The Vampire's Seduction (47 page)

All conversation among the irregulars had stopped as Otis, Rufus, Jerry, and Rennie took in the spectacle that was Lamar Nathan Von Werm. His silvery white hair was gummed up into little icicle spikes all over his head. His black leather jacket was too big and boxy, and his matching pants too tight. When the irregulars weren’t loitering in my garage, they were hanging out at some real bad dives—if Werm even set foot in there, he’d get his ass kicked. And that’s not even considering the eyeliner and black nail polish he was sporting.

“Boys, this here’s Werm,” I said.

Rufus and Jerry sniffed the air, making Werm for a vampire immediately. Shapeshifters and vampires can always spot each other, or smell each other. Rennie, who was human, wouldn’t have been able to tell that Werm was undead if I hadn’t already warned him. Otis, who wasn’t a shifter but wasn’t completely human either, was looking at Werm like he was from the planet What-in-the-Sam-Hill-Are-You?

I introduced the irregulars, who grunted their acknowledgment of Werm’s presence but didn’t offer to shake. I couldn’t say as I blamed them. I had my hopes that Werm would grow out of his goth phase pretty soon. Goths made excellent dinner guests, when they
were
the dinner. It was damned embarrassing to be seen with one of them on a regular basis, though.

We were all standing around the card table. The boys had brought me the items I’d assigned each of them to get, since shopping is not easy for vampires. I don’t always have time to get out to the all-night Wal-Mart, and besides, the flourescent lighting makes my skin look like I just stepped out of a wax museum. Makes those Wally-world “associates” a trifle nervous.

“Otis, what’s that rusted grill for?” I asked.

Otis had rolled in a waist-high charcoal grill, the old round kind, painted in black enamel. “It’s your altar,” he said proudly. “You said you wanted something you could set up outside. You can burn your candles and incense inside this baby without starting any brush fires.”

“You’re nothing if not practical,” I said. “And if I get hungry I can always roast some wieners.”

“Or some wiener dogs,” Jerry suggested. He shrugged when nobody laughed. Nobody mentioned the V-word at the garage, not even Rennie, who’d known me longer than any human besides Mel. From time to time, Jerry referred to my nature indirectly, but I let him live. At least I have so far. Jerry handed over a pack of tea lights from Dollar Tree. “Nothing but the best for you, hoss.”

“Thanks,” I said. Jerry was tall and muscular, unlike Otis and Rufus, who were lanky and wiry. I could probably count on him in a fight but hadn’t ever had to call on him to watch my back. I hoped I never would. For all I knew, he might owe more allegiance to a pack leader somewhere. He was big and strong, but I doubted he was alpha.

“What is all this stuff for again?” Rufus asked. He was a shapeshifter, too, although I had a feeling he was a different variety than Jerry. His ears weren’t as pointy as Jerry’s, and he never came around when the moon was full.

“Some voodoo ritual William’s housekeeper wants me to do. It’s supposed to make me stronger or something.”

“I’ve got to do one, too,” Werm said proudly, “to develop my own natural strengths.”

“Yeah, well, you look like you need all the help you can get, sissy boy,” said Jerry.

Werm reddened with anger, but he kept his mouth shut. I was sorry for the little whelp. He thought that becoming a vampire would make him an instant badass. No such luck. Poor little bastard was probably still getting sand kicked in his face down at the nightclubs. Since I’d made him swear not to bite humans, he complained of being a vampire in name only. Still, it was better than him winding up in the city lockup with sunshine streaming through the windows until he was cooked well done.

Werm put the incense on the card table, along with the other items that the gang had helped me gather up. It was like a messed-up redneck scavenger hunt. Rennie got the list Melaphia gave me and ticked off each item with a pencil. White rum, cigars, cedar sprigs, white candles, incense.

“Who’s got the food offering?” Rennie said, and looked at the others over his Coke-bottle-thick glasses.

Otis stepped forward with a small bag. “It’s a chicken leg from KFC,” he said. “Extra Crispy.”

“I’m an Original Recipe man myself,” said Rufus.

“Me too,” Rennie agreed solemnly, and handed the list over to me.

Jerry weighed in with an observation on the secret herbs and spices, and a debate broke out on the merits of pressure cooking versus slow roasting. While they were busy with their discussion, Werm sidled around the table and handed me the papers.

