PART ONE
* * *
NEW ORLEANS:
TEN YEARS AGO
* * *
O
h I'll be a good boy,
P
lease make me well,
I
'll promise you anything,
G
et me out of this hell.
Cold Turkey,
John Lennon
S
he had to give the dead boy credit; he had the trick of appearing human nailed down tight. He'd learned just what gestures and inflections to use in his conversation to hide the fact that his surface gloss and glitz wasn't there merely to disguise basic shallowness, but an utter lack of humanity.
S
he'd seen enough of the kind of humans he imitated: pallid, self-important intellectuals who prided themselves on their sophistication and knowledge of "hip" art, sharpening their wit at the expense of others. Like the vampiric mimic in their midst, they produced nothing while draining the vitality from those around them. The only difference was that the vampire was more honest about it.
S
onja worked her way to the bar, careful to keep herself shielded from the dead boy's view, both physically and psychically. It wouldn't do for her quarry to catch scent of her just yet. She could hear the vampire's nasal intonations as it held forth on the demerits of various artists.
"
Frankly, I consider his use of photo-montage to be inexcusably banal. If I wanted to look at photographs, I'd go to Olan Mills!"
S
he wondered where the vampire had overheard-or stolen-that particular drollery. A dead boy of his wattage didn't come up with witty remarks spontaneously. When you have to spend conscious energy remembering to breathe and blink, there is no such thing as top-of-your-head snappy patter. It was all protective coloration, right down to the last double entendre and Monty Python impersonation.
I
t would be another decade or two before this vampire with the stainless steel ankh dangling from one earlobe and the crystal embedded in his left nostril, could divert his energies to something besides the full-time task of insuring his continuance. Not that the dead boy had much of a future in the predator business.
S
he waved down the bartender and ordered a beer. As she awaited its arrival, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror backing the bar. To the casual observer she looked to be no more than twenty-five. Tricked out in a battered leather jacket, with a stained Circle Jerks T-shirt, patched jeans, mirrored sunglasses, and dark hair twisted into a tortured cockatoo's crest, she looked like just another college-age gothic chick checking out the scene. No one would ever guess she was actually forty years old.
S
he sucked the cold suds down, participating in her own form of protective coloration. She could drink a case or three of the stuff with the only effect being she'd piss like a fire hose. Beer didn't do it for her anymore. Neither did hard liquor. Or cocaine. Or heroin. Or crack. She had tried them all, in dosages that would have put the entire US Olympic Team in the morgue, but no luck. There was only one drug that plunked her magic twanger. Only one thing that could get her off.
A
nd that drug was blood.
Y
eah, the dead boy was good enough he could have fooled another vampire. Could have. But didn't.
S
he eyed her prey. She doubted she'd have any trouble taking the sucker down. She rarely did, these days. Least not the lesser undead that lacked major psionic muscle. Sure, they had enough mesmeric ability to gull the humans in their vicinity, but little else. Compared to her own psychic abilities, the art-fag vampire was packing a peashooter. Still, it wasn't smart to get too cocky. Lord Morgan had dismissed her in just such a high-handed manner, and now he was missing half his face.
S
he shifted her vision from the human to the Pretender spectrum, studying the vampire's true appearance. She wondered if the black-garbed art aficionados clustered about their mandarin, their heads bobbing like puppets, would still consider his pronouncements worthy if they knew his skin was the color and texture of rotten sailcloth, or that his lips were black and shriveled, revealing oversized fangs set in a perpetual death's-head grimace. No doubt they'd drop their little plastic cups of cheap Chablis and back away in horror, their surface glaze of urbanite sophistication and studied ennui replaced by honest, good, old-fashioned monkey-brain terror.
H
umans need masks in order to live their day-to-day lives, even amongst their own kind. Little did they know that their dependence on artifice and pretense provided the perfect hiding place for a raft of predators, such as the vampire pretending to be an art-fag. Predators like her.
S
onja tightened her grip on the switchblade in the pocket of her leather jacket.
"
Uh, excuse me?"
S
he jerked around a little too fast, startling the young man at her elbow. She was so focused on her prey she had been unaware of his approaching her. Sloppy. Really sloppy.