Four, p.7
Four, page 7
“Agh!” Geoffrey cried as streaks of light hit his pale arm. Georgia’s nose wrinkled at the scent of burning hair and skin.
“Oh no!” she cried as she yanked the blackout curtains shut. As she tried to adjust to the lack of light, she ended up tripping on the useless hose to the air mattress. She plowed into the moaning vampire and ended up face-first against his hairy chest while she held onto her own nightgown for dear life.
“Oops,” she said weakly.
She fumbled for a light and finally managed to see just how badly her boss was injured on her first full day on the job. His entire forearm bubbled and oozed with pink welts.
“Burn cream . . . my room . . .” he whimpered.
Georgia ran past him and darted across the hall. She guessed wrong at first and ended up in another room full of sheets and mouse poop. The second door revealed a pitch-black cavern that smelled like an abattoir. She turned her phone into a flashlight and prepared for the worst. Instead of coffins and body parts, she only found an unmade bed and a crusty glass on the nightstand. She yanked open the nightstand drawer to find all sorts of tubes and creams. She simply scooped them all into her arms, along with a convenient pack of tissues, and ran back in record time.
As she tossed everything on her bed and flipped the light, she discovered not one or two, but five tubes of personal lubricant and another couple of hemorrhoid repair. The only thing not in the pile was anything resembling burn cream.
“Left nightstand,” Geoffrey said. “Bandages too.”
Georgia ran back and fumbled through the dark until she found the other nightstand. This one contained nothing but burn salves, bandages, and a huge tub of aloe.
She ran back and started treatment, grimacing as a few blisters exploded with the slightest touch. Geoffrey yowled until she finally wrapped a few layers of spongy gauze around the burn.
“Ready to fire me yet?” Georgia asked weakly.
“Well, I still have the other arm,” he said with a sad chuckle.
“Should I make you another shake? There was a mouse in the laundry room.”
He shook his head. “I’m going to need something a little stronger to heal this, I’m afraid.”
“I’m not on the menu, am I?” Georgia asked.
“Of course not, but I need something with fresh and pure blood. Nothing cooked will do.” He grabbed his bandage and groaned. “Oh, I’d forgotten how strong the sun was on this side of the house.”
“OK, I’m going to find something. You just get back to your room and sit tight until I can fix this. I promise I’ll fix this.”
She helped him back to the room. As they crossed the entryway, she noticed that the light from the vestibule glass didn’t seem to burn him. Once he was settled in the dark, she took a closer peek at the yellow-tinted glass. In one of the corners, she could barely see some sort of film curling away from the frame.
“I’ll be right back!” she cried as she grabbed her purse and headed out into the early evening street. A few people sneered at her dirt-streaked T-shirt, but most were too busy studying the screens on their phones to really notice one filthy twenty-something running to Brookline Center on a mission to find raw blood.
She ended up all the way back in her old neighborhood as the sun set. The more student-centered Allston-Brighton area didn’t look twice at a girl in a filthy tie-dyed tee and ripped jeans. A bright, jam-packed supermarket advertising all sorts of Far Eastern delicacies lured her in as both her feet and empty stomach started to cramp at once.
She squeezed down the narrow aisle stuffed with bright boxes of cookies and crackers, past a hundred kinds of soy sauce and pickled everything in a jar, until she finally reached a wall of all manner of chopped-up flesh—from pig ears to chicken feet. Everything she could imagine was lined up on dainty Styrofoam trays. It was a couple of bags plopped in the corner of the refrigerated case that caught her eye. She snatched up all of the pig’s blood she could carry and hustled to get in line. She could feel the cold, sticky residue dripping all over her left hand, and she tried to juggle the containers. One of the bundles had a dangerously thin rubber band holding it closed on top.
She made it all the way to the register before it finally gave out. All she could do was sigh as cold, thick, red liquid soaked into her shirt. The woman at the counter began to apologize profusely even as a few onlookers began to giggle. Georgia just quietly took out her credit card and proceeded to pay for everything not on her chest and then walk proudly toward the sign marked restrooms.
