Psalm of Vampires: Chapter 21

Body Shop

Base images licensed from Adobe Stock; cover image mashup by author

I wasn’t thinking of this song when I came up with the title of this chapter, but I am positive Moreland would love this song (and video), so this is for her:

And now, on with our story…

Chapter 21 Body Shop

I looked at the sword. It was still on the table.

Owens asked me as if what he saw was now routine, “How come you don’t do that strobe light thing when you flash?”

“What’s she up to?” I wondered out loud. And why was Moreland suddenly so angry? I knew she was tortured by the deaths of the influencers, but so was I. The Wurdulacs were painting a canvas of death everywhere. This was no time for narcissism.

“Wait,” said Owens. “Check that. Moreland did not flash the second time she disappeared.”

“Maybe because she was holding onto the girl?” asked Garrison.

“No. I dunno man, it just seemed weird,” said Owens.”

“I gotta go and see if she’s at home,” I said.

“Where’s home for her?” asked Owens.

“She runs a body shop in upper New York state.”

“As in auto body? Moreland?” asked Owens.

“I’ll go with you,” said Charly.

“You need to try it,” said Owens.

“Try what?” I asked. “Running a body shop?”

“To see if you can flash to a person instead of a place. Because you did before. I was with you when you flashed to Longtooth. And because you can’t know if Moreland went home.”

So I tried. Several times. But this time, no matter how hard I thought about Moreland, nothing happened. At all.

“I guess we find her the old-fashioned way,” said Owens after I pounded the conference table in frustration.

“We?” I said. “Don’t you need to pow-wow with your captain? Shit. I don’t think I can bring a crew with me, anyway, no matter where we go. It’s exhausting bringing one with me. Charly, can you take Garrison to Fang HQ? I’ll do the same with Owens. Then you and I can haul ass to Moreland’s body shop and hope like hell she’s there.”

“No,” said Owens. “We need to get somewhere we can pick up vehicles.”

“We have to see the captain, anyway,” said Garrison. “Things should be bad enough on the home front that he should clear us for field work again.”

“Ah, small favors,” said Owens, probably thinking about the new attacks.

“I’ve never been to police headquarters. I can’t flash you there,” I said to Owens. “We’ll drop you off at a coffee shop,” I said. Garrison and Owens nodded their okays.

“Okay,” said Charly. “Let’s do this.”

We all did bathroom breaks. Owens strapped Cornelia to his back and a .308 Winchester semi-automatic pistol to his waist. He gave me one, too. Dr. Chua looked appalled. “How did you get these guns through customs?” he asked. “Oh, of course.” He had forgotten that we didn’t go through customs.

“Actually, Charly got these yesterday,” said Owens. “No more of this slingshot or sniper rifle bullshit.”

“And you’ve got meteor bullets for these?” I asked.

“Damn skippy,” said Owens.

“We could have used these in Jerrold Mountain,” I said.

“We could have used a lot of things in Jerrold Mountain,” Owens said. “Their numbers snuck up on us. Won’t happen again.”

Garrison said, “I tried to talk the captain into equipping some officers with these and your elaliite bullets, but deaf ears.”

“Woulda helped if you had mentioned vampires,” snickered Owens.

We said our goodbyes to Dr. Chua, who said he’d continue his research, then Charly and I flashed to Atlanta with the two detectives. Chua had arranged for some improvements in our cellphone technology, including new phones with higher encryption than consumer phones. He said that he “knew a guy,” winking like he was a criminal.

We arrived at a coffee shop in midtown Atlanta. Owens looked at his new phone for a few minutes and said, “The only unique thing about this is that he’s set up a private VPN on a subnet in Korea. It’ll keep prying eyes out if there are any. He’s added a new private Telegram channel to discuss shit, so keep your alerts active for Telegram, but block most of your other alerts to keep the noise down.”

