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Come to My Window
by Aadler
Copyright July 1999
Part II
Some people say there’s no such thing as luck. I don’t know if they mean everything is decided by our subconscious (Freudian crap) or we form our own destinies (New Age fluff), and I don’t really care. I just know things happen, and sometimes what happens changes everything, and sometimes a decision comes along with it. You can call it a milestone or a defining moment or a pivotal event or whatever, what matters is where you go from where you are. So I believe in luck, the big changes that slam into you out of nowhere. I pretty much have to believe, since the three major changes of my life hit inside twenty-four hours.
The first was when Spike picked me up outside the Fish Tank. I don’t really remember much about that — the two guys with me had been way generous with the boilermakers — but I’m not about to forget the moment Drusilla turned from that damn doll of hers and sunk her teeth into my throat. (Hey, Sigmund, did my subconscious dictate that one?) I woke up with a wonderful new strength and a hellish new thirst, and me and the sun have been strangers ever since.
The second was early the next evening, when Spike took me along for the raid on the school on Parent Night. I was behind Buffy with the axe, I was actually starting the swing that would open her skull like a piņata, when that fricken librarian hollered at her to watch out, and in an instant she had whipped around and wrenched the axe away from me, slammed me across the face with the handle, and dusted Spike’s boy at the door before I could get back my balance. It wasn’t just the blow to the face that stopped me, I was hit with a whole series of nasty surprises in a fraction of a second.
Shock: I knew how strong I was now, and she was stronger.
Shock: I knew how quick I was now, and she was quicker.
Shock: her eyes. I was frozen by her eyes.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it, and I still can’t really describe what I saw there. Acceptance is as close as I can get, but that’s dishwater compared to the reality, the impersonal unimpressed gaze of a predator. She had thought I was an ally, discovered I was an enemy, and in the time it took her to turn, without any transition at all, she was calmly prepared to kill me. No anger, shock, confusion, not even determination, just … readiness.
So I bailed. Screw this, I hadn’t signed up for their idiotic war, it had just sounded like a kick until I was faced with the thing itself. I zipped through the halls like a greyhound on crystal meth, and was about to dive out into the welcoming night when I heard a faint whimper from somewhere. Breakfast! I followed the sound, and the smell of fear and clammy sweat, and found Tana crouching under the stairwell, jammed back as far as she could get. She gave a little yip of panic when I crawled up under there with her, then relaxed a fraction as she saw who it was. I recognized her, too (I didn’t know her name then, just that she was one of Cordelia Chase’s little sock-puppets), and absolutely licked my lips at the thought of how she would taste.
She didn’t notice. “Did anybody see you?” she whispered.
“Since when?”
“Since they broke in.” She shivered. “The PCP gang. I heard someone talking about it when they passed by a few minutes ago, and then they laughed. They laughed. What could people like that want with us?”
I laughed too. “The leaders have some kind of big-shot revenge plans,” I told her. “Me, I’m just in it for fun, and for what snacks I can pick up on the way.” And I let my new face come out for only the second time, and gave her a jagged smile as I moved in on her.
In the small part of me that was paying attention, I expected paralysis or hysterics, and was ready to enjoy either as an appetizer. Instead she just gaped at me with saucer eyes and stammered, “You … you’re a vampire?” My hands were actually on her when she said probably the only thing in the world that could have saved her: “What’s it like?”
It stopped me for a second, anyhow. “You do realize I’m about to slurp you down like a Jell-O shooter, right?”
“Well … yeah.” She gave a little shrug, looking embarrassed. “I still want to know.”
Up to now I had been savoring my new life (half-life? unlife? deadlife?), but hadn’t really thought about it, and Tana’s question got me to considering the matter. “It feels great,” I told her, relishing the truth of it. “I don’t have to follow anybody’s rules, I don’t have to take anybody’s crap …”
“But you’ve always been like that.”
“Okay, sure, I acted that way. And yeah, I really was tough. But this is different. Before, it was, You tangle with me and you’ll be sorry, ’cause even if you win I’ll hurt you more than it’s worth. Now it’s, Come at me if you want to, in fact I hope you will, ’cause you’re worm chow, pal.” Just the thought brought out another fanged smile. “I’m not afraid of anything. Anything.”
(And it was true, mostly, but even as I said it I felt the limits, and without having to think about it I knew three things clear down to the marrow: I didn’t want to mess with Buffy. I didn’t want to mess with Spike. And Drusilla just purely scared the pee out of me.)
“So what are you going to do now?” she asked me.
I ran my tongue across my teeth. “I thought we were already clear on that.”
“No, I mean with your life. Or whatever.” I didn’t get it, and at my frown she went on quickly, “I mean, you’re like what they ask us in Self Development, that ‘What would you do if you could do whatever you wanted’ question. Only you can. So what do you want to do?”
It was a new thought, and I let it slide through me. “Enjoy myself,” I answered, testing the idea and liking the taste. “Just blow everything off and have fun.”
