INDIFFERENCE chapter 49
FInally, sorry gang. School and the death of my kitty set me way back. Here it is for those still hanging around. The icon is by heather. The images are by Sandi. Enjoy.
THIS ENTRY IS INTENDED FOR ADULTS AGED 21 OR OLDER. DO NOT OPEN UNLESS YOU ARE 21 OR OLDER. MAY CONTAIN SCENES OF GRAPHIC VIOLENCE OR EXPLICIT SEX.
In the limo, provided by the network, Slade sat beside me as Alberic stretched out on the long bench seat to the left of us, facing the door. The fairie rifled the bar, found the whiskey, drank from the bottle and offered us a swig, which we both refused. You can take the fairie out of Ireland but you can’t take the Irish out of the fairie. He couldn’t be more pleased with himself after creating some mayhem during my coming out party but I am pissed.
“Pulling pixies out of your pocket and letting them buzz around the audience was a bit much, don’t you think?” I say with a glare as he laughs.
“They were all enchanted, just as I planned.”
“Lucky they didn’t swat them down like horseflies or crush them under their feet,” Slade observed.
“Not all have a natural desire to kill every wee t’ing they come across.”
“What I have the urge to kill is not so wee,” Slade shot back and I intervened.
“This wasn’t supposed to be a faerie magick sideshow. This was supposed to be a serious introduction.”
“Fookin’ faeries,” Slade grumbles.
Alberic is unfazed. “We can’t have the world believin’ the only thing out there on the other side of the veil are a bunch of borin’ vampires.”
I instruct the driver to pull up to the corner and stop. When he does so, a shadowy figure steps out of the recesses and swoops into the car, where he throws back the cowl of his sweatshirt and knocks Alberic’s legs aside so he can sit.
Justinian, my little slayer, my protector, was deemed by me to be too feral and scary to accompany me to the studio. So he patiently held guard at the far corner of the building. His silver eyes glisten in the darkness as he fixes his stare on Alberic. I can’t help but wonder how nervous the driver is with a car full of freaks like us. I close the privacy window that separates him from his passengers.
Given the brief history between Alberic and Justinian, before his change, I am somewhat curious about this reunion. Alberic gives him one of his smarmy, charming grins. “Well now, little tyke has grown up, I see. Look at you, all scary and pale and solemn.”
Having seen the way faeries can fight when riled, I have more respect for them now, and their bravado does not ring as false. Slade chuckles. The transfer of power from him to Justinian as my primary bodyguard is still not complete. I doubt if it will ever be. Two slayers in close proximity remains a volatile issue in our world. But as time has passed, I sense a slight bond is growing between them. Justinian has learned much from Slade’s long experience and Slade seems to appreciate how seriously the young vampire takes his job. I must admit I am surprised by how dedicated a vampire he has become.
He exchanged his youthful innocence and wonder for determination and purpose. I have seen him kill, and he does it well and without remorse or trace. His expression is impassive as he focuses on the faerie king.
“Why are you here?”
“To entertain the masses, why else? You’re looking well. I’ve always had a little thing for slayers,” he grins at Slade who ignores him. I keep forgetting to ask for details from my pairing partner about his long ago encounter with Alberic. It never seems important enough to inquire except when it gets thrown in my face, as now.
Justininan just shakes his head and looks out the window at the big city scenery. Alberic starts to place a hand on the slayer’s thigh, but before he can make contact, Justinian grabs his wrist and bends it back with unexpected power. Alberic winces as he twists free.
“Easy there, lad. You don’t know your own strength.”
“No,” Justinian corrects him. “You don’t know my strength.”
“You have a point,” Alberic concedes as he massages his wrist. “And I find that fact very compelling.”
“Why dinna ya just play in your own sandbox, matey?” Slade challenges him. “Your gonna get your neck bit you keep messin’ with slayers.”
Alberic grins. “Been there, had that, liked it, remember? Your venom dinna bother the likes o’ me.”
“Pity,” Slade grumbles and I smile at him, then say,
“What was the true purpose of your interruption, Al?”
“Just as I told ya, Bryant. Seems ya be makin’ progress with your bringin’ your lot into the light, and we plan to be part of it.”
