With all the formal greetings and salutations and invitations and flatteries and thank-yous and blessings and leave-takings, it was about five o’clock before I was able to return to my rooms. I started to tell Kmuzu what had gone on, but naturally he already knew all about it. He even had a little advice for me concerning the people of Kush, who no doubt would soon strike back against the weakened Parthians.
“Fine,” I said impatiently. “Thank you, Kmuzu, I don’t know what I’d do without you. If you’ll just excuse me — “
“The family of the young murdered boy said they were sorry you couldn’t come to the funeral. They know how fond of you he’d been. I explained that you’d been detained by the master of the house.”
I regretted missing the service. I wished I could have at least been at the cemetery to offer my condolences.
“I think I’ll just relax now,” I said. “I’m going to rest for a while, and then I’m going to see how my nightclub is doing without me. That is all right, isn’t it? I mean, I’m allowed to go down there this evening, aren’t I?”
Kmuzu gave me a blank stare for a second or two. “I have been advised otherwise, yaa Sidi,” he said.
“Oh. Too bad. Then-“
I was looking at his back. “You have two visitors waiting to speak with you, a man and a boy. They’ve been here since two o’clock.”
“In the anteroom? All this time?” I didn’t want to see anyone else, but I couldn’t just tell these people to go home and come back tomorrow. “All right, I’ll —” Kmuzu wasn’t paying any attention. He was already going toward my office. I followed, trying not to let all this power go to my head.
When I saw who was waiting for me, I was startled. It was Bill the cab driver and a boy from the Budayeen. Bill was standing up with his back to the room, his hands stretched up as high against the wall as he could reach. Don’t ask me why. The kid’s name was Musa Ali, and his dirty face was streaked with tears. He was sitting quietly in a chair. I felt sorry for him, having to spend all those hours alone with Bill. I wouldn’t have done it.
When I came in, they both began speaking at once. They talked fast and furiously. I couldn’t make any sense out of it. I signaled Bill to shut up, and then I let Musa Ali explain things. “My sister,” he said, his eyes wide with fear, “she’s taken her.”
I looked at Bill. “The vampire,” he said. Suddenly he was very calm and matter-of-fact. His hands were still raised high, but I didn’t hold that against him. You took what you could get with Bill.
Between the two of them, I got an idea of the story. Not the truth, necessarily, but the story. Apparently, just at noon, Sheba, in her vampire form, had stolen another child, Musa Ali’s six-year-old sister. Bill had tried to interfere, and a tremendous fight had erupted. On one side was this burly full-grown man, and on the other was a short nightclub dancer burdened with a struggling child in her arms. Bill was covered with dark bruises and bloody cuts and scratches, so I didn’t really have to ask which way the conflict had gone.
“She turned into a bunch of mist,” Bill said, shrugging. He sounded apologetic. “I couldn’t fight a bunch of mist, could I? She just floated away on the breeze. Reminded me of that time this guy from Tunis tried to cheat me out of my fare, and just then I heard this music from Heaven that was too high-pitched for normal humans to hear, see, so I turned around as fast as I could, but he was trying to get out of the cab, so then — “
I stopped listening to Bill. “Mist?” I asked Musa Ali.
“Uh-huh,” the boy said.
So now I was tracking down a fog lady. A murderous vampire fog lady. Suddenly I really wanted another piece of kataifi….
It was getting late. I returned quickly to my apartment, to change clothes again and pick up a few items I thought might be useful. One of those things was the Van Helsing moddy — after all, the excitable Dutch fanatic knew more about hunting vampires than I ever would. I just had to try to maintain a little rational control, to offset Van Helsing’s own serious hang-ups.
I avoided Kmuzu and hurried back to Bill and Musa Ali, still waiting in my office. With some difficulty, we managed to slip out of the house without any direct interference from Friedlander Bey’s staff, and I gave Bill the order to drive us back to the Budayeen. “First I take you over there,” Bill complained, “then I bring you back, then I go home, then I come back here, now we go over there again. Maybe I’ll be lucky and we’ll all get killed tonight. I don’t do this driving thing because I enjoy it, you know.”
Bill can trap you that way, by fooling you into asking the next obvious question. That always leads into an even more bizarre rant, and I’ve promised myself not to get suckered in anymore. I didn’t ask him what he wanted me to ask.
“Are you taking me home?” Musa Ali asked. “I can’t go home until I find my sister.”
He was a brave kid. “You go home,” I said. “We’ll find your sister.”
“Okay,” he said. He was brave, but he wasn’t a fool.
“We’re going to the cemetery, Bill,” I said. “It’s the only logical place to look for Sheba.”
“They won’t let me into the cemetery, pal,” he said.
“Who won’t?”
“The dead people. They won’t let me into the cemetery because I’m American.”
“They don’t have dead people in America?” I asked. I had already forgotten my promise to myself.
“Oh, sure they do,” Bill said. “But the dead people here in the city still hold it against Americans that they have the wrong unlucky number. It’s not thirteen, see, like Americans believe, because —” I stopped listening. I reached up and chipped in the Van Helsing moddy instead.
There was another moment of disorientation, but it passed quickly. “Stakes!” Van Helsing said loudly. “We need sharp wooden stakes! How could Audran have forgotten them? We have to stop and find some!”
“Don’t worry about stakes,” Bill said calmly. “Got ‘em in the trunk. I got some in case I ever get a tent.” Van Helsing was wise enough not to pursue it any further.
Because Van Helsing wasn’t as familiar with the city as Audran, he didn’t notice immediately that Bill, for all his many years of experience, was getting pretty damn lost. The probable explanation was that his invisible evil temptresses were leading him astray. Both Van Helsing and Audran would have understood that. Instead, though, the vampire hunter stared out the taxi’s window, watching the neighborhoods slide by.
Time passed, and the sun dropped silently toward the horizon. It was almost dark when Bill finally drove past the Budayeen’s eastern gate. He jammed on the brakes, and Van Helsing and he jumped out of the car. More time was spent as Bill searched for the trunk key. At last they armed themselves with the stakes; they couldn’t find a hammer, but Bill carried an old, dead battery that could be used for pounding purposes.
“We’ll need something to cut off Sheba’s head, too,” Van Helsing said in a worried voice. “We’ll need to get a large cleaver. And garlic to stuff into her mouth.”
Bill nodded. “There’s an all-night convenience store on our way.”
Van Helsing still seemed apprehensive. “Sheba will be at her full powers soon.”
“Well,” Bill said, smiling broadly, “so am I.” That didn’t do very much to reassure his companion.