Page 46 of The Undead

My bed was, I thought, a total loss: I methodically picked up stuffing and packed it in the huge rent, then leaned the wreck against the far wall. Activity prevented me from thinking about the blood I’d just gorged on, the warm heavy sensation in my stomach. My pillow was still missing, unless a scattered drift of feathers in the opposite corner counted. I’d avoided trashing Adam’s bed, which was lucky. The nightstand next to my bed had been reduced to matchsticks.

I dressed and sat on the bare floor. After a longtime, I got up and selected a book from the shelves. If Adam intended to keep me locked up in here for the rest of my unnatural life, at least I’d be the most well-read damned vampire on earth.

In spite of the revulsion I felt, the blood eased the cramps in my limbs, the restless desperate energy. I felt—human. I lost myself in the flow of words and imagination, so far gone that I failed this time to hear Sylvia’s approach until the door opened and the scent of her drifted toward me. I looked up to find that she’d dressed, too, in a comfortably faded pair of jeans and an oversized sweater patterned with abstract pastels. Her hair was back in a long braid again, emphasizing her Indian heritage.

She looked very calm. Only the beat of her heart—too fast—gave her away.

“I’m going out,” she said as if I were a normal everyday houseguest instead of—whatever I was. “Do you want anything?”

It seemed inappropriate to ask for a burger and fries. I stood up—slowly—and stayed very still. Sylvia didn’t flinch.

“I need to get out of here,” I told her. Her green eyes raised to meet mine. I wondered what color mine were now.

“You understand why he’s doing it,” she said, which wasn’t an answer. I nodded.

“But I’m claustrophobic.” To say the least. It was a new experience for me, and I didn’t much like it.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, very gently. I wish—I don’t know what I can do for you, Michael. You can be violent, you know that.”

“Only if you keep me locked up in here.” I hoped. My voice, never very strong or very steady, broke. “Sylvia, please. Help.”

She stood there looking at me for a long moment, heartbeat slowing to a comfortable even beat, breath rushing in constant rhythm. Sylvia adjusted quickly, probably quicker than I did—but then she’d had practice.

“All right,” she said then, startling me. And smiled, showing even white teeth. “Let’s go for a ride, Doctor. The fresh air will do you good.”

“Ride?” I protested. She crossed to the closet and pulled out one of Adam’s jackets, t0ssed it to me. I pulled it on. It was too large in the shoulders, but she nodded critically and smiled again.

“Gorgeous. Come on, if you’re coming, before Adam gets back.”

He was going to kill us both—if I didn’t kill her first, of course.

Of all of the things I’d expected to be different, it was the way things smelled that bothered me the most. I’d noticed food, of course, perfumes, garbage, overpowering smells that were the sensory equivalent to being hit over the head with a hammer. But the subtleties had escaped me, as I suppose they escape most people. Living in cities deadens the senses, and when we got in Sylvia’s car I received the first of many unpleasant lessons. When I shut the door I was assaulted by the closed, musty scent of mold, fungus, stale food, a sharp tang of plastic, burnt metal, ancient cigarettes …

I rolled the window down. Quickly. The scent was easier to stand when I didn’t breathe in, which I thankfully didn’t really need to do, so I took one deep lungful of cool outside air and cleaned the stench out of my body, then sat in unmoving silence. Sylvia watched this with bewildered, amused patience, then shrugged and turned the key. The engine roared to life-loud, louder than I remembered. My hearing was better, of course. She had a valve problem.

“We’re not going out for long,” Sylvia said, apparently at random, and put the car in gear. We slid away from the curb and around the cul-de-sac curve. Lights were on in some of her neighbors’ houses; I wondered what they thought about my presence, or if they’d even noticed. We seemed to be in a genteel suburban section of the city, which either meant she lived with yuppies who were too consumed with their own lives to worry about the odd goings-on of crazy neighbors, or bored retired couples who amused themselves by living the lives of everyone else on the block. A curtain stirred as we drove past one house. I caught a glimpse of the man as he turned away from the window—a middle-aged, pot-bellied man wearing the kind of undershirt that my father wore and hated.

Hey. Marge!I could practically hear him.That crazy Indian woman’s got herself a new boyfriend!

For the first time since my life had jumped off the rails, I felt truly, genuinely amused.

“You okay?” Sylvia asked me as she coasted up to the stop sign. I glanced at her and nodded. “Mmm-hmm. Thought so.”

I turned my face to the cool night air and breathed again. Talking still required air.

“Your house?” I asked, flicking my eyes back at the Victorian house. She shrugged and a faint smile touched her lips—a sad smile.

“Inherited. A friend of mine died four years ago and left it to me. I’m surprised you didn’t read about it in the papers. His family kept trying to break the will, or claim I had undue influence—” She broke off and shook her head abruptly. “That’s when the police started investigating my background. They were looking for anything to get a lever.”

“My wife—” I began, but ran out of air. It was an acquired skill, apparently, learning to talk without breathing. Sylvia didn’t seem to hear the non-question, just turned right and kept driving. I could see the lights of downtown now, closer than I’d thought.

“I never met your wife, just saw her at a distance. Nick Gianoulos was one of the investigating officers, though, and I met him a time or two. Can’t say I particularly cared for him, though he’s got a hell of a nice face.”

“Think so?” I asked. She gave me a deadpan look.

“Women love faces like that, didn’t you know? Except for your wife, apparently. I saw her giving him looks that should have left him paralyzed from the neck down.” Another right turn, onto the freeway access. “Anyway, the house stayed mine. I probably should have sold it, but I—I wanted something to remember him by. He was a special man, very gifted. And he died too young.”

I did remember, vaguely. A featured article in the Sunday paper about the death of a young choreographer, one in a wave of deaths in the arts as AIDS grew from a trickle to a flood. His family had been unhappy, all right, and accused his—nurse—

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