13 Tales of the Paranormal Read online

  Shuddering at the touch of so many people, I pushed my way through the crowd, trying not step on dwarf or brownie kids chasing dragonflies. Most of the human kids were watching the jugglers, as they had started throwing new and interesting things into the air. One gal had a hula hoop going around her hips, while throwing what appeared to be a salmon, two cantaloupes and a gourd of some kind, through the air at dizzying speed. Around her were several other jugglers all doing more conventional acts, knives, pins, balls and the like.

  There were stalls all around the edges of the grassy area in the middle, and traffic had been closed off. There were food stalls, artisan stalls, information stalls. Some proprietors had handwritten displays; some had solar powered digital ones. While they were not nearly as colorful or exciting as some of the adverts on the stations, their simplicity appealed to me, function and form of good people trying to make a living. I could hear haggling amongst the Dwarves over various stone art works, amongst the brownies over some root vegetables, and a human woman grumbling about the price of the milk from the local farms. The sounds created a swell of reminiscence in me, memories coming down here with my mother, looking for fresh stuff for dinner. Ah, how I missed being home sometimes.

  I walked across the grassy square and made my way to the front door of the Union. Its foyer opened up onto the Plaza, and after dodging three requests for spare credits from the “less fortunates” outside, I managed to make it into the shade of the lobby. The tile that covered the floor rang with sharp snaps as my boots made contact. A clerk was behind the counter, his tuned-out expression plus the winking LED at his temple, showed me that he was looking through and not at me. I knocked my knuckles on the counter to get his attention. With a start, he came to and brought his eyes to the sights in front of him.

  “Hello, sir. Apologies, just watching my stories, we don’t normally get many folks this time of day coming in. How can I help you?” His smile seemed genuinely apologetic. As the smile flashed across his face, you could see an array of wrinkles at the edges of his eyes come and go; appearing and disappearing like a magic trick. His uniform seemed a little loose, and rumpled, as though he had worn it for more than one shift.

  “Do you have a room available?” I inquired.

  “Yes, sir. Several, in fact. We have had very little business of late, with them all working on the road to the south of us, and most of the winter travelers having left already to head to the Edge. Big band of businessmen headed out just yesterday sir, pretty much cleared the place out, sir. Would you like a suite or just a room, sir? Be needing a girl, sir? Boy, sir?” He added at my look of dismay.

  I had forgotten about some of the factors of being home, legal prostitution being one of them. “No thank you, just the room.”

  “Very good sir, just a moment.” The rumpled clerk stood, took my ID and scanned it into his data pad. Moving some icons around on the display in front of him, he finally looked up at me, and asked “Window view of the Plaza, sir? Or would you prefer a quieter space, sir?”

  “Plaza side would be fine. Thanks.” The clerk handed me my ID back. “Your room is keyed to your ID sir. Will there be anything else?”

  “No, thank you. What room number?” looking at him archly.

  “Oh I am sorry sir, room 414. Top of the stairs, on your right. Have a good day.” And with that he sat abruptly back down and the blue LED on the side of his head began winking again. Realizing it would probably be futile to ask about food, I trudged up the stairs to put my gear into my room, hoping to rest a minute before heading back out to look for sustenance.

  IV

  I flashed my ID on the panel in front of the door, and walked in. The room was small with many antique features: a radiator, simulated incandescent lights, real wood furniture, and a statue…With a start I realized the room was occupied! Whoever it was, stood back in the corner, looking out of the window, but well out of the sunlight. I put my bag down and slowly reached my hand back towards where I kept my needler tucked into the waist band of my kilt.

  “You won’t need that, Mr. Calvino. I am not here to harm you, sir,” the deep male voice came out from the corner. Good, I thought, I hadn’t been sure it would work anyways, other than maybe to slow him down while I got away. I still kept my hand at my side, just in case. The vampire turned and looked out the window, down at the Plaza.

  “I remember this place. I came here once, back in the twentieth. I was human then. Strange how things change, yet stay the same.” The voice seemed to be softly reminiscing, almost ignorant of me. With nothing more to indicate a change of thought other than a raised eyebrow, the vampire turned and gave me his full gaze. With that gaze I felt my insides go loose, like someone had turned up my personal gravity, and I reached behind me to feel the wall to keep myself from falling. I breathed in the scent of him, like old incense, and my limbs began to tremble. What was wrong with me? My strength faded like thermal paper in the sun, and my lip started to tremble as well. I mustered a quick prayer to the Creator, to get through this, and if this was it, that I do so with some measure of dignity. Basically, God, don’t let me wet myself during this.

  The creature that stood in my room had once been a human being. So many subtle things told you when you looked at him, however, that this was no longer the case. Not merely the translucent paleness of him, which seemed to happen even to vampires of darker skinned descent, but the stillness of him. Even the Guards at the door of the Capitol have little subtle things that move, shift or twitch to show that they are alive. Not so with vampires, there is a stillness to their movements, nothing extra expended, no pulse, no breathing, no anything that you can see to tell you that there is life within the body before you.

