Fright Night: Hellbound, page 15
“I’m Jerry.”
“Pleasure,” she said. “Lucia. And now that we’ve got the pleasantries out of the way, you’re probably wondering how you just walked through that door without me inviting you in.”
She stepped back, removing her hands from the bar, her eyes sharp on the men. Jerry’s fangs emerged in a flash, and his eyes turned yellow and Billy rose from his stool violently, already pushing his martini aside.
Lucia didn’t flinch. “It’s cool,” she said, raising up her hand. “But don’t even think of pulling that shit on me.”
She held their gaze as she stepped sideways to the cupboard near the bourbon shelf. “Listen, bloodsucker. Do whatever the hell you want out there. Manhattan’s a buffet for people like you—rapists, mobsters, corrupt cops. You could feed for a thousand years and no one would blink. But try that shit with me…”
She opened the cupboard. Inside were crosses, wooden stakes, silver pistols, and a necklace of garlic strung like pearls.
“…and I’ll end you before you finish your drink.”
She closed the cupboard door, calm as ever. “You don’t open a bar for the undead, the wicked, and the monstrous without a few precautions. After all—forewarned is forearmed.”
She glanced at Billy, then back at Jerry.
“Now you, sit your closet-case ass down. And you, tuck those goddamn fangs away. I’ve seen bigger and better.”
Jerry and Billy did what Lucia commanded. They looked at each other before looking back at Lucia, and Jerry held out his hand.
“My dear, I believe we got off on the wrong foot.”
“You bet your undead ass we did.” She responded, as she poured herself another glass of bourbon.
“So tell me, why are you really here?”
“Well, since you seem to have gathered what I am, how about you start with telling us a little more about you first?” Billy responded.
Lucia raised her glass but didn’t drink. She let the bourbon catch the light, twirling the liquid like it might give her an answer.
“You ever inherit something you didn’t ask for?” she said finally.
Jerry smirked, and Billy said nothing, he just swirled the last of his martini that hadn’t spilled over onto the bar.
“My mother–she was a spiritualist. Espiritista. She talked to the dead and read dreams... People came to her for blessings, or curses, depending on the day. We lived in the Bronx for a long time after moving here from Puerto Rico.”
Jerry nodded slowly. “And you took up the family business?”
Lucia gave a small, bitter laugh. “Not exactly. When she died, I inherited the bar and the apartment upstairs. That much was expected. What I didn’t expect was the silence. She was the voice in the room I didn’t realize I needed until she was gone.”
Billy leaned in. “So what, you light a few candles now and then? Smudge the place with sage?”
Lucia turned to him. “She had a grimoire. It was bound in human skin. Man, it was old. Real old. One of those books that reads you more than you read it.”
Jerry’s expression flickered as he turned to look at Billy.
“She kept it hidden, said it wasn’t mine to use until I was ready. But I wasn’t patient and tried using it anyway.”
Billy grinned. “And what happened? You summon a demon or just embarrass yourself?”
Lucia’s smile was dry. “Both.”
She set her glass down, as she pursed her lips.
“I tasted something that night. I’m not sure what it was, but it surged through me like electricity. But the book knew I wasn’t ready. It shut me out, and took a piece of me in the process. After that, it went in the ground with her and I haven’t felt whole since.”
She looked back at Jerry, and for a second realized she’d let down her guard.
“So now, I run this place. S is for the weird and the damned. But the truth is, I’m just keeping the lights on until I find my way back to that feeling,” She paused, then smiled again, pushing the moment away. “But enough about the dead. Let’s talk about the undead.”
She leaned forward, elbows on the bar, eyes fixed on Jerry. “You’re older than you look. I’d wager you’ve crossed an ocean a few times or more.”
Jerry smirked. “Guilty.”
Lucia nodded. “So what brings a vampire and his handler to my doorstep in the middle of a city falling apart? You’re not here for the weather.”
Billy opened his mouth, but Jerry raised a hand.