She nodded as if she knew just what I meant. “Sleep all day, party all night, never grow old, never die …”
“Right,” I said. Then, “What?” It was dead on, but at the same time something in it sounded not-like-Tana.
She got that embarrassed look again. “It’s from the cover art for the Lost Boys. You know, Kiefer Sutherland, vampire beach parties … it’s from the Eighties, I caught it on video.”
“I musta skipped History class that day.” I moved toward her again. “Okay, all this girl talk’s been kinda nice, but I’m still parched. Say goodnight, Gracie.”
She didn’t shrink away from me, just set her mouth and lifted her chin. Aww, she was going to die bravely, it was so cute I wanted to yak. I reached out to brush my nails across the sweet spot on her throat, where the vein pulsed just under the skin —
Two things happened at the same time. A tremor ran through her that was something more than fear; and I realized that I just didn’t feel like killing her.
That was the third moment, the pivot point that set the rest of my life in motion. It was unnatural — I was hunter, she was prey, I was thirst, she was drink — but I just didn’t especially want her dead. And with that thought came another: if I started leaving a trail of bodies, Buffy would come after me sooner or later. I mean, that was what she did, right? She was the Slayer. So if I didn’t want her looking me up for some major acupuncture I could skip town (thanks, no), get her before she got me (fat chance), or keep a low profile.
Sleep all day, party all night … low profile might could be made to work.
All this only took a few seconds to pass through my head, and didn’t get in the way of me nuzzling up to Tana. She let one hand rest on my arm, like we were dance partners, and put the other lightly around my waist, and as I pierced the skin of her throat she shuddered again in a way nobody could mistake. I drank from her for the first time, but not too deep, and that’s the way it’s been ever since.
Spike never came looking for me, I guess he figured Buffy dusted me along with the others. I dyed my hair strawberry blonde and changed my makeup style, and tried to steer away from places where Spike or his boys were likely to spot me. I found I could put a light trance on most people and sip from them without leaving a memory (probably because Drusilla was my sire, she was heavy into that mesmerizing stuff), and since I was careful about privacy and didn’t strew corpses behind me, I never caught Buffy’s attention.
I dance every night, and drop in on Tana maybe two or three times a month. She’s not the only person I’ve run across who gets turned on by my ‘special kiss’, but she’s the only one who acts like I’m a secret lover. (She kids herself that this means she’s bi, but she isn’t. Maybe a sixth of my diet comes from the Silk Tulip, and I’ve got to where I can pick up on the cues almost as easy as I can smell blood. Tana just likes to be bitten.)
It hadn’t taken much to get my life into a shape I liked, and this was what Kyle was threatening. This was the problem I couldn’t figure out how to handle. This was why I was coming to a fricken Cordette for advice.
* * *
“I guess I don’t get it,” she admitted. “I know you’re not afraid of him, there’s no way he could hurt you and you could break him into pieces if he tried. So how is he a threat?”
I sighed. “You’re right, I could snap Kyle like a pretzel stick and laugh myself silly doing it. But the cops would get into it, and they’d wind up talking to me if he’s mentioned me to any of his street connections. I couldn’t go in with them, too big a chance of getting caught in daylight, and if I slammed ’em through a wall and took off, I’d have to ditch my clubs.”
“What about … you know, roughing him up? Showing him he can’t push you around?”
“Thought of that. See, Kyle is big on getting even. In his own way he won’t back down any more than I will, he’d just set the cops on me and go underground while they ran me through the wringer.” I laughed a little. “He may be sewer sludge, but you’ve gotta respect the attitude.”
She turned it over in her head again. “Maybe you could use his own tactics against him, get the police looking at him. I mean, you haven’t done anything, wouldn’t he be a bigger fish for them to go after?”
She wouldn’t quit, I had to give her that. “I’ve tried to think of some way to put them on him without it coming back to me, and I just can’t. Kyle would sell everybody he knew for a better deal, and I can’t take the chance I’d wind up on their list.”
Tana shook her head. “It’s funny, I just never thought of you worrying about the police.”
That was almost enough to make me mad. “Look, Tana, are you afraid of spray paint?”
“Huh?” She looked blank. “No, why?”
“So if I was to open your closet doors and spray a swatch down the middle of the stuff hanging there …?”
She blanched, which is something to see on an Asian girl. “Okay, I get your point.”
“Right. They can’t really do anything to me, but they could spoil things. And I can’t slap Kyle down without taking the chance of popping up on their radar.” Not to mention the risk that something might get back to Spike or Buffy, but I wasn’t about to let things go that far. “If I have to I’ll just flush the whole deal, hop town and take up clubbing somewhere else. But I don’t want to, damn it. I was hoping we could find another way of tackling this mess.”
We sat for another few minutes without saying anything, and then I stood up. “Hell with it, I’m more depressed than ever. I think I’ll go drink a wino or two.”
“Actually …” Tana shifted on the bed like something itched. “Look, don’t laugh, but I think maybe I have an idea.”
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