. He clutches his wounded throat, horror and confusion in his eyes, as I hold the vampire in a hammerlock. The beast spits and screams and claws at the air like a bobcat with a hot wire up its ass.

'Get the hell outta here!' I snarl. 'Now!'

The cop doesn't wait to be told twice.

The sirens are almost on top of us. I've long since grown weary of the game. It's time to play hardball.

'Shut the fuck up!' I hiss at the struggling vampire. When it refuses to quiet down, I slam its head into the nearest column hard enough to make something squirt out of its ears.

'I was going to kick your ass and send you whimpering back to your liege like a whipped dog. But then you had to go and

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) get cute and try and wipe the cop! That was stupid, dead boy!

Very, very stupid!' I emphasize just how stupid by repeatedly banging his head against the column.

There's a sudden rumbling and the platform begins to vibrate below my feet. The tunnel fills with a hot, gritty wind that smells of piss and electricity. I grin in anticipation. A noise from the upper level draws my attention away from the approaching F train.

A couple of uniformed Transit Authority cops thunder down the stairs to the platform, guns drawn, eyes bugging with adrenaline and fear. The one in front nearly steps on the wounded undercover officer, who got as far as the foot of the stairs before collapsing from blood loss.

The second uniformed TA cop, a painfully young Hispanic who looks more afraid than an armed man should, moves toward me.

The train drowns out his words, but it's not hard to read his lips.

'Transit Police! Halt or I'll shoot!'

So I hurl the vampire in front of the F train.

I see the conductor's face in the window at the front of the train. I see the look of horror in his eyes as he realizes what is happening. The train's going very, very fast even for late at night No doubt he's already been alerted to the trouble on the Second Avenue platform and has been ordered not to stop. The Other finds his anguish quite amusing. And appetizing.

The train keeps going, rumbling by like a great steel dragon.

The wind from its passing musses my hair and forces me to step back in deference to its blind, automotive power.

Clack-dack-rumble - brief glimpses of bleary, frightened faces peering out from the safety of the individual cars - and the F

train's gone, headed for the Broadway/Lafayette stop four blocks away.

The young Transit Authority cop, momentarily frozen by the passing of the train, still has his gun trained on me. I stand at the edge of the platform, hands upraised, smiling pleasantly. The cop's partner, an older Oriental man, circles me from the side, his gun pointed directly at my head. I smell the fear radiating from them, It's thick and pungent like that of a pot roast ready to come out of the oven. The Other's growing agitated. It wants to feed.

'Morning, officer.'

'You fuckin' crazy bitch!'

'I beg your pardon?'

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)

'You threw him off the platform! You killed that man in cold blood!'

'I beg to differ on both counts, officer. I didn't kill him - and he wasn't a man.'

'What?'

'Look for yourself.'

Without really wanting to, the younger cop glances down onto the track - and what he sees causes him to scream.

'Jesus, Diaz!' snaps the older cop. He's patting me down while trying to keep one eye on his partner. 'You've seen suicides chewed up by trains before! Get a hold of yourself!'

The younger cop doesn't seem to hear him. Instead, he begins to empty his gun at something below the level of the platform.

The older cop loses what little patience he started out with.

'Diaz! Cut the crap!' He has his cuffs out and is securing one of the bracelets to my left wrist 'We don't have time for bullshit like this!'