Vampire junction, p.1
Vampire Junction, page 1
Scanned & Semi-Proofed by Cozette
"Terrible things, happen in this book. . . murders, tortures, rapes, abandon ments. . . it's about rock music, about mass hysteria, about vampires, about horror. . . one comes out knowing, and caring, about a panoply of new frien ds and acquaintances, living and dead, and unalive." . . .Theodore Sturgeon
, The Washington Post
Welcome to Timmy Valentine's world.
Valentine is a pop star, the idol of millions of young girls and boys. His vo ice would make the angels weep; his eyes hold you in thrall.
Timmy appears to be about eleven years old. He is actually over two thousa nd. Timmy Valentine is a vampire, and though our modern skeptic age refuse s to believe, Timmy has come to realize that he is in danger as never befo re.
Too many people have seen him. Photos and recordings survive as paintings and sculpture never could. Soon, someone will realize that Timmy Valenti ne has never grown up.
VAMPIRE Junction
S.P. SOMTOW
MIDNIGHT SACRIFICE
Then comes the smell of blood, overwhelming his senses. He goes up the steps to the altar where the girl lies bleeding, dying. "I do not want to feed,"
he says to her; yet, his hunger pounds like an ocean wave. He removes her bo nds; she does not struggle now. "You are a virgin, of course," he says, reme mbering. "They use virgins." She only stares at him, awed, fascinated. "Now I will love you as only the dead can love." He sips the life from her. Warmt h shoots into his veins, tingling, soothing. His eyes redden. She stirs, moa ns, is gone. . .
BY S.P. SOMTOW
NOVELS
Jasmine Mights
Vampire Junction
Valentine
Vanitas
Moon Dance
Forgetting Places
The Shattered Horse
Starship & Haiku
Chronicles of the High Inquest
Mallworld
Riverrun
Armorica
The Aquiliad
The Wizard's Apprentice
The Fallen Country
COLLECTIONS
Fire from the Wine-dark Sea
Chui Chai
Tagging the Moon
My Cold Mad Father
VAMPIRE Junction
S.P. SOMTOW
HORROR
A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK NEW YORK
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this boo k are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coinc idental.
VAMPIRE JUNCTION
Copyright (c) 1984 by Somtow Sucharitkul
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions th ereof, in any form.
Cover art by Joe DeVno
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
Tor(r) is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.
ISBN: 0-812-52596-5
First Tor edition: July 1991
Printed in the United States of America
098765432
To Lydia, who accidentally gave me this title
And toThaithow, who imbued in me an undying love of horror.
CONTENTS
SPRING:
The Red King's Dream......................
SUMMER:
The Gods of Chaos........................
AUTUMN:
Bluebeard's Castle.........................
WINTER:
I Am the Darkness........................
Vampire Junction
SPRING
The Red King's Dream
I'll hop on the train in Kansas
You change at Santa Fe.
We'll cross tracks at the Vampire junction
that sucks our souls away.
-Timmy Valentine
1
*fire: A.D. 79*
. . . brimstone. . . a child's footsteps patter on a splintering mosaic, bittertoas t smell of charring feet . . . fleeing, mountain thunder, then. . .
. . . blood, spatter spatter spatter bursting spatter spatter spatter boiling on t he hot stones spatter spatter spatter
. . . marble columns snapping like bones over the screaming and. . .
. . . blood spatter spatter spatter
. . . bloodgutted eyes through the sulphur-haze and the screaming and. . .
. . . through the ash-hail, fangs glitter blood spatter glitter spatter glitter spatt er glitter
*dissolve: the present*
I'm scared.
Why?
Don't you feel anything? I'm cold. Hold me.
All right.
No don't. Your hands are so cold. It's nothing, I guess. Brrr. Ever s ince I got into the car though. Maybe I'm not as blasé about the very rich as I'd like to be, huh? You are very rich, aren't you? I mean, like you're only a kid, but you must be one of the richest people on earth, what with t hat new album and everything. Vampire Junction. Yeah. Am I talking too much
? I'm nervous. Where was I? Yeah, money. They want to know about money. Tel l me all about your money.