“And they think
I’m
a pussy,” he muttered sullenly.

“Watch yourself,” I said, folding the sheet from Rennie and stuffing it into the breast pocket of my chambray shirt in order to keep it separate from the other papers. “Three of them could probably eat you in a couple of bites and pick their teeth with your bones.”

Werm must have thought I was speaking metaphorically because he only shrugged. “Why do guys like that always pick on me?”

I took the papers from him and began to scan them. “Have you looked in the mirror? Maybe it’s the earbobs.”

“Why do they smell funny? And why did my fangs tingle when I got within smelling range?”

“They’re shapeshifters,” I said. “Two of them, anyway. I don’t know about the other one. That’s one of the things I’ve got to teach you—how to recognize other nonhumans. Remind me to do that someday.” I glanced at the papers before folding them and sticking them into my back pocket.

“You’re shitting me, right?” said Werm. “You mean, like, werewolves?”

“Yeah. Like werewolves. Don’t get your panties in a twist.”

Werm stared at the irregulars with alarm. “How many other kinds of—of nonhumans are there out there?”

“Lots. Listen, you chose this existence, remember? Your nice little sheltered human life is over. You’re a creature of the night now, and you’ve only traded one set of guys who can kick your ass for a whole different set of guys who can kick your ass. Only this time, they’re not going to have baseball bats. They’re going to have long, pointy teeth. And you’re going to have to learn to deal or die. Welcome to the dark side, pal.”

Werm let this sink in, nodded, and drew himself up. Despite his appearance, the kid had heart. And brains. If he kept his nose clean, I actually thought he had a chance to survive. For a while at least.

Changing the subject, Werm asked, “Why did you want to know about Mayans?”

“Never you mind.” I’d asked Werm to run an Internet search on the Loa Legba, who Mel had directed me to pray to. I also had him do a separate search on anything having to do with Mayan goddesses. I needed the voodoo lowdown to come up with my own spirit ceremony. The stuff for Connie I’d go over later in private.

“You run on along and pray to that herb god or whatever it is that Melaphia told you about.”

He brightened a little. “The god of
really
secret herbs and spices. I’ve got some pretty good weed I can burn as an offering, maybe even get a good contact high. But first let me see how you do your ritual. Then I’ll know more how to do my own.”

I was going to tell him to shove off, but I already felt guilty for not having the time to teach him any more vampire stuff than I had. He’d just gotten a rude introduction to shapeshifters because I hadn’t taken the time to prepare him for other creatures that went bump in the night.

“Follow me.” I swept the items from the table into the grill, replaced the cover, and rolled the whole thing right past the ongoing fast-food argument and out the back door of the garage. I settled the grill onto a nice flat spot.

“First things first,” I said. I screwed the cap off the bottle of rum and threw it aside. “Here’s to the Loa Legba,” I announced, drank, and passed the bottle to Werm.

He sniffed it prissily and said, “Don’t you want me to get us some Coke to drink this with?”

“Son, that would be the ruination of two good drinks. You’re a vampire now, a tough guy. Drink like one.”

Werm glanced at me doubtfully and took a snip. He busted into a prolonged coughing fit and handed the bottle back to me, glad to get rid of it.

Werm opened the package of candles while I bit the end off the cigar Jerry had brought and spat it into the dirt. I lit it off one of the candles and drew on it until I got it going real good. Then, while Werm was lighting the rest of the candles, I tried to remember what Melaphia had told me to do. The first thing that came back to me when I thought about the meeting was the look on William’s face when he’d kissed Eleanor’s hand.

Hellfire and damnation.
I took another long swig of the rum, feeling the burn all the way down into my guts. I had completely chickened out of telling William about Olivia’s discovery of Diana’s existence. But how could I tell him? In the days since Eleanor’s making, he’d been a different man, er, vampire. His mood was more upbeat than I’d ever seen it. He’d even been patient with Werm at the meeting. If that didn’t signal a sea change in William’s attitude toward the universe I didn’t know what did.

He was . . . happy.

