Vamps 101
588 North Union Street
Natchez MS
04:00
At 4:00 am the house was at 588 North Union Street was notable for three things.
First, its lights were on. In a respectable upper middleclass neighborhood in Natchez people did not stay up until all hours of the morning; certainly not on a Wednesday night, but the new residents of the house had a habit of odd hours, much to the annoyance of their neighbors. Amongst the street’s gossipers there were rumors of drugs and orgies taking place at the house, but these were no more than rumors. The facts, had they been known, would have been far more shocking. It was a discussion of these facts which was the main reason for the lights being on at that unusual time of the morning.
The second notable thing was its recent change in color. Until late in the previous week, the house had been a plain, if somewhat aged and peeling, grayish white. If it was perhaps less well maintained than its neighbors (having been vacant since the forced eviction of the local cat lady 2 years previous) it still stood in solidarity with the monotone grays, blues, whites, and eggshell creams of the other houses on the street.
Now, even in the muted illumination of streetlight and skyglow the house was a veritable carnival of color. The exterior was now a hunter green and the window sashes a dark blue. Pumpkin orange accents mocked the neighbor’s drabness. In the two days since painting had been completed, it had become the talk of the neighborhood even to the point of some considering a petition to have the house re-painted.
One who had made a study of Victorian era houses might argue that the colors were more authentic than the neighborhood’s current color scheme and that it showed an artist’s eye for color and balance, but they would have been shouted down by the mavens of neighborhood respectability.
The last eccentricity was the construction of the house itself and would perhaps be notable only to our aforementioned, somewhat harassed, student of architecture. The house was some 30 years older than its neighbors and its vernacular was a mishmash of styles from the late 19th and early 20th century. It also sported a large witch hat turret in the front, giving it a somewhat gothic, foreboding look.
The house owed its unique construction by turns to a woman who looked at too many house catalogs, an 8 year old who wanted a treehouse but had to settle for a turret, and an ill-advised attempt to hold a cookout on the porch during a rainstorm in 1906.
The house possessed additional surprises and secrets, such as a lovely (and partially nude) mural of the original owner’s wife papered over in the entryway and a secret room in the basement that had been used for beer storage and as an informal speakeasy during the 20’s, but none of these was as dire or immediate as the conversation being held in the Dining Room.
Sunday, 07 Aug 2011
The Dining Room
Renny’s Place, 588 North Union Street
Natchez MS
0400hrs, local time
The dining room continued the tendency towards eclecticism. The floor, 100-year-old hardwood that had been poorly maintained over the last few decades, had been recently given a severe stripping and fresh wax; its surface darkly shone, but was uneven and given over to creaking when walked upon to the annoyance of most of the room’s residents and the enjoyment of one, who had taken to using the creaks to play pop tunes.
The wallpaper now occupied several trashcans in the back of the house (Renny had been disappointed with that, but they were a complete loss to mildew) and the walls painted a plain white. Not the friendliest of colors, but it gave the room a clean look and smell which was important due to the sensitive noses of at least two of the occupants of the room.
The sole decoration on the walls came from an antique poster acquired the day previously by Anastasia. On it a stalwart soviet pilot in full flight gear looked stoically to the left as three Cold War era fighters flew past. The caption read "Защита наших границ в космосе". (Protecting our Frontier in Space)
Like the poster, the majority of the furniture seemed out of place and perhaps would have been happier, or at least more at home, in a mid-priced hotel or a business center. In the center of the room sulked the table; a large oval surfaced with thin veneer of hardwood. It had folding legs and was a perfect fit for the 8 darkly upholstered, plush, armless Herman Miller office swivel chairs that encircled it. The tablecloth, a plain, thick dark blue rectangle, blandly yet perfectly matched the chairs. An ornate lace cloth had been purchased but remained in its shopping bag by unanimous vote, awaiting the purchase of a more appropriate table.
On the table were 4 settings of plates, cups, glasses and flatware that matched the table much as the table matched the chairs. On three of the plates (and the table) were the remains of several racks of barbequed ribs along with coleslaw, sauerkraut, and a few other traditional sides, along with their take-out containers. Sauce had spilled or been wiped on several places on the blue tablecloth and on the white cloth napkins. Also on the table were two box containers that had once held 10 gallons of coffee between them, though much of it had since been consumed.
