Where the Summer Ends - By Karl Edward Wagner Page 0,116

the next half hour.

Nordgren did quite a brisk trade in comparison, autographing a dozen copies of The Sending (on sale in the hucksters’ room), as many copies of Acid Test (which had begun to gather a cult reputation), and a surprising number of short stories and essays from various magazines and anthologies. The room was crowded, hot, and after an hour Nordgren was patently bored and restive. In the jostled intervals between callers at their table, he stared moodily at the long lines queued up before the tables of the mighty.

“Do you ever wonder why we do this?” he asked Harrington.

“For fame, acclaim—not to mention a free drink?”

“Piss on it. Why do we put ourselves on display just so an effusive mob of lunatic fringe fans can gape at us and tell us how great we are and beg an autograph and ask about our theories of politics and religion?”

“You swiped that last from the Kinks,” Damon accused.

“Rock stars. Movie stars. Sci-fi stars. What’s the difference? We’re all hustling for as much acclaim and attention as we can wring out of the masses. Admit it! If we were pure artists, you and I and the rest of the grasping lot would be home sweating over a typewriter tonight. Why aren’t we?”

“Is that intended to be rhetorical?”

“All right, I’ll tell you why, said he, finishing his drink.” Nordgren finished his drink, dug another ten-dollar bill out of his jeans, and poked it toward his cupbearer.

“It’s because we’re all vampires.”

“Sweetheart, better make that mo Bloody Marys!” Harrington called after her.

“I’m serious, Damon,” Nordgren persisted, pausing to scrawl something across a copy of The Sending. “We’re the psychic vampires beloved of fiction. We need all these fans, all this gaudy adulation. We derive energy from it all.”

He handed the book back to its owner. “Have you read this?”

The fan was embarrassed. “No, sir—I just today bought it.” He continued bravely: “But a friend of mine sat up all night reading it, and she said it gave her nightmares for a week!”

“So you see, Damon,” Nordgren nodded. He pointed a finger at the fan. “I now possess a bit of your frightened friend’s soul. And when you read The Sending, I shall possess a fragment of your soul as well.”

The blonde returned bearing drinks, and the stricken fan made his escape.

“So you see, Damon,” Nordgren asserted. “They read our books, and all their attention is directed toward the creations of our hungry imaginations. We absorb a little psychic energy each time they read us; we grow stronger and stronger with each new book, each new printing, and each new fiction. And see—like proper vampire fodder, our victims adore us and beg for more.”

Trevor squinted at the blonde’s name badge. “Julie, my love, how long have I known you?”

“Since we met in the elevator this morning,” she remembered. “Julie, my love. Would you like to drop up to my room with me now and peruse my erotic etchings?”

“Okay. You going to sign your book for me?”

“As you see, Damon.” Nordgren pushed back his chair. “The vampire’s victims are most willing. I hereby appoint you my proxy and empower you to sign anything that crosses this table in my name. Good night.”

Harrington found himself staring at two Bloody Marys.

The visit with Nordgren in New York was a lot of fun, and Damon promised to return Trevor’s hospitality when the World Fantasy Convention came to Los Angeles the following year. Aside from the convention, Harrington’s visit was chiefly remarkable for two other things—Nordgren’s almost embroiling them in a street fight with a youth gang in front of the Hilton, and their mutual acquisition of an agent.

“Damon, my man,” Nordgren introduced them. “Someone I’d like you to meet. A boxer needs a manager, and a writer needs an agent. There is Helen Hohenstein, and she’s the goddamn smartest, meanest, and best-looking agent in New York. Helen, love, this is our young Robert E. Howard.”

“I saw your panel,” she said.

“Sorry about that,” Harrington said.

Helen Hohenstein was a petite woman of about forty whose doll-like face was offset by shrewd eyes—Harrington balked at deeming them predatory. She had passed through the revolving door in various editorial positions at various publishers, and she was now starting her own literary agency, specializing in science fiction and fantasy. She looked as if she could handle herself well under about any situation, and probably already had. Harrington felt almost intimidated by her, besides not especially willing to sacrifice 10 per cent of his meager