“Let’s just say we’re in transition,” Jerry said, tone calm but guarded. “We’ve had to leave some things behind and start over somewhat.”
Lucia narrowed her eyes. “You make it sound like a breakup.”
“No,” Jerry said, sipping his drink. “Well, it was a death of sorts.”
“Is that what happened in Amsterdam? A death?”
Billy shifted on his stool, fingers tapping his glass. “News travels fast.”
“It does when the spirits whisper,” she said, sipping her bourbon. “And they’re very interested in you two.”
“Amsterdam was complicated.” Jerry exhaled.
For a moment the air between them felt like it was sucked out of the room. A group of barhoppers who’d had too much to drink stumbled past the shutters, flickering the orange light that was shining inside. They all turned to look for a second, and then back at each other.
Then Jerry raised his glass. “To new beginnings.”
Lucia raised hers in turn. “To old debts.”
The glasses clinked. And just like that, everything was fine again. This time, Lucia felt it in her bones. Something cold stirring in the stairwell, it felt like something was looking at her and snickering. But she kept her face still and smiled.
“Now drink up,” she said. “Because when I’m done cleaning this place, I’ve got an old ghost to chase.”
Jerry and Billy had left Sanctuario, still unsure how they’d even crossed the threshold. Vampires needed an invitation to enter a home, but bars, being public, carried no such protection. A subtle distinction, one the demons who made the first Vampyre had twisted long ago. They chalked it up to Lucia toying with them, her way of saying I know what you are.
Back inside, Lucia turned the key in the door and rested her forehead against the wood. The silence was unnatural. The kind that made her wonder if her old ghosts were watching, too afraid to show themselves. Even they, it seemed, were unsure what was coming. The air had grown cold again; Lucia glanced and noticed the sweat that beaded the martini glasses on the bar.
Gripping the bolt on the door, her eyes drifted toward the stairwell and saw the flickering light again.
“Lucia, help me,” the voice hissed up from the dark. It was no longer smooth; it cracked, grainy and wet, the whisper of something half-formed and hungry.
She didn’t hesitate. Shoving off the door, she stormed toward the stairwell, half-drunk, half-fueled by the thrill of putting a vampire and his handler in their place.
“Listen, whoever the fuck you are, you better…” But Lucia couldn’t finish her sentence. She froze at the sight of it. A moving shadow sat at one of the bistro tables staring at her. Its eyes ever so small, but its jagged white teeth ever so real. She’d seen pictures of sharks in the ocean in newspapers and magazines, teeth that grow in whichever direction they pleased, and this presence, while smaller in stature, bore similar teeth.
“Do you know who I am?” the voice hissed at Lucia.
“I know you’re not my mother.” She didn’t flinch. Her arms were steadfast against the stone walls, bracing herself.
“Clever child.” The demonic being, a dizzying vision to behold, with its blackness making it phase in and out with the darkness around it, stood up from the chair without needing any assistance from its odd limbs that formed its shape. “Sit with me. I know things that you’ll want to know.” It chuckled to itself as it raised its arms to its face. Suddenly, claw-like digits formed on its hands as it tapped them together, attempting to hide the hideous smile that stretched across its face.
Lucia took one step toward the demon. “I’m fine just where I am, thank you.”
“Very well,” it hissed as it retreated, its smile and claw-fingers melting back into the formless blob that it was when it appeared.
“The monsters that you just entertained,” the ghost drawled, “carry something that you have lost.”
“Is that so? And who are you? Just another demon telling me lies and riddles?”
“Your mother is here with us.” It laughed again. “She has a message for you.”
“My mother hasn’t had a message for me since I put her in the ground.”
“You walk this Earth alone, you search for the one thing that will make you complete. You don’t know how to find it, but I do.”
“What is your name?”
“Child, I have many names.” The demon was moving in its seat constantly, its shape shifting into various blobs and shadows, moving as if it couldn’t sit still.
“Pick one.”
