no longer relaxed. His eyes flew open and he said, “Bastard. Out of my sight. Betrayer. Thief.” “But, Vlad—” Leary began.
Dracula flung himself at him, teeth bared, preparing for the kill, when Leary flew out of reach.
Flew.
Rosemary looked frightened, and backed away from them both.
“I’ve been Changed,” Leary said, settling back into the tub. He opened his mouth and showed Dracula his teeth.
“There’s only one way to settle this,” Dracula said, rising from the water in all his majesty. He was the King of the Vampires; he would not let this usurper survive another minute.
“Settle it?” Leary asked, perplexed.
“Yes, you idiot.” Dracula advanced, sneering at him. The King of Peace and Love. He had no idea what violence he would commit as a vampire.
Leary backed away, ran up against the side of the tub, and crawled out. “Wait a minute. Wait.” Perhaps he was beginning to understand he had made a terrible miscalculation.
Then Alexsandru rushed in. “The FBI! They’re at the gates!”
Suddenly everyone was scrambling. Into clothes and coats, stuffing passports and money into pockets, the fugitives sneaking through the dungeon to the unguarded rear of the castle. The flower children, rising to the occasion, harassing and teasing the authorities.
The Learys took flight, and were safe.
The FBI were too stupid to see what Dracula was, and left after stern warnings about harboring criminals.
Dracula was alone with his motley crew, and as he looked up at the setting moon, he wept.
Years later, after the flowers and the pharmacopoeial paraphernalia and the dog-eared copies of The Tibetan Book of the Dead were locked in attic trunks, it was said that Leary died. It was said that his head was severed from his body and frozen. It was said that he had requested this action in the hope that he could be revived in a more advanced time and brought back to life.
When Alexsandru told Dracula of this, Captain Blood laughed. No one knew exactly why. Some claimed it was because he remembered Leary so fondly. Others, that he found Leary’s hope for a second chance as a disembodied head typically Leary, and very amusing.
And still others, that he had ordered the beheading, because that was one way to kill a vampire.
But everyone agreed that of a night, he took the hand of his best beloved Bride, who looked very much like Rosemary Leary, and they flew together over the rippling sidewinder desiccation, shadows like condors against the full and glowing desert moon.
THE POWER AND THE PASSION
Pat Cadigan
Pat Cadigan is the author of numerous acclaimed short stories and five novels. Her first novel, Mindplayers, was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award; her second and third novels—Synners and Fools—both won the Arthur C. Clarke Award. Her collection, Patterns, was honored with the Locus Award. Cadigan’s work has also been nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula awards. The author lived in Kansas City for many years, but has resided in London, England since 1996.
“The Power and the Passion” posits that it may well take a human monster to truly know an inhuman one…
The voice on the phone says, “We need to talk to you, Mr. Soames,” so I know to pick the place up. Company coming. I don’t like for Company to come into no pigsty, but one of the reasons the place is such a mess all the time is, it’s so small, I got nowhere to keep shit except around, you know. But I shove both the dirty laundry and the dirty dishes in the oven—my mattress is right on the floor so I can’t shove stuff under the bed, and what won’t fit in the oven I put in the tub and just before I pull the curtain, I think, well, shit, I shoulda just put it all in the tub and filled it and got it all washed at once. Or, well, just the dishes, because I can take the clothes over to the laundromat easier than washing them in the tub.
So, hell, I just pull the shower curtain, stack the newspapers and the magazines—newspapers on top of the magazines, because most people don’t take too well to my taste in magazines, and they wouldn’t like a lot of the newspapers much either, but I got the Sunday paper to stick on top and hide it all, so it’s okay. Company’ll damned well know what’s under them Sunday funnies because they know me, but as long as they don’t have to have it staring them in the face,