“We?”
“Aye, the faerie kingdom. People have always been fascinated by faeries. Little do they know how interesting we can be.”
“You’ve been making mischief with humans since time began. You don’t have to be revealed to interact the way your kind prefers. Why go public?”
“It’s an adventure, dear heart. We crave adventure just as you do. And at least we don’t secretly feed on them and let them believe they fell victim to an unfortunate medical event.”
I shake my head at that. “You kill them just the same. Only in your way.”
“Not always.”
“Often. Or drive them mad, which is worse.”
“Look, we all share this planet on one side of the veil or the other. If they continue to kill the earth the way they ha’ been doing, we disappear along with the lot of ya. So we have a stake in this just as you do, vampire.”
I shrug. “Are you rogue or have you planned this out with your brothers?”
“It’s all part of a common plan. Now that Orin has his Chinese lover back, he is concerned more about cleansing him of that vampire taint than the state o’ the world. As for Seanny, he has his own ideas. None of us want to open our world to the masses, but we think we can bring some veritas to your struggle.”
I consider that and then shrug. “You should have discussed it with me first.”
“Ya may be the new king of the vampire clans, laddie, but ya have no provenance over me and my kind. Seeking your permission is not something any of us would feel compelled to do. We want to work with ya, not against ya, but as your equals, not as your serfs.”
I don’t trust them and never will. None of them. But I do take his point. “I’ve spent some time laying a foundation here, Al. I have cultivated human leadership and I wrote a book to explain my kind…”
“Full of shite, it was. Manufactured blood, my fine arse! How many of ya survive on manufactured blood? Only those who were always too meek or too nervous to hunt and were fed by the rest of ya. Don’t tell me you and these two never hunt, never take human life to stay in your game.”
“I’ve had manufactured blood,” I defend. “It’s nutritional enough.”
“That evades my truth.”
He’s right of course. We hunt, we kill, we feed, like always. But we can’t go public with that fact and expect acceptance. We have to do everything we can to ease the fears of the humans, not increase them. I know I have been followed by those hoping to catch me at it, but they never will. Not with long lenses, not with hidden cameras, not on foot. Our senses are too strong for that, developed from so many centuries of relying on stealth to stay alive. And the cause of death is still mysterious, incapable of being traced, no marks, no lingering venom, nothing but organs that opened and bled.
“You have no idea what we do,” I grumble at him and he laughs.
“Aye lad, tell yourself that. They may not, but I do.”
“What would you suggest, Al? That I go on national television and describe the hunt, the kill, the feed?”
“Dinna expect that, but you fail to see the real danger here, Bryant.”
“Which is?”
“Not to them, to you. To your kind. To the human desire for immortality. They will eventually want to unwind your code, figure out what keeps ya alive and snatch it from ya. Your kind is endangered from being captured by fanatics or blood worshippers or even the dark forces who are at work in their governments. Being dissected alive to find the gland, the gene, the spark that gives you an eternal life, or close to it, makes you all targets to these short-lived creatures.”
“No more so than you.”
“Aye, but I have a world of my own in which to hide if it gets dangerous out there and you exist only in their world.”
I glare at him. “They can but try.”
“Sure, right enough ya can overcome two, ten, twenty of them. But one hundred? A thousand? And vampires less stealthy and clever and protected than you? What o’ them? And oh yes, lest we forget the religious fanatics who view your kind as coming from hell. All they want to do to you is kill you off. They don’t care how ya work and how long ya live. They don’t want your cursed longeivity. They only want to send ya back to the hell they tell themselves you come from. I’ve read their strident manifests about your appearing as the sign of the apocalypse. You laugh them off, but they number in the millions or more and are not governed by any secular law your cultivated leaders may pass.”
“I’ve dealt with some of them. We are working to make them understand we are from the same gene pool they come from, only different by way of a mutation.”
“And how is that going for ya, lad? Understanding are they? Extending the hand of brotherhood to ya?”
“Some do,” I glare at him as he laughs.