I tried to think of a departing snark, but I came up empty. So instead, we shook hands. Even Charly shook his hand. We did the same with Garrison. When Owens said, “Good luck,” I almost checked to make sure that the moon, which was a full saucer pushing its way up from behind a building, wasn’t on fire as part of this new alternative universe where Owens was almost acting like a friend. Then, Charly and I flashed to Moreland’s auto body shop.

It was dark, but it didn’t matter with our eyesight. To explain why, I’ll just mention that if you shine a flashlight at our eyes in the dark, they reflect back at you.

Moreland’s auto body shop was not like the usual. There were several paved driveways in front of a long, metal building with six garage doors. Some of the driveways contained cars covered in canvas. The area immediately surrounding the building was pristine. The driveways were paved with charcoal-colored granite variegated with undulant patterns of slightly brighter and darker colors. A large white canvas cloth held up by thick poles was hoisted over each driveway.

I could hear a couple of men speaking loudly in Spanish inside the building while they blasted traditional Mexican music. I had never encountered employees at Moreland’s shop before. Moreland’s place, Oswego Riverside Auto Body, had always been a one-woman operation.

The shop was located deep in a forest shrouded in old oak-hickory, beech, and coastal pine. A dusty gravel road led up to the place from a steep, woodsy incline. I tried to imagine an unsatisfied customer, after spending piles of money, looking at the dusty results as Moreland finished her drive back down the road to return with her finished product.

When Charly and I poked around, my nose was caught by a strange mélange of automotive toxicity and forest pine. It was cold outside, so the pine won the argument over which scent was alpha dog, but just barely. We spent about fifteen minutes scoping out the trees surrounding the building, then returned to the parked cars.

We peeked under one of the canvas covers, then another. Moreland’s customers had expensive tastes. The first car was a blue ice-colored De Tomaso P72. With a car like that around, I didn’t understand why she’d want to flash to get places. The other car was a gold Bentley Bacalar.

There were four other cars, each in a driveway parked outside a garage door. I’m no automotive expert, but aside from the fancy driveways, Moreland’s place seemed unrefined for these kinds of vehicles. I assumed the obvious: Her customers were all vampires willing to trade refinement for discretion.

It had been twenty years since my last visit. Back then, the place was filled with old Mustangs and Camaros and Pontiac GTOs parked on gravel driveways. Different vibe.

Charly and I approached a grey metal door labeled “Office” on the side of the building. A window was cut into the metal, but the glass was a thick opaque barrier that offered no clue about the interior. When I pounded on the door, a muffled echo responded, but the door itself was so unresponsive that it behaved like it had been sealed in concrete. There was no answer, but the door wasn’t locked, so we walked in. The office consisted of a metal counter with an adding machine, several open large spiral-bound books attached by small chains to the counter listing various automotive products and paints, and a steel desk behind everything. The counter was split by one of those metal gates you lift to get through, so we did that and entered a garage through another closed solid steel door behind the desk area.

Daphne was lying on a table. But no Moreland. Charly and I drew our fancy new semi-automatics. Man, I sure didn’t want to smoke Moreland. I said that to Charly, very quietly, and he nodded. I pulled out my phone. What the hell? I thought. I’ll text her. Charly thought I was crazy, but I did it anyway.

She appeared from behind some plastic sheeting. I expected her sword to be drawn, but it wasn’t.

“Did you turn her, goddammit?” I asked.

“No. She said she wasn’t sure yet. And that she wanted to talk to you, first. She’s just sleeping now. She’s exhausted. An earthquake wouldn’t wake her.”

“Why did you take her out of Singapore?”

“To kill her,” Moreland said matter-of-factly.

“What?” I pointed my semi at her. She instinctively drew her sword.

Charly stepped in between us. “Two against one. Nobody kills Daphne without killing me first.”

Moreland ignored Charly, then swept aside a few small tools from a plastic chair and sat down.

“Something is wrong,” she said, throwing her sword to the floor. Its clang reverberated through the poorly lit garage.

“We agree on that,” I replied.

“When I flashed with her, I was determined to kill her, and I had nothing else on my mind. And I mean, nothing. Then, when I got here, it went away.”

“What went away?” I asked.