Lighting for the room was provided by the sole fixture to survive the recent renovations, a small crystal chandelier. It needed dusting, but beyond that all of its bulbs worked and most of the original crystals were still in place. It shone, and tried to sparkle, over the 4 people in the room.
At the North end of the room (near the unused place setting) was a large whiteboard on which was written in red Dry-Erase Marker:
Remember “ABD”
A – Always
B – Be
D- Drinking
Renny, standing next to the board put down the marker. "And that is all I know about vampires and see it only took, what . . . four hours? Any questions?"
Irina sucked the last of the sauce off her fingers, discreetly scrubbing them with her tongue, and tore open a wet wipe to take care of what she’d missed. Nothing like Virgil's on West 44th, but still damned good. The ribs were full-on beef, hefty and meaty, and there was no eating them with a knife and fork. Hence the finger-sucking. Irina snagged herself one last hushpuppy and nibbled it slowly, enjoying the minced sweet onion embedded with the corn bits. She dragged it through a dribble of sauce on her plate and polished the hushpuppy off, debating what she could ask him.
He'd talked for four hours, covering the history, clans, and powers of the vampire world. The history went all the way back to the Biblical Caine. The clans were many, ascendant, descendant, and deceased. The power structure was hierarchal but with a surprising amount of autonomy thrown in. Irina hadn't expected that. She'd thought a besieged species, no matter how physically superior to mortals it was, would have some sort of oversight committee or congress that all the Domain Princes reported to. If there was, it apparently wasn't exercised or observed very often. At the very least, something like it would be very helpful in keeping tabs on the mortals and their ability to threaten vampire existence.
Hell, even mortals have their CIA, their Mossad, their Spetsnaz. Why don't the vamps have something similar? If not against the mortals, then themselves? Some of those clan enmities are pretty fierce.
Throughout the lecture, Alona had taken notes. Anastasia eschewed them in favor of interruptions to ask questions, sometimes completely irrelevant to the subject. Irina simply concentrated and let her memory take notes for her. Four hours gave her a lot of information to assimilate and adding to the difficulty was Renny's method of presentation. It was loosely organized, never delving deeply into one subject or another, and there were a few places where Irina felt he'd glossed things over considerably. Glancing at her tablemates, she suspected she knew why. Anastasia might try to use the knowledge to her benefit but to possible harm to others and Alona might simply be overwhelmed by it.
Renny had asked for questions and though she was constrained not to start any line of inquiry that would tip the others off to her Unbondable state, there were still a few she could ask freely.
"Yes," she said, rising to refill her coffee. It was late and sleep would not come easily for her later, but right now she wanted to be awake for the Q & A. "I need effective combat training. Last night I was damned near useless. What you've told us tonight won't do me any good unless I can attack from a distance. Most of the tactics I already know would put me in arm’s reach of my target where they can very quickly kill me." She sighed and raked her fingers through her hair. "I don’t know why I'm still alive. I should be dead, Renny."
It was a realization that had been mercifully delayed. She'd been distracted by Caroline lying comatose at the hospital. She had just bid Miz Hardin and Mrs. Thibideaux a good morning and left them with Caroline when it caught up with her and she had to find a quiet corner to sit down, her knees going to water at how close she’d come to dying. The hospital ward had disappeared as she relived that moment on the stairs when she had vamps in front of her and more of them advancing up the stairs behind her. All she’d had was her gun and it had barely made a dent in the vamps' defenses.
Bringing a pistol to a vamp fight? Fucking stupid, DiSanti. You should be dead.
She'd been given a reprieve, a second chance. She meant to take it and run with it. To do that, she needed more firepower.
"Why're you alive?" Renny tilted his head slightly, looking momentarily like an owl. "Why are any of us alive or pretending to be alive? – a combination of dumb luck and the sheer, vicious irony of the Universe."
"Thank you, Master Yoda," Irina quipped sourly before she could help it. Smartass. She pinched the bridge of her nose and when she lowered her hand, she'd managed to regain some measure of her equanimity. She was here to learn, not trade barbs back and forth with a silver-tongued con man.
