Slayer.

Dragon's Blood.

by Karen Koehler.

1.

It all started with the party. Which was ironic when he thought about it. He hated parties. Many things had changed in his life, but that was one thing that had remained true despite it all. He hated the inane small talk and the posturing, the clink of the Waterford crystal and the clank of the gold-plated dinnerware, the diamonds and brooches and cufflinks and the insistence on propriety when he didn't know what that meant to these people. These people. They were not his people. They were show mannequins, models, cartoon characters in gaudy attire, caricatures of themselves.

But more than that--they were human and he felt terribly out of place among them.

It had never been like this before, but since things had changed he was acutely aware of the meridian that existed between himself and this creature that called itself a human being. It was a warm, rosy thing, short-lived, bad-tempered, and yet infinitely precious. Now it seemed to him almost an alien species. He had dwelt in the dark for so long, the proverbial light hurt his eyes.

Alek drank some of the rosy champagne and wandered among them.

They were pretty in their own way. Like pictures.

I'll bet they taste pretty, tool.

Stop it, he told Debra. Behave yourself.

Or?

Or I'll leave. Simple.

You don't want to leave. You came to see her. That was true enough, though he was loathed to admit it. Frowning, he moved to the opposite end of gallery rather than continue the argument with his symbiotic sister--as if that were an escape!--and innocently took in the art. There were sixteen pieces on double-facing boards. Each work was set under shatterproof gla.s.s. Each had a plaque in gold with some caption on it. Each was accompanied by a short history. Daydreams, this one read. It was a farm girl in a meadow, tilling the ground. So simple. Yet when Alek looked at it from the corner of his eye he saw an imposed image: a ballet dancer in the vast clouds of the sky behind the girl.

"Ms. Keith redefines brilliance," a small pot-bellied man said beside him.

Alek looked over. The pink ribbon on his suit coat said he was with the American Cancer a.s.sociation. Presumably, he was the man who would accept the donations from the sponsors dedicating this wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to Katherine Keith's work. The question was why he had chosen to approach Alek and why he was staring at him so intently now. True, in some circles Alek was a bit of a celebrity. A number of years ago he had had an exhibit like this.

Well not exactly like this, not this grand, but he had sold all of his work for enough money to keep him until...well, a very long time. That made him famous, sort of. But people did not usually recognize his face.

And if they did, it was in response to the work he'd done away from the easel and because they intended to stick some long, sharp implement into one of his vital organs.

"I have yet to see her match," Alek warily agreed.

He had been here a while now, maybe a whole ten minutes. Surely that was enough?

The man continued to watch his face.

"Do we know each other?" Alek asked.

The little man shook his head no. "Not at all. I just recognized you as are her inspiration."

"Excuse me?"

The little man pointed back over his shoulder at one of the pieces Alek had pa.s.sed without noticing.

Alek slipped on his gla.s.ses. No, he was dreaming this. He approached the opposing painting. It was fairly new according to the caption. And quite dark for Kat. A tall, lean man stood wearily amid the rush of a New York crowd, and yet oddly apart from it, his shoulder resting against a lamppost, his face turned down and half shrouded by webs of blue-black hair. Behind him lay his shadow, thrown like blood across the ground, but it was a deformed thing, the shadow, implying much, the hair almost sentient. The name of the piece was Serpent Boy.

Alek looked away.

Katherine Keith was arriving to the ill.u.s.trious symphony of babbling excitement and flashing cameras. It happened suddenly, shock followed by shock so he felt like the world had conspired to fall in on him all at once. He stood stock-still beside the Serpent Boy painting as they led her in and the fawning of the press and patrons began. It might have seemed a false fawning--except the heat and adrenaline in the room had jumped up a good ten notches with her arrival. You couldn't fake those smiles, those glittering eyes. They loved Kat. And for good reason. Kat shone. There was a force about her that seemed to push ahead of her as she entered the room in her ocean-blue satin gown. Her hair was a swirl of crimson light, her skin white and painted like a porcelain doll given just a kiss of life. Her eyes were warm and brown and wry. She was well into her fifties and yet she carried herself like a starlet. She put the younger women to shame. For a moment he could not believe the stories had had read in the paper, the rumors he had heard. They seemed like cruel falsehoods fabricated by jealous wannabes.