“Make sure to rinse that in cold water,” someone offered as she headed for the door. “If you use warm, it will never come out.”
“Now you tell me,” Georgia said, laughing as she had to rinse her shirt off in a tiny public sink. Once the biggest blotches were faded and she was soaked to the bone, she grabbed her big bag of blood and shuffled back to Brookline completely on foot. Twenty minutes later the sun had all but set, and she barged into the brownstone to find her vampire boss still whimpering in his room.
The moment she opened her first bag and poured a bunch of blood into a brandy glass, however, the once-mewling undead ran to the kitchen like a cat hungry for tuna. She barely had time to pull away the plastic when he snatched it from the counter and started gulping it down. All Georgia could do was watch as sanguine stains dribbled onto her nightgown.
“I guess you couldn’t find anything to change into,” she sighed.
He drained his glass and slammed it on the counter. “More,” he growled.
She filled his glass again, and again, and again, until all the bags had been drained and only little coagulated messes were left on the counter and floor. He finally collapsed against the fridge with a dopey smile on his face and let the glass shatter on the floor.
“Geoffrey! Geoff! Come on,” Georgia cried as she shook his shoulders and tried to rouse him. His eyes rolled back in, and his lashes fluttered furiously. “Is this normal?” she cried as she shook him again. “Geoffrey!”
His head rolled to the side, and pink drool dripped from his lips. Finally he let out a happy little grunt and begged, “More, please.”
“That’s all I could find—”
“More!” he roared. This time when his eyes snapped back into focus, they were brilliant, almost glowing red. Georgia scrambled back and in the process ended up slipping and slicing her palm on a stray piece of brandy glass.
Geoffrey’s eyes widened, and he curled back his lip in a hungry sneer. Georgia scrambled to her feet and dashed for the stairs. Seconds later she managed to wedge the étagère against the trusty bathroom door as she heard roaring and smashing in the apartment outside.
“Mr. Lambley!” Georgia cried through the wood. “Remember rule number three? You invited me to stay here. Remember that!”
The only response was the door shuddering as something heavy slammed into it over and over. “Remember the third rule!” Georgia cried. “You’re not a killer, remember, and I’m not lunch. You made a promise.”
The door rattled again, this time with even more force. “Remember your promise,” Georgia howled again as she hopped in the tub and started rinsing the blood from her hand and arm. As the red faded and steam filled the room, the banging finally stopped.
“I’m sorry, Miss Sutherland,” a sad little voice said, just barely audible over the water. “I’m terribly sorry, but it’s been a while since I’ve had so very much to drink.”
She kept letting the water pour over her, clothes and all. Only when her shoes were thoroughly drenched did she finally stop the water and peel off the sopping clothes. She stayed, dripping, in the tub until she finally ended up falling asleep, cuddling her own crumpled jeans . . .
“You stayed there all night?” Gail asked, wide-eyed.
“Until I was sure the bleeding stopped, yeah,” Georgia confirmed. “You see, blood is more than food to one of their kind. It’s a drug and sustenance all in one. Poor Mr. Lambley had been starved for so long that once he had something fresh, he simply lost it. Don’t worry, though; he’s much better now that we’ve worked on his diet and exercise program.”
“Was it scary?”
“Of course it was. It’s important that you know that even a toothless vampire is still brutally strong. You don’t need fangs to attack someone, after all.”
“Did your weekend get any better?”
Georgia shook her head. “It was the second-worst Saturday of my life, but it taught me so many important lessons.”
“Like using cold water on bloodstains?” Gail said with a weak smile.
Georgia tipped her glass. “Yes, like always use cold water on bloodstains. Not to mention putting tinting film on every window in the house, well, every window except the one in my room, but I did put a do not disturb sign out whenever my curtains weren’t closed. That put an end to most of the in-house burning incidents.”