FDR Drive, Rudy.
I've interviewed lots of people before, you know. You name 'em. But yo u, like you're so mysterious. Is this really the first time you're going to be on TV? Of course it must be. You know you're even shorter than in those p hotos. How old are you? Twelve? But cute. I'm . . . twenty-nine. I don't loo k it, right? They always say I don't look it. Now I want to do a huge featur e for the magazine, understand, huge. You don't have to say anything at all though, frankly I'm just going to make most of it up, like who gives a shit about those weeny-boppers anyway, huh? Oh sorry, maybe I shouldn't have said shit. They're your fans after all.
Well. . .
Hey, like this is some limousine you got. Two phones! I guess the drive r picks it up and then just intercoms it back to you? Ritzy. Look, here's the toll booth. Nice night, huh? Traffic's not too bad either. Sometimes it can take hours to get to mid-town from LaGuardia.
I've done it before.
Huh? Yeah, of course. You know you got beautiful eyes. . . so sexy. .
. if I were a weeny-bopper I'd go for you in spades. How do you like New Yor k?
Well enough.
I guess you've seen the whole world though, even if you're just a kid. Hu h?
Probably.
Where do you get those cute cloaks from, by the way, the ones you do th e concerts in?
In Europe. I have them sent.
Oh.
I love the night.
What? Oh yeah, really, like I love the way you talk, you know, really compact, like those songs of yours. There's never been a teen star like you before, never in my ten years of working for Idol Magazine. But if I'm going to interview you you'll have to tell me more about yourself, I mean like wh at you like to eat and drink, your views on teen sex, your-Anything wrong?
No. Just. . . memories.
What kind of memories? That's just the kind of thing the fans want to know, like how you grew up and stuff and- look, the Big Apple already! I kno w how I'm going to describe it in the article: "rearing up over the water li ke a giant graveyard in the moonlight."
Pretentious.
They love shit.
I can see that.
Huh? Oh, yeah. Back to you, Timmy-can I call you that? You and your memories-
(spatter spatter spatter) You wouldn't want to know.
Bad childhood, huh?
Very bad. I've forgotten it all.
There you go, looking at me with those haunting eyes. I'd swear they shi ne in the dark. There now. It's not often I get to hold the hand of a million-dollar property-oh, I don't mean to hurt your feelings-
?
It's all right. They're like ice, your hands! Your metabolism must be w eird or something. You should try more organic foods, you know? Here, I'll wa rm them. Better? Hey, this is sort of a turn-on, you know, I. . . oh, your ha nd, it's burning my breast, I mean burning, and . . . why're you smiling at m e like that? Oh, let me hug you, let me. . . don't think I'm kinky now. You'r e a sophisticated kid, but I don't like little boys, you know, I'm all of. .
. twenty-nine . . . want to see them? Here, look, I keep in shape, you know, I. . . how am I going to explain this rip? You like my breasts? Here . . . ou ch! Like glaciers, your fingers, like glaciers, and here, don't scratch you'v e drawn blood it's running down my Izod sweater don't think I'm into this stu ff now but you're so famous and all and ow! Let go of it! What are you doing?
Don't bare your teeth, you animal, you little bastard, you-I grieve for you. You should not have awakened my memories. I've known.
. . someone like you. . . before.
Let me go you're so strong your teeth the moonlight don't bite! don't bite!
it hurts it hurts it hurts oh oh oh.
Rudy, not this exit yet. If we go into mid-town they'll see us.
I hate it when they scream and struggle. It attracts too much attention. I
'm so hungry, it hurts so! The breasts are all ripped up. She'll die in a minute or two. Oh, the fresh blood . . .warming. . . easy . . . easy . . . shall I kil l you permanently? Shall I? If I did not you would wake up to a terrible solitud e . . . poor creature. I've yanked her heart out, Rudy. That should save her fro m the great loneliness. There it is, on the seat, going pit-a-pat as it seeps in to the upholstery. . . easy. . . still now, heart. . . look, her lifeless eyes.
