Chapter Eight
The sheer terror of nearly getting caught with a man in my room (even at my age—my parents guilted me early and often, and like an inoculation it’s become part of me) gave me a brain-popping burst of adrenaline. As my parents clumped out of the room, everything—Dirk’s vampires, the howling, the attacks, Julian and Glynn’s unnatural handsomeness, and especially Glynn’s teeth at my throat—everything came together with a bang.
Vampires were real. And Glynn, who’d sunk fangs into my throat, was one.
I should have been afraid. A vampire had bitten me. I should worry that it would turn me into a minion.
But hadn’t it triggered a kickass climax?
No, no. I needed to be frightened. Glynn was an evil, blood-drinking creature of legends. He’d bitten me.
Yet when I put fingers to neck, my skin was smooth and whole. No blood, no holes. And he’d wiped his climax off my belly with his own T-shirt.
Kinda tidy for an evil creature.
I gave myself a mental slap. Vampire. Monster. Not Mr. Clean with an overbite. I needed to be scared, to report him to the authorities. Glynn, and all the vampires, like Julian…
Although what about Julian? If he was a vampire, shouldn’t Nixie be paler? More zombielike, less sassy? Infinitely less pregnant? Fear started to fade.
I gave myself another slap. Glynn was a predator. Vampire. When he drank ginger ale, he used real Ginger.
But I wasn’t named Ginger, wasn’t even a redheaded Brit. And compared to abusive boyfriends, axe-murdering husbands, SOs who picked their noses in public… So my boyfriend was a vampire, so what?
I brain-slapped myself so hard I nearly gave myself a concussion.
My boyfriend?
Vampires were not suitable for boyfriends. The whole biting thing, though extremely sexy, was dangerous, especially neck bites. The brain’s blood highway ran close to the surface. One wrong poke and I’d be headed to the great Sausage Store in the Sky.
So, okay. I needed to stay out of Glynn’s bed.
But both he and I were stuck in Meiers Corners for the moment, me in the pit until Mr. Big Broadway Backer hit us with his money wand and sent us to New York, and Glynn guarding Mishela. Business Truth #3 was “If you can’t run, gut it out.” I’d just have to suck it up and deal.
Although Business Truth #6 said “Keep your eyes open and on the customer.” Being stuck here didn’t mean I couldn’t keep alert. My eyes were definitely staying on Glynn. On his square jaw and miles-broad shoulders and tight butt…
Maybe I should have stuck Business Truth #2 in there. Focus, Junior.
Business Truth #4 was “All’s well that ends well”. Glynn might be a bloodsucking creature of the night, but so far all he’d done was protect me, comfort me and give me the best orgasms of my life. Things could have been worse (with a nervous finger-wave to Murphy). Glynn stopped when I said no. He was considerate of my parents. If that didn’t prove his self-control, nothing did.
So maybe the bed thing could work after all?
No, no. This was what was most dangerous about vampires. I wanted Glynn so badly I was talking myself into believing he was harmless. Which he definitely was not. Even if his bite didn’t bleed me out, a couple more might make me a minion or worse.
So no going to bed with Glynn anymore, despite Mishela’s and my plan.
Our plan. Crap-ay diem, crap the day. Without a bed, how was I going to convince Glynn to go along with our plan? He’d never leave Mishela open for snatching. Not the guy who was Mr. Protector Universe.
But how else were we going to flush such an unusually strong, fast kidnapper from hiding?
Unnaturally strong and fast, almost faster than Glynn…wait. If Glynn was a vampire, didn’t that argue the kidnapper was too?
Well, phooey. With all these vampires in Meiers Corners, how would we plain humans defend ourselves?
My mind started wandering, the way it does before falling asleep. Glynn could rescue me, but I’d rather rescue myself. Superstrong, superfast vampires were not the usual enemy, but maybe there were special techniques.
Hmm. Maybe ask Mr. Miyagi. Tae kwon do, hapkido and vampido.