He had practically convinced himself of the fact when he spotted the out-ofuniform nurse walking a few steps behind Kat. She was young, yet she gave off an unmistakable aura of authority. Alek had escaped Kat's initial perusal of the room, but now the nurse touched Kat's elbow compulsively and Kat turned to shoosh the girl away and the contact was made then. Alek dropped his eyes as Kandy Kat's gaze flicked over her admirers and then came to rest on him. He felt the demand of her attention, how her eyes slowed the room and deafened him to the crowd.

He looked up again. Her eyes had gone big like those of a startled animal. For a moment she hesitated in her step. The nurse read it wrongly and gripped her upper arm. Kat pulled away, yet her eyes never strayed from him, not for a moment. In the endless bubbling talk of the room, he saw her mouth form his name.

Alek's mind swirled. And then he was alone with Kandy Kat, here in this crowded room. She had long red hair, swept high and cascading down and adorned with ribbons of white roses. Her eyes glimmered cheekily with her smile, like a young girl with secrets. The corsage on her wrist was white. White roses, because she loved them. Her dress was blue satin. Blue satin, white roses. She would be married in blue satin, she said. She swore it. One day...

She shone like a dazzling summer day, all light and life.

And then Alek turned away, Kat's brilliance burning against his darker eyes.

2.

Can we go now? Debra asked.

Alek patted his face down with cold water from the tap of the men's washroom, and then reached for a paper towel from the dispenser on the wall. His face still felt hot and his eyes still burned from the florescent lighting, but otherwise he felt all right. He hadn't fallen apart, at least. "We'll go when I'm finished."

Well you're certainly finished.

"Debra..." He looked up into the mirror over the vanity. It was a nice washroom, very posh and new, and the mirror was framed by milk-gla.s.s morning glories. Yet Debra was dressed as she usually was: a skimpy red silk dress and a black wolf coat, her hair pulled high into a long ebony ponytail that just brushed the small of her back. Her eyes and mouth were dusky, smirking, evil, and, as always, alluring.

He hated it when she made him feel this way.

"How do you do that?" he asked.

Do what?

"Stay here. How can you be here?"

Why does the sun come up in the morning?

"That's not an answer," he said.

Debra gave him a pouty look and put her hands on her hips.

I'm still not used to this. How did you get used to things like this?

Debra was dead. She had been gone since he was thirteen years old. Yet here she was, a grown woman that existed in this enchanted gla.s.s.

There she was, taunting him. Plying him with her charms. She was voracious, jealous, and completely infuriating. And yet...he loved her. At times the need for her was so great he thought he should die of it.

She put her hand on the gla.s.s and smiled at his thoughts.

"So you see...no reason to be jealous," he said.

I'm not jealous! Debra shouted, her voice rebounding in his mind.

She crossed her arms across her glittering fur coat. I just don't know what you see in her. She's so...human.

Alek smirked.

Oh please! she sniffed. Dhampiri have better things to do with their time than chase after these pathetic mortals.

"Maybe you do..."

A tall, grey-headed older gent stepped into the washroom and looked his way as Alek continued to banter with his reflection. Alek shut up and turned off the taps.

Can we go home now? Debra asked.

Alek swept his ponytail off his shoulder. We can go home now, he thought back at her.

3.

Traffic on Fifth Avenue was heavy tonight. Friday night. What was he thinking? For a while Alek was afraid he would not be able to hail a cab and started doing what he usually did in these situations--he began contemplating hiring a personal driver. He had been thinking about it for some time. Maybe it was time to act on it. He certainly had the money. Just no luck at the moment. It took him a half dozen attempts before a canary finally slowed and drew to the curb of the walk. Chill tonight. He pulled his coat closer about him as he stalked past the meters, telephone poles and hookers on street corners on his way to the curb.

