CHAPTER 9
After his pizza man and his pizza, Reginald announced that he was going to take a shower because it was almost time to go to work.
Nikki’s jaw dropped. She threw her hands into the air and asked how going to work — given all that had happened and was happening — could possibly be on his mind. Reginald asked her how she was planning to pay her rent without working. Nikki said that Maurice would give them both money, because he already had way, way too much. Reginald said that he refused to be a charity case. Nikki said that Reginald could long ago have glamoured his bosses and sat home forever, collecting checks for doing nothing.
Reginald said that he’d once asked Maurice why he worked, given that he had a whole immortal, wealthy existence in front of him. Maurice had replied that sometimes, it was nice to be a mindless idiot. Reginald said that at the time, he didn’t understand why Maurice would say such a ridiculous thing… but that now, he did.
Nikki had nothing to say to that.
Reginald rose from the couch and walked to the bathroom, then stepped into the shower and let the hot water begin to dissolve the crud in his hair. He bent his head forward, watching the drain as the water flowed red and brown around his feet. Eventually the water became more or less clear, and he turned his face toward the spray.
Reginald — like his maker — insisted on keeping feet in both the human and vampire worlds. Most would have seen it as a step in the wrong direction, but for Reginald, having a double life functioned as a safety valve. Vampires were usually powerful, strong, and above laws and morality, making vampire life an ideal escape from the drudgery of human existence. For Reginald, however, who had a vampire life filled with inadequacy and disintegration and decay, human life was his escape. When things got bad, he sometimes stayed up until all hours of the day, watching talk shows and eating junk food. At those times, he relished going to work. He reveled in the abuse of his annoying co-workers and bosses. He supposed he was as goth inside as Maurice looked on the outside. He longed for the pain of humanity so that he could feel alive for a while — instead of undead, surrounded by failed responsibility and chaos.
And there was so much chaos lately.
Every night, on the news, there were more and more gruesome murders. The networks had to be loving it. They’d been blessed with a neverending supply of blood-spattered walls and gore-strewn rooms to photograph. The police shooed the news crews away over and over again, but all they had to do was to go down the street, where there was always another gathering, another person dead, another report of carnage and destruction… and, more and more often, another report of inhuman creatures that managed incredible feats.
What made it worse was that everyone Reginald trusted and believed in seemed to be looking to him for answers. As if he knew more than they did. As if memory and deduction meant anything now that so many butterfly wings were stirring distant hurricanes. Reginald wanted someone to give him the answers, but nobody had answers to give. Instead, they asked. And asked. And asked. And Reginald did his best to help where he could, but so often, he came up empty.
Even the Europeans were no help. He’d spoken to Karl, head of the European Vampire Council, a few times via Skype. News from Luxembourg was that the angel Santos seemed to have finally kicked his earthly addiction and had vanished without a trace. Most of the European and Asian vampires watched the news out of America and were active on Fangbook. Karl didn’t want to come right out and say it because he was proud, but as went America, so went the world. He said that the EU Council had held together, but that vigilante gangs were proliferating there as they were in the US. They’re terrified, Karl told Reginald and Maurice, and murder is all they know to do well.
Maurice and Reginald couldn’t reason with murderers. Their position was untenable. They wanted the killing and reckless creation to end. And in its place, they wanted the frightened vampire population to do… what, exactly? At the Ring of Fire, Balestro had spoken of evolution, but evolution was vague and open to interpretation. Evolution took time. Nobody wanted to analyze and soul-search and wait. They wanted a fix, and they wanted it now.
And what was worse, Reginald was beginning to think that maybe he and Maurice were the crazy ones. Maybe what was happening in the world and on the news was what the angels wanted. Vampires were the descendants of Cain and the servants of darkness, after all. Was it really that insane to imagine that chaos and murder and rape and death were what the darkness wanted?
The hot water ran over Reginald’s skull. He willed it to wash away his worries. It was all too much.
Claire’s mother.
Claire’s cold shoulder.
Guns and blood and defied orders of protection.
His odd new abilities, which he didn’t understand: the way his mind could stop time to think, and his (apparently temporary) ability to turn off pain, right when he needed it most.
Was this what Balestro had given him, that night on the hilltop? And if it was, why had Balestro given it to him? Did the fact that Balestro had given him something mean that Balestro wanted Reginald to win the battle that was raging? Was Reginald on the angels’ side, or was he against them?
But of all the questions and doubts circling in his mind, what bothered Reginald most of all was a troubling certainty that he might simply be too weak to face what was coming. When Nikki had her epiphany about blood ties and thirst, she had simply stopped feeding more than was strictly necessary. She’d seen what needed to be done and had the will to do it, but Reginald had never developed that kind of will power and fortitude.
How can I promote evolution in the Nation if I can’t evolve myself? he’d asked her. And she’d had no answer.
It was too much. Being human had been so much easier.
Reginald dried off, wrapped a towel around his waist, and walked out to get his clothes before remembering that he’d spent the day at Nikki’s apartment and had none. So once the sun had set, she ran back to his house and was back in seconds with clean underwear, slacks, a shirt, and shoes. Reginald used Nikki’s deodorant and brushed his teeth with his finger. He noticed that his fangs never got brushed, because he never brushed his teeth when he was angry, hungry, or horny. Then he wondered why he brushed his teeth at all. It wasn’t like they’d ever decay or fall out. He supposed the ritual comforted him, just like junk food and TV comforted him.
Old habits simply died hard, like so many people did these days.
Reginald walked out of the bathroom to find Nikki standing in the hallway stark naked, a come-hither expression on her face.
“We don’t have to leave for a half hour,” she said. “And I’d like to prescribe some much-needed stress relief for you.”
“I’m a monster,” he said vacantly.
“I think you’re still human,” she said, walking toward him and running his shirt collar between her fingers, “but let’s check, just to be sure.”