Three
“Everybody has a
secret world inside of them. All of the people of the world, I mean
everybody. No matter how dull and boring they are on the outside,
inside them they’ve all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful,
stupid, amazing worlds. Not just one world. Hundreds of them.
Thousands maybe.”
Eddie Batley groaned
and tossed The Sandman across the
surgically neat living room. Then he gasped in horror at his
foolish, foolish act and hurried across the spotless blue carpet
and retrieved the graphic novel. Ennui was no excuse, ever, to abuse anything by Neil Gaiman.
Ever.
He blew on the cover
but it was relievedly flawless.
Ever!
His (un)dead
roommate, who would have heard a carpeted version of The Sandman hit carpet in the deep (carpeted)
vacuum of space, yelled from the back bedroom, “Rule six,
Eddie!”
“Edward,” he muttered back.
“Rule six,
Edward!”
Vampire hearing.
Argh.
(Rule six: no hurling
graphic novels before five thirty P.M.)
“I need to get out of
here.”
“Where would you
go?”
“I’m talking to
myself out here, if you don’t mind.”
“Rule
eleven!”
(Rule eleven: before
five thirty P.M., talk to yourself in your head.)
“Rule
twenty!”
(Rule twenty: back
off Edward if you’ve brought up two or
more rules before supper.)
Edward waited, but
Greg (“Gregory, dammit!”) Schorr was finished.
It wasn’t Greg(ory),
anyway. It was him. It was Edward Batley IV, heir to a long and
distinguished line of accountants. He had to get out of there.
Being a third wheel for a few months was almost fun. Fodder for
late-night routines (which Greg loved, being the only vampire
comedian on the planet, probably), right? Something to blog about,
yes? He should have pitched the idea to Hollywood; all things
paranormal were being turned into terrible movies and terrific
sitcoms. He could move out to California, pitch screenplays. There
were worse ways to make a living. Guard at Buckingham Palace.
Brazilian mosquito researcher. Portable toilet cleaner. Roadkill
remover.
That would all have
been fine, except for the tiny detail that it hadn’t been months.
He had been a third wheel going on four years. No, that wasn’t . .
.
He whipped out his
cell, stabbed the calendar button, and gaped with horror at the
date. It hadn’t been going on four years. It had been four years
and seventeen days. Boo would never allow a party, never mind a
simple, “Hey, thanks again for saving me from being devoured and
turned into a shambling Night Thing,” but he always made a mental
note of the day they’d met.
Four years and
seventeen days? That was nothing to
blog about. It wasn’t almost fun anymore; it wasn’t something to
pitch to public access, never mind FX. It wasn’t an undead
Three’s Company. It wasn’t even
Wings, or Coach. It was more like an I
Love Lucy, if Lucy was a vampire slayer and Ricky was a
vampire, and Fred had divorced Ethel because of her vain, snoopy
competitiveness but lived with Lucy and Ricky anyway. In Boston.
And was an accountant for Grate and Tate.
I have to stop seeing my life as a series of old
sitcoms. And I have to get out of
here.
And go where?
That was it. His
enemy wasn’t just ennui; it was the sweet, sweet comfort of knowing
where the strawberry Smucker’s was, and when Boo and Gregory were
out at a comedy club so he could enjoy, um, alone time, and when
they were getting drunk enough so he could hear their
slayer/vampire sexual shenanigans from half a block away. (The
first time he’d realized what he was hearing, he simultaneously
popped a boner and threw up. Boo was hot; Gregory was hot if you
were into sculpted urbane intelligent vampires; and they were both
terrifying.)
He liked most
everything else about his roommates; they were always a good time
on a Friday night, and sometimes they let him come hunting with
them. He liked knowing he was paying next to nothing for his share
of a gorgeous Quincy apartment (Jack had moved in with Chrissy and
Janet for a reason, right?), and where the best black-and-white
cookies were, and when the Tuesday staff meetings were safe to skip
(which was every third Tuesday). And yeah, like he’d said, he liked
his roommates, too. It would be weird, being in the Boston area and
not living with them.
Also, they’d miss him
dreadfully.
“Pathetic,” he
announced.
“Seriously, will you
stop? Rule eleven!”
He ignored Greg(ory)
and pointlessly began tidying the spotless apartment. Boo had
always been one to let a bra fall where it may, but he and Greg
were sticklers. Edward suspected it was his mind, which tended to
stray toward all things tidy (you could perform an appendectomy in
his cubicle). And Greg was old-fashioned. Really old-fashioned. “Cleanliness is next to
you-know-what,” he’d informed them the first week he had moved in.
