It isn't until the stained-glass windows of the church begin to lighten with the coming dawn that it finally comes to an end. The moment Rhymer notices the light coming through one of the windows the smile disappears from his face.
" Enough !" he thunders, causing the others to halt in mid-fuck. "The sun will soon be upon me! It is time for you to leave, my children!"
The Goths pull themselves off and out of each other without a word of complaint and begin to struggle back into their clothes. Once they're dressed they waste no time hurrying off, taking pains not to look one another in the eye. It is all I can do to suppress a groan of relief as the last of the blood cultists lurches out of the building. I thought those losers were never going to leave!
I check my own watch against the shadows sliding across the floor below me. Now would be a good time to pay a social call on their so-called "master". I hope he's in the mood for a little chat before beddy-bye.
Lord Rhymer yawns as he makes his way down the basement stairs. What with the candelabra he's holding and the flowing opera cloak, I'm reminded of Lugosi's Dracula. But then, Bela Lugosi is dead.
The basement runs the length of the building above it, with a poured concrete floor. Stacks of old hymnals, folding chairs and mouldering choir robes have been pushed into the corners. A rosewood casket with a maroon velvet lining rests atop a pair of sawhorses in the middle of the room. An old-fashioned steamer trunk stands on end nearby.
I watch the vampire lord set the candelabra down and, still yawning, unhook his cape and carefully drape it atop the trunk. If he senses my presence, here in the shadows, he gives no evidence of it in his manner. Smiling crookedly, I deliberately scrape my boot heel against the concrete floor. My smile becomes a grin when he spins around, eyes bugging in fear.
"What —? Who's there?"
He blinks, genuinely surprised to see me standing to one side of the open casket balanced atop the sawhorse. I'd already caught the tell-tale smell of it when I first entered the basement, but a quick glance into the casket confirms what I already knew: it's lined with earth. I reach inside and lift a handful of dirt, allowing it to spill between my splayed fingers. I look up and meet Rhymer's scarlet gaze.
"Okay, buddy, what the hell are you trying to pull here?"
Rhymer squares his shoulders and pulls himself up to his full height, hissing and exposing his fangs, hooking his fingers into talons. His red eyes glint in the dim light like those of a cornered animal.
I am not impressed.
"Can the Christopher Lee act, asshole! I'm not some Goth chick tripping her brains out! You're not fooling me for one moment!" I kick the sawhorses out from under the casket, sending it tumbling to the floor, spilling its layer of soil. Rhymer gasps, his eyes darting from the ruined coffin to me and back and again. "Only humans think vampires need to sleep on a layer of their home soil!"
Rhymer tries to regain the momentum by pointing a trembling finger at me, doing his best to sound menacing. "You have defiled the resting place of Rhymer, Lord of the Undead! And for that, woman, you will pay with your life!"
"Oh yeah?" I sneer. "Buddy, I knew Dracula — and, believe me, you ain't him!"
I move on him so fast it's like blinking. One moment I'm halfway across the room, the next I'm standing over him, his blood dripping from my knuckles. Rhymer's lying on the basement floor, dazed and wiping at his gushing mouth and nose. A set of dentures, complete with fangs, lies on the floor beside him. I nudge the upper plate with the toe of my boot, shaking my head in disgust.
"Just what I thought: fake fangs! And the eyes are contact lenses, right? I bet the nails are theatrical quality press-ons, too"
Rhymer tries to scuttle away from me like a crab, but he's much too slow. I grab him by the ruff of his poet's shirt, pulling him to his feet with one quick motion that causes him to yelp in alarm.
"What the fuck are you playing at here? Are you running some kind of scam on these Goth kids?"
Rhymer opens his mouth and although his lips are moving there's no sound coming out. At first I think he's so scared he's not able to speak — then I realize he's a serious stutterer when he's not a vampire.
"I'm n-not a con m-man, if that's what y-you're thinking. I'm n-not doing it for m-money!"
"If it's not for money, then why?" Not that I haven't known his motivation from the moment I first laid eyes on him. But I want to hear it from his own lips before I make my decision.
"All m-my life I've been an outsider. N-no one ever p-paid any attention to m-me. N-not even m-my own p-parents. N-no one ever took me seriously. I was a j-joke and everyone k-knew it. The only p-place where I could escape from being m-me was at the m-movies. I really admired the v-vampires in the m-movies. They were d-different, too. But n-no one m-made fun of them or ignored them. They were p-powerful and p-people were afraid of them. They c-could m-make w-women do whatever they w-wanted.
"W-when my p-parents died a c-couple of years ago, they left m-me a lot of m-money. So m-much I'd n-never have to work again. An hour after their funeral I w-went to a dentist and had all m-my upper teeth removed and the dentures m-made.
"I always w-wanted to be a v-vampire and now I had the c-chance to live m-my d-dreams. So I b-bought this old church and's-started hanging out at the Red Raven, looking for the right type of g-girls.
"T-Tanith was the first. Then came S-sable. The rest w-was easy. They w-wanted m-me to b-be real so b-badly, I didn't even have to p-pretend that m-much. B-but then things started to g-get out of hand. They w-wanted m-me t-to — you know p-put my thing in them. B-but m-my thing c-can't get hard. N-not with other p-people. I told them it w-was because I w-was undead. So we f-found S-serge. I-I like to w-watch."
Rhymer fixes one of his rapidly blackening eyes on me. His fear is beginning to give way to curiosity. "B-but w-what difference is any of this to y-you? Are y-you a family m-member? One of S-serge's ex g-girlfriends?"
I can't help but laugh as I let go of him, careful to place myself between Rhymer and the exit. He staggers backward and quickly, if inelegantly, puts distance between us. He flinches at the sound of my laughter as if it were a physical blow.
"I knew there was something fishy going on when I spotted the belt buckle on the Goth studmuffin. No self-respecting dead boy in his right mind would let that chunk of silver within a half-mile of his person! And all that hocus-pocus with the smoke and the Black Sabbat folderol! All of it a rank amateur's impression of what vampires and vampirism is all about, cobbled together from Hammer films and Anton Levy paperbacks! You really are a pathetic little twisted piece of crap, Rhymer — or whatever the hell your real name is! You surround yourself with the icons of darkness and play at damnation; but you don't recognize the real thing even when it steps forward and bloodies your fuckin' nose!"
Rhymer stands there for a long moment, then his eyes suddenly widen and he gasps aloud, like a man who has walked into a room and seen someone he has believed long dead. Clearly overcome, he drops to his feet before me, his bloodstained lips quivering uncontrollably.
"You're real!"
"Get up," I growl, flashing a glimpse of fang.
Instead of inspiring fear in Rhymer, all this does is cause him to cry out even louder than before. He is now actually grovelling, pawing at my boots as he blubbers.