I marveled at the thought.
William
and
happy
didn’t belong in the same sentence, but it was right there in his eyes. How could I tell him something that was going to make his world fall apart? But I had to if I wanted to save myself. What was the rush, though? Diana and William had been separated for hundreds of years. What would another few days’ difference make? If I thought about it long enough a solution would surely come to me. I took a long draw on the bottle, as if the answer to my problem was hidden at the bottom.

I drew the papers out of my pocket and handed them to Werm, who began to read about the Loa Legba by the light of the candles. “It says here that he is the great phallic deity.”

“I’ll drink to that,” I said. “That’s what the gals down at Eleanor’s used to call
me.
Not in so many words, you understand.” I raised the bottle high in salute and took still another drink. “To Loa Legba! My man! He can throw it over his shoulder like a Continental soldier.” In my rapidly inebriated state, the words
shoulder
and
soldier
turned into a mouthful of slurred mush, making Werm giggle.

“Have you fed tonight?” Werm asked, taking the bottle from me.

“Nope. You?”

Werm screwed up his face, took a drink, and screwed up his face again. “No.” Werm swayed a little as he handed the bottle back to me and peered at the papers. “The words are trying to swim away from my eyeballs. Hey, I didn’t know vampires could get drunk.”

“You bet your ass we can.” I took another drink. “Over the fangs and through the gums.”

Werm looked up at me in wonder. “Coooool,” he slurred. He stared at the words as if he was trying to interpret hieroglyphics. “It says that the Loa Legba appears as an old man with a cane and a sack, and that he’s the guardian of the gateway.”

“What gateway is that?”

“The one from one world to another. That’s all it says. My inkjet cartridge ran out.” He shrugged. “Sorry.”

“That’s okay. I’ve got the prayer Melaphia wrote down for me right here.” I took the list out of my shirt pocket and turned it over to the back. Melaphia’s neat handwriting looked like gibberish. Some of the words were foreign, and even though she’d spelled them out phonetically, I still could make sense of only a few of them here and there. I was going to have to wing it. What could go wrong?

“Okay, gramps. This one’s from the heart,” I said. I handed the bottle to Werm, who took another drink, nodded approvingly, and handed it back. I raised the bottle and sprinkled a healthy shot or so over the altar.

“Uh, I salute you. I honor you. And I ask you to—” I stared at the paper again. “Open the gateway. Yeah, that’s right, and I guess I’m supposed to ask you to make my natural vampire powers even stronger.”

“I think that’s the key,” Werm said sagely. “That’s what Willyum and Mela—Melaph—Mel said.”

“Yeah,” I said. I set the bottle down and made a sweeping gesture toward the other items on the grill. “All this stuff here is for you. The candles, the cedar, the incense, the chicken. So open that ol’ gateway of yours and let the sun shine in.” I snickered. Maman Lalee help me, but I did.

“We didn’t know if you liked Original Recipe or Extra Crispy,” Werm said and busted into a giggling fit.

I let the papers fall and grabbed onto Werm’s shoulder for support, but we both collapsed, braying with laughter like a couple of jackasses. “Hey,” Werm said. “Maybe you should see if you can fly now.”

“Fly? Hell, I can barely stand up.” I snorted again with laughter, and Werm shrieked in hysterics.

We were laughing so hard that I didn’t feel the change in the atmosphere until the candles started to flicker. The wind had shifted, but there was something more. Something unnatural was in the air. Something unwholesome and thick with decay. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. When a vampire gets creeped out, well, let’s just say it’s messed up. Seriously messed up.

Werm felt it, too. We stopped laughing at the same instant. We had both been doubled over, and at that level our vision was clouded by the smoke from the burning incense and flickering candles. We straightened up slowly, and when we did, we had a clear view of the relatively fresh earth a few feet away from us—it was shifting, and not because we’d had a couple snorts from the bottle. My supersensitive hearing picked up a scrabbling noise underground.

Werm heard it, too. “Jack, what’s that?” he asked. “It’s coming from that bare patch of dirt over there.”

My boozy brain was trying to clear itself. “You mean that patch of dirt about the size of a Chevy Corsica?”

Werm just looked at me, not understanding. I didn’t want to understand either, but I was beginning to all the same.

Oh, no.

“Werm, help me think. What did we just ask that voodoo spirit for? What did we ask him for
exactly
?”

“We—we asked him to make your vampire powers even stronger. What’s wrong with that?”