“Pull the other one, Bryant my boy. I’ve known the venal side of mankind as long or longer than you. We prey on their greed, their lust, their longing. That’s my fertile ground. They are small and selfish and vile t’ings. This blending you seek is not going to be the march towards a goal that you envision. It will be fraught with booby traps and battles and the ghouls will keep it stirred up. You cannot control the ghouls.”
“If you are so negative to the quest, why are you interfering?”
Alberic leans forward and places a hand on my shoulder. I feel Slade and Jusinian both grow tense, but I quiet them with a look. He says, “Because mayhem is fairie nirvana, Bryant. We live to impose trickery and to cause disruption and to make humans drive themselves to madness. That is what we do. And this is one cock up we dinna intend to miss. Tell your man to stop at the corner.”
I instruct the driver using the intercom and he obeys. Alberic hops over me to lean in the open doorway. “Can I take your little slayer out on the town wi’ me? Show him the sights, some sights he could never enter as a human. Come on now, lad, he deserves some spirit and fun.”
“I’m not leaving Bryant,” Justinian says and I sigh. I think he should get out a bit and see more of our shadow world. He has spent most of his vampire life either training with his mentor and vampire father, Slim, or with me. I glance at Slade who looks grim. I know he would not agree.
“Go on then,” I tell him. “Slade will be at my side. No worries.”
“It’s my job to protect you, not his.”
This ruffles Slade’s slayer feathers and he frowns. “Git on wi’ ya. We won’t be needin’ ya tonight, we are stayin’ in.”
I nod. Indeed we are. I have a lovely condo in a good building with a terrific view, and I want to retreat there after a stressful day and fuck Slade dry. Better we do that without the young slayer nearby, he can chill the ardor. “If you let anything happen to him, Alberic, it’s your arse.”
The fairie laughs. “Is that a promise?”
“I don’t need to be protected,” Justinian hisses at me as he leaves the limousine and glares back through the glass as we pull away.
“Do the little git good to be put back on his toes by that jackal,” Slade huffs. “He is too full o’ himself for such a green slayer.”
“Do you think he’s in any danger?”
“From fairies?” Slade smiles and puts his hand over mine. “Only from having his ego bruised, falling off his self opinion. He can’t survive a night out with a fairie, he is no good to you as your slayer.”
There is wisdom there, but still I worry. To me, he will always be that unsuspecting kid, as well as what he is today. We leave the car at our building in Soho and the doorman gives us a nervous smile as we enter the building. It seems condo boards have a hard time approving vampires as tenants, so I bought the whole building and left the approvals up to me. Now many of the tenants are of my clans, although some hardy and curious humans remain. They cultivate friendships, wanting to be able to dine out on the fact their neighbor is a bloodsucker. Vampires are the new black.
I have an inviolate rule that no human in a vampire building or in a building occupied in part by vampires may be harmed. There is far too much potential out there for us to foul our own pens.
If humans knew that, they would compete for our tenancy, because they would be assured safe passage. But some things are better left to ourselves. The doorman has found we tip well and are studiously polite, but he is still a bit nervous, even with me.
We take the private elevator to the penthouse we occupy and on the way, Slade grabs me and kisses me, raking his tongue over mine and pushing my back against the hard glass and brass wall of the enclosure. I bend my thigh between his to feel his hardness and bury my fingers in his hair as I suck at his tongue with equal energy.
By the time the doors open inside our private foyer, we are opening clothes and reaching for flesh.
“Don’t stop on my account, lads,” a voice calls from the darkness. We both look towards the sofa that is positioned to have a prime view of the cityscape beyond the walls of glass. The orange eye of a lit cigarette glows back as we recognize the wizened shape of the baker.
“How did you get in here, Vic?” I ask as I begin to repair my clothing. Slade gives a slight moan as he goes to the bar in search of vampire wine to calm the waters.
Vic laughs. “You think a doorman and a lock is going to keep me out, Bryant? Have you learned nothing?”
I take a stem from Slade who offers another to Vic and then pours one for himself. “Why are you here?”
“Why not? Are you surprised?”
“I haven’t heard from you since we confronted Orin.”
“Yeah, I know. But I’ve been watching ya, the both of ya, all of ya in fact.”
“And?”