“A second of direct sun gave him second-degree burns?” Gail asked. “What kind of burn ointment did you have to use?”
“Ah, I almost forgot that we had a professional here,” Georgia said. “Well, a vampire can’t just go to the doctor and get a prescription. I think your average medical professional might notice the low body temperature and lack of pulse.”
“No pulse.”
“Not like us. If you listen close, it sounds like they have a dishwasher in their chests, sort of. I get the cream from one of the local sources that are friendly to the families. It’s very important that you don’t use the regular antibiotic cream, though. The cream has to have silver in it.”
Gail furrowed her brow. “That’s the opposite of what I would expect—”
“Yeah, something about them being dead and allergic to sunlight might make them react slightly differently to burn cream than we do,” Georgia snapped. “Ooh, I’m sounding like I need to switch back to happy drinks, don’t I? Yeah, I’ve got a lot of notes about what to do in the rare occasion one of them gets injured. The number one cure to all ailments, though, is a good drink.”
“Did he heal? Do they scar?” Gail pressed on.
Georgia paused to check her phone again. The light on top kept flashing, but she brushed her notifications aside before Gail could pick up what was so important.
“Sorry, I guess I’m just fascinated about some of the medical details,” Gail said as Georgia continued to ignore her and tapped her screen.
Finally Miss Sutherland looked up. “Sorry, an assistant’s work is never done. Oh, I spent many a night trying to work out just how Mr. Lambley worked, if you know what I mean. I’ve always been a trial and error sort of girl. I can’t just read how to do something. I need to mess it up thoroughly firsthand before I understand it. I can sum it up pretty succinctly, though. Sunlight is bad, antibiotics are bad, garlic in large quantities is bad, and blood is good. Oh, splinters—yeah, they are bad too.”
“Like a stake through the heart?” Gail asked.
“Not quite so dramatic. They have an allergic reaction to wood. It’s something with cellulose. I probably should have paid more attention when it was being explained, but there were more pressing concerns at the time. Did I mention that Mr. Lambley likes to plan things and then forget to tell you?”
“But there are a lot of details to remember,” Gail said. “I mean you could have killed him or been killed—”
“Could is such a pathetic little word, isn’t it? I could have done lots of things. I could have studied harder. I could have taken a summer trip to Rome or I could have eaten a chicken salad sandwich today, but I didn’t. Could is that word you use to describe things that are either unimportant or uncertain. The important thing is that I didn’t kill my boss and he didn’t kill me. Otherwise how could we be having this lovely night of drinks and conversation?”
Gail slurped up the last of her virgin cola. Almost by magic another drink appeared, this one garnished with a maraschino cherry and a little umbrella. Georgia was handed the same lime-colored concoction in a martini glass that she had downed earlier.
“I like knowing all the facts, that’s all,” Gail offered. “I’m used to reading a chart and knowing what to do.”
“That’s not always a bad thing, sweetie,” Georgia said. “Maybe I would have done better those first few days if I had paid attention to details too. The devil’s in the details, wouldn’t you agree?”
Gail nodded.
“I did actually keep a sleeping bag in that bathroom for about six weeks. It was like my happy place whenever I couldn’t handle the day-to-day job, but you know what?”
“What?”
“That first weekend, at my very lowest, when I was about ready to give up and move to some really sunny, tropical island where I was sure no vampire would ever find me, something happened that I never expected.”
Gail leaned in again. “What?”
“Here I was, inching out into a hall wearing only a towel and like a dozen Band-Aids, and there was a note and a hundred dollar bill left right outside the door. All it said was, ‘Buy some locks, G,’ in really pretty cursive handwriting. I don’t know, but somehow in that wobbly little note, I could see someone just as scared as me trying to make the best of things. He didn’t come out of his room until much later, and he said thank you when I gave him a hamburger smoothie.”
“And you got the locks? They could keep him out?”
Georgia tilted her head to the side and showed off her long, clean neck. “You see any bite marks?” she asked.
Gail shook her head.