Somewhere between wondering if it would feature kicks, punches or stakes, I fell asleep.
Thursday was the VIP opening, but I didn’t remember that when I got my carcass up at the usual half-past ohcrap. My brain was freewheeling on vampires and orgasms, and the gray, drizzly day didn’t help. I taped my numb toes, drank a full mug of coffee on autopilot and stumbled downstairs, hazier than a fog machine set on stupid.
No sooner had I turned the sign to geöffnet than Rocky Hrbek ran in, sans flute, shockingly enough. But she said, “Junior, quick. I need a pound of blood sausage to go.”
“But…but you’re a vegetarian.”
“It’s not for me.” She wiped hands on her neat slacks, streaking them a little. “It’s for my supervisor at CIC. She goes nuts for the stuff. You know I wouldn’t ask just for me, and I certainly wouldn’t disturb you before your second cup of coffee.”
“How did you know…?”
“Your eyes are cracked open a third. They raise a third for each cup.”
Either she was more observant than I knew or I seriously had to consider twelve-stepping caffeine. “I think I have some blutwurst left.” I did, but not much. I dug it out, weighed off a pound and wrapped it. Made automatic customer service small talk. “So how’s the new job?”
“Tough. Interesting. Disturbing.”
I stopped wrapping. Disturbing, like vampires disturbing?
“They’ve raised the rates.”
“Oh?” I finished wrapping sausage, hospital-corner neat, no mean feat with unboxed product. “On the insurance policies?”
“Yes. But only on Meiers Corners business policies.”
“Can they do that?” I snicked off tape, sealed the package.
“Yes and no. It’s supposed to be about risk. A car stored in Windowsmash City will cost more than the same car in SafetyRUsburg.”
“Meiers Corners is high risk?”
“Well, maybe because it’s near Chicago. But that’s not all. I overheard a couple billing clerks talking.”
I made tell me more noises as I rang up her sausage.
“They were ordered to change the premium payment method for all Meiers Corners businesses. Especially the Sparkasse Bank.”
“Payment method? Like from check to credit card?” While she dug for money, I snapped out a bag, slid the sausage into it and held it out to her.
“No. Like from monthly to yearly. Due immediately.”
I nearly dropped the bag. My folks’ insurance was a thousand bucks a month. If we had to fork over a year’s worth right now, we’d have to do without little extras, like food.
“I’m sure it’s just a mistake.” Rocky grabbed the bag. “That’s what this is for. I’m hoping to sweeten a few dispositions.” She paid and ran off.
Mulling over Rocky’s info, I wandered back to storage to get more blutwurst. Opening a refrigerator, I stared at empty shelves, my stock sadly depleted. Sure was a lot of blood sausage getting sold, to Twyla and Rocky and Julian…
Blood sausage. Vampires. It should have scared me, or at least disgusted me. Idiot that I was, I only thought ooh, a new potential market.
I had my second and third cups of coffee, which helped but not enough. The day was so dreary. Even when the rain finally stopped, it was gray, a fog cloud settled on the street. I wandered to the front windows, thought about being depressed but couldn’t summon up the will to care.
I wondered if the weather would help us attendance-wise or hurt. Maybe help. If people couldn’t garden or have cookouts, why not go to a show?
Store traffic was down, but the few times the bell did tinkle my body tensed, still hoping for Big Dark and Dangerous, I guess. Although he probably wouldn’t show up during the day, since vampires supposedly roasted in the sun. On the other hand, it was cloudy. Probably just a legend anyway.
Then I remembered the burning scent in the limo last night and nearly spat coffee. Not a legend. That woke me, finally.
I by-damn didn’t want Glynn hurt, so at six fifteen I tugged on my pink satin jacket (puke pink, and my mother bought it for me when I was in eighth grade, which tells you about the style, but it’s my only spring outerwear that’s waterproofed) and parked self and instruments on the sidewalk. The instant the limo materialized out of the fog, I tossed my sax inside, catching Glynn square in the breadbasket, which stopped him from getting out and frying.