Vic stands, young again, that tough, handsome youth he can project as he leans in close to me and rasps, “And I think it’s time we had a little chat.”
THIS ENTRY IS INTENDED FOR ADULTS AGED 21 OR OLDER. DO NOT OPEN UNLESS YOU ARE 21 OR OLDER. MAY CONTAIN SCENES OF GRAPHIC VIOLENCE OR EXPLICIT SEX.
In the limo, provided by the network, Slade sat beside me as Alberic stretched out on the long bench seat to the left of us, facing the door. The fairie rifled the bar, found the whiskey, drank from the bottle and offered us a swig, which we both refused. You can take the fairie out of Ireland but you can’t take the Irish out of the fairie. He couldn’t be more pleased with himself after creating some mayhem during my coming out party but I am pissed.
“Pulling pixies out of your pocket and letting them buzz around the audience was a bit much, don’t you think?” I say with a glare as he laughs.
“They were all enchanted, just as I planned.”
“Lucky they didn’t swat them down like horseflies or crush them under their feet,” Slade observed.
“Not all have a natural desire to kill every wee t’ing they come across.”
“What I have the urge to kill is not so wee,” Slade shot back and I intervened.
“This wasn’t supposed to be a faerie magick sideshow. This was supposed to be a serious introduction.”
“Fookin’ faeries,” Slade grumbles.
Alberic is unfazed. “We can’t have the world believin’ the only thing out there on the other side of the veil are a bunch of borin’ vampires.”
I instruct the driver to pull up to the corner and stop. When he does so, a shadowy figure steps out of the recesses and swoops into the car, where he throws back the cowl of his sweatshirt and knocks Alberic’s legs aside so he can sit.
Justinian, my little slayer, my protector, was deemed by me to be too feral and scary to accompany me to the studio. So he patiently held guard at the far corner of the building. His silver eyes glisten in the darkness as he fixes his stare on Alberic. I can’t help but wonder how nervous the driver is with a car full of freaks like us. I close the privacy window that separates him from his passengers.
Given the brief history between Alberic and Justinian, before his change, I am somewhat curious about this reunion. Alberic gives him one of his smarmy, charming grins. “Well now, little tyke has grown up, I see. Look at you, all scary and pale and solemn.”
Having seen the way faeries can fight when riled, I have more respect for them now, and their bravado does not ring as false. Slade chuckles. The transfer of power from him to Justinian as my primary bodyguard is still not complete. I doubt if it will ever be. Two slayers in close proximity remains a volatile issue in our world. But as time has passed, I sense a slight bond is growing between them. Justinian has learned much from Slade’s long experience and Slade seems to appreciate how seriously the young vampire takes his job. I must admit I am surprised by how dedicated a vampire he has become.
He exchanged his youthful innocence and wonder for determination and purpose. I have seen him kill, and he does it well and without remorse or trace. His expression is impassive as he focuses on the faerie king.
“Why are you here?”
“To entertain the masses, why else? You’re looking well. I’ve always had a little thing for slayers,” he grins at Slade who ignores him. I keep forgetting to ask for details from my pairing partner about his long ago encounter with Alberic. It never seems important enough to inquire except when it gets thrown in my face, as now.
Justininan just shakes his head and looks out the window at the big city scenery. Alberic starts to place a hand on the slayer’s thigh, but before he can make contact, Justinian grabs his wrist and bends it back with unexpected power. Alberic winces as he twists free.
“Easy there, lad. You don’t know your own strength.”
“No,” Justinian corrects him. “You don’t know my strength.”
“You have a point,” Alberic concedes as he massages his wrist. “And I find that fact very compelling.”
“Why dinna ya just play in your own sandbox, matey?” Slade challenges him. “Your gonna get your neck bit you keep messin’ with slayers.”
Alberic grins. “Been there, had that, liked it, remember? Your venom dinna bother the likes o’ me.”
“Pity,” Slade grumbles and I smile at him, then say,
“What was the true purpose of your interruption, Al?”
“Just as I told ya, Bryant. Seems ya be makin’ progress with your bringin’ your lot into the light, and we plan to be part of it.”
“We?”
