No Dominion(38)

He’s on the couch, Pigtails on one side, PJs on the other, taking turns bathing his face with a damp cloth. Ignoring the fact that everything that’s gonna heal has healed.

Poncho walks past me. She goes around the couch and stands behind him, hands on his shoulders.

He gives me a little finger wave.

 Hey.

I nod.

 Hey.

He tilts his head.

 So we cool?

 Yeah. We’re cool.

 Cool. Cool. Have a seat, man. Ladies, don’t be rude. Offer the man something.

Pigtails sniffs.

 I offered last time. He didn’t want it. And then he was mean to you.

She hops off the couch and flounces over to me, bends low from the waist.

 But that doesn’t mean I won’t offer again.

I hold up my hand.

 Maybe just a beer for now.

She straightens up, puts one hand on her hip and points a finger at me.

 You are no fun.

She turns her back, looks at me over her shoulder.

 But I’ll get you a beer anyway.

She skips to the fridge.

PJs has put her head in The Count’s lap. He strokes her hair.

 Sure you don’t want something stronger, man?

He points to the fridge. Pigtails is standing in the kitchen, fanning her hand in front of the open fridge, displaying the contents like a model on a game show. Blood. Lots of it.

 Just the beer for now.

He shrugs.

 Whatever you want, man.

Pigtails skips back over with the beer and an opener. She pops the top, takes a sip, and hands me the bottle.

 Yum.

She points at my lap.

 Mind if I sit?

The Count snaps his fingers.

 Come here, love. That man isn’t playful.

She giggles and goes to him.

 I knoooow. I’m just teasing. I like to tease.

She takes her place next to him and puts her head next to PJs’.

 And be teased.

He pats her cheek.

 Naughty.

I point at his nose.

 You might want to straighten that out before the cartilage knits. It’ll stay crooked if you don’t.

He touches it with his index finger.

 I thought I’d leave it as is. The girls like it.

 Sorry about the teeth. Those won’t grow back.

He smiles, shows me the gaps.

 Well, it wasn’t fun getting this way, but I’m gonna make the most of it. Thought I’d get some gold caps. Do the gangsta thing. Work on my street cred.

He flexes his shoulders, arms akimbo, hands flashing in front of his chest hip hop style. He laughs.

 Anyway, it’s no big. I had a role to play. I played it. Gotta admit, I played it all the way.

I nod.

 Yep.

 Terry fill you in on the whole thing?

 Most of it. He said there were some details I could get from you.

 Cool. That’s cool. So, where do you want to?

 Vandewater?

 OK. So, this is pretty fucked-up shit, funny fucked up. You’re gonna love some of this. OK.

Poncho has been rolling him a smoke, she puts it between her lips, lights it, moves it to his. He takes a drag and she removes it, his hands occupied with petting the girls’ heads in his lap.

 So, do you know what she does up there?

 Besides make anathema and spin fucked-up plots to stir up shit that will get us all killed? No.

 She makes enforcers. Really, man. That’s what she’s there for. Predo sends them to her. Sends her the raw recruits, and she sends back little order-following assassin robots. She’s the chief programmer. She’s been doing it forever.

 You mean that literally?

He shakes his head.

 Well, no, man. But a long damn time.

 Uh-huh. And you?

He grins.

 Me. Well, that was me. Funny as it sounds, man, I’m an enforcer. Anyway, I was supposed to be. She, like, handpicked me. I mean, I was really up there, pre-med and all, and she has these scouts, kids on campus, recruiters like? Mostly they’re looking for kids they can snatch, for the, you know, for the stuff?

 The anathema.

 Yeah, man. Like, raw material for the anathema. But sometimes, if they spot someone promising, they may try to recruit them. Nothing too obvious, right? No, Hey, man, what do you think of vampires? But she’s got a profile she looks for, something she’s put together. Traits she thinks you need to have. If you have them, and if you’re vulnerable to a snatch, she has you snatched. Has you infected. Or, tries to anyway. Sometimes it just don’t take. You know.

 But it took with you.

