Blood Oranges Page 10

  Oh, and my teeth. We’re not talking normal human teeth, only with elongated canines or incisors. Not Barnabas Collins or Christopher Lee. Oh, sure, the canines were longer than normal, but have you ever seen a piranha’s teeth? Those tiny sharp-as-fuck triangles? Well, that’s what the Bride had left me with. You can chew through bone with those teeth. Hell, you can chew through wood and linoleum and leather and lots of other stuff with teeth like that. White as milk, those teeth. Not a trace of the coffee and nicotine stains I’d had before she turned me. I wondered if my old teeth had maybe fallen out while I dozed there beside the railroad tracks, and then these had popped in. But I would have noticed a pile of shed teeth, wouldn’t I? Maybe so, maybe not. Also, my gums were tender and would bleed a bit whenever I touched them. But that stopped after the first week.

  So, there I am, alternately gazing at the monster in my mirror and trying to call Mr. B, and also beginning to think maybe I should crawl through that hole in my kitchen floor and stay there for a long, long time. Pretty sure that’s exactly what I was thinking when someone started knocking at the front door. No one ever knocked on my door. That might have been the first time, and I’d have jumped even if I hadn’t just joined the ranks of the walking, talking dead. I seriously considered not answering it, but the knocking continued, and after maybe five or ten minutes, I slipped the Wayfarers on and went to the door. I peeked out through the curtains first, and saw it was one of B’s boys. Not the one who’d brought me the money. It was the kid with his hair dyed blue, blue with turquoise streaks. Most times, he was in drag, but maybe he’d been warned about the neighborhood, ’cause that day all he was wearing was a White Stripes T-shirt and an expensive-looking pair of jeans. When I unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door a crack, he didn’t even say anything, just handed me a small paper bag.

  “What this?” I asked.

  “Contact lenses,” he said. He pointed two fingers at his eyes and wrinkled his nose, more likely at the smell wafting from my apartment than the sight of me. Mr. B’s boys, they see lots of weird shit and so get pretty jaded pretty fast. “A pair a contacts and a bottle of saline. Benedict said you’d find them useful, if you get tired of those sunglasses.”

  “Benedict?”

  “Le nom du jour, dead girl,” he said and smiled. I wanted to punch him.

  Instead, I said, “That’s gotta be one of the worst he’s come up with yet.”

  “Ours is not to wonder why—”

  “Speaking of whys, why isn’t he answering his phone?” I asked, interrupting the boy (like I said before, vamps love to interrupt people). “I’ve been trying to catch him all day, and I keep getting a recording telling me the number’s no longer in service.”

  “Oh, that,” the boy said. “Yeah, Benedict is presently incommunicado. He was getting these weird calls, lots of heavy breathing and a bunch of other awful noises, so . . .”

  So, I was right about Aloysius.

  The blue-haired boy was still talking. “. . . he’ll be out of touch until he’s got a new phone. Said be cool, hang tight, and he’ll call soon as he can.”

  I told the kid to fuck off and slammed the door in his face. I knew damned well Mr. B had gone to ground, that it was more than the phone, even if I didn’t know why. He does that, if the need arises. Rarely bothers to tell anyone why. Just poof, and he might as well be Jimmy Hoffa until he decides to resurface. I took the paper bag to the bathroom and looked inside. Sure as shit, there was one of those glass vials with a rubber cap, the lenses floating inside, along with a plastic case for whenever I wasn’t wearing them. Right side blue, left side pink, as if the lenses should be separated on the basis of their gender. They were hazel green, never mind my own eyes had been blue before Mercy got at me. I don’t suppose it made much difference. Obviously, it didn’t to Mr. B.

  I opened the vial and put in the contacts. They were the scleral sort, like you see used in films sometimes, so they covered over all the black (and hurt like fuck, by the way, but eventually I got used to that). They didn’t exactly make me look normal, but I figured I could pass, long as I didn’t smile, and I never was much the smiling type. If I picked up some makeup—a good concealer, for example, and some base and powder—maybe no one would stare.

