Seven
Could there be a
scarier, worse day?
Edward thought not.
He had been surveilling the mansion occupied by the queen of the
vampires for the last two days, two days of lies. Two days of lies, betrayal, and cruel
funhouse mirrors. The more normal and Ansel Adams–esque the picture
was, the worse it was to realize it was more like Charles
Addams.
He had been staying
at the AmericInn Hotel in St. Paul Park, a cute little city just a
twenty-minute drive from Summit Avenue. And every day he went out
to get a look at the enemy’s burrow. He was proceeding on the
assumption that the newsletter was real, that it was all
real.
Of course you are, you always do . . .
That’s true, but this
time it was a safety issue, he told his inner voice. Given the
subject matter, he figured it was much safer to err on the side of
caution. If it all turned out to be a lie, some silly or mean lie
to stir things up and make mischief, at worst he was out only a few
hours of his time and what little money the disguises
cost.
And it was bound to
be a lie. And that was a terrible thing. Not because he thought the
human race was in trouble from some secret vampire uprising
(although that was always a theoretical concern, he figured that
when it came to the undead gaining mastery over the earth, a zombie
apocalypse was much more likely).
No, he didn’t fear
that . . . at least, not much. But as for what he did fear . . .
Boys and girls, gather around and I’ll tell you a
story.
The thing was this:
all that stuff? That weird paranormal Twilight-ey shiny weird vampire stuff? It was all true. But that wasn’t even the huge
thing.
The huge thing was,
it wasn’t all that exciting. The huge
thing was, people accepted vampires and
vampire hunters as neighbors. The huge thing was,
people in your building didn’t care if you
were dead as long as you didn’t stick Canadian nickels in the
dryers.
And if the weird cool
shiny stuff was true about vampires, didn’t that call into question
the “mythology” of things like fairies and werewolves and
leprechauns and mermaids? That meant there was a whole world out there, not just one he’d never been able
to find, but one he didn’t know existed. It proved that although he
felt his life had been full of undead shenanigans with Boo and
Greg, it was just a sliver. Just a tiny bit. And the thought of how
big it all really was, the dreadful sensation that it wasn’t the
shark fin but the shark . . . that was
terrifying. Iceberg right ahead!
terrifying. And he was fresh out of James Camerons.
Boo said nay. Boo and
Gregory said assuming vampires proved the existence of werewolves
was like assuming plumbers proved the existence of accountants. And
they should know, since Greg had been, in the course of his
seventy-two years, an accountant and a plumber. (Also a bookstore
clerk, a ship’s captain, and a travel writer.) He’d seen things,
terrible awful things. Polio and U.S. Customs and early-release
copies of V.C. Andrews books (talk about the fierce undead!). Greg
saw those things, knew those things; he ought to know about
this.
But maybe it wasn’t
true. And if it wasn’t true . . .
Right! So he was off!
Or, in this case, back to the scene of the crime(s).
He had worn khaki
pants, a red shirt, and a tool belt the first day. He knew he could
pass, at a glance, as a utility worker and a Target employee. In
this way he was able to skulk in the back lawns, the lawn of the
undead as well as the ones on either side of it.
And what a yard! A
gigantic yard, a wonderful yard. Nobody had yards in Boston; they
had oversized postage stamp–shaped parcels of land with grass and
hostas growing on them. And this yard had a fence, wrapping around
the whole thing like the ribbon on a Christmas present. No cool
sinister iron doors swinging shut with the shriek of rusty hinges
(Eeeeennnnnhhhhhh!) , but the
old-fashioned black bars were good enough.
There was a garden
shed and lilac bushes and, on the left, a croquet set. He didn’t
want to think about the terrible things the vampire queen could get
up to with a croquet mallet.
The second day, he
wore black jeans, a black long-sleeved dress shirt, and his old
black sport coat. Black tennis shoes and black socks . . . it
didn’t go, but he was hoping no one would care enough about him to
get a look at his footgear. Who cared about what kind of shoes you
wore to a neighborhood skulking?
He’d dressed up a
little because, if he was stopped today, he’d play Lost Business
Guy. Summit was only a few blocks away from all sorts of offices,
plus there was a Catholic school and a junior high on the street
itself.
Besides, he felt more
comfortable in dark clothing, even in late afternoon (he had been
sleeping in each morning and staking out the Summit Avenue Crypt in
the late afternoon and early . . . very early . . . evening). He
was sure no one had put his aimless wandering together with a
supposed Target employee who had been called to recommend what kind
of lawn chairs went with a gigantic mansion built in the eighteen
hundreds. But that didn’t mean no one would ever spot him, or have
questions for him. Thus, the black clothing. It was almost
impossible to work up a really good lurk in pastels. It went
against nature.
Today he had seen a
few more people come and go; it was busier than last night. The big
fat black girl, and a dark-haired guy wearing scrubs. Oh—whoops.
Not fat; pregnant. Maybe her obstetrician? Anyone who lived in a
big old gorgeous mansion like that could afford her own fleet of
doctors, so it only made sense to—
Oh my God.
Was the vampire queen
growing her own army of evil babies? The undead couldn’t have
children, could never know the thrill of suckling life from within,
that noble calling, that utter demand from our species that we
replenish and replace our population. Could the nefarious woman
decide in her own ghastly way that, cheated of ever suckling life,
she in turn would cheat other women? Perhaps . . . a score of
women? Perhaps . . . perhaps he normally couldn’t use suckling twice in thirty seconds, and was that a
good thing or a bad thing? Probably an irrelevant
thing.
He peeked through the
branches of a lilac tree and watched the pretty, dark-skinned
expectant mother and her (imprisoned? blackmailed?)
obstetrician-to-the-damned and gasped with the horror of it. Even
in his worst imaginings, he never thought there would be an army of
enslaved evil babies to contend with.
Maybe it’ll only be one enslaved evil baby. Maybe that
baby’s special . . . or the mom-to-be is.
That was when it had
stopped being more fun than worry. In fact, that was exactly when it became more worry than fun . . . he
was scared.
And stupid. Until he
saw her, he hadn’t truly appreciated
the cost to the innocents. It had been more game than mission: try
to find out if the newsletter is real or just a big tease; try to
get an idea how many numbers the mansion had; try to find out what
these Minnesotan vampires were up to.
Now, though. Now he
just wanted to tattle on the vampire queen to Boo and then step
aside while his best friend got her feet wet.