13
NOCTURNAL ADMISSIONS
DOUG COULDN’T concentrate for the rest of the day and did little more than watch the clock until three thirty. He didn’t know if he was going to a secret meeting or a fight. Maybe more than a fight. Maybe Victor was going to kill him. Maybe he enjoyed it so much the first time he wanted to do it again.
“Why…exactly…are you meeting Victor Bradley by the drainpipe?” asked Jay after last bell.
“We just have some business to talk about. Or he wants to beat me up. I’ll find out when I get there.”
Jay was thinking hard. You could tell because he looked like he was cleaning his teeth with his tongue. “I’m going with you. Even though I’m still mad at you for ditching me. Although I think I really scored some points with the drama kids—”
“I’m supposed to go alone,” said Doug.
“Yeah, right—so then Victor can show up with the whole football team?”
“Are you really suggesting he’s gonna need help kicking my ass?”
Jay shrugged. “You have vampire strength now.”
“Not during the day I don’t. Look, thank you, but I’m going to go alone. If I don’t call you by five, then you can panic,” Doug said. He was annoyed with Jay, annoyed with himself for even telling Jay about it. Plus people were making fun of his poncho.
He walked out past the bus bays and the throngs of people, across the parking lot and the soccer field, through a hole in the chain-link fence, and down an embankment. Victor was already there, alone. Victor who, if possible, was even better looking now that he was a vampire. It made his eyes smolder or something. It made Doug look like a blind cave fish.
The day was humid and close. The area around the pipe was rocky and lush green. Flies punctuated the air over something furry and dead. It smelled worse than Victor. Victor he was starting to get used to.
“I checked up on you,” Victor said. “I did. After I figured out it was you that I attacked. I came by your family’s cabin and made sure you were okay.”
“Thanks,” Doug said, and wanted to slap himself. He was thanking him for this?
“And then when I saw you were okay,” said Victor, “I knew I must have made you. I guess because I took too much?”
“I wonder if it’s because you were bleeding, and I got some of your blood in me. You haven’t made any other vampires?”
“I don’t think so.”
“So you were made right before you made me. I was your first feed.”
“Yeah. I didn’t know what I was doing. You could have been anyone. Anything.”
Doug nodded. He was sweating under his poncho. “You looked pretty fucked up that night,” he said.
“She was really rough,” Victor admitted.
“She?”
“My vampire. She was a total piece of ass. French. Looked maybe nineteen, but who knows, right? She could have blown Napoleon for all I know.”
So there were hot vampire chicks, at least. That was comforting.
The fact that Victor wasn’t being a complete dick was coming as something of a surprise to Doug. That Victor was aware that Napoleon was both French and lived a long time ago wasn’t entirely expected, either. He supposed he was going to have to give Victor more credit. He hated giving people more credit.
They had known each other since they were little kids. Never were great friends, maybe, but they’d played together during the summers at their families’ cabins. They’d always gotten along when there were no other kids around to complicate things. Then the two boys got older, and Doug simply assumed in Victor a growing cruelty and stupidity to balance out his more appealing qualities. Sure, after high school he might become a better person, find God or something, but for now, didn’t he almost have to be evil? Wasn’t that part of the deal?
“You haven’t told anyone, have you?” asked Victor. “About any of it?”
“Oh…no. No. And if I was going to tell anyone, I wouldn’t tell them about you. I’d probably claim my vampire was a hot girl, too.”
Victor gave a satisfied nod. Maybe he’d just gotten what he was looking for. Doug still had some unanswered questions.
“What the hell am I doing wrong, Victor?” he said. “I mean, look at you—you don’t hide under a poncho all day. And that bat thing—”
“Yeah, well I figure I’m some kind of special vampire,” said Victor. “One that doesn’t burn up in the sun. You’re not ’cause you were an accident.”
“Oh,” said Doug. “I thought maybe being able to stand the sun was normal, like in Dracula.”
“Dracula burns up in the sun, dumbass.”
“Not in the book, remember?”
Victor frowned, and then looked down the drainpipe. “I haven’t read it.”
Doug’s eyes popped. “You haven’t read Dracula? Are you kidding? I read it, like, first thing. Well, reread it first thing.”
“Yeah, big fuckin’ surprise,” said Victor. “Meatball gives himself extra homework to do.”
“But it’s like…our instruction manual, right? And in Stoker’s book, Dracula can walk around in daylight all he wants. He’s just powerless then.”
Victor picked up a chunk of concrete and pitched it down the drainpipe. Both boys paused to admire the firecracker sounds it made as it fractured and ricocheted in the darkness.
“Well…” said Victor, “so much for your instruction manual. I haven’t read it and I’m doing a hell of a lot better’n you.”
Doug had to admit that was true.
“What’ve you been drinking?” asked Victor.
“Nothing,” said Doug reflexively. “I don’t drink.”
Victor gave him a look.
“Oh…” said Doug. “Right. Well, there are these cows at the university farms—”
“You’ve been drinking cow? Jesus! Aren’t there at least some, like, dork girls you could feed on?”
“I’m working on it. I don’t want to just attack anyone.”
“Hey, who’s attacking people? The girls I feed on want it. It’s better than sex,” said Victor, then he looked thoughtful. “In fact, afterward, they seem to think all we did was have sex. They go into a kind of daze when I’m doing it, you know?”
No.
“I’m getting really good. I barely leave a mark, and I only take a little. Like as much as a Coke. But I do it enough so’s I’m always full as a tick.”
Doug had stopped listening. He was listening, rather, to a rustling echo of footsteps coming from down the pipe. He held up a hand. “Shh, hold on.”
The boys squinted down the dark tunnel of the drainpipe. A man was walking slowly down its center, slightly hunched, carrying a silver tray. He wore a knee-length jacket, a vest, a tiny tie. His long face and tired eyes were a perfect mask of boredom.
“The hell?” Victor whispered.
They had all the time in the world to study his approach, though to Doug he gave the impression of the kind of unhurried cartoon tormentor who would always be calmly on your heels, no matter how hard you tried to get away.
He slowed to a stop at the lip of the pipe and glanced with distaste at the decaying animal in the rocks.
“An auspicious place to find you, young masters,” he creaked. “My compliments.”
“Who the hell are you?” asked Victor. “Why are you here?”
“Remarkable. The incisive quality of your questions staggers me. Allow me a moment of quiet awe.”
The man took his moment. The boys looked at each other.
“Now then. I am but an unworthy messenger,” the man rasped. “Please accept these gracious invitations from my mistress.”
On the silver tray were two small scrolls, tied with red ribbon. Doug hesitated, but then Victor took one, so he did, too.
You Are Invited
to attend
a Light Supper
and
Willing Congregation of Like-minded Individuals
at the Home of
Signora Cassiopeia Polidori
Midnight
The Hawthorne
Chestnut Hill
Watch Your Fingers
No sooner had Doug read the last line than he noticed his invitation was on fire. So was Victor’s. The messenger flipped closed a Zippo lighter as the boys dropped their scrolls and stamped them out.
When the ashes were scattered and dead, the boys turned to watch the man retrace his steps down the pipe.
“Fucking crazy old fuck,” said Victor.
“He smelled like you,” said Doug. Except not as bad, he thought.
“He smelled like you, you mean. ’Cept not as bad.”
“Finally,” said Doug. “Cool vampire shit. A secret society.”
“I dunno. I’m probably not gonna go. Could be dangerous. You shouldn’t go either.”
Doug thought about the Vampire Hunters. He supposed it could be a trap.
“Go drink some blood and stay home,” said Victor as he walked away. “You look terrible.”