“I dunno, Jade. Fuck. That feeling. That sense of purpose. A sense of purpose with no reason or motive underlying it. Just this pure, unfiltered determination to remove her from existence.”

Charly said, “You could have just done it then and there. In Chua’s office. Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know that, either. I think a part of me knew that if I just took her out of there, I’d be free.” Charly and I stared. “I know. That makes no sense,” said Moreland.

I told Moreland about the new Telegram channel. It was a risk, but not much was working right. I needed Dr. Chua to know what was going on. “Do a video call with Chua,” I said. “Tell him all of this. See what he thinks.”

“He’ll think I’m crazy is what he’ll think,” said Moreland.

“He already thinks that,” I said. “So just do it. Please?”

Charly and I hovered over her shoulder while she called, and Dr. Chua’s answer came faster than a Moreland flash. “Nanobots,” he said. “Microscopic. Found them in the Wurdulac blood. Never seen anything like it. Programmable, I think, from a distance. This call is a great coincidence. I was just looking at the blood when you reached out to me.”

“Well that sucks,” I said. “Where is Longtooth getting all this technology? And anyway, it doesn’t explain how Longtooth got the nanobots inside Moreland.”

Moreland said, “Jade, do you know how much Wurdulac blood has splattered all over me? I’ve been worried that these things carry plague or something else that can kill us that we don’t know about. But, Dr. Chua, why did it stop working when I got here?”

“Because Longtooth is in Singapore,” I said.

“Shit,” said Charly. Even Dr. Chua said, “shit,” and he never swears.

“Or was,” I added.

“Limited range communications,” said Dr. Chua. “If Wurdulac blood got into your mouth, or your eyes, then some nanobots may be in your bloodstream.”

“As usual, Moreland, you’re compromised,” I said.

She glared at me.

“Too soon?” I asked.

“Too fuckin’ real,” she replied.

“I knew you were pissed, but not so pissed that you’d hurt Daphne,” I said.

“I wasn’t, though. Pissed at her, I mean. Well, I guess maybe some. But not in that way. Like in a way friends get mad at each other. I hurt, Jade. I still hurt. I’m not going to hide from it because, if I do, it will affect how I handle this conflict we have with Longtooth. I need to keep it out in front of me. But I wasn’t pissed at you when I threw that sword. Something else was.”

“Something else?” I asked.

“Yeah. Hard to explain. It’s like, something inside of me. Another being.”

“Imagine someone calls you on the phone and tells you to do something, and you feel compelled to do exactly as they say,” said Dr. Chua. “I believe that is what is happening. Some kind of programmable mind control. I believe he’s using a private network. Almost like a Wi-Fi, and probably with not a very different range. He can use an unused high-frequency radio band. When your friend Moreland traveled away from the signal, she was no longer compelled to do what she was told. You should bring her back to me so I can take a blood sample.”

“Too risky,” I said. “She could get signals from Longtooth and go berserk. And she’s a tough old bird. I don’t much want to engage in battle with her.”

“Understood,” Dr. Chua replied.

“But if the bots stopped working when you left Singapore, why did you come back for her?” I asked.

“That’s the weird thing,” said Moreland. “At that moment, because, I was, I dunno, aggravated? I wanted to get her away from you. Maybe for her sake. Maybe so I could annoy you too. I dunno. But when I flashed into Chua’s lab, I felt compelled to kill her. So I took her with that in mind.”

“We have to get back to Singapore, Jade,” said Charly.

“You know what that is, right?” I asked Moreland. “What you did.”

“What? Do I know what what is?”

“Your instinct took over,” I said. “You were commanded by a program to kill Daphne, and something inside you said no, and here you are. That’s called love.”

“Love’s a little strong, Jade.” She looked over at Daphne, who was still asleep. “Admiration? Respect? Affection, even? Sure. And besides, I hate to blow away your sentimentality, but the bots just stopped working my brain. I’d never hurt her in real life if you know what I mean. Once they let go of my thoughts, well, here we are.”