Anastasia spun in her chair, sauce flying from her fingers much to the annoyance of her sister. Whatever else came or went these chairs had to stay. So much fun. She grabbed the table to stop the spinning but grabbed the table too hard and nearly tipped over. "So . . . dat’s it? We’re semi-immortal superheroes now? Do I get cape?" She fixed Renny with a burning gaze and slowly ran her tongue over her teeth. "There is to be pup quiz later?" So fun watching them squirm.
"Thank you, Delores Haze," Renny said. Hrm . . . is a Nabokov reference too obscure for Anastasia? Whatever. "When blood is fountaining from you and you're not sure whether it is a Tremere or Assamite you’re facing, that's your pop quiz." He switched to telepathy. -- ::and just remember that I can read your mind.::
::I was counting on it:: she thought back, with a slight giggle and mental image that would have made Renny blush when he was human and still made him clear his throat. Speaking of which …
Alona kept her head down in her notebook, trying to concentrate on the facts she'd written down and less on the reality and the sauce stain on her notebook. She had never done well at school; training and tournaments had always been first priority. No need to know chemistry when a better cross court serve was needed for the next match.
In school she never understood her more studious classmates and wondered how anyone could be so engrossed in their books as to ignore the things around them. Now the notebook seemed her only escape and even it seemed covered with scrawled accusations.
Что я? (What am I?)
Я жив? (Am I alive?)
Я монстр? (Am I a monster?)
Я супергерой? (Am I a superhero?)
А как же другие? Мертв? Упыри, как мы? (What about the others? Dead? Ghouls like us?)
There were a few other notes as well, but few that made sense, even to her. Reynard's delivery seemed to follow no pattern. Also, his Russian was poor and his English so fast that it was easier just to listen. His voice was calming, even when she couldn't understand it; sensual and melodic in ways she dared not describe even to herself.
She had dreamed of him every night since the hotel; since he had become her (what was the word he used?) Domitor? He made light of the word, especially with him being so much smaller than her, but the sound of his voice and sight of his face brought such feelings that she felt unworthy. It was not sexual, but it was and more than that, more than she wanted to think about. Just float with the voice ....
"Alona, any questions?" Renny asked.
Her cheeks burned, "No, no questions."
"Combat training," Irina repeated. "Firepower. As in, I need a way to inflict actual damage. As long as I'm going to be guilty of aggravated assault—and in the first degree no less—I might as well make it worth the effort. So what, exactly, can I use to accomplish that?"
At that moment Renny was distracted watching the auras of the occupants of the room. Irina's was easy; Purple with a little orange – A combination of aggression and fear. Anastasia's was a shifting pattern of Reds – Lust, happiness, perhaps a little obsession, the cat in the cream. She's going to conquer the world one day if I'm not careful.
Alona's aura was almost endearing. She had been daydreaming (flashing yellows, whites and oranges), but when she looked the patterns swirled into a virtual rainbow, pure blue, deep red, goldenrod, a little orange, a little green, a few streaks of red. Love or near to it … for her, anyway.
Renny was both flattered and disturbed by it in turns. She isn’t a schoolgirl and their situation was hardly the topic of a song by The Police. She was traumatized and it might be some might suppose that what I’d done was a kindness, I know better and at that point she’d have latched on to anyone who was nice to her or at least wasn't as mean. .
He’d seen similar things happen many times before. Sometimes, he encouraged it. Heck, as rough as things have been lately its as likely as not Eliza will end up similarly infatuated if I ain’t careful, and that would be bad, because she’s the jealous sort and would eventually she's gonna feel slighted, even if it was by ghouls acting like ghouls.
He looked at Alona again not quite having the nerve to project his thoughts. Loni, Babushka, I wish you happiness. Everyone deserves some - you more than most, but love? Love is for marks. Don't take that next step that pushes it all into Stupid.
Irina watched Renny's eyes take on that inner focus that announced he was either lost in thought or maybe engaged in a mental conversation with someone in the room. Whoever it is, it isn't me. "Renny?" She cleared her throat. "The question was about firepower."