When Boo had realized he was serious, she laughed like a hyena for
ten minutes. Then they’d disappeared into her bedroom for . . . uh
. . . never mind.
He swiped nonexistent
dust off the coffee table in front of the squat black-and-white TV,
circa 1950 (Gregory liked his antiques, and Boo didn’t give a
shit), and thought about his living situation. Despite the lack of
a plasma TV and windows not curtained
in dark brown, it was pretty sweet. He couldn’t believe he was
considering leaving. Well. Considering considering
leaving.
Who are you kidding?
Good question. He
stayed for the reason he stuck with anything in his life: he needed
a kick in the ass to get going. So far, kicks in the ass were in
short supply. Worse: if not for the third-wheel thing, it would
likely never occur to him to move out. His roommates were the most
feared vampire slayer (not that Boo would ever, ever refer to
herself as such) in the history of time, and a dead comedian who
lived (so to speak) for the slayer.
What could compare?
Honestly? A corner office at Grate and Tate? The newest toy from
Steve Jobs, the iAll? Regular sex with Uma Thurman (provided he
could overlook the manhands and man-feet)? To quote a sage of the
age, “Shyeah!”
Also, they had a view
of Wollaston Beach. A tiny sliver of a view they could only enjoy
during high noon with clear skies on Thursdays, but still. Water
view! In Boston!
So he
stayed.
“I’ll live here until
I die,” he announced.
“Which, if you don’t
stop breaking rule eleven, will be later this
evening.”
Edward did not have a
heart attack, or jump back, or even flinch. Although he never heard
Gregory coming, years of cohabiting with a dead guy had given him a
flinch-free poker face.
“Nothing’s going to
make me move out,” he announced.
Gregory yawned and
headed for the kitchen.
“Not one
thing.”
“So, who asked you to
leave? We found this place together, you, me, and Boo,” Gregory
said mildly. “No reason not to make use of it as long as you like.
Half of it is yours, after all.” He opened the fridge, withdrew
several oranges, plugged in the juicer, and began shredding orange
after orange. Edward had never seen anyone fonder of fruit juice.
Maybe it was a vampire thing.
“My place is
here.”
“All
right.”
Edward yawned,
showing too many teeth that were too big. He was a tall, lean man
with a tendency to slouch, Columbo style. His dark blond hair was
pulled back in a ponytail, though he occasionally clipped it
savagely short. Or cop short, which made sense, as he’d been a
member of the BPD in the years leading to his death.
“You realize you get
this way every several months.”
“Do
not.”
“You need a woman, my
friend.”
“Tell me about it.”
Problem number thirteen: the only women he met were off-limit
coworkers and psychotic vampires. On the occasion he met a
perfectly nice, good-looking, intelligent woman, his lifestyle
freaked them out. Frankly, if it didn’t freak them out, it would
have freaked him out. And to be fair, he hadn’t been trying
terribly hard to hook up. Chalk it up to more of his ennui. Or
sheer laziness.
“Where’s Boo
Bear?”
“Dare you.” Gregory
stopped chugging his orange juice long enough to point at him. “I
dare you to call her that to her
face.”
“It would sure solve
a lot of problems,” he said glumly. He slipped into one of the bar
stools at the kitchen counter and propped his chin up on his
elbows. “What, is she out on recon?”
“Stop that. I loathe
pop culture gibberish. And yes, she is researching Amanda Darryn
for me.”
“The Black Widow.”
Like the villain played by Joan Cusack in Addams Family Values. Except this one had been
getting married, vacuuming bank accounts, and killing her husbands
for a hundred fifty years.
“Soon to be The
Staked Widow.” Gregory had disliked being murdered and returning
from the dead. He coped by honing his routines and tracking down
really, really bad vampires. As a former cop, his contacts and data
access were inspiring. He had hired Boo to slay a local vampire who
specialized in murdering third graders. Boo had been pissed, then
intrigued, then horny. Cue the happily ever after theme. “Would you
like to come? Perhaps you merely need to get out of the
house.”
“So there’s another
vampire to kill next week. A flood of the undead.”
Gregory snorted.
“That’s the spirit. And I stand by what I said: you need a
woman.”
“You say that about
everything wrong in my life.”
“Because it would fix
everything wrong in my life.” He busily squeezed more
oranges—Edward wondered why he bothered with a juicer at all. The
man could flatten grapefruits with either hand. Except Gregory was
beyond fastidious. Case in point... “Aaaah!” He grabbed a sponge
from the sink and scrubbed off the wayward seed, hurriedly dumping
it in the sink. “Have you ever seen anything more
repellant?”