  He stood a little less than two meters. That put him just about my height, maybe a tiny bit shorter. Where my parentage had graced me with a certain bulk, no matter how little I actually ate, his lines were long and whipcord thin, like he had been stretched over his bones, and had just enough skin to cover everything, but not a bit more. I understood that some of that was due to the vampirism, part of why you never see a fat vampire, but my impression was that he had been thin before his first death. His nose was long, with wide nostrils that seemed to sprawl across his face. They perched above a mouth that had rather full lips, almost pouty. His hair was brown, coarse, and tied at the nape of his neck with a band of metal. His clothes were nondescript, not Luddite plain, but not flashy either. His hands had rings on many of the fingers, thin bands that looked to be silver or white gold. All in all he didn’t look particularly dangerous, but every hair on my body rose with the gibbering fear that comes from being prey in the room with a predator. I avoided his direct gaze, and put my back against the wall, next to the door.

  I could feel my pulse pounding in my chest and my neck. I made a conscious effort to breathe, and to try and calm myself. I had dealt with many scary things in my life, ship fires, combat, a reactor failure, but nothing before had left me as dry mouthed and wanting to wet myself as this calm figure in the room with me. I had gone from extremely relaxed to utter terror in seconds. What the hell was going on?

  “I apologize for the amount of fear you must be feeling right now, Mr. Calvino,” the vampire’s voice rolled around the room like a swooping egret playing over the bay. It was hard to get a fix on it. It seemed to come not only from him, but from all over the room.

  “When we, vampires that is, get excited, it is harder to control our natural pheromones. And I have been here waiting for you for some time.”

  I got something out of my throat, I don’t know if it was a word. I said something inquisitive, along the lines of, “Er?”

  “Bribery goes a long way here in the Republic. The gentleman downstairs was most accommodating. I barely had to pay anything to get a room determined for you.” The vampire let a slim smile flit across his features.

  “Let us start again. My name is Tahmon Priang. You may call me Priang.” A gibbering fool inside my head rolled around laughing
asked, ‘What happens if I call you T.P?’ Thank the Creator that it didn’t escape my mouth, as I got the impression Mr. Priang would not have taken joking lightly at this point.

  I swallowed my hysterical laughter that was trying to get out, and managed a further intelligent comment, “Um, yeah?” Oh yeah, sounding really bright today, Calvino. The snarky back track that my brain was beginning to take on was helping. With each joke, with each caustic comment that I had to choke back, my fear lessened, and I began to feel myself start to get a hold of my emotional state, to no longer be at the whim of my adrenaline. Feeling the wall behind me, solid and real, helped, too.

  Priang looked at me, his gaze roaming over my clothing, taking me in. I am not exactly huge, but not small either. I stood about two meters, 190 cm to be exact. In the old American terms which my Grandpa taught me, I was about six foot. He said it was good to know how things used to be, so you understood why they were what they were now. Like vampires. Two hundred fifty years ago, vampires were just stuff of legend and of fantasy. There had been a huge trend in vampire stories, vids, even conspiracy theories about them. But until the beginning of the 21st Century, no one knew they were real. As he stepped closer to me, my body fought against its fear reactions, vampiric pheromones pouring around me, telling me that yes, this was very, very real. I took an unintentional step back, until both my heels were against the wall.

  Then he did something odd, almost as if it were a test of some sort. He slowly raised his hand, and placed it out, at a slight angle, perpendicular to the floor. A handshake, really? No one shook hands anymore, except the old folks. It just wasn’t considered to be good behavior. Grandpa and his old friends from the home would shake hands with me when I was a kid, but that was the only time I had ever engaged in this ancient ritual. It just added to the weirdness that had been the last two minutes. I looked into his eyes for the first time, and could see him looking at me, searching for something, a response. Crap, how long had I been standing there, looking at his hand? Well, he hadn’t killed me yet, so it was safe to assume a handshake wasn’t going to cause him to do so, either. I extended my hand and felt my own enclosed by his cool grip.

  “Very good, Mr. Calvino, very good indeed,” and with that he shook my hand twice, in a firm but comfortable way, and released it.

  With that release I found most of my fear beginning to fade. I was no longer feeling as though I would drop to the floor and become a bawling bit of protoplasm at any second at least. My fear was fading to the point of that natural fear that comes from driving a vehicle for the first time, or dealing with an animal you don’t know. The complete panic that had settled into my limbs was fading; in its place there came a tension, a wary suspicion of concern for my well-being, replaced the utter catatonia that had gripped my limbs.

  Priang, with that type of elegant gesture of which only vampires and dancers seem to be capable, turned and indicated with a resolute left hand the two chairs near the window. He stepped quickly around the square of sunlight, and pulled the shade down, tying it firmly in place. It being rather dark now, I took the moment to find the light switch, using the second or two to search for it as a respite, a chance to get my act together, to rebuild my self-confidence and my composure.