"Sorry," Renny said. "Momentary lapse." He waved a finger. "Clan flaw if you'll recall." He stood up stretched his back slightly and straightened his bowtie. "Firepower? Damage? I thought I'd already gone over those topics." He began to pace back and forth around the front of the room. "Well anyway, I've have always found information to be the most valuable weapon. Avoiding a fight is always safer than being in one."
"It is," Irina agreed, keeping a tight lid on her temper and her tone. Alienating the one person who so far had shown himself amenable to educating her on the whys and wherefores was not an option. "Having fought them, I would rather avoid a fight in the future and I also agree that information is the most valuable weapon in anyone's arsenal." To say nothing of the preemptive strike based on solid intel, she thought as loud as she could at him. "However, on those occasions when the fight comes to me, I need to know how to strike back effectively. Do you have any useful ideas or advice on that?"
"Guns, fer instance. Sure, not so good against Midnight or Cotton but if you unloaded it inna me six or seven times I'd probably be having trouble getting up. But let's review. Some things always work. What always works?"
"Beheadings?" Anastasia asked. "Perhaps a beheading followed by pouring acid down their throat?"
Viscerally satisfying though that thought was, Irina didn't have to be a mind reader to sense the rebuttal hanging in the air. She leaned back in her chair and waited for Renny's response.
"Well, yes that might work, but the acid is perhaps a little excessive. Also, it kinda requires that you be right up on 'em. Any other ideas?"
"Fire," Irina said. "One of the recurring elements in the histories you've told us is fire. The effects of it. Fear of it. Avoiding it. Because it's deadly to vamps." She took a deep breath, wishing she didn't have to pussyfoot around the subject. Out of deference to Alona and Renny, however, she dialed back considerably on what she wanted to say. "As a human, I have to find a way to reach out and smite a vamp with something deadly from a distance, otherwise I'd just be in reach of them and be nothing but a walking Happy Meal. So ... how to use fire from a distance? Guns are, as you say, out. Flame throwers? Flare guns? Tracer rounds? White Phosophorus? I remember you suggesting Molotov cocktails, so I know I'm on the right track."
"Ah, ever the star pupil. Yeah, Fire. Vampires fear it even when they ain’t scared of anything else. You gotta be a little careful with how it gets around though, ‘cause non-vamps are almost as vulnerable as vamps are to fire. Stasi’s been working on getting some military flare guns, pretty cool ones, but you should realize that even that’s not going to be a magic bullet. so to speak, because the better you are at killing vamps the more likely vamps are going to want to kill you."
Renny looked around the room. Well, now’s as good a time as any.
"Lonya, Stasi, I need to talk to 38 privately about her boss, particularly because it seems he wants to hire me to do some work. Be good and we’ll be right back." He motioned Irina towards the kitchen and turned back to the sisters. "No peeking."
Irina followed him to the rear of the house where the kitchen stood. It had been stocked with plates and cutlery, food and sundries for Anastasia and Alona's needs. Irina briefly wondered if Renny had anything stocked as to his needs in the fridge. Blood in IV bags would keep nicely under refrigeration, Irina knew, having donated blood with the Red Cross from time to time. Stay on task. Ask him about it later. She leaned against the farmhouse sink, the better to keep an eye on the swinging door to the front of the house, and looked at Renny leaning likewise on the counter opposite.
"You know, we really could benefit having someone with your talents at the Agency," she said quietly. "Someone who can read minds, talk to the dead, and spot magic a mile away? We'd be idiots not to sign you up. But I know that's not what you brought me back here for. What is it?"
"Perhaps we should take this outside," Renny said. "Certain ears are sharper than they used to be." They went out the back door onto the screened porch. The humidity hit them like a damp cloth and the crickets were chirping loudly. Under his breath Renny said, "Анастасия довольно простой девочкой." When no blonde tornado arrived he said, "OK, I think they actually stayed."
Irina translated the Russian in her head: Anastasia is a plain little girl. She stifled a smirk, recognizing it as a deliberate jab at the blonde's vanity, and nodded. "So, what did you want to say that you didn't want them to hear?"