“Okay,” I chuckled. “Whatever.” My theory is that to know Daphne is to love her, but I’ll admit to some bias.

“Are you sure you weren’t turned as a child?” asked Moreland. “Something must explain your sentimentality. It’s so human. And weak, sorry to say.”

I laughed. “You are never sorry to say it.”

“You are one sentimental son of a bitch,” smiled Charly. He looked at Moreland. “I always liked that about him.”

“We’ll get a vial of my blood,” said Moreland. “In town. Just find a pharmacy, get what we need, get out, and we can draw some of my blood and you bring it to Dr. Chua.”

“We can’t wait for pharmacies to close,” I said, looking at my watch.

“Good,” said Charly, “I need to feed.”

I had been feeling weak for the past two days. “Me too,” I said.

“So we just shut one down the old-fashioned way,” he said. “Then get what we need.”

“I’ll do it,” said Moreland. “Unless you both have been to town, you won’t be able to flash there.”

I shook my head. “I never have. Wouldn’t know it if it fell out of the sky on top of me.”

“Me too,” said Charly. “But I really do need to feed.”

“There’s a house down the road. You can get there by foot in about ten minutes if you run,” Moreland said. “There’s a middle-aged skinhead who lives there with his wife. By themselves. You’ll see a big Confederate flag draped across their porch. If you suck them dry, the locals will probably give you a hefty reward.”

Charly licked his lips like he was anticipating the feast of a lifetime.

“Do they drink?” I asked. “Are they meth heads?”

“The woman is in AA. The guy, who knows? I always feed on the woman. She’s clean. She’ll be there, too. She sits around all day watching daytime TV. You go do your thing,” said Moreland, “and I’ll go to the pharmacy and get what we need to deliver some blood to your scientist friend in Singapore.”

The truth is my phobia over alcohol or other toxins in the human bloodstream is just that. Our bodies separate the toxins and extract what’s needed from the blood we devour. But boozers and druggies creep me out, anyway. So I was relieved our target was a twelve-stepper.

Moreland sent a map pin for the house location to my phone. Charly and I, like two overgrown cats rampaging toward catnip, easily found the place. We were so hungry for blood that I think we were both blind to our surroundings as our noses and hunger led the way to our target, which consisted of a large grey wood frame house fronted by a fenced porch, and if I remember right, a small building, maybe a shed, off to the side. These people had no immediate neighbors, so I could see why Moreland enjoyed their company. I wondered, as we jumped onto the porch, how often she fed here.

Charly, too hungry for his own good, charged through the front door with his shoulder, knocking it off its hinges. This sent him directly to the floor on top of the broken door, which split vertically down its middle like someone had used a monstrous axe to perfectly splice it in half.

When I followed him, I saw a set of feet dressed in red canvas sneakers protruding from behind a TV stand on which sat a long flat panel TV that looked big enough to hang in a football stadium. Both feet were pointing up. Out from behind the media center leapt a large figure, at least eight feet tall, holding a limp female body in one hand. It bent its head down, then its eight-inch fangs clamped themselves onto the back of the body’s neck.

It was a Longtooth, but not our Longtooth. The Longtooth shook the body in its jaws like a dog would a stuffed animal or some other less fortunate small prey. It tossed the body across the room with its jaws as if that’s what they were designed to do.

“Charly? I said. “We’re being stalked.”

“Ya think?” said Charly, who lunged with gusto into the gut of our newest nemesis.

After all these years I guess I never knew just how strong Charly was. Or how quick. Charly’s body powered the Longtooth through the cheap drywall into the next room, whatever that was. I ran to his aid, but he didn’t need it. By the time I stood over them, Charly was pounding on the Longtooth’s face with his brick-like fists. Then his right hand, moving so quickly it was a blur to the eye, ripped the Longtooth’s saber tooth from his mouth and plunged the narrowest part, the point, into the neck.