  So, I knew I wasn’t gonna be talking with Mr. B any time soonish, and my guts felt worse by the minute. Or so it seemed. The nausea was being replaced by cramps. Didn’t matter how badly I didn’t want to kill anyone else, no way I could take the pain much longer. Still, I lay on the mattress and held out until dusk. Then I called a cab, guessing I wasn’t in any shape for a stroll. The driver showed up in a silver minivan a couple of hours before sunset. Yeah, a goddamn minivan, like he’d come for half the block. He asked where to and I told him Federal Hill. First thing that came to mind. Anyway, we were on the Point Street Bridge, crossing the Providence River, when I realized I didn’t have enough cash to pay the fare. I had maybe three or four bucks left from the fifty the day before. I told him to take Atwells Avenue, buying time to think through the money situation, and we passed all those restaurants: mostly Italian, with a few Chinese and Mediterranean places dropped in here and there. Used to, the cooking smells from those places would make my mouth water, and I’d long for pizzas and big plates of spaghetti and meatballs, lasagna, whatever. But that night, it all smelled about as palatable as dog shit. I rolled the window up and tried not to think about it.

  The driver asked for a specific address. Third or fourth time he’d asked, and I told him to turn right, onto one of the shitty little side streets. Fancy restaurants give way to slums real damn fast along that stretch of Atwells. By sheer stinking happenstance, I’d told him to turn onto Lily Street, and no, the coincidence wasn’t lost on me. Anyway, it’s only one block from Atwells to Spruce, and then you have to turn left or right. I said left, and then had him pull over in front of a deserted garage, between the yellow-white pools cast by the mercury-vapor streetlights.

  I’d solved the money problem, as well as the need to hunt down a meal. Two birds, one stone. I killed the cab driver—tore out his throat and drank my fill—and the pain in my belly went away pretty as you please, just like a good shot of H after a few hours of withdrawal. I broke his neck, like Mr. B had told me to (don’t think I mentioned that), tossed the corpse in the back, then drove around while I mulled over the best place to ditch the car. Oh, by the way, I’d brought a clean shirt, so I could change after eating. Or drinking. Whatever. Point is, you live and learn, right. Finally, I left the van in an alley. I was so high off my new H—hemoglobin, that is—I hardly even worried what the police were gonna think when they came across an exsanguinated cabbie. I walked home, wishing all the way I had wings like Alice Cregan’s, wishing like hell that sensation of flying wasn’t only in my head.

  * * *

  I have never been, by nature, a paranoid individual. And I haven’t ever been one of those people who claims they’re just being “realistic” in an effort to cover up the fact that they’re actually paranoid. Cautious, sure. I’ve always been as cautious as I could afford to be, and certainly after running away from home at the age of twelve. Oh, it just occurs to me that it might seem strange that a twelve-year-old kid runs away and her parents never come after her.

  My first few weeks out on the street, I was shit-sure they would, that it was only a matter of time, right. I fully expected that the cops would snatch me up at any moment and deliver me back into my mom and pop’s loving arms. So maybe that was being realistic, but it wasn’t paranoia. For a while, maybe I even wanted to go home, that first year or so. Maybe I missed my mom and my warm bed and just being as close to a normal fucking person as I’d ever been allowed to be. Possibly, I forgot there were worse things than being a homeless girl. Regardless, no one ever came. Not the cops. Not a private detective. No one from child protective services. No one. And, eventually, I stopped expecting to be retrieved, which is good, because, obviously, I never was. I know my mother still lives in Cranst
on, and that she and Pop split a few months after the night I left. Isn’t it illegal to let your twelve-year-old run off like that and not at least try to bring them home? Wouldn’t my school have . . . hell, whatever. You get the gist of it. Or not. Hardly matters.

  I woke late in the afternoon after the night I ate the cabbie, and, as the events of the previous evening went from murky half memories to crystal clear recollection, I sort of panicked. Plainly, I was an idiot. I’d left the minivan where anyone could find it. If it wasn’t the police, whoever it was would call the police. The police would call the cab company (who might have already reported the driver missing), and they’d learn that no one had heard a peep from him after he was dispatched to my address. And so on and so forth, and I had no doubt what-so-fucking-ever that folks in uniform would be banging on my door any minute. Only question in my mind was why that hadn’t already happened. It was almost four thirty in the p.m., and I was still scot-free. I got dressed and headed for the front door, suspecting I was safer just about anywhere but home. I thought maybe I could even count on the domino guys on the sidewalk to keep their mouths shut about seeing me leave. They certainly had no love of the law (not gonna get into all the whys of that). There were places I could hide. If there was one thing I’d learned in my time on the streets, it was how to hide.