“Aye, the faerie kingdom. People have always been fascinated by faeries. Little do they know how interesting we can be.”
“You’ve been making mischief with humans since time began. You don’t have to be revealed to interact the way your kind prefers. Why go public?”
“It’s an adventure, dear heart. We crave adventure just as you do. And at least we don’t secretly feed on them and let them believe they fell victim to an unfortunate medical event.”
I shake my head at that. “You kill them just the same. Only in your way.”
“Not always.”
“Often. Or drive them mad, which is worse.”
“Look, we all share this planet on one side of the veil or the other. If they continue to kill the earth the way they ha’ been doing, we disappear along with the lot of ya. So we have a stake in this just as you do, vampire.”
I shrug. “Are you rogue or have you planned this out with your brothers?”
“It’s all part of a common plan. Now that Orin has his Chinese lover back, he is concerned more about cleansing him of that vampire taint than the state o’ the world. As for Seanny, he has his own ideas. None of us want to open our world to the masses, but we think we can bring some veritas to your struggle.”
I consider that and then shrug. “You should have discussed it with me first.”
“Ya may be the new king of the vampire clans, laddie, but ya have no provenance over me and my kind. Seeking your permission is not something any of us would feel compelled to do. We want to work with ya, not against ya, but as your equals, not as your serfs.”
I don’t trust them and never will. None of them. But I do take his point. “I’ve spent some time laying a foundation here, Al. I have cultivated human leadership and I wrote a book to explain my kind…”
“Full of shite, it was. Manufactured blood, my fine arse! How many of ya survive on manufactured blood? Only those who were always too meek or too nervous to hunt and were fed by the rest of ya. Don’t tell me you and these two never hunt, never take human life to stay in your game.”
“I’ve had manufactured blood,” I defend. “It’s nutritional enough.”
“That evades my truth.”
He’s right of course. We hunt, we kill, we feed, like always. But we can’t go public with that fact and expect acceptance. We have to do everything we can to ease the fears of the humans, not increase them. I know I have been followed by those hoping to catch me at it, but they never will. Not with long lenses, not with hidden cameras, not on foot. Our senses are too strong for that, developed from so many centuries of relying on stealth to stay alive. And the cause of death is still mysterious, incapable of being traced, no marks, no lingering venom, nothing but organs that opened and bled.
“You have no idea what we do,” I grumble at him and he laughs.
“Aye lad, tell yourself that. They may not, but I do.”
“What would you suggest, Al? That I go on national television and describe the hunt, the kill, the feed?”
“Dinna expect that, but you fail to see the real danger here, Bryant.”
“Which is?”
“Not to them, to you. To your kind. To the human desire for immortality. They will eventually want to unwind your code, figure out what keeps ya alive and snatch it from ya. Your kind is endangered from being captured by fanatics or blood worshippers or even the dark forces who are at work in their governments. Being dissected alive to find the gland, the gene, the spark that gives you an eternal life, or close to it, makes you all targets to these short-lived creatures.”
“No more so than you.”
“Aye, but I have a world of my own in which to hide if it gets dangerous out there and you exist only in their world.”
I glare at him. “They can but try.”
“Sure, right enough ya can overcome two, ten, twenty of them. But one hundred? A thousand? And vampires less stealthy and clever and protected than you? What o’ them? And oh yes, lest we forget the religious fanatics who view your kind as coming from hell. All they want to do to you is kill you off. They don’t care how ya work and how long ya live. They don’t want your cursed longeivity. They only want to send ya back to the hell they tell themselves you come from. I’ve read their strident manifests about your appearing as the sign of the apocalypse. You laugh them off, but they number in the millions or more and are not governed by any secular law your cultivated leaders may pass.”
“I’ve dealt with some of them. We are working to make them understand we are from the same gene pool they come from, only different by way of a mutation.”
“And how is that going for ya, lad? Understanding are they? Extending the hand of brotherhood to ya?”
“Some do,” I glare at him as he laughs.
“Pull the other one, Bryant my boy. I’ve known the venal side of mankind as long or longer than you. We prey on their greed, their lust, their longing. That’s my fertile ground. They are small and selfish and vile t’ings. This blending you seek is not going to be the march towards a goal that you envision. It will be fraught with booby traps and battles and the ghouls will keep it stirred up. You cannot control the ghouls.”