I didn’t have the proper privacy to promote the kidnapper-trapping plan, and I really didn’t want to discuss last night. So I slid in with a lot of nontalk, empty pleasantries to fill up the space as I sluiced my braid and shucked the damp jacket. Glynn sliced me a look so narrow I nearly bled and Mishela frowned, but I kept it bright and vapid and kept my hands busy pinning the braid in a giant black cinnamon roll on the back of my head until we pulled into the underground lot at six thirty.
Tonight’s performance was for patrons, complete with posh reception. Since their VIP-y review of the show determined whether seats were filled for the general opening Friday, which in turn determined word-of-mouth to pack seats through closing, which finally determined if the Broadway backer was impressed enough to infuse our show with mega amounts of lovely cash, I’d have thought they’d be pouring champagne and caviar into the patrons before curtain. But the reception was after, and they were going with beer and cheese balls, the Meiers Corners equivalent, I guess.
The parking lot was already half-full, which was great. Hopefully that’d mean sell-outs for the weekend. Friday and Saturday were especially good for funny shows because precurtain dining and drinking helped make happy crowds.
Helped, but you never knew. No matter how logically you thought it out, how well you planned, success in the arts always contained an element of luck. That’s why theater people are so superstitious.
How superstitious? Just think of the “Scottish Play”, which to anyone else in the world is Macbeth. Think of “break a leg” instead of a simple “good luck”.
I know, I know. In this day and age, how can anyone be that irrational? But there’s a perfectly logical explanation.
Now bear with me, please. I need to get this out of my system. Smile and nod and make an uh-huh now and then, and we’ll both be happy.
Like weather, performance is a chaotic system. Night after night you put in the same ingredients, but you’re never quite sure what’ll come out. Exactly the same gestures in exactly the same voice, and one night the audience will laugh and the next it won’t.
Oh, we make up reasons. The audience has been drinking and will laugh at running water. Or it’s had a fight with its boss/spouse/stupid fuck on the road and is ready to hate everything.
We blame it on the FUBARs of fellow performers. The actor who jumps lines like a drunk Chihuahua. The followspot operator who screws your solo spot by lighting your left ear. The telephone that, after you pick it up, keeps ringing because the sound gal’s texting midshow. The singer who drops measures or misses the starting pitch and does the whole solo in the wrong key—don’t get me started.
But those are rationalizations. Simply put, audience reaction is out of our control.
Magic seems the only way to control it.
Theater folk are superstitious because Murphy reigns. Not the imp-of-irony Murphy either, but the mean mutha bent on ruin. And yeah, not to sound the wah-wah-wah brass of doom, but this is unfortunately going somewhere.
Why doesn’t life have a soundtrack so we know what’s coming?
I kept up the blank chatter as I hauled instruments through the underground parking. I chattered nonstop to the room backstage that the orchestra shared with props. There I waved buh-bye, dropped my revolting pink jacket, turned my back and assembled instruments. Glynn hovered and I thought maybe I’d have to parry a couple pointed questions, but Mishela reminded him she had to get ready and they left.
We were plenty early, but I hid in the prop room until I made myself late and had to haul ass to the pit. I threw my butt in my chair barely in time for the initial tuning.
At seven, the doors opened. Seats filled rapidly and I was hit by the familiar opening-night buzz.
A little preshow cramming usually took the edge off. I’d marked my difficult passages with a star in the margins and now rehearsed them to remind myself how they went. No playing once the house opened, so I just fingered them, which was good enough. When I’d run through them all, it was only seven fifteen.
I leaned over. “Hey, Nixie.”
“Not more viola jokes.”
“But—”
“No. Tell something else. Tell piano jokes or banjo jokes or something.”
“Okay. Why was the piano invented?”
She stared at me. “I didn’t think you’d actually know any.”