Instead of responding, the formless figure began to shrink, its shape bending in on itself as it began to shudder. The candlelight started to blow as if an arduous fan was hurling wind around the room. The subway train was audible as it ran parallel to the underground cavern.
The room began to shake, causing chairs to rattle and the bistro tables to dance on their tiny curled feet, and Lucia rushed to grab the liquor bottles that sat atop the small makeshift bar.
The horror was morphing into a new shape—first the shoulders formed, and a neckline began to take shape.
And then, the candles blew out. Blackness ensued, and a gasp escaped Lucia’s mouth. For a mere moment, she was back in the tin shed. Terrified. She knew the basement like the back of her hand; it was easy to, the space was small and sat perhaps twenty people at most, the bar that sat immediately to the left of the stairwell was tiny, room for one server only, and only one of each liquor stacked up on a small gold tray.
“La princesita,” a voice softly spoke.
The candles relit themselves; not all of them, but enough to light up the figure that now sat in place of the demon. The room had become cold once more, and the stone walls flickered with frost, sparkling like stars in the night sky, shimmering against the flames. The S room looked like a cave from prehistoric times, and for all intents and purposes, it might as well have been.
The figure had morphed into Maria Moreno, and Lucia rushed to it. To her.
“Mama, is that really you?”
Maria’s death was quick, and Lucia had barely had time to grieve. The funeral was even quicker, and with money being tight, in a city that was already crumbling, she had deep regret in the way she had sent her mother into the ground.
A simple wooden box in a cheaper spot of the cemetery was hardly fitting for the voodoo queen of the Bronx. Nor fitting for a woman who carried her entire bloodline from Puerto Rico to the United States.
Lucia felt the pain every single day when she looked into the mirror; she longed for the day Maria would return to her to let her know everything was all right.
That the body was merely a vessel, transporting the soul to and from various realms, and that the burying of the grimoire wasn’t a punishment to Lucia, nor was it taken due to mistrust. It was due to the power of a book bound in the skin of a dead man who parlayed with the Devil which, if it wanted to, could split the very planet in two.
Maria looked back at her, the same eyes Lucia remembered as a child. They glistened under the candlelight, the same color, the same sadness around the edges. She even smelled like Florida Water, the lemon-fresh smell that Maria would use, not only on her body, but in the tub, around the house, and on her clients for spiritual cleansing.
“Mira cómo has crecido,” Maria said softly, reaching out. “You built this. You made it beautiful.”
Lucia knelt down in front of Maria, her head resting on her lap as the tears ran down her face, like a dam that had finally been released.
“I have missed you so, so much,” Lucia whispered, wiping the tears from her eyes as she looked up.
“The power you seek lies in the book of the one who drinks the blood,” Maria said to her as she stroked her face, her smile now becoming sinister.
Lucia stood up slowly, removing her hands from Maria’s knees.
“How do I know it’s you? Tell me something only I would know.”
Maria stared at Lucia for a moment, before laughter began to erupt. A croaky, old woman cackle escaped her lungs as if she’d already smoked fifty cigarettes that day. The candles in the room billowed and swayed once more.
“Mamá?” Lucia whimpered.
The demon’s nails sank into its own cheeks, raking downward with a frenzy that peeled the flesh in strips. Skin tore like wet parchment, snapping open at the jaw. Sockets gaped raw, the eyes bulging wet and obscene, rolling back until nothing but white showed. The head lolled sideways, and the sight of it unstrung Lucia, sent her collapsing to the floor with her mother’s name breaking from her throat.
She dropped to the ground and screamed, “Mama!” And while this wasn’t really Maria, the apparition in front of her still presented so. The flesh dripped from the chin in thick drops, pooling at the demon’s feet. It staggered forward like a creature begging for help, arms limp, shoulders hunched, yet still laughing. All the while, the raspy cackle continued.