  Okay, so I headed towards the front door (in retrospect, a smarter woman would probably have headed for the back door), and there, on the fugly yellow carpet was a white envelope. While I slept, apparently someone had come along and slid it underneath the door. I stood staring at it—I don’t know how long; longer than I should have. When I finally did pick it up, the envelope was heavier than I’d expected. Also, it stunk of cologne. Maybe that was just my preternatural vamp-loup senses kicking in, but the smell was so strong it briefly managed to mask the reek of the apartment.

  “Well,” I heard Mr. B say from inside my skull, “are you just going to stand there gawking, or are you going to look inside?” This wasn’t unusual. I often imagined Mr. B’s voice in my head. It’s like, after he scooped me up and made me his own personal junky (because who doesn’t need one of those?), the voice of my own conscience or common sense or whatever was subsumed by that purling, snide way he had with words.

  “Are you going to look inside?”

  I ripped the envelope open, and, lo and behold, there was five hundred dollars. Five hundred fucking dollars, and a handwritten note. I recognized B’s handwriting straightaway. There’s this thing he does, so all the letters lean back to the left, and the way the dots on his j’s and i’s lean right. Anyway. The note from the envelope read:

  Dearest Siobhan,

  Don’t worry about the fellow in the taxi, but know that I’ll not wipe your ass a second time. One more bit of mayhem like that, and, I can assure you, you’ll have much worse than the police about which to worry your pretty head. Also, do not attempt to contact me. When I can do so safely, I’ll find you. But not before. Meanwhile, here’s a little spending money. Use it wisely. Must go now. Ta.

  Affectionately,

  Bartholomew

  “Fuck you, Bartholomew,” I said, and sat down on the carpet. I think maybe I just sat there counting the money over and over. Don’t know how long, but it finally occurred to me the first thing I ought to use the money for was to do something about the way I looked. My face. The countenance of the Beast and all. The blue-haired boy had brought the means with which to hide those black-and-amber eyes. Short of a good cosmetic dentist (and a lot more cash than five hundred dollars), I was just going to have to deal with my newfangled piranha teeth. But, my complexion, that was something I could address.

  I made myself as presentable as possible (which included a shower and washing my hair, though I didn’t have any shampoo and had to make do with Ivory soap). I changed my T-shirt again, but the jeans I’d slept in had to suffice, as I only had the two pairs (the ones from two nights back were still caked with the “sanguine juices” of my first victim). My pink converse sneakers looked like a train had run over them, and, besides, I noticed there were bloodstains on them. So, I pulled on my battered old Chucks, pocketed the money, and headed for the mall. Which felt utterly fucking ridiculous, by the way. And now, fresh from her latest slaughter, the undead, lycanthropic fiend goes shopping, like any other good American girl.

  There’s a MAC counter in the Nordstrom’s at the Providence Place Mall, and the walk only took me about half an hour. You can’t get winded when you don’t have to breathe. Oh, but you do have to pretend to breathe in order to talk, and also . . . it’s amazing how people pick up on something as subtle as the person sitting next to them on the bus not breathing. Anyway, at the mall, I went directly to the MAC counter. I told the woman who waited on me I had a very rare skin disease, a nasty case of cutaneous porphyria (from time to time, all that reading at the Athenaeum pays off), which is why my skin was so pale, and why you could see the veins so clearly here and there. She looked alarmed until I assured her my condition wasn’t contagious (at least that part was true), but then she noticed my teeth and wanted to know if the disease had caused that as well. I told her it had.

  “I am so, so sorry,” she said, doing a halfway decent job of actually looking so, so sorry while still maintaining her original expression of revulsion. Since things were going so well, I figured why not fuck with her. Her name was Allison. She looked about my age.

  “My boyfriend left when he found out,” I told her. “But you can hardly blame him, can you?”

  So, I earned myself another round of “Oh, that’s just awfuls” and “Oh, I’m so sorries” and “poor dears.”

