Vampire Blood (14 page)

“Well, I’ll go get the rest of the family so everyone can meet. Just wait right there, you two. I’ll be right back.” Annie disappeared down the narrow steps at the other end of the lobby.

Jenny and her father slumped down on the bottom step going up to the balcony. He looked half dead, and Jenny felt a fresh surge of guilt for insisting that he meet the Michelsons that night after he’d been so sick.

“Now I see what ya meant by them being a little eccentric, Jenny,” her dad chortled mischievously in a low voice. “Can’t wait to meet the rest of the
Addams
family. Especially if they’re as great looking as that there Annie.”

“She is, isn’t she? Beautiful, I mean. In fact, she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, so graceful. Like a dancer.”

“Yep.” He leaned against the banister, and his eyes scanned the shadowy lobby around them.

The candle fluttered, as if someone had walked past it. The violin music teased at her own weariness, lulling her almost into sleep on the carpeted stairway, it was so hypnotic. It reminded her of gypsies dancing in moonlight, swirling colorful skirts, bare feet and golden earrings.

Lost love. She squirmed uncomfortably.

“This place is still as amazing as ever,” her dad commented after his weary, bloodshot eyes had poked around for a while. “All things considered, it’s not in too bad a condition. After all these years. Need to see it in real light though.” He yawned, stretching. “Gonna be a heck of a job, though, getting her shipshape.” He rubbed his stubbly chin.

“Yeah, but imagine how fun it’ll be uncovering all the hidden treasures beneath the grime,” Jenny said, letting her hand slide along the carved wood of the banister.

The violin music wove its spell around them. Jenny could have sat there and listened forever.

Feeling the hair on the back of her neck tingle, she turned and peered into the darkness at the top of the stairs. She could have sworn she saw
someone
up there. She shivered. Two sparks like a cat’s eyes. Hiding. Watching. After a while she pulled her gaze away. There wasn’t anything up there. What was the matter with her lately?

Minutes passed.

Her dad grunted. She thought he’d fallen asleep on the steps and gently nudged him.

“I’m awake,” he grumbled.

Jenny wished the Michelsons would hurry. It’d been a hell of a long day. Her father needed to go home and get some sleep.

“Are you
sure you want to tackle this mausoleum, girl?”

“Like you said, it’s a job, Dad. We haven’t got anything else lined up after the Albers’ house, do we?”

“Nope.”

“What kind of bid are you going to give them on it?”

Her dad scratched his chin and yawned again. “They said they wanted us to clean it up and patch a little? Paint?”

“Yes.”

“Humph.” Her father took the candle and began working his way around the lobby in a tired sort of shuffle, rubbing his hands over the dirt-encrusted surfaces, checking the walls and moldings and inspecting the carpeting. “Wish we had some real light.”

Jenny’s eyes followed him.

A voice came from somewhere behind them, “I’ll pay you both by the hour. Don’t you think that would be the fairest way, Mister Lacey?” Terry Michelson appeared on the steps behind them in the gloom, without a candle, surprising Jenny.

She’d assumed he’d been downstairs with the rest of the family.

In one hand, Mister Michelson lovingly held an exquisite violin and bow, the deeply polished and layered wood glinting like brown gold.

“How about twenty dollars an hour, apiece?” Mister Michelson jauntily stepped down to shake her father’s hand as Jenny jumped up from the steps. “Terry Michelson,” he introduced himself to her father. “You must be Ernest Lacey, Jenny’s dad?”

Her father nodded.

“I’m honored to meet the father of such a talented and lovely woman as Jenny Lacey, who’s a distinguished author.”

“Pleased to meet you, too,” her dad replied with a smug grin directed towards Jenny. He loved it when someone recognized her. Those jacket cover photos the publisher had wanted on the last book had leaked her face out all over the country, but that was ten years ago.

Mister Michelson gazed at her and bowed slightly. His hair was mussed, almost windblown. His eyes were openly admiring as he regarded her. Somehow he looked younger than he had the first time she’d met him, even his movements were that of a younger man.

Her father was grinning at her. “I keep telling her that she has her fans, but she don’t want to hear it. She’s always been modest about her writing.”

She ignored the reference to her past hobby, and inquired of Mister Michelson, “You’re the one who was playing the violin? I could have sworn it was a record, it was so perfect. You’re the one with the talent.”

“Thank you, but it is nothing, and we were talking about your books, Jenny. You are that Jenny Lacey, aren’t you?”

“You found me out,” she sighed. “Unsuccessful amateur that I was.”

“No amateur,” he tsked, tsked her affectionately. “Last night, I knew I’d seen your face somewhere before, Jenny. Somewhere.
Then it came to me. I have
all
your books. I’ve read them over and over. What stories!” His eyes were glittering. “You’ll have to autograph them for me, when I unpack them.”

Usually people would ask her how she came up with such strange stories, or why she felt she had to write such scary things, but he didn’t.

He laid the violin and bow down on the top step and took Jenny’s hand in his. “I never thought I’d ever meet you though.” He pressed her hand between his, refusing to let it go even as she pulled away. He was embarrassing her, and his hands were like ice, even in this heat.

“I loved
A Summer’s Night.”
His voice lowered, “You wrote as if you truly believed that vampires existed, and that they had feelings, too.”

He actually seemed serious. “No, Mister Michelson, of course, I don’t believe in vampires. It was just a story. Fiction. I made it all up.” She smiled. He didn’t. “Don’t tell me that you
believe in such things?”

His eyes were almost melancholy at her confession. “What would you say if I told you yes?”

Jenny stared at him, waiting for the inevitable denial or the punch line to come, but it didn’t.

Instead, he changed the subject and crooned, “Ah, Jenny, either way, you shouldn’t have stopped writing.”

