Blood Sisters_ Vampire Stories by Women - Paula Guran Page 0,139

to have found what I’ve come looking for, there’s something not quite right about it, but I’ll be damned (I know—I’m being redundant) if I can put my finger on it.

In my experience, vampires avoid Goths like a tanning salon. While their adolescent fascination with death and decadence might, at first, seem to make them ideal servitors, their extravagant fashion sense draws far too much attention. Plus, they’re huge drama-queens. Vampires prefer their servants far more nondescript and discrete. But perhaps this Lord Rhymer, whoever he may be, is of a more modern temperament than those I’ve encountered in the past.

I don’t know what to make of this trio who seem to be acting as Judas Goats, luring a fresh victim into their master’s orbit. Judging by their evident enthusiasm, perhaps they are more converts than servitors. They don’t seem to have the predator’s gleam in their eyes, nor is there anything resembling a killer’s caution in their walk or mannerisms. As they stroll down the darkened streets, their chatter is more like that of mischievous children out on a lark—such as TPing the superintendent’s front lawn or soaping the gym teacher’s windows. They certainly don’t seem aware of the extra shadow that attached itself to them the moment they left the Red Raven.

After a ten-minute walk they arrive at their destination—an abandoned church. Of course. It’s hardly Carfax Abbey, but I suppose it will do. It’s a two-story wooden structure boasting an old-fashioned spire, stabbing its symbolic finger in the direction of heaven.

The feeling of ill-ease rises in me again. Vampires dislike such obvious lairs. Hell, these aren’t the Middle Ages; they don’t have to hang out in ruined monasteries and family mausoleums anymore. No, contemporary bloodsuckers prefer to dwell within warehouse lofts or abandoned industrial complexes, even condos. I even tracked one to ground in an inner-city hospital that had been shut down during the Reagan administration. I suspect I’ll have to start investigating the various deactivated military bases scattered throughout the country at some point.

As I watch the little group troop inside the church, there is only one thing I know for certain—if I want to know what’s going down here, I better get inside. I circle around the building, keeping to the darkest shadows, my senses alert for signs of the usual sentinels that guard a vampire’s lair. I reach out with my mind as I climb up the side of the church, trying to pick up the tell-tale dead-air of shielded minds that signifies the presence of renfields, but all I pick up is the excited heat of the foursome from the Red Raven and a slightly more complex signal from deeper inside the church. Curiouser and curiouser.

Turns out the church spire doesn’t house a bell—just a rusting Korean War-era public address system dangling from frayed wires. There is barely enough room for a man to stand, much less ring a bell, but at least the trapdoor isn’t locked. It opens with a tight squeal of disused hinges, but nothing stirs in the shadows below me. Within seconds I have the best seat in the house, crouched in the rafters spanning the nave.

The interior of the church looks appropriately atmospheric. What pews remain are in disarray, the hymnals tumbled from their racks and spilled across the floor. Saints, apostles, and prophets stare down from the windows, gesturing with upraised shepherd’s crooks or hands bent into the sign of benediction. I lift my own mirrored gaze to the mullion window located behind the pulpit. It depicts a snowy lamb kneeling on a field of green against a cloudless sky, in which a shining disc is suspended. The large brass cross just below the sheep-window has been inverted, in keeping with the ever-popular desecration motif.

The only light is provided by a pair of heavy cathedral-style candelabras, each bristling with over a hundred dripping red and black candles, which flank either side of the pulpit. The Goth kids from the Red Raven gather at the chancel rail, their faces turned towards the black-velvet draped altar.

“Where is he?” Shawna whispers, her voice surprisingly loud in the empty church.

“Don’t worry,” Tanith assures her. “He’ll be here.”

As if on cue, there is a smell of brimstone and a gout of purplish smoke rises from behind the pulpit. Shawna gives a little squeal of surprise and takes an involuntary step backward, only to find her way blocked by the others.

A deep, cultured masculine voice booms forth. “Good evening, my children! I bid