“Come on. Why were pianos invented?”
Rocky leaned up. “So the pianist would have a place to put his beer.”
We fist-bumped. Rocky said, “What’s the least-used sentence in the English language?”
“Is that the banjo player’s new Ferrari?” we said together and fist-bumped again.
“Enough!” Nixie glared. “These baka jokes can’t be good for the baby. I’m supposed to play Brahms and shit, not bludgeon it with stupid.”
I smirked. My work here was done.
But it was only seven twenty. “Hey Rocky, how did the sausage bribe go?”
She frowned and was about to answer when Takashi said, “What?”
I looked front. He was talking into his headset, low, intense whispers.
Next to Nixie, Julian arched a black brow. Nixie leaned toward him. “What?”
“Dumas,” Julian murmured.
“Something’s wrong with Dumbass?”
“Dumas is talking. Telling them something’s wrong. Shh.”
Vampire ears must be damned good. I could barely hear the electronic chirp from Takashi’s headset and was itching to know what was going on.
Fortunately, so was Nixie. She wasn’t silent more than five seconds before poking her husband. “What?”
He sighed. “Something about Lana.”
Our Glinda, the part-time hooker with the tiny voice. Not Mishela and not one of the Broadway leads, so probably nothing too awful. Maybe Dumas had found Lana on the job, so to speak. I went back to fingering.
Takashi cued the final tuning and we started. I stopped thinking about anything but the music.
Playing a show is like driving. Your mind can wander, but if there’s a hiccup, you’d better be ready to compensate. I try to keep my head in the music. Sure, it’s not often some asshole swerves into your lane and jams on the brakes, but it does happen and it’s worse with amateurs. Aside from the leads, these were unpredictable newbies. And half were kids.
So when Glinda’s swing came out empty during a tremolo, I was surprised enough to stop waggling fingers, but only for a second.
Takashi didn’t miss a beat; another sign he’d make it. The show must go on may be a truism, but it’s also an imperative. The show is your product and you can’t sell excuses. Good news is audiences will forgive a lot if you give them a great product eventually. As long as Lana made it onstage soon (even pulling up her little stardust panties from a good rubbing on someone’s wand), the audience wouldn’t care. They might not even know. I snuck back into my tremolo.
But onstage nothing was happening, which was a bad thing. We hit a vamp, the musical equivalent of fat pants, and Takashi signaled repeat with a whirl of one finger. Still nothing. I kept flicking eyes between Takashi and the stage. The Munchkins couldn’t come out without Glinda to call them, so poor Dorothy and Toto were alone in front of a full audience.
Mishela was desperately improvising when suddenly, a whole number ahead of time, the Wicked Witch shot onstage.
Even Takashi hiccupped a beat.
Wicked was thin and bony and wore the usual fluttery black skirt, granny boots and tall, pointy sorting hat.
And a new green Halloween mask. We all lost a bar when we saw that. Well, except Lob, the drummer in Nixie’s bar band, who could play though drunken bar fights and Granny Butt stripping. He covered us with a totally bonkers improv.
Takashi hissed, “Number ten.” We hit the Wicked Witch theme for two bars and trilled ominously before cutting off. Eighteen faces turned up from the pit to see what would happen next.
Wicked stalked toward Dorothy, claw-like hands menacing. Little Munchkins cowered behind scenery. Toto went apeshit, barking and running in circles.
Mishela’s nostrils flared and she took a step back, Dorothy pigtails bobbing.
“I’ll get you now,” Wicked snarled and followed.
The snarl was male. Fuck, this must be the kidnapper. A he, almost certainly a vampire, and definitely after Mishela. I flicked eyes for Glynn, but no dark mountains hovered in the wings.
Julian, though, had set his cello on its ribs to leap to the rescue.
Which would ruin the show. Julian’s one sexy dude and a fine string player, but not primarily a performer. First rule is if the actors on stage can get themselves out of trouble, you let them. Best case, the audience thinks it’s part of the show.