"Alright, we can't stay out here too long or Lonya’ll be in tears and Stasi will assume we are conspiring against her. I was thinking about your particular plight."
"Thank you." Irina crossed her arms and leaned against the rail. As usual, she didn't take notes but relied on her memory. "Go on."
"Yea, so I know you're Catholic. How big a 'c' do you spell that with?"
"A month ago, I'd have said 'lowercase'." Not a topic she expected but she rolled with it. "Now? It's a bit bigger. Why?"
"You familiar with The Inquisition?"
"Yeah." Irina pulled up the last four hours and what she knew of the Inquisition and tried to make the two pieces fit. "You saying Torquemada was a vampire slayer, too? Or members of the Inquisition were?"
The more she thought about it, the more it made sense.
"Hell, Renny, given the Jesuitical exactitude he and others like him applied to everything they did, it's amazing the Clans got out of the Inquisition alive. So to speak," she added, out of deference for his unbreathing state.
"Well, let's just say that they were … preoccupied with other stuff for the first century or so. Also, it isn't like the church wasn't infiltrated a bit. Heck, the Cappadocians were all over the Church before the Gios wiped 'em out." He leaned in conspiratorially. "Here's the deal though. After the Inquisition stopped persecuting the Jews and expelling the Moors, after they gave up on trying to re-convert the Proddies, there was still this one group that they still held out for special punishment, the Vamps, and they have this group called, get this, 'The Society of Leopold' that specializes in vampire assassination … Well, they call it hunting, on a full time basis. I was thinking, you could look them up and get some training. They specialize in exactly what you are looking for."
Irina said nothing, letting the words sink in. Closing her eyes to the porch and the night, she could clearly see the picture Renny painted. Warrior Priests. Consumate Hunters. Men with a mission of the highest order, the highest sacrifice. One that demanded unassailable faith and unshakeable loyalty. She thought back on what she knew of history and religion and again, it made a certain amount of sense. If the Church had a perceived threat, it would have devised ways to deal with it in an organized fashion. And the Church is nothing if not organized, even these days.
"So, putting comic book fantasies and certain Schwarzenegger movies aside, who are these Society people and where do I find them? What sort of gauntlet am I going to have to run? I doubt they'll just let anyone join who walks in off the street—they're a secret society, right? And since this is a Church-sanctified outfit, I doubt they're selling their services to the highest bidder. Serious conflict-of-interest issue there. So ... How did you find out about them, Renny?"
"There was this scam called the 'Vampire Suicide Hotline' that was sort of a local gag in L.A. Basically, Vamps ratting out other vamps to the Society for fun and profit," Renny rolled his eyes. "Loads of laughs. Also, they’ve got a considerable web presence amongst folks who study conspiracies cause they're tied into the Opus Dei and the Templars."
With a slight flourish, a piece of paper appeared in Renny’s hand. "Anyway, I got some contact info if you are interested. Web pages and stuff. Just use a public computer or burner phone when you contact ‘em. You don’t want them finding you unless you want them to find you."
Irina took the paper and made it disappear. The night was still with her, at least as her insomnia measured it, and she'd look into the safer sites when she got back to her suite at the B&B. Her ear caught something in Renny's tone, however, that made her ask, "Were you in L.A. during all that? You sound like you've run into them."
"Yeah, not exactly my finest hour. I wasn’t actually in L.A. when they ran the scam on me but I was close by looking for a really old vamp."
"Methuselan or Antediluvian?" Irina asked, applying what she learned in the dining room.
"Neither, just real old, real weird, and hopefully real dead now too." At a minimum he’s the Bankers problem now.
"Real dead as in dead dead? Did the Society have any part in that, too?"
"They had a part, though as far as "Dead Dead" I ain't at liberty to disclose, if you know what I mean." 'Cause I don't know. Indefinitely torpored is the likely outcome, unless the Gios got to it first in which case “dead dead” the best it could hope for.
"Fair enough." Irina decided not to push it. Renny was her one true source for information right now and she wanted to stay on his good side. Besides, she liked him and she’d never forgive herself if she had, because of her impatience and pigheadedness, brought him to harm as a result of her digging for information.
They went inside and spoke no further of it.
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