  “Please sit, Mr. Calvino. We have much to discuss. And unfortunately, not a great deal of time. There are many factors in play here, and I would like to give you as much information as possible in the short time that we have so that you may make an effective decision regarding the matters we are about to cover.” Waiting for me, he stood behind the chair on the far side of the table. In the glow of the shade, his gray and green coat seemed to make him fade into the background, leaving his head almost looking as though it and a pair of hands were drifting in void by themselves. His hands were placed one on top of the other, fingers perfectly aligned, as though they had been carved to hold the back of the chair for some ancient pharaoh.

  With that, I sat down, knowing that my life was about to become a great deal more complicated.

  V

  “Let us begin, Mr. Calvino, with some history. Let us also assume, for the sake of competency, that you did not completely sleep through your modern history lessons in school, or in Officer Candidate School. What do you remember of the Revelation?”

  I searched my brain, wondering what he was after. “Well, everyone knows the basics of course, that in the beginning of the twenty first century, 2015 or so, due to advancements in technology, both in forensics and the placement of cameras everywhere and in everything, the presence of Vampires came to light. As the conspiracy theory nuts began to start to mainstream, the Vampires came out, so as to better control the situation, rather than be outed by the media or the government.”

  Priang nodded, seeming to agree with me that this was the tack we wanted to take. “There was of course, the expected hysteria, end of the world stuff, all that; people polarized on both sides. Between the lawsuits over property rights, the folks who wanted to put all vampires into reservations, the far right who wanted hunting rights, and the far left who wanted to give you guys reparations for your suffering in the darkness for so many years, it was pretty much chaos. I think if it had been just Vampires coming out, things might have gotten ugly. As it was, I recall there being several incidents of violence, and I know the Chinese Hegemony threw you guys out?”

  The vampire nodded in affirmation. “It was just China back then, though Viet Nam, North Korea and Thailand followed her lead on this. Japan, of course, took things very well in stride.”

  “Right, so if it hadn’t been for the dwarves, brownies and other human variants coming out, I think it might have turned against you. I think their arrival as well lessened the blow, as well as Goodman Richter’s series of specials on the truth versus rumors of Vampirism. They still use those in the schools to teach about the Revelation.” I was getting in stride now, the last of my fear ebbing with the requirement of using my brain for recollection and introspection, leaving little room for the grip of emotion that had annexed it earlier.

  Richter’s specials had been a series of documentaries about the myths versus reality of Vampirism, and followed up with series on Brownies, Dwarves, and Werewolves. The Weres, of course, had not been planning on coming out, but were shoved into it by the other supernaturals. Science still had trouble explaining some of the things that Werewolves and Brownies were able to do, but research into it had put some light into the possibilities that they both had ties into other dimensions, which allowed, potentially for the transfer of mass and energy. The series of twists and turns that allowed in the redefinition of physics had been keeping scientists busy for the last two hundred years, trying to confirm many of their theories.

  Richter’s video series had shown that Vampires were more like lizards than anything else in nature. Regardless of the many vids, readers, and whispered rumors about them, Vampires only had to eat rarely. They could consume normal food, but their body did not process it very well, and key nutrients they were unable to produce within their own body. Hence, their need for blood; however, that need only had to be slaked once a month or so. Back in the day, when they were unassimilated, they could survive off a fully drained person for four to six weeks. Now, with willing participants, etc. they could “sip” a bit here and there to keep their nutrient levels up, but without at least a gallon, they needed to drink blood at least once or twice a week. Younger vamps seemed to need it more, and their cravings were stronger, as their bodies adjusted to their new status and all that.

  Another thing that was revealed by Goodman Richter was that vampirism was not a guarantee. Much like birth, when someone went through the process to become a vamp, it was not for certain they would survive. Indeed, according to studies and the like, only about 30% of people who were given the exchange of viruses survived the transfer, and of those about another 30% had to be “put down” because of the loss of their conscious mind. The creatures that were in that 30% were complete beasts, savage, hungry and
would attack and kill anything and everything that they came across. Many of the ancient rumors focused around these aberrations, if their creator did not take effective measures to contain them.

  Also, while they did not burst into flames in sunlight, they paid a price for being in the sun, with what they called “the fever.” It brought their metabolism up, and heated them, but also increased their need for blood from once a month to once a day. Over time, the rays of Sol could break them down and their skin would begin to flake off, and they would be nothing but ash after a long enough exposure. Only a significant amount another vampire’s blood and removing themselves from sunlight would bring that “fever” back down. So they continued to avoid the sun whenever possible, but it also explained why they could hide so very well for so long, when sunlight exposure didn’t necessarily kill vampires outright.

  “I still remember the first time Vampires went into space…” I chuckled.

  “Ah, the unfortunate Jeremiah Victor, how he has brought a certain, ahem… humor to our culture, and made us seem more…Human for lack of a better term.” Priang pursed his lips in a moue of distaste.

  “Well, made you seem more, well, humble. It showed the world, if nothing else, that your variant was just as prone to stupidity as the rest of us. The whole “Illuminati” image you guys had cultivated for centuries was shot in one silly moment.”