Lucia pushed herself upright and stumbled back to the makeshift bar, her arm knocking the gold tray to one side as she reached for the bottle of vodka. With one arm stretched back, she gripped it hard and hurled it toward the evil spirit.
It missed, instead slamming into a stack of candles that stood adjacent to it. Glass shattered against the wall, and the clear liquid immediately erupted into flames, soaring across the row of wooden bistro tables and chairs.
The demon paused, standing still to regale in the horror that engulfed the room as Lucia stood motionless. With its menacing smile, it turned toward the fire and touched the flames with its melting hand, all the while its gaze fixated on Lucia. The fire immediately took to the blackness, climbing its way up whatever shape the ghoul had now become, engulfing it in red and yellow.
The menacing laughter continued to ring from the ruins, and from within her head.
Lucia unfroze and didn’t hesitate to run out of the stairwell and across the bar. She wished that Billy and Jerry were still with her, that anyone was here, even the spirits which had no qualms visiting her during more non-terrorizing moments.
As she fumbled with the key in the lock that was holding her prisoner, the fire had now taken hold of the stairwell, spreading as if it had a mission, as if it was clinging on to any remaining drops of alcohol to jump to the next flammable thing.
She burst into the street after ripping the doors open. The cold night air smacked her in the face, giving some relief to the intense heat she had felt in the basement. Around her, the city moved unencumbered and unperturbed; headlights flashed, voices called out, life continued, but all she could hear was the crackle of fire rising behind her.
Sanctuario was burning.
She kept her eyes forward, holding her breath. But the heat clawed at her back, and the crack of shattering glass forced her to look. Flames danced in the windows. Smoke pushed through the doorway, slow at first, then rising fast. The black paint on the exterior had started to melt, running in slick, uneven streaks that made the bar look polished and almost new. Then the windows blew out, sharp and sudden, like someone had thrown bricks from inside.
Lucia looked on; it had all happened so fast, all from a single bottle and a malevolent spirit. Nothing in her life had cut as deep as the thing wearing her mother’s face, clawing its own eyes out while smiling. That would be the one memory she wouldn’t be able to outrun.
A crowd had gathered, their screams muffled against the ringing in her skull. Darkness pressed in at the edges of her vision. Then came the anger, crawling up her spine, steady and hotter than the fire eating her bar. Rage at the apparition. Rage at herself. Rage at the vampires who’d stalked her earlier, now perfect scapegoats for the ruin.
She didn’t look back again. She didn’t need to. The bar was gone, her mother’s memory desecrated, and somewhere out there, the grimoire waited.
She would find it. And when she did, she wouldn’t bury it this time.
Chapter 7
Even Vampires Get Sloppy
“You know, Billy boy, it’s been a while, but I feel like dancing tonight!” Jerry chortled as the two of them stumbled down the street, riding the buzz from the martinis they had consumed in Lucia’s bar. Neither noticed the fire trucks that hurled past them, howling and screaming, headed straight toward Sanctuario.
“I’m glad you’ve got your pep back. Dancing it is, and maybe later we can enjoy a…drink,” Billy said, his signature devilish grin etched from ear to ear.
“I think we just enjoy our time tonight. Let us feed on the evil that thrives in this city. The vagabonds, criminals, people deserving of having their blood drained,” Jerry replied, this shift in his sentiment occurring after meeting Lucia. “Come, let’s ride the subway.”
The nightlife buzzed on this busy yet cautious Friday night as Jerry and Billy were approaching Chambers Street Station. Drunk partiers clambered around them as they pushed their way through the dirty steps, holding onto the green rusted railings that were pinned against the stairs.
They looked around for a moment, observing the platform in front of them, the ticketing system to the left and a guard to their right. Jerry led the way, confidently striding toward the guard.
“Excuse me, my good fellow, how would one go about purchasing a ticket, and which train would one take to Studio 54?”
“Good fellow? Youse from England or Transylvania or somethin’?” The guard laughed back while writing down notes on his pad, his accent a thick mix of old-school New York and New Jersey.