Then, Jenny, her gaze caught in his, had the strangest feeling that he knew why she’d stopped, that he knew everything about her.

“Jenny, I know you’ll write another book someday,” he bent down and whispered in her ear, sending shivers up her neck. “When the right story comes along. We’ll talk about this again.”

It was as if he’d read her mind. She nodded, not knowing what else to say. Her father was giving her funny looks.

“How long have you been playing the violin?” Jenny finally drew her thoughts away from the man’s strange pull.

“A long time, but I’m just an amateur.” He smiled knowingly at her, his head so close that she could see the gray hairs interspersed in the brown.

She found herself smiling back at him, unable not to.

“Now it’s time to introduce the rest of the family,” he announced, and Jenny wondered if it was only her imagination that he seemed suddenly apprehensive.

She hadn’t been aware of the people hiding behind him.

“This is Candice.”

A short woman of about twenty or so, with short red spiked hair and catty green eyes, came forward. She stared at Jenny openly, but didn’t say a word and reminded Jenny of a huge, untamed cat. The girl was dressed, as bizarrely as the rest of them, in a long skintight dress. Very seductive.

She flopped down on the steps, still saying nothing, yet she observed Jenny with glittering curious eyes.

“This is Terry Junior, T. J., our son.” Mister Michelson introduced a young man with long brown hair.

He was tall, she thought, to be Terry’s son and extremely handsome in a feminine way. Another peculiar character.

When he looked at Jenny, she experienced a chilling ripple of unease. His eyes were a dark slate gray, like wet rock, and so unusual, so ... old. He, too, remained silent, but stepped up to her and kissed her hand in a gallant gesture that only served to make her feel more uncomfortable. His lips, his hands, were as cold as slate as well.

All the members of this family were fish.

He smiled at her. Was that contempt she saw shimmering deep in his smile, or was it the bad light?

T. J. was also dressed in an archaic fashion: a long coat that reminded her of something worn at the turn of the century but in brilliant colors, like a peacock. There was an air of decadence about him. A predatory watchfulness.

“Well, nice to meet you all,” Jenny nearly stumbled over her tongue. For some reason these children created the same disquiet in her as the adults did. Trancelike.

They were all beautiful. Too beautiful. Unreal, like statues.

“Of course, you’ve met Irene, our youngest.” A breath of fear marred his voice. Jenny caught it.

“Hi there, Irene. Nice to see you again.” Jenny tried to be polite to her as the blond-headed girl ambled past, but it wasn’t easy.

Irene glared at her, but said nothing, and went to stand next to her brother in the shadows. The girl gave off vibrations of hostility. Jenny hadn’t imagined it the night before. She also wondered why Irene, of all of them, seemed to be different. She even dressed differently. Her clothes were seductive and contemporary.

Suddenly Jenny only wanted to get away from them. She forced her eyes to look somewhere else.

“Children, this is Jenny’s dad, Ernest Lacey. Between the two of them, and our meager, unskilled, help, for what little it’ll be worth, we’re going to get the Grand looking as elegant as it did when it was first opened.”

“Not quite,” Jenny’s dad chimed in realistically, “but close. We’ll do our best. And Mister Michelson?”

“Yes?”

“About price. Fifteen an hour, apiece, should do it just fine. Twenty’s too high.”

Terry Michelson, after seeing the resolute look on her father’s face, nodded and shook her father’s hand to seal the bargain.

Jenny found herself studying Mister Michelson, wondering if she’d heard him right. The Grand. She was sure he’d called the theater the Grand. This time and the last time she’d talked to him. Wasn’t that the original name?

“When can you start?” Mister Michelson was asking.

“Sometime next week. We’re painting the Albers’ house outside of town. Should be done in another four or five days, I reckon. I’ve been a little under the weather, or it would have been done sooner.”

At that remark, an uncomfortable look passed between Terry and his wife.

“Is that okay?”

“Splendid.” Terry Michelson grinned. “What supplies will you be needing, Mister Lacey?”

“Lots of rags, buckets, cleaning fluids, plaster for the patchin’. Paint, whatever color you decide you want the walls.” He scratched his head, thinking. “That’ll do it.”

“I want the same colors for the walls, the same everything. I want it to look exactly the same as it did when it first opened.”

“Well, then, Mister Michelson, I can buy everything we’ll need and bring it on out here next week. I’ll give you the supply bills as I get them.”

“That would be most kind of you.”

“I also know a pretty good electrician and a plumber. Reasonable, too. Your wife mentioned that the electricity was being turned on tomorrow. I think everything should be checked out thoroughly first. This place has been boarded up for a long time. Better to be safe than sorry,” her dad warned. “I’ll take care of it, don’t you worry.”

“You think of everything.” Mister Michelson beamed at them. “I can see we’re in capable hands.”

“Got a phone here or a number we can reach you folks at when we’re ready to start?” her father questioned.

Annie threw her husband a furtive glance.

It was Mister Michelson who answered. “Not really. We’re on the move a lot. We’re terribly behind the times, I’m afraid, and none of us have those cell phones everyone seems to have these days. I’m sorry.” No explanation why. No excuses.

“That’s okay. My daughter and I don’t have cell phones right now, either.” Her father shrugged. “Pesky things. Who needs them? Makes it too easy for people to bother you, is how I see it.”

More like they couldn’t afford them, is how Jenny saw it.

“Exactly.” Michelson nodded. “Here’s an extra key to the front door.” He handed her dad something shiny and flat. “I’ll make arrangements for a line of credit for you at the town’s hardware store ... and that would be?”

“Schuler’s on Fifth Street,” her dad responded.

“For Schuler’s. You get the supplies you need, start next week any morning and don’t spare the expense.”

Michelson pulled a slim piece of leather and a pen from his vest pocket. He tore out a check then filled it out hurriedly and handed it to her father.