The Longtooth gurgled, but of course, he wouldn’t die. Instead, his neck tried to heal its wound by growing skin around the fang as if discovering that the long, curved tooth would be a neat new outgrowth. Somehow, Charly was able to lean one knee into the Longtooth’s chest while twisting the other saber tooth. “Who the fuck are you and where is Longtooth?” Charly demanded.

Then he twisted the Longtooth’s remaining fang in its mouth like he was unscrewing something. The tooth made a crackling sound like your worst dental nightmare as the Longtooth pounded at Charly with his fists to no avail. “Where. Is. Longtooth?” Charly demanded again. “And how did you find us?”

“You’ve all got trackers on you, you fucking idiots,” hissed the Longtooth through a showering spasm of blood that splattered Charly’s hand and forearm.

Charly twisted the tooth some more. It looked like he was about to pull that one out, too. “Where the fuck?” he asked.

“Your hair?” hissed the Longtooth. Charly’s head was always shinier than a new bowling ball, so the Longtooth’s poorly timed and executed joke was surely what prompted Charly to violently yank out the other tooth.

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The Longtooth growled and hissed at that, but when Charly promised to point the other tooth into the Longtooth’s eye socket, the Longtooth relented by saying, “The trackers are microscopic. The divine one only needs to get near you to get some on you. You’ll never get them off now. They seep into your bloodstream.” I guessed that the “divine one” was Longtooth. I had never heard any of them use that term.

“Why are you here? Following us?” asked Charly next. But then a strange thing happened. The Longtooth’s body convulsed like it was being electrocuted, and he died.

“The fuck?” said Charly.

The Longtooth’s eyes rolled to the back of his head. His body was limp.

Charly and I looked at each other like we had just witnessed ice turn into flame.

“I didn’t do anything that could kill him,” said Charly. “Yet.”

“Yeah,” I said. I bent down to check his pulse, just for clarity. I shook my head. “He’s gone, man.”

“I was kinda hoping to get more information from him,” said Charly.

“Woulda been nice,” I said.

We looked around the house for more bodies but all we found was the woman in her living room. Her head was nearly severed from her neck. “This dude is sloppier than you,” I said.

“We didn’t get a chance to feed,” said Charly. “I’m dyin’ here.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“Would Daphne mind?” asked Charly.

“Charly!” I said in reaction.

“Just askin’ bro. We’re kind of in the middle of nowhere here.”

“We can flash somewhere anytime,” I replied.

“Oh, duh. I’m still not used to this,” said Charly. “But don’t you sometimes want some of her blood, because, you know, it’s Daphne? She’s pretty cool. I’d like me some of that.”

“Sometimes,” I admitted.

“She’s so cool that if we asked, she’d probably say yes,” said Charly.

“Probably,” I sighed. I remembered something Longtooth said to me. “She’d also think that she’s a feeding tube.”

“Yeah. I wouldn’t want that,” said Charly. “So where should we go to feed?”

“Can you last a little longer?” I asked. “We should get back to the body shop.”

“I ain’t in crisis mode. Just a little dehydrated and uncomfortable. Feeling weak.”

I looked at the broken wall toward the room where we left the dead Longtooth. “That was you weak?”

Charly shrugged and smiled.

“Shit man, remind me to never piss you off,” I said.

“Never piss me off, my man,” he said.

“Are we men, or are we vampires?” I said. Charly laughed. “Anyway, God bless your dental skills. He looks much better.” I looked in the direction of Charly’s handiwork one more time. “Let’s just flash back, dude. I still need the practice.”

“Me too, but I think it makes me weaker,” said Charly. I looked at him without speaking. “Just sayin’.”

“Come on, you lightweight,” I said to the bulkiest dude I’d ever known.

We flashed back to Moreland’s body shop.

Moreland had already returned when we appeared in front of her in her office.

“What the hell happened to you?” she asked Charly, whose face and arms looked like someone had sprayed him with red paint.

After we gave her every detail of our encounter, she sat down again, this time at a table in her office. “It just keeps getting worse,” she sighed. She thought for a moment before saying, “Maybe that detective is right. Garrison. About the Battue.”

“Why do you say that?” asked Charly.

