'My point is, I saw them. I knew they were there. And when I saw what had happened to Lupe, I knew what had been at him. They see it, too. Smell it. Probably hear the chimes, as well. Their victims are marked, and after that more are apt to come, like bugs to a light. Or dogs, all determined to piss on the same telephone pole.
'I'm sure that night in March was the first time Lupe was bitten, because I never saw that glow around him before… or the marks on the side of his throat, which looked like no more than a couple of shaving nicks. But he was bitten repeatedly after that. It had something to do with the nature of the business we were in, working with transients. Maybe drinking alcohol-laced blood is a cheap high for them. Who knows?
'In any case, it was because of Lupe that I made my first kill. The first of many. This was in April…'
TEN This is April and the air has finally begun to feel and smell like spring. Callahan has been at Home since five, first writing checks to cover end-of-the-month bills, then working on his culinary specialty, which he calls Toads n Dumplins Stew. The meat is actually stewing beef, but the colorful name amuses him.
He has been washing the big steel pots as he goes along, not because he needs to (one of the few things there's no shortage of at Home is cooking gear) but because that's the way his mother taught him to operate in the kitchen: clean as you go.
He takes a pot to the back door, holds it against his hip with one hand, turns the knob with his other hand. He goes out into the alley, meaning to toss the soapy water into the sewer grating out there, and then he stops. Here is something he has seen before, down in the Village, but then the two men — the one standing against the wall, the one in front of him, leaning forward with his hands propped against the bricks —were only shadows. These two he can see clearly in the light from the kitchen, and the one leaning back against the wall, seemingly asleep with his head turned to the side, exposing his neck, is someone Callahan knows .
It is Lupe.
Although the open door has lit up this part of the alley, and Callahan has made no effort to be quiet —has, in fact, been singing Lou Reed's 'Take a Walk on the Wild Side' —neither of them notices him. They are entranced. The man in front of Lupe looks to be about fifty, well dressed in a suit and a tie. Beside him, an expensive Mark Cross briefcase rests on the cobbles. This man's head is thrust forward and tilted. His open lips are sealed against the right side of Lupe's neck. What's under there?Jugular? Carotid? Callahan doesn't remember, nor does it matter. The chimes don't play this time, but the smell is overwhelming, so rank that tears burst from his eyes and clear mucus immediately begins to drip from his nostrils. The two men opposite him blaze with that dark blue light, and Callahan can see it swirling in rhythmic pulses . That's their breathing, he thinks . It's their breathing, stirring that shit around. Which means it's real.
Callahan can hear, very faintly, a liquid smooching sound. It's the sound you hear in a movie when a couple is kissing passionately, really pouring it on.
He doesn't think about what he does next. He puts down thepotful of sudsy, greasy water. It clanks loudly on the concrete stoop, but the couple leaning against the alley wall opposite don't stir; they remain lost in their dream. Callahan takes two steps backward into the kitchen. On the counter is the cleaver he's been using to cube the stew-beef. Its blade gleams brightly. He can see his face in it and thinks , Well at least I'm not one; my reflection's still there. Then he closes his hand around the rubber grip. He walks back out into the alley. He steps over the pot of soapy water. The air is mild and damp. Somewhere water is dripping. Somewhere a radio is blaring 'Someone Saved My Life Tonight.' Moisture in the air makes a halo around the light on the far side of the alley. It's April in New York, and ten feet from where Callahan —not long ago an ordained priest of the Catholic Church — stands, a vampire is taking blood from his prey. From the man with whom Donald Callahan has fallen in love .
'Almost had your hooks in me, din'tcha, dear?' Elton John sings, and Callahan steps forward, raising the cleaver. He brings it down and it sinks deep into the vampire's skull. The sides of the vampire's face push out like wings. He raises his head suddenly, like a predator that has just heard the approach of something bigger and more dangerous than he is. A moment later he dips slightly at the knees, as if meaning to pick up the briefcase, then seems to decide he can do without it. He turns and walks slowly toward the mouth of the alley. Toward the sound of Elton John, who is now singing 'Someone saved, someone saved, someone saved my lii-ife tonight.' The cleaver is still sticking out of the thing's skull. The handle waggles back and forth with each step like a stiff little tail. Callahan sees some blood, but not the ocean he would have expected. At that moment he is too deep in shock to wonder about this, but later he will come to believe that there is precious little liquid blood in these beings; whatever keeps them moving, it's more magical than the miracle of blood. Most of what was their blood has coagulated as firmly as the yolk of a hard-cooked egg.
It takes another step, then stops. Its shoulders slump. Callahan loses sight of its head when it sags forward. And then, suddenly, the clothes are collapsing, crumpling in on themselves, drifting down to the wet surface of the alley.
Feeling like a man in a dream, Callahan goes forward to examine them. Lupe Delgado stands against the wall, head back, eyes shut, still lost in whatever dream the vampire has cast over him. Blood trickles down his neck in small and unimportant streams.
Callahan looks at the clothes. The tie is still knotted. The shirt is still inside the suit-coat, and still tucked into the suit pants. He knows that if he unzipped the fly of those suit pants, he would see the underwear inside. He picks up one arm of the coat, mostly to confirm its emptiness by touch as well as sight, and the vampire's watch tumbles out of the sleeve and lands with a clink beside what looks like a class ring.
There is hair. There are teeth, some with fillings. Of the rest of Mr. Mark Cross Briefcase, there is no sign.
Callahan gathers up the clothes. Elton John is still singing 'Someone Saved My Life Tonight,' but maybe that's not surprising. It's a pretty long song, one of those four-minute jobs, must be. He puts the watch on his own wrist and the ring on one of his own fingers, just for temporary safekeeping. He takes the clothes inside, walking past Lupe. Lupe's still lost in his dream. And the holes in his neck, little bigger than pinpricks to start with, are disappearing.