“Funny thing, though. Something about vampire bites—they heal really quickly. They don’t leave scars as long as the victim is still breathing.” She waited for Gail to gulp. “Don’t worry, Mr. Lambley has never bitten me, and he would never bite anyone under his care. You just seemed so interested in scars, just like the vampires.”
Across the room the blonde pushed up her sleeve ever so slightly. Just above her wrist, two neat little slashes cut across her otherwise pristine ivory skin. The man sitting with her, kept his back completely turned to the still-breathing pair.
Georgia patted Gail on the back of her hand. “Don’t worry, they’re just testing us,” she said with a quick sideways glance at the blonde. “Minnie over there likes to add a little color commentary to every social event.”
“She can hear us?”
“Yah,” the blonde said without skipping a beat. “But you are boring, so I tune you out.”
“And she knows Geoff . . . err, Mr. Lambley?” Gail asked, looking quickly between the two women in the room to see who would respond.
“The Jaeger family has known my boss’s family for centuries, and I’ve known Minnie over there for a good year. She’s always been one of my most treasured supporters as I was learning the ropes.”
“Oh, so she’s a friend?” Gail asked.
Minnie and Georgia snorted simultaneously. Gail fidgeted between them, trying to find some way to sink into the velvet cushions while the other two women both sat up a little straighter and sized each other up. Georgia finally broke the spell and plopped down her emptied glass with a flourish.
“I’ve been such a Debbie Downer!” she declared. “If I keep telling you about my awful first few weeks, you’ll never want this job, will you?”
“I never said—”
“Your face said enough, sweetie,” Georgia sighed. “Did I tell you that Mr. Lambley’s old assistant, the one from the seventies, left a journal in the house?”
“No, you didn’t mention it yet.”
“Well, it’s chock-full of great info for all sorts of things that don’t involve technology or people still alive today,” Georgia said with a little laugh. “But it did have all the appliance warranties in there. It’s helpful when something breaks in the house. The other good thing is that I got cable hooked up. There is simply no problem too great for the combined powers of Home Improvement TV and the Internet. Just be forewarned that you can’t let Mr. Lambley too close to the TV. If the show upsets him too much, he tends to accidentally fry the DVR.”
Gail actually giggled. “I never thought of a vampire watching TV before.”
“Oh, you have no idea. There’s one channel that shows like twenty years’ worth of soap operas. I actually had to set a timer for a few months because he would stay up until three in the afternoon if I didn’t stop him. Mr. Lambley needs at least six hours of rest, or he is a handful.”
Gail sat back and took it all in. “So there are normal days too?”
“Most days are quite normal. You’d be surprised how quickly a routine can become your new normal. Mr. Lambley, like all of his kind, likes his routine. I could drone on and on for hours about it, but I bet you’d be far more interested in hearing about a not-so-normal night.”
“I guess so,” Gail said cautiously.
“I know. I could tell you about the night I first met Minnie and her lovely family. Miss Filipovic, how would you like to hear about a vampire’s ball?”
6
“Vampires have balls?” Gail asked.
Across the room both Blondie and her companion burst into a fit of giggles.
“Well, only the male ones,” Georgia deadpanned as her companion burst into giggles as well.
“That’s not what I meant,” Gail laughed. “Oh, man, I think I’ve had a few too many. I just thought with all the secrecy that they wouldn’t be able to have parties and stuff.”
“Oh, no, vampires are more social than a boatload of debutantes,” Georgia said. “They have a calendar that would make Edwardian nobility jealous. Actually, I’m pretty certain there were some Edwardian nobles at most of the last few shindigs.”
“But how? How can they all meet up without someone noticing?”
“You sound just like I did.” Georgia sighed . . .
“Hold still,” Georgia snapped as she tried once more to yank a comb through a bright orange rat’s nest. The vampire squirmed in his chair and yelped and continued to wiggle until she handed him a bright red sippy cup. “That’s all you’re getting tonight, by the way,” she warned.