“You’re asking
someone who’s never missed a Comic-Con.”
“I do not know what
that is. Ah! Here comes the sun of my life.”
Edward, of course,
couldn’t hear anything. But he wasn’t surprised when, a minute
later, he heard Boo’s key in the lock and the thud of the door
popping open as she kicked the bottom. Edward had never seen her
turn a knob in his life.
“Darling!”
“Moron.” She was
shrugging out of her leather jacket in midbitch, tossing it over
the back of a kitchen chair and walking right up to Gregory for a
kiss. It was a long one. Edward looked away, thinking, You’d think they hadn’t seen each other for a
month.
“Hmmm, let me guess.”
She leaned out of his embrace and licked her lips. “Orange
juice!”
“You must be a
detective or something.”
“Or something,” she
agreed. She plopped into the bar stool beside Edward, squinted at
him, then said, “Are you still doing the
can’t-go-but-don’t-want-to-stay-but-shouldn’t-go
thing?”
“It’s not a
thing,” he said, offended. “It’s
midlife crisis.”
“You’re
twenty-three.”
“Boys mature faster
than girls,” Gregory said, pouring a glass for Boo. “That’s a
medical fact.”
Boo laughed and shook
her hair out of her eyes. A striking woman, she had the coloring of
a true albino, so pale she seemed almost to glow. Her skin was so
light it appeared fragile, as if it would tear like paper. Her hair
was also white, and curled under at the ends, the curls bouncing
around her shoulders. Her eyes were such a pale blue she appeared
blind, or jaded, as if she had seen much to blast all the color
from her face and body and soul.
He called her Boo,
but her street name was Ghost. She’d gotten into the slaying
because not one but two vampires had tried to kill her before her
twenty-first birthday. Her striking coloring was like catnip to
them. Long ago, she had decided to make herself bait, the better to
stake you with, my dear.
He still remembered
how she’d explained because of her skin, she had to stay out of the
light, too. She was treated as a freak. She preferred evenings, and
her senses were heightened from long years of avoiding sunlight.
There was nothing supernatural about it, or her, but try telling
anyone else that. It had taken Edward almost a year to believe that
about her.
“I’ve never seen an
ugly vampire,” he said out of nowhere. Boo and Gregory both looked
at him. “Isn’t that weird?”
“No,” they said in
unison. Gregory waited, but they didn’t illuminate until he coaxed
them with a “What?”
“All vampires are
essentially murder victims.”
“Most,” Gregory
corrected, mashing more oranges.
“Fine,” she replied.
“And given a choice of murder victims, they go for the cute
ones.”
“That’s like saying a
rapist picks victims based on their sex appeal,” Edward protested.
“It’s not about sex. And with vampires it’s not about looks, it’s
about blood.”
“And beggars can’t be
choosers,” Boo agreed. “But when they can, they go for the pretty
ones. No offense, Greg.”
“I am fairly fabulous,” he admitted with a modest
smirk.
“So: murder victims.”
Boo slurped more juice, then grimaced and pushed the glass away. It
made a small damp ring on the counter; Gregory gasped and wiped it
up in the manner of someone getting rid of nuclear waste: get it
out, get it out, get it out, out, OUT!
“Agh, too much acid on an empty stomach.”
He prompted her:
“They go for the pretty ones . . . still sounds dumb.”
“They die, they come
back. Some return more vengeful than others, which is why I have a
job. Some of them spend decades making innocent people pay for what
a killer took. Then I have to kill them. So, essentially: it’s all
about me, in the end.”
Edward was astounded.
He had never heard her speak like this; usually Boo’s attitude was
the only good vampire was a dead one, except for the one she was
shacked up with.
“None of which
explains your whole should-I-stay-orshould-I-go thing. You want to
go? Great, sounds like a plan, drive safely and don’t forget to
update your Facebook page.”
“I’m touched,” he
said dryly. “But I’d never do that to either one of you. You’re not
up to the emotional devastation that’ll be caused by my moving
out.” She snorted, but he affected not to hear it. “Besides, what
would you do without me? Your lives would be as drab and lifeless
as a Jersey Shore rerun.”
“That’s not quite—”
Gregory began.
“The Team Supreme
with its own laugh track shall go on!” he declared. “I would never
leave either of you.”
“And here we go with
the threats,” Boo observed.
“Nothing would induce
me to leave this teeming coastal area infested with the undead and
leave you defenseless. Nothing!”
Then he looked at the
mail.