Chapter Fifteen: New Body, Who Dis?

When Verne chimed his way up to the Juvechrome penthouse, it was 1:27 am, exactly three and a half hours since he'd first gone up for his meeting with the vampire Masters. It seemed like a lot longer than that... three and a half hours ago, he'd never killed anybody, never covered up the crime, never fully sated his vampire craving for blood. He hated that he'd been driven to that... and his brain was still buzzing at the exquisite vitality of that blood meal. Consuming raw, pulsing life had stoked something in him, and he regretted that the feeling would inevitably winnow away, that the life in him would die, that the only way to reignite that flame was to sate himself on blood once more. Verne looked at the little jade stones nestled between the cleavage of his pushed-up breasts and wondered whether he'd already given himself to some dark power. It sure felt like it.

The Juvechrome penthouse was still busy. Presumably, having vampires for bosses, most of their business happened after dark. Verne waited for perhaps twenty minutes in the sleek, onyx conference room, his own dark dress matching perfectly with the décor, before Erasmus Moody glided in. He leaned over with his pocket square and blotted at the corner of Verne's mouth.

"Missed a spot," he chuckled, and then curled into one of the chairs like a preening cat. He sat there for a moment, the glee evident upon his face, but savoring whatever emotion he felt for himself. "I had a good feeling about you, Miss Verne... your first kill! That's to be remembered..."

"You made me do it..."

Erasmus rolled his eyes and made a dismissive gesture. "Poppycock. You could have left town... do you really think our little coven is going after a fresh-fanged vampire who's consigned herself to hiding out in Myrtle Beach? Quite simply, you desire the remnants of your mortal life more than you care about the untimely shuffling of a pesky mortal or two from their coil. You and I will convene with the other Masters in a few days' time, upon our sabbath, and we'll initiate you into our ancient order, Sister Verne. But, until then, I wanted to give you a token of my esteem."

Erasmus reached into his jacket pocket and produced a dark red jewelry case, sliding it across the table. Verne looked at the box and then at Erasmus. The Master vampire gave the case a coy pat and smiled. After a moment's hesitation, Verne cracked the case open. Inside was a beautiful silver chain with an intricate locket. Embedded in the tiny twists and spirals of the locket were little blood-red rubies, and a tiny inscription in darker etching: Memento Mori.

"Memento mori," Erasmus said. "It means: remember death. Wise words for human and vampire alike. Go on, open it."

Verne did so. The locket had a little clasp that, once unlatched, allowed it to hinge open. Inside was something small and cherry red. Something electronic – a tiny wireless memory key. Verne looked up, his eyebrows raised in question. Erasmus craned his neck to look at the thing, gesturing vaguely.

"Charles explained it to me. There's a little switch on the back of the thingamabob to make it sync with your smart thingamadoodle. Just, uh, give it a little flick."

Verne flicked the little switch on the back of the device and the small screen of his vampire phone flashed to life, showing black and white video footage... of Verne at Redmond's door, flash forward to him overpowering Redmond and sucking him dry... and then to him easing the man's body into the tub and slitting his wrists. Verne watched on, gaping in horror until the video stopped.

"I do wish I had a video of my first kill," Erasmus chuckled. "Why, I barely remember it. I believe it was that slave woman Nanny... I think I was just as surprised as she was... I was so very hungry. But, lucky you, Miss Verne, you do have it on video. And so do I! And I intend to keep this very special memory as our little secret... but, naturally, I reserve the right to change my mind. You understand?"

"I..." anger flashed across Verne's face but, being sated, the killer instinct had abated. That was probably for the best, as Erasmus Moody was likely a lot stronger than even Verne was. His shoulders sagged. "I have to do whatever you want."

"Whatever. I. Want." Erasmus tapped the side of his nose. "Aren't you a smart cookie, Miss Verne? And, with that revelation, I bid you bonne soirée."

+++++

In one sense, Verne was shaken to the core. He'd blundered his way into Erasmus Moody's carefully-laid trap and gotten himself good and stuck there. But in another sense, he had a calm and rational accounting of his actions. In his sated state, there was none of the barely-constrained emotion of his ravenous self. Instead, he coasted coolly atop a cushion of reason, his mind churning through possibilities, wondering how to avoid getting sucked even further into the vampires' orbit. Maybe Maxie could help.

Not wanting to show the vampire coven the way back to Maxie's, in the extremely unlikely case that they didn't already know where it was, Verne passed up a limo ride back and instead took the N2 late night bus back to Maxie's place off the old Cleves Highway. He walked up to her and Gloria's bungalow and hesitated at the door. Maxie had given him keys. He was welcome. Verne saw himself inside.

Maxie was asleep on the couch, a copy of Orlando bookmarked by her thumb as she slept. Verne could have snuck past her and settled in for some hours of sleep, but she'd clearly tried to stay up to talk to him when he arrived home. Instead, he approached her, watching her sleep, hearing the hush of her breath and the beating of her heart. Namaste, Maxie's rottweiler, was curled up at her side, snoozing contentedly and making her own dog sounds. Verne sat next to Namaste and petted her, the jingle of her collar rousing Maxie.