Granted, this bit of trouble was more than your usual dropped line or missed cue. But Mishela was a pro. She’d think of something. Both Nixie and I grabbed Julian before he could bollix things up.
He growled low and feral and not human at all.
Fortunately, Toto’s barking covered it up. The dog ran at Wicked and lifted his doggy hind leg, no doubt to tell the impostor exactly what he thought.
Wicked jabbed a broom in Toto’s belly. The dog gave a pained yip and skittered back.
Mishela scooped up poor Toto. She stepped forward, hit her light and challenged Wicked with, “Are you a good witch or a bad witch?”
Yay, an actual line from the scene. Damn, she was good.
Wicked grabbed for her again, nearly connected. Mishela swayed back, not quite superspeed. Wicked’s claws swished air.
A sucked inhale from the audience said they were caught up in the drama, not knowing it was real.
But Wicked took a menacing step forward, and another, and Mishela backed away, which was bad because the proscenium was only so wide. Once she hit the wing, the audience would know it wasn’t an act and the show would be ruined.
Of course that was when Julian shook my hand loose. I tried to grab him and his arm blurred avoiding me. He peeled off Nixie more gently, but his tensed muscles screamed his readiness to leap onto stage the instant he was free. I snatched at him. His arm shimmered again and I missed.
Nixie just jumped into his lap. He couldn’t shift her quickly without hurting her. He growled again, more human and disgruntled, and slid her gently aside. She clutched and hissed Latin curses the whole way.
Once again, he tensed for the leap.
Steam boiled from the wings, shot between Mishela and Wicked.
Snapped into a very big, very pissed Glynn, glaring at Wicked. I stopped grabbing for Julian. The scene was lost.
There was a collective gasp, from audience, pit and Munchkins. A tiny gap in the action as even pro Dorothy tried to think up a plausible save. Finally she stuttered, “Who are you? And…and are you a good witch or a bad witch?”
Glynn grinned down at Wicked, his teeth very white, his canines just a little long. “I’m Glynn,” he said in his musical baritone. “And I’m very, very good.” The canines lengthened a little more.
Wicked turned tail and ran.
The audience cheered.
Without a pause, Glynn turned to Mishela. Pulling a wand out of his jacket, he delivered Glinda’s lines word for word. Well, except for calling himself Glynn-deh instead, but I don’t think the audience picked up on it.
A quick double-blink and Mishela responded, in character, naturally.
They say the Welsh are a musical people. To our utter shock, Glynn completed the scene as Glinda (Glynn-deh), including singing the come out song to the Munchkins. Down an octave, since he was a baritone, but it was note-for-note perfect. And for once, we could play full volume. That boy had lungs.
Although the leather jacket clashed a bit with the wand.
But the audience applauded Glynn-deh, and the scene, miraculously, was saved.
At intermission Julian disappeared, literally. One minute he was setting down his cello, the next he was a river of smoke, running onto stage and into the wings.
Nobody noticed. They were all busy scoring their intermission chocolate from Rob, greeting friends or hitting the bathroom.
Nixie caught me watching Julian’s mist. She stopped midswab. “I can explain that.”
“No need. I figured it out.” I loosened my clarinet ligature and slid the reed out. “The fangs are a dead giveaway.”
She smiled slowly. “I thought Glynn was looking a little slugged-stupid around you. Congratulations.”
“Thanks. It’s not like he made it easy. Say, am I going to minionize or…?” I made fangs out of my index and middle fingers, wiggled them from my upper lip.
“Nope. I’ll tell you why later.”
“A secret?” Sticking my reed in my mouth, I threaded my swab’s weight through the bell.
“Big-time. It’d cost their lives. But the need to bite—” Nixie clacked her jaw “—gives them away every time. When the right mate comes along.”