. . I'll close them ... there, she's dead. The seat's all bloody now. Tell Maria to clean it up. My concert's in an hour.
I'm sorry, Rudy! I was angry, she plucked such vivid memories from me
. . . Forget, master Timothy. How can I?
*memory: 1918*
He has slipped through the railings, this child of darkness, and is sta nding in a pool of moonlight by the quadrangle's edge, his thin pale face str iped by the shadows of the iron bars. He feels the hunger a little, like a ro dent scurrying in the pit of his stomach. But it is not hunger that has drawn him out of his hiding place. It is the sound of children singing. It has tou ched him in his dreamless sleep; he has followed it blindly, as a bloodhound follows a scent, many days' walk from London, leaving behind the house on Fit zroy Square and the old woman who took him in.
For a few moments he watches the stained glass windows, lit from withi n, of the massive fifteenth-century chapel. It must be an evening choir prac tice. The building is one of the Cambridge colleges with its own choirschool where young boys are trained for chapel services. He hears the children's v oices, cool as the wind.
"What are you doing here, boy?" He averts his eyes, catching a glimps e of the Cambridge don's face, then looking down at the mirror-polished boo ts and the edge of the gown. "Answer me. Are you lost?" The hunger stirs in him for a moment. "Are you late for practice?" The don indicates the chape l. "No, you're too scruffy to be one of the choristers. Go away, it's out o f bounds here."
He stares at the man's eyes, stung by his rebuff. He thinks of feeding for a moment. The pickings have been slim since he left the city. The young men have gone to the war, the women have latched their doors, and there are only tramps, whose blood is bitter with methylated spirits. He is about to spring-But no. The don rubs his eyes and sees only a black animal, perhaps a cat, dark silver slicing the gloom.
The boy comes to in the nave. Soft light on the Rubens over the altar in the distance. A few seconds of memory surface; he has been here centuries before, and there are dead men, dust now, whose memories still touch him th rough the warm earth and the cold stone. He longs to join them. In the dark the fan vaulting is shadowed, and there appears to be no ceiling. The boy cr ouches in a pew as the singing dies away in the musty stillness. It is Purce ll's Funeral Music: the boy remembers it from long ago, a king's funeral.
For a moment peace steals into his haunted eyes, for he has always love d music.
The voices have allayed his hunger for now. It is at such times that he w ishes he could weep. . .
He hears voices. "Perfect, chaps. But Miles, don't attack that top B fla t so viciously in your solo. Just let it grow naturally from the phrase. It's a nuisance, I know, having all these extra choir practices, but with all these chaps dying in the war, and all these memorial services, what can you do? Dam n the Kaiser! Very well, that's all for tonight."
The boys troop out, passing under the ornate archway of dark, oily wo od that splits the nave. They are giggling, irreverent. The Organ Scholar h as come down from the loft and is discussing something with the director; c hildish laughter and old men's whispers blend into cavernous echoing.
The lights go out. The boy is alone. The dark is kind to his eyes. He mus t feed now.
He rises, making no noise.
He crosses the aisle, soundless as shadow.
He freezes. Somewhere hinges creak. He hears distant clattering. He dis solves behind the altar's long shadow. Once, the cross, boy-tall, silver, cru sted with amethysts, would have caused him grief, but it is not a fervent age
, and the symbols are losing their power.
Now he sees tiny lights, dancing, flickering, casting shadow-giants on the walls. An old verger is leading a grotesque processional of men with bl ack robes on which are embroidered stars and moons and cabalistic signs and hieroglyphs, holding candles and staves. The boy smells terror.
It comes from a young woman, bound and gagged, whom they are draggi ng behind them. Two young acolytes, mere boys, bring up the rear, swingin g censers that exude a stench of perfume and charred flesh.
The boy remembers such things from a past better forgotten. He peers f rom the pool of darkness.