"Hmm... Vera? What time is it?"

"Quarter to three."

"Shit." She yawned and set her book aside, adjusting her glasses to regard Verne, still dressed in his escort outfit. "Well... that's new. How did things go?"

"Um..." Verne bit his lip. "Not good. They said they were going to kill me if I didn't agree to kill a guy for them. Then they drove me to his place dressed like this..."

"And?"

"And I did," Verne said. "I didn't want to. I didn't even mean to, not really. It just sort of happened. And now the vampires have it on tape." He took his vampire phone out of the little black clutch and showed Maxie the video.

Maxie watched all two minutes and twenty three seconds of it, her face alternately shocked, horrified, and deeply disappointed. When Verne had twisted on top of Redmond, almost too fast for the camera to catch it, Maxie visibly flinched, but she kept watching. She watched Verne slit the man's wrists, wipe the place down and, holding a tissue to prevent fingerprints, down the rest of her whiskey. She looked to Verne with tears streaming down her cheeks and then back to the phone, where the last frame of blurry footage had paused: Verne in his evening gown, mid-stride and heading out of Benton Redmond's 25th floor penthouse.

"I... uh..." Maxie said. Namaste whined, snuggling her head into Maxie's side. "I think you should go," she said, visibly holding back the urge to sob. "Take a few minutes to gather whatever things you want to take, and leave my home."

"I..." Verne tried not to cry... and admirably succeeded. With no hint of emotion in his voice, he sounded like a cold bitch. "I understand," he said. He fingered the little jade stones of the amulet that Gloria had given him. "Do you want your necklace back."

Maxie blew her nose. "No. You can keep it. For now."

"I'm sorry, Maxie..."

"Me, too."

Verne was half-way back to the highway when his emotions decided to roll back in and he started crying. No loud, heaving sobs. Just a woman in borderline-scandalous evening attire walking down deserted back roads, her pretty face forlorn as inky tears streamed down. He'd got himself mostly cleaned up by the time the N2 stopped by – the same bus, it so happened, that he'd taken up to Maxie's. It had completed its circuit up at Surf City and had looped around, now heading back into the city. The driver recognized Verne – unsurprising, given the typical late night bus clientele.

"Rough night, honey?" she asked.

"You could say that. I've been disowned twice in two days."

"Aww, sweet Jesus. Sorry to hear that, miss. But if they love you, they'll take you back before too long, warts and all. Not to say you have warts..."

"I know the phrase," Verne said, allowing himself a glimmer of a smile. "Thanks. What do I owe you for therapy?"

"How about a story?"

Verne agreed and told the driver a very sanitized version of what he'd been through. One, wherein, his murder of Benton Redmond became seducing the asshole who'd dumped his friend, kneeing him in the balls, and having a generically dashing but no-good man then threaten to leak the video on social media. The story was as metaphorically accurate as Verne could make it without having any identifiable specifics or cold-blooded murder whatsoever. The driver nodded sagely, taking in Verne's story as the bus took on more passengers – they were approaching downtown, and there were still a few people who'd loitered and wandered the downtown blocks for a few hours after last call, as well as a group of tired nurses getting off their overnight shift and a group of janitors done with their night of cleaning offices. Verne ended up fielding a Q&A session afterward, and it was everything he could do to keep his story consistent and straight.

"Dude, I hope your girlfriend is okay," one of the drunk-ish guys said.

"I'm not sure you can get Lyme disease that way," one of the nurses said – in Verne's story, he'd possibly given Lisa Lyme disease via an infected inhaler*, which he'd given her to help with her very bad cat allergies. "I think It's just the ticks."

*Upon subsequent research, inhalers were not a way that people could contract the disease – oh well, she'd tried.

"Well, she'll be glad to learn that," Verne said. "Maybe it was some other bug."

"Vera, Didn't you say your stop was Redmond Avenue – Weeks?" the driver asked.

"Yeah... oh! Thanks so much," Verne said. He grabbed his backpacks and skipped down the bus stairs. "Good night, everybody!"

"Good night!" everybody replied.

It was almost four in the morning, and the near-infinite energy he'd been imbued with after draining Benton Redmond was just about faded. Some instinct within Verne told him that he was still 'sated', that he still had a few more hours of satiation to burn, and that the giddy post-blood high of the first two hours was a different beast entirely. He wanted to sleep for days – though, in his case, that slumber would probably amount to three hours. Verne knelt by the bushes at the stoop in front of his apartment building and rummaged about his backpack for the keys – normally, he'd have done it underneath a streetlight, but his night vision was so good that there was no need.

He grabbed his keys, zipped the pocket and, hearing an almost nonexistent shuffling of the foliage, looked up. One of the most beautiful women that Verne had ever seen gazed upon him from the darkness, soundlessly poised between two juniper bushes. A vampire.

"Who the fuck are you?" Verne hissed. He was already on his feet and ready to fight – he was a vampire, too, after all.

"It's me," the woman said softly. She didn't seem dangerous in the least, but Verne had no idea who the fuck she was – so she clarified: "It's me, Lisa."

OvidLemma

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