“If you are so negative to the quest, why are you interfering?”
Alberic leans forward and places a hand on my shoulder. I feel Slade and Jusinian both grow tense, but I quiet them with a look. He says, “Because mayhem is fairie nirvana, Bryant. We live to impose trickery and to cause disruption and to make humans drive themselves to madness. That is what we do. And this is one cock up we dinna intend to miss. Tell your man to stop at the corner.”
I instruct the driver using the intercom and he obeys. Alberic hops over me to lean in the open doorway. “Can I take your little slayer out on the town wi’ me? Show him the sights, some sights he could never enter as a human. Come on now, lad, he deserves some spirit and fun.”
“I’m not leaving Bryant,” Justinian says and I sigh. I think he should get out a bit and see more of our shadow world. He has spent most of his vampire life either training with his mentor and vampire father, Slim, or with me. I glance at Slade who looks grim. I know he would not agree.
“Go on then,” I tell him. “Slade will be at my side. No worries.”
“It’s my job to protect you, not his.”
This ruffles Slade’s slayer feathers and he frowns. “Git on wi’ ya. We won’t be needin’ ya tonight, we are stayin’ in.”
I nod. Indeed we are. I have a lovely condo in a good building with a terrific view, and I want to retreat there after a stressful day and fuck Slade dry. Better we do that without the young slayer nearby, he can chill the ardor. “If you let anything happen to him, Alberic, it’s your arse.”
The fairie laughs. “Is that a promise?”
“I don’t need to be protected,” Justinian hisses at me as he leaves the limousine and glares back through the glass as we pull away.
“Do the little git good to be put back on his toes by that jackal,” Slade huffs. “He is too full o’ himself for such a green slayer.”
“Do you think he’s in any danger?”
“From fairies?” Slade smiles and puts his hand over mine. “Only from having his ego bruised, falling off his self opinion. He can’t survive a night out with a fairie, he is no good to you as your slayer.”
There is wisdom there, but still I worry. To me, he will always be that unsuspecting kid, as well as what he is today. We leave the car at our building in Soho and the doorman gives us a nervous smile as we enter the building. It seems condo boards have a hard time approving vampires as tenants, so I bought the whole building and left the approvals up to me. Now many of the tenants are of my clans, although some hardy and curious humans remain. They cultivate friendships, wanting to be able to dine out on the fact their neighbor is a bloodsucker. Vampires are the new black.
I have an inviolate rule that no human in a vampire building or in a building occupied in part by vampires may be harmed. There is far too much potential out there for us to foul our own pens.
If humans knew that, they would compete for our tenancy, because they would be assured safe passage. But some things are better left to ourselves. The doorman has found we tip well and are studiously polite, but he is still a bit nervous, even with me.
We take the private elevator to the penthouse we occupy and on the way, Slade grabs me and kisses me, raking his tongue over mine and pushing my back against the hard glass and brass wall of the enclosure. I bend my thigh between his to feel his hardness and bury my fingers in his hair as I suck at his tongue with equal energy.
By the time the doors open inside our private foyer, we are opening clothes and reaching for flesh.
“Don’t stop on my account, lads,” a voice calls from the darkness. We both look towards the sofa that is positioned to have a prime view of the cityscape beyond the walls of glass. The orange eye of a lit cigarette glows back as we recognize the wizened shape of the baker.
“How did you get in here, Vic?” I ask as I begin to repair my clothing. Slade gives a slight moan as he goes to the bar in search of vampire wine to calm the waters.
Vic laughs. “You think a doorman and a lock is going to keep me out, Bryant? Have you learned nothing?”
I take a stem from Slade who offers another to Vic and then pours one for himself. “Why are you here?”
“Why not? Are you surprised?”
“I haven’t heard from you since we confronted Orin.”
“Yeah, I know. But I’ve been watching ya, the both of ya, all of ya in fact.”
“And?”
Vic stands, young again, that tough, handsome youth he can project as he leans in close to me and rasps, “And I think it’s time we had a little chat.”