all the time to see how we cope with it. Or a curse. Not like some Dracula bullshit, but a real curse from a real God. Like in the Bible. In the Bible, a curse is usually a test. So maybe it’s a test. And the ones that pass it are the ones who don’t give in to it. Like the only way to win is to let yourself die. Or the Enclave and that stuff. What if they’re right? Or is it the next step in evolution or a failed step or is it because somewhere in our past all our grandmoms took the same medication or we stood too close to an X-ray machine or all screwed the same monkey. Shit, I don’t know.
He makes a fist, loosens it.
– Do you ever think about what we are?
I finish my beer.
– Well, Christian, way I figure it, either you’re a Vampyre created by the Vyrus, or you’re a vampire created by a something else. It makes any fucking difference which it is, I haven’t noticed.
He looks down the neck of his bottle, drains it.
– Yeah, guess that’s so.
He tosses the bottle into a garbage can against the wall and it shatters.
– But still, I’d like to know someday.
I toss my bottle after his.
– Don’t hold your breath.
More beer. More good music. The sun is moving across the sky out there. Things will be happening soon.
Things are already happening.
He points at the knife-thrower’s target.
– Remember that?
I look at the photocopied face of the Arab on the target.
– Sure.
He shakes his head.
– That smell. When they went down. Man, that smell. Blood. Gallons. Everyone went berserk. Rogues. Clan members. Losers came out of the woodwork and swarmed down there for days. Man. Looking at the missing- person posters after, I used to wonder how many went in the towers and how many just got taken off the street. Chaos.
– It was a mess.
He nods.
– But you were righteous. You and Terry. Saw right away it had to be stopped. Went down there and cracked skulls. Closed it down. All the cops and emergency services, they had come across a couple of us feeding in that rubble, first thing we would have been rounded up and thrown in camps. Man.
He laughs.
– Would have been all the proof they needed which side the devil was on. Would have thought we were flying the planes.
He stops laughing.
– But it was a mess. You came and told me you needed us down there. We rode. But, man, that was some killing we had to do, wasn’t it?
I pick at the edge of my beer label.
– That was some killing.
He looks at me.
– You can’t stay here, Joe.
I take a drink.
– I know.
– Hate to have to make it that way.
– I get it.
– Kind of always thought you’d end up down here with us. Just didn’t think it’d be after you shot Lydia and stabbed Bird. We can stand some heat. The local odds and ends down here below Houston, they cause trouble, we can hold our own against any of them. But a real Clan? We just don’t have the soldiers for it, man.
– Sure.
He points the neck of his beer bottle at the guys goofing in the garage.
– And I’m club president, man. I got a responsibility to the members. I say we’re riding into war, they ride. But there has to be a reason. Has to be some profit. You had joined up back when I offered, it might be different.
– Sure.
He looks at me.
– A war, man. Bird tells you there’s a war coming, I have to take that serious. Sure, man, we like to crack skulls. We want to ride free and do what the hell we please, but there’s shit I don’t need to see again. You, Joe, trying to keep you here, at the Society’s back door, that’s gonna raise things to an instant boil. There’s a war on the way, I can’t stop it. But I have no percentage in hastening it along. Or asking it in.
I get tired of hearing what I already know and take him off the hook.
– I’m not asking you for anything. Sun goes down, I’m gone.
He lets some air out.
– We’ll give you some wheels. Something to wear doesn’t smell like shit. That’s about all we got to spare.
– I’ll take them.
I stand up.
– Mind if I use the phone?
– All yours. You remember how?
– Yeah.
I limp over to the old pay phone mounted on the wall next to a collage of
I punch in some numbers.
Tenderhooks takes the tarp off a well-used ’75 850cc black Norton Commando.
– Gonna beat your kidneys to hell.
I feel the broken ribs in my back.
– Great.
We get some gas in the tank and dribble a little in the carb and Tenderhooks kicks it a few times and it coughs black smoke and shudders awake. He revs it up, twisting the gas with the chrome pincers at the end of his prosthetic arm, and it settles into a nice, even idle and he lets it run for a minute and kills it.
He wipes some dust from the tank.
– She’ll do ya.
– Thanks.
I finish my last beer and tuck the empty bottle in the inside pocket of my leather jacket. Even after a good sponging and a spray with Lysol it’s rank and stained. But Evie gave it to me, I won’t leave it behind.
The only guy big enough to give me some pants is nicknamed Tiny. So it’s a given I have to cinch the belt tight around my waist to keep the jeans from falling down. I opted for one of Tenderhooks’s sweaty thermals. It’s snug and smells almost as bad as the jacket. But someone had some old combat boots my size. So there’s that.
Christian comes back with the piece of rubber hose I asked for.
– You don’t want a full can? We can stick it in the saddlebags.
I stuff the tube into one of the jacket pockets.
– This is fine.
– Got a couple pieces in the armory, you want one.
– Keep ’em.
Tenderhooks hauls on a chain and it rattles through a pulley and the door rolls up.
I push the bike out to the street and lean it on its stand.
Christian hands me a pair of goggles.
– Hey, man, the Van Helsing. You ever figure that?