“Why would a Longtooth suddenly die from what to us are superficial wounds?” asked Moreland. “You said that you did not drive that tooth through his eyeball, right?”

“Even if he did,” I said. “It wouldn’t necessarily kill him quickly. But he didn’t, so moot point.”

“I’m just wondering if these whatevera things are that Chua was talking about can kill, too,” said Moreland.

“Nanobots,” I said.

“I mean,” said Moreland. “Whatever even is a nanobot?”

“Chua is a video call away for an explanation,” I said.

“Shit, Jade, just tell me in words I’ll understand.”

“Why me?” I asked. I was no scientist.

“Because you’re a know-it-all. So just tell me in your words.”

“Well, I guess in this case they’re tiny robots the size of blood cells. Maybe they have a biology to them, too. I mean, Moreland, Chua probably has one under a microscope while we’re talking about them.” I tapped my phone, called up Dr. Chua on our Telegram channel, and asked him what he thought of my explanation and if he had any further information.

“He’s using science we simply don’t have yet, as far as I’m aware,” said Dr. Chua. “He’s designed robots at a molecular level that, yes, do have a biological component to them. They can communicate with the brain, I believe, based on the signals they send out, but I can’t say how yet. This is very advanced science. Thirty years, maybe, ahead of the rest of us.”

“I’ve never known Longtooth, or any of them for that matter, to be a scientist,” I said. “Have you, Charly? Moreland?”

Both shook their heads.

“The Battue, on the other hand, have always strived to be ahead of the game,” I said.

“Dude, you’re such a chameleon,” said Charly. “You’re starting to sound like Dr. Chua.”

I hissed at him and displayed my fangs. “I’m a vampire, Charly. Years of training. You should have seen me in Tenochtitlán. I went full Aztec. Moreland, that wasn’t a coincidence that there was a Longtooth in your feeding zone. No offense, but I’m getting Daphne out of here.”

“Did I hear my name?” Daphne had quietly come into the office. She was eating a strawberry pushup. “These are yummy,” she said to Moreland. When she looked at me, she gave the pushup a lick that drove me wild with desire.

“We’re trying to decide what to do with you,” I said, hiding my hunger.

“Yeah,” said Charly. “Moreland brought you here to kill you.”

Daphne looked at Moreland, aghast. Moreland shrugged. I told Daphne what we knew so far.

“Just turn me already, goddammit,” she said. “I can’t be in your world this way. If you don’t turn me, I need to get away from you people.” She said that more bitterly than I would have wished.

“It’s too dangerous,” said Moreland. “You need to incubate. It takes two days. Where would we stuff you for two days where they can’t get their hands on you?”

“Moreland,” said Charly. “How long does it take until someone falls asleep under your magic spell after you turn them? Is it immediate?”

“No,” answered Moreland. “About ten minutes. Sometimes faster. Everyone’s different.”

“I know a place,” said Charly. “In the Malagasy forests. It is a small enclave ruled by the Kalonoro.”

“I know of them,” said Moreland. I had heard of them, too. The people of Madagascar considered them to be ghost-like figures. They were rather short for vampires, covered with thick, black hair, and had long, thin incisors shaped like curved yarn needles.

But if Charly was being tracked — if we were all being tracked, it didn’t matter where he took Daphne to incubate. When I told him that, he scoffed. “I would match the power of the Kalonoro against any other being on this planet,” said Charly. “They aren’t empire builders, but you can’t fuck with them. If magic is based on science, and I suppose it is, then they are the most scientifically advanced people on earth.” He turned to face me, then put his hands on my shoulders. “She’ll be safe there, Atticus. I swear by the laws of the ancient houses.”

I looked at Daphne, who only nodded quietly while looking at me. “Okay,” I said. Then I turned to Daphne and took both her hands. “I’ll see you on the other side.” I bent down, she stood up on her toes, and I kissed her lips, praying I really would see her again on the other side.

And Moreland did her thing.

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Psalm of Vampires

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Keep an eye out on Ruminato for a short story about the Kalonoro.