  “We’d just gotten engaged,” I added, no longer trying to hide the teeth. “The wedding would have been next June, once he returned from Guatemala.”

  “Guatemala?” she asked.

  “He’s a Presbyterian missionary,” I replied. How I got through this without laughing, I’m still not entirely sure.

  Fast forward past my lies about losing my Presbyterian missionary fiancé, though it went on awhile longer. She sat me down in a chair and proceeded to demonstrate how she could have me looking good as new, quick as a flash. Mostly, I remember her whipping out a concealer that she claimed was so good the Mafia used it to cover up bullet holes. I assumed she was joking, though she dropped her voice to just above a conspiratorial whisper when she said it. After that, I sat still while she smeared this on my face and brushed that on my cheeks and talked incessantly about how sad it all was, my diseased situation.

  “Maybe, when he sees you now,” she said, obviously pleased with both the quality of her artistry and the product she was selling, “perhaps then he’ll have a change of heart.”

  “I seriously doubt it,” I said. “After all, cutaneous porphyria is hereditary. Think of the children.” I’m pretty sure I had her close to tears.

  “Dear,” she said, as her knuckles and fingertips lightly brushed across my skin while she worked, “you’re so cold.” Never mind that the AC in the department store must have been cranked down to subzero, and it’s a wonder the place wasn’t crawling with hypothermia cases.

  “Yeah,” I told her. “Lower body temperature. The megadoses of vitamin B12 do that,” at which point I was no longer even trying to make sense. Still, it sounded good, and near as I could tell, she bought it.

  When she was finished, she handed me a mirror. And right then’s when I realized something I should have fucking realized the day before, if not sooner. I cast a reflection. I was a vampire, but I cast a reflection. There I was in the mirror, gazing back at myself with eyes of phony hazel green, and I could see that Allison had done a fine, fine job.

  About three seconds later I dropped the mirror, and it shattered loudly on the floor between us.

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh my goodness.” No, really. That’s what she said. Not “shit” or “damn it” or a good ol’ “what the fuck.” Allison the MAC consultant, she said, “Oh my goodness.”

  “
Sorry,” I all but squeaked. “Sporadic momentary paralysis. Never know when it’s going to happen.”

  She stared at the shards of glass and sighed. “Well, don’t you worry. I’ll have someone sweep it up right away.”

  So, I bought from Allison a compact of Studio Tech NW20 foundation (“a tri-system of water, emollients, and powder”), a small container of Studio Finish NW20 concealer and another of matte buff-colored blush. She even threw in a special bonus pity gift, a black suppository-shaped tube of lipstick (a shade called “hug me,” and, again, I shit you not). Exiting Nordstrom’s, seventy dollars the poorer, I made a mental note not to forget the porphyria story, as it might come in handy in the future.

  * * *

  So, another day goes by. I sit in my apartment and stew. I walk the streets. Another night passes, then another day, and I have to feed again. This time it’s a street crazy, the sort who ought to be in a mental institution, but he’s not, because Mr. Ronald Reagan ruined that safety net before I was even born. I rationalized his murder by telling myself he was better off dead. I did a decent enough job of disposing of the body, but I see no good reason to go into the lurid details. Another day. Another night. Another day. Another night. Another victim. And it went on like this for a week. A week became two weeks, and August was about to become September. Still no sign of Mr. B. No sign of Aloysius, either, and no more envelopes pushed under my door. The latter’s of no particular concern, as I still had a third (give or take) of the five hundred. After the visit to the MAC counter, I bought some clothes at a secondhand shop on Thayer Street and picked up a few things from a hardware store to assist in the disposal of my meals. I worried just a little about what was going to happen when the rent came due at the end of the month, but I was so busy fretting over other shit and staying well fed and ditching the bodies, there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot of time left over to worry about things like rent. I’d been homeless before, I could do it again, especially now that I’d been relieved of my mortality (though, to be honest, fleecing my victims of green, folding money was helping out; I steered clear of credit and ATM cards). I kept an eye on the papers and local television newscasts (I had a tiny color TV with a built in DVD player, which was in the apartment when I’d moved in, placed there by B, I always assumed) for any news of the spoils of my appetite, but there was nothing.