The celebrants are giggling. This is no genuine rite of the old ones, but some game they are playing. The young boys run in front now, scattering the foul smoke everywhere.
"Thank you, Sullivan," says one of the robed ones. He appears to be ti pping the verger, who slinks away, leering at the woman.
"You're sure she can't be traced?" says a plump Asian man.
"A waitress at the Copper Kettle," says the first, the tall one with a p aper mitre on which is painted a crude skull and other sigils. The girl flails about helplessly as they bind her to the altar. Her arm has almost brushed th e boy; his hand has stolen the warmth from hers. He is invisible to them, for he has cloaked himself in darkness.
They are all laughing now. "Be solemn for a moment, won't you!" the lead er cries. "This is serious business." Laughter breaks out again, stifles itsel f.
"What a nuisance the incense was! Are you sure this nauseating concoct ion is quite necessary?"
"The Book of the Order of the Gods of Chaos absolutely specifies that the frankincense be mixed with the caul of an unborn child," the leader says sternly. "I had little enough trouble with our friends in the medical labor atory." The boys are running gleefully about now, and the fumes are thick an d pungent. The girl coughs through the gag.
"Perhaps we shouldn't really-"
"Silence, novice!" says the leader. He pulls a knife from his robe. Now the boy senses the terror in all of them. "This is serious, I tell you, the su mmoning of a presence-"
Inside, the boy laughs bitterly. He knows that the presences are long d ead, if they ever existed. Only their shadows have survived the dark times. T
hey are hypocrites, these humans, they know nothing of my bitterness, my grie f. And now the girl will die for it.
The leader has stalked to the altar, knife upraised, the blade catching the candlelight. Quickly the young vampire blends into the shadows.
There is a sudden gasp from the celebrants; the girl, bound too tightly to move, has begun to urinate in her terror. It trickles onto the stone.
Delicately the leader slices into her, reddening the crease between he r breasts and drawing a thin line down to her pubes. The stench of fear is o verwhelming now, drowning out the incense and the smoking flesh.
The boy feels the madness within; fear has always been an intoxicant fo r him. But he is angry, and he struggles to quell the hunger.
A robed man begins to draw the girl's blood into a chalice. Her eyes widen. Her scream, through the gag, sounds immeasurably far away. The leade r begins to improvise, carving patterned slits into her abdomen. The boy se es his crazed face, implacable.
Anger rises deep inside the boy, rage at this senseless slaughter. And with the bloodsmell comes the ancient hunger, leaping, bursting. He leaps-He is a wild thing now, pouncing-
The knife clangs on the steps. The leader shouts: "The presence! I did n't know-only a game-!" He sees what he has done. He runs. For a moment, he has seen a wolf, others a panther, others a monster from their own nightmare s. They scatter, screaming, their footsteps tiny in the echo-rich vastnes s-But there is still one. A small boy, his censer smashed . . . the vampire sees him in a cloud of smoke. Their eyes meet.
"Wait," the boy vampire says, "I do not mean to harm-"
They stare into each other's eyes. The vampire sees what he has always seen: terror, naked, crystalline. Has the child seen him in his true shape? H
as the borrowed form slipped for an
instant?
And now the vampire recognizes the child. It is Miles, the chorister. On ly an hour ago he heard the boy pluck that high B flat from the air. It was hi s ethereal singing that he heard in London, singling it out from the millions of voices that assailed his inhumanly acute ears, troubling his not-sleep with its
loveliness.
"Miles," he says. His voice is low, half-taunting, half-seductive. But the child is gone.
Then comes the smell of blood, overwhelming his senses. He goes up the steps to the altar where the girl lies bleeding, dying. "I do not want to f eed," he says to her; yet, his hunger pounds like an ocean wave. He removes her bonds; she does not struggle now. "You are a virgin, of course," he says
, remembering. "They use virgins." She only stares at him, awed, fascinated.
"Now I will love you as only the dead can love." He sips the life from her.
Warmth shoots into his veins, tingling, soothing. His eyes redden. She stir s, moans, is gone.
