Page 58 of The Undead

“Easy,” she whispered. A white hand came between us, guiding Sylvia’s warm skin away from me. I was grateful.

“This club, what is it?” I asked, to distract myself from the memory of that hunger, the eerily pleasant sensation of power it had given me to frighten her. God, it was so easy. Too easy.

“It’s a jazz club, nothing too strange. I play there once in a while,” Adam said, and raised Sylvia’s fingers to his lips. If he felt the same hunger I did, it didn’t show. I suspected it rarely did. “But there’s somebody there I want you to meet.”

He turned the radio on to a volume then that made conversation impossible, and I rested my head back against the upholstery and watched the stars and street lights drift by above me. The street lights won the contest by sheer brightness, if not beauty. We went far past the glow of downtown, out onto a section of freeway lit only by the passing headlights of other cars, and took a small turnoff down a long winding hill. At the bottom a small renovated house basked in the blue glow of a neon sign that read KELLER’S. Adam pulled into the parking lot and switched the engine off. Almost immediately I heard the sweet sounds of jazz drifting out of the house, the buzz of conversation and the mingled low drumming of human hearts. Adam reached in his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes; he lit one and took a deep drag, then extended the pack to me. I shook my head.

“What are you afraid of, Mikey?” he asked me solemnly. When I just looked at him, he grinned. “Cancer isn’t high on our list of health hazards. Go on. Even the dead have to have a few vices.”

I hesitantly picked one out of the pack and accepted the matches he handed me. Adam was watching me very closely, eyes intent over the red flare of his cigarette. I felt like a junior-high kid taking a dare, and felt all the stupider for it, but I knew instinctively that there was more here than just macho posturing. If Adam wanted me to smoke, there was a reason. Okay, I thought; I stuck the tube in my mouth and struck the match. It flared.

I had no clear memory of what happened next. My mind sheeted over with fear so intense and personal that the whole experience blocked itself away; the next time I was aware of anything at all, my body was lying on the cold asphalt next to the car, the open car door creaking unsteadily above me. Adam hadn’t moved or made a sound, but Sylvia was just now crying out and reaching for her door. Adam stopped her with an outstretched hand.

The match lay on the seat of the car where I had dropped it, and even as I saw it, the flame died and smoke escaped in a ghostly spiral. Adam took another deep drag of his cigarette, breathed the smoke out through his mouth, and looked at the lit end with an expression of mild interest.

“Lesson one,” he said softly. “Fire. You don’t like it. There’s a real good reason for that: our skin may be difficult to damage with anything but wood, but it is very, very susceptible to fire. Until you learn to control that response—a survival response, and a very good one too—you’ll freak out like that every time somebody strikes a match near you or builds a fire.”

“Great,” I whispered breathlessly, and pulled myself shakily to my feet with the help of the abused car door. “What’s lesson two?”

“Ah.” Adam nodded wisely. “Look at the door handle.”

I did. The inside handle was gone, replaced by a smashed piece of metal that I’d disfigured in the intensity of my panic. I felt like Bullwinkle. Gosh, I didn’t know my own strength.

“Shit,” I murmured, and traced the damage with one fingertip. “Damn, I’m sorry. I’ll pay—”

“Lesson three.” He smiled, when my voice faded. “Got to get you a job, Mikey. Kind of hard to pick up your hospital paychecks now, isn’t it? Don’t worry about that yet, though; when you’re ready, I have friends I can call on. Back to lesson two, though—what do you think would have happened if you’d been in a crowded bar and somebody struck a match in front of your face?”

Jesus. I closed my eyes as my too-vivid imagination played it out for me: screaming panic, bodies hurled aside, possibly in pieces. I opened my eyes and stared at him as he took another drag on his cigarette. The coals were nearing the filter.

“How can you do that?” I asked in disbelief. Adam shrugged.

“Practice. Strike another match.” I looked at the matchbook as if he’d stuck a scorpion inside it. “Umm—might want to get away from the car first, come to think of it. You’ll get the hang of it, eventually. Until then I thought I’d bring you here, because it’s never very crowded and you’ve got to get used to it. Go on, Michael. Strike another match.”

I got back from the car, turned the matchbook over in my fingers, and stared at the white slick cover so intensely I should have burned holes in it—except that it would have ignited in my hands, and then where would I have been? When that finally palled, I flipped it open and plucked one of the matches out of its paper garden. The cardboard felt rough and thick in my fingers. I scraped the white-tipped head against the black strip, breathed in a sudden stink of sulfur …

This time, I only dropped the match instantly to the blacktop and took three steps away. Adam got out of the car and sat on the hood, legs comfortably drawn up, smoking. I shot him a murderous glare and struck another match. Another. I increased my tolerance to the point where I could hold the match at arm’s shaking length for three seconds before my fingers went numb and dropped it, trailing fire, to the parking lot.

“Good enough,” Adam said, and took the matches back. I gave them up with a feeling of sweet relief. He took a final drag on his cigarette—drawing that fiery tip down to ground against the filter—and dropped it. He crushed it out with the toe of his shoe. “Cheer up, Mikey, I’ve got a few years’ lead time on you.”

“I’m going to turn you in,” Sylvia said from where she stood next to him. Her voice sounded almost normal, as if I hadn’t frightened her half to death. Or Adam hadn’t. “Corruption of a minor.”

“A minor?” he echoed, laughing. She indicated me with a graceful, inclusive gesture.

“Take a look, Adam. He’s only a couple of days old, after all.”

Adam took that as funny again, and put his arm around her as he continued to laugh. He steered her toward the dub’s door, leaving me to follow.

The sound hit me like a warm brassy wall. The five-piece combo in the corner was swinging into the bridge of an old David Sanborn standard, with the fresh-faced kid on the sax performing a pretty credible imitation. The remainder of the band was made up of men in their forties and fifties, old jazz warhorses with years of melody under their belts. It showed. The dub itself, veiled with a thin layer of smoke, was mostly deserted except for the ten tables up front crowded with what looked like regulars and an occasional drop-in college couple. The bartender looked up at us and smiled—not the professional smile of a greeter, but the smile of somebody who sees somebody he knows and is glad to see again.

It sure wasn’t for me.

“Adam!” the bartender yelled, and lunged across the bar to shake his hand. “Man, it’s good to see you. Thought you wasn’t comin’ back, after last time. Can I set you up with anything?”

“Three beers, Cal, and where the hell else would I go? Nobody tunes a piano like you.” Adam passed some bills across the bar and got three mugs. I took one, sipped at it dubiously, and nearly threw up. Adam gave me a warning look. “Cal, I don’t think you know my friend Michael.”

“Mike.” Cal nodded, and extended his hand. I shook it. His eyes widened, maybe at the strength of my grip, maybe at the coldness of my hand. Whatever he thought, he didn’t say anything. “A pleasure, man. Always a pleasure to meet Adam’s friends. Speaking of friends, and pleasure, how are you, pretty lady?”

“Cal.” Sylvia smiled warmly, and let him lift her fingers to his lips.

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