 Oh, man, did it ever. All of it. I don’t know what it is she looks for, but I have it. I took to this shit. The life. I know that bugs you, like the way you went all Raging Bull on my head, I know you don’t want to hear that kind of thing, but it’s the truth. I just plain took to it. And, I got to admit, I like it. I like the way it makes me feel. And, sure, I got it easier than most. The money, that makes a difference. And that shit I told you about mom and dad cutting me off? That was bull. Mom and dad divorced years ago. From each other and from me. All they want is not to know I exist. It might remind them of how old they really are. My trust fund ain’t going anywhere anytime, not unless people stop buying gas. I’m set. So, yeah, I’m spoiled fucking rotten. And I love it, by the way.

Poncho feeds him another drag.

 So I had whatever kind of crazy she was looking for. Not for, like, the standard enforcer thing, but for this special gig she had cooked up. This infiltration.

He moves his hands like cat’s paws.

 A lone agento secreto in the heart of the Society, carrying out a plot to subvert the youth of the Clan. Cool, huh? I mean, who wouldn’t love a gig like that?

I light a cigarette of my own.

 So what went wrong?

He takes a drag, blows a ring.

 What went wrong is I likes to party! I likes to have a good time. And one thing the enforcers do not get to do is have a good time. Also, according to Vandewater, I happen to be the most amoral kid you’re likely to ever run across. Besides being, you know, a spoiled little shit. When I was down here, it was, like, the bomb. Secret agent on his own.

He raises his arms, indicating the room.

 Sweet pad, nice threads, piles of money.

He looks up at Poncho. She bends and kisses him. He looks at me.

 Beautiful ladies. Like James Bond, man. But cooler.

He frowns.

 But then I’d have to go see M. Go Uptown like I was going to class, stop by her place. Have tea for fuck sake. Give my report. Man! That is not the kind of Vampyre action I was looking for. Then this thing came up.

I finish my beer.

 Tell me about that.

 Man, talk about your blessings in disguise. OK, so I’m down here. I mean, she’s had me down here, but laying veeeeery low. Don’t want to get scented. Once I’ve kind of established residency, I open a vein one night. Actually, one of her boys opened it for me, but that’s just details. The good part is when I stumble into a place we knew Tom liked to hang at. This agro-vegan joint on C. I come in bleeding, the staff, it was like raw meat to them, they freak out. Tom is all over me, saying he’ll get me an ambulance and shit. I’m pretty sure he thought a free meal had just landed in his lap. Then he got a good smell. Once he realized I was infected, I moved up from meal to recruit. Not his fault he didn’t know I’d been infected for years. I did the whole act.

He puts his hands to the sides of his head.

 Vyrus? What Vyrus? Vampyre? You’re crazy! Crazy! It can’t be! It just can’t be! Well, you saw my act a couple times today. What can I say? I got talent! So I played it freaked out, but not for too long. Then I played quick study, but not too quick. Then I played true believer. I played that all the way. Tom loved it. I was his star pupil. All the Anarchist meetings, calling on me to answer questions about doctrine and shit? A total drag. But I’ll give the guy this: He was sincere. For whatever that got him.

I take a drag, having witnessed what being sincere got Tom.

 What about Terry?

 Terry! Now that man, he is the mac. Me, I think he had me pegged the first time Tom brought me in for vetting. He sat back, let Lydia and Tom and some of the other council members drill me on my story and my compatibility with the goals of the Society.

He makes his hand into a puppet and flaps its mouth open and shut.

 All that crap. He barely asked shit. But I think he knew then. Not that I had a clue. I thought I was smooth. But, man, well, you know, Terry is the smoothest. I had no idea he was on to me until he showed up here with Hurley and gave me the score.

 What was the score?

He shakes his head.

 What do you think it was? Man, the score was tell him every fucking thing he wanted to know or Hurley would start chopping stuff off of me until I was a biscuit. No problem, man, I squawked. And I got to say, greatest piece of luck I ever had. I spilled it all. Spilled who I was, where I came from, where the anathema was coming from, all of it. And Terry? He watched me, just like he watched during my vetting, and when I was done spilling, he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Man, an offer I would never refuse.

I hold up my empty, start to stand.

 Mind if I get another?

Poncho waves me back down and gets it for me.

I take it from her hand.

She gives me a hard look, still pissed at the way I beat on her squeeze.

I drink the beer.

 So, Terry’s offer?

The Count takes Poncho’s hand as she circles back around him.

 Well, here I am, right? I play my part in this show, and I get to stay down here. No more Mrs. Vandewater. No more sieg heil. No worrying about when I’m gonna get called back and told to put on a suit and act like all the other little robots. Freedom, man. That was the deal.