“Mate?” I sucked in a breath. Along with my reed, which gouged my soft palate. I spat reed into my stand, coughed and gagged. Nixie pounded my back until I’d replaced the spit in my lungs with enough air to choke out, “What do you mean, mate?”
“Oh, not any sort of destiny mate or shit like that. Just, if you’re immune to their Illuminati mind-control, you’re a potential. Then the smell/taste thing draws them to couple up.”
“I’m not…I mean Glynn isn’t…I mean…” Actually, I didn’t know what I meant beyond duh-huh?
“I was going to give you the 4-1-1, but figured with you so duty über alles, it’d never go anywhere. Should have known nature’d win over nurture. Hey, since you’re linked in, want to come to the party tonight?”
“You mean the reception?”
“I said party, not puke-fest. LLAMA’s doing the reception, you know. They don’t throw parties, unless vomiting and mass hysteria count as good times.”
The VIP reception was being catered by LLAMA? Not good. The Lutheran Ladies Auxiliary Mothers Association was famous for their liver sausage and cheese balls, second only in popularity—well, maybe notoriety was a better word—to their pistachio fluff with stuff floating in it.
I saw a fluff recipe once. It called for gelatin, whipped topping and cottage cheese, but I think LLAMA substituted cellulite from botched liposuctions.
The fluff was why nobody ever said no to a LLAMA reception. Not twice at any rate. Rumor said they found bits of themselves floating in it. LLAMA pistachio fluff broke down people into desserts, a church-lady Soylent Green. Which I didn’t believe until I was sixteen and came eyeball to eyeball with an eyeball, staring at me out of my dessert. It turned out to be a pickled egg, but the scarring was permanent.
A rustle caught both our attentions. Rob was opening a new bag of chocolate bars, super dark, the kind that are 70% cacao and 30% orgasm.
Nixie’s eyes tracked the bag on its way to Katie Reverend, playing reed three. “Julian and I are doing a do at our place. Glynn’ll be there. Get him to tell you about his tchotchkes.”
“His what?” I reached for the bag. Nixie snagged it midair. I was practically sucked into the vacuum left behind.
“His knickknacks.” Nixie dumped the entire bag onto her lap. Carefully put two back. “He won’t tell us anything about them and it’s driving me crazy.”
“Glynn has knickknacks?” I reached again for the bag.
“Nuh-uh. Pads, girlfriend.” She started to pass the sadly deflated bag back a row, stopped. Extracted one of the two bars, and finally passed the bag to the harpist, who simply stared at the lone chocolate.
“Knickknacks.” My stomach growled. “Glynn travels. They’re probably just souvenirs.”
“I don’t think so.” Nixie popped a bar into her mouth, swallowed without chewing. “He arrived with the clothes on his back and exactly one piece of luggage the size of my clarinet case. And first thing he does is ask for a small table. Well, of course I had to look. He’d covered the table and set up these pieces like some weird shrine.” She popped another bar. “You’re gonna needle him and find out what they mean.”
“I am? Why should I do that?”
“I told you. It’s driving me cray-Z.” She made short work of two more chocolate bars. I think she unwrapped them first, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
My stomach growled again. “Yeah, except these knickknacks are apparently special to him. I’m not going to intrude.”
“Aren’t you curious?”
“Yes, but…” Glynn was the ultimate mystery man. Vampire. Whatever. He’d lectured me about home, and when he made camp, first thing he did was set out some knickknacks? Huge Freudian thing and much more serious than me slipping up about underwear when he was around.
Slipping, underwear. Argh. “It’s private. I’m not going to pry.”
“Well, I don’t usually bribe. But if you grill him, I’ll let you use my toothbrush.” Cocking a smile, she offered me a couple bars.
“No, I can’t. I mustn’t.” Without my permission, my hand reached for chocolate. At the last minute, I pulled back. “Glynn has a right to his privacy.”
She closed her hand.
I swallowed. “But if he happens to spill, I’ll tell you.”
She opened her hand and I swiped chocolate from her palm.