Back in his college days--good Lord that was a looong time ago--he had been the proud owner of a vintage 1958 Thunderbird, a shining white shark with a candy-apple-red interior. He missed that car sometimes. h.e.l.l, he missed it most of the time, especially on cold nights like this. But cars and New York City did not mix well. One day I will leave this city, live in a big Victorian house down by the sea somewhere on Coney Island, and drive a Thunderbird everywhere I go. That or get a personal driver.

Debra chuckled. Dreamer.

He smirked.

"Hi there, Mister."

He lost the smirk as he stopped to look over his shoulder. He saw one of the hookers had broken away from the pack and was trailing him.

Well this was just grand.

Yes, it certainly is, Debra whispered intimately.

Alek ignored the implications of that sly voice in his head and kept walking. Hopefully the young lady would take a hint from his hostile reaction and look for work elsewhere.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

"Mister...hey...!"

Alek stopped just as he was about to step off the curb and into the street.

The girl had caught up with him. She was quite a little thing--then again, at his tall, lanky height, everyone seemed "little" to him. Yet she was more than merely small; she was pet.i.te, like a young doe. She had mussed blonde hair screwed into a semblance of a modern hairdo and rain-smeary mascaraed eyes. She was trying to look worldly and sophisticated, yet all of it only made her seem more vulnerable somehow. She had lovely eyes, like aquamarines. Her mouth wasn't bad either. In fact, none of her was. Well...he couldn't help but look her up and down, her flimsy black dress and lacy red shawl left little to the imagination. Red. G.o.d, he loved red...

He shook himself out of it. He was ogling a little girl, for Chrissakes.

A naive little girl, on top of it. A professional would not solicit someone like himself, fresh from the steps of the Metro. A professional would know someone dressed as he was in evening wear would have arranged for an uptown escort in advance. The little girl was young and new and stupid to the work.

The idea made him sad somehow.

"You want some company?" she asked, a cla.s.sic pickup line. As he watched, her eyes flicked sideways, then centered on his face again.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Maybe go for some coffee?"

"I don't think so." "I know a little soda shop down the avenue, all old-fashioned like.

You'd like it."

"No," he said.

Her childlike eyes frowned as she searched for something else to ply him with. He was tempted to give her a wad of cash if it got her off the streets for tonight. A girl like this was too sweet and young to survive on her own. She was something in need of protection from this filthy, voracious city and all the monsters lurking in it. He continued to watch her face, waiting for her next line. He knew he should have brushed her off from the start, but still...

Sweet and young...I'll bet she tastes like a candy-apple, Debra whispered.

"Stop it," he muttered.

The girls' eyes snapped back to his face. "What?"

"Nothing...I'm sorry..."

Her eyes clouded over, so he knew he had finally made the point with her. He only wished he didn't feel like a b.a.s.t.a.r.d for turning her down.

He reached into his pocket for his wallet, but by the time he looked up again she had rejoined the other working girls on the corner.

He thought about going back to her and shoving some money into her hand but he was distracted by an all-too-familiar feeling insinuating itself between his shoulders and down his back, a feeling like someone was vibrating a wire down his spine. "f.u.c.k," he whispered and let out his breath in a long, useless sigh. The girl, a.s.suming the oath was directed toward her, looked his way. Yet nothing could be further from the truth.

Alek turned to study the museum. All day he had been brushing the edges of this infuriating feeling. And now he saw the source of it: there in the parking lot stood a tall figure draped in black. It was leaning against a Jaguar, watching him. A smile ticked one corner of the man's mouth when Alek's eyes alighted on him. With his face otherwise completely impa.s.sive, he turned and shreeked his fingernails across the hood of the Jag as he started walking around the lot towards Central Park West, where the fir trees were the thickest and where many of the swamp maples had not yet lost their foliage. There in that dark place, uninhabited except by rats, drunks and the children of the night, was where he wanted it.

So much for my quite night out, Alek thought and turned back to the cab.