Chapter 2

My first impression of Walter Forester's apartment was that I had expected it to be messier. The front door opened into a short hallway, leading to a large living room. The right wall of the hallway had a large painting of a brown frog. African tribal masks hung on the living room wall. Silvery gray love seat, couch, and chair formed three sides of a rectangle around a nondescript coffee table in the middle of the room. The couch faced a large entertainment unit domineering one wall. A remote control and a closed blue folder lay on the coffee table, both with sides precisely aligned to parallel the sides of their surface. The apartment smelled of air fresheners, coffee, and pasta with meatballs.

"Forty five seconds," I said. "Not bad." I pulled my lock picks out of the keyhole and carefully slid them under the straps of my pouch.

"Pitifully slow," said Constance. "You mock the fine art of burglary." She strolled confidently into the living room. Our voices were barely whispers.

"You do it next time," I suggested.

"As if."

I got up from my knees and stepped across the threshold, closing the door behind me and flipping the lock. The hallway closet door squeaked as a I pulled it open. It sounded like a siren in the ominous silence. Walter Forester's gentle snores from the bedroom took no notice of it whatsoever, which didn't surprise me. I had made more noise around sleeping clients before. Except ... the man in the bedroom wasn't a client. There was something invasive and villainous about being here. It made me nervous.

His closet was an interesting window into the man's character. One pair of white sports shoes stood beside six pairs of polished dress shoes. He had four swede executive jackets, all of them brown, two cotton coats, one brown and one gray, and what looked like a men's fur coat in a off-white color. There was no leather and no synthetic fibers. Nothing smooth to the touch. Nothing fun. A few furry scarves lay folded on the top shelf. A black umbrella stood propped in the corner.

"Here we go," I heard Constance's voice from the living room. I closed the closet, wincing at the repeated squeak, and walked on to join her. She crouched beside an open cabinet with a photo album. "Look here," she said.

She flipped the album back to the first few pages. They were old photographs; I guessed, of the auditor's childhood. His father was a skinny, tanned balding man, with a trimmed mustache. He looked Arabic and about 15 years older than Forester's mother. She was definitely not Arabic. Tall, blond, and very shapely. The woman could have done posters. They had two sons.

As the picture quality improved, the parents aged. The father's mustache became white and the mother's freckles turned into wrinkles. The two boys changed as well. One became tall and dark, with his father's complexion and his mother's good look. The other boy got the opposite set genes. He was short, pale, and pudgy, with his father's face and his mother's skin tone.

The owner of the album was clearly the latter man. Unlike the others, there were pictures of him outside his family circle. However, just as surely, there was a theme: every two pages had at least one picture of the brothers together. One tall and confident, the other short and awkward – laughing. Then, with shocking abruptness, the album came to an end. One page was incomplete and, when Constance turned it over, on the other side, there was a picture of a funeral procession. It was a close up of the pudgy owner of the album, dressed in solemn black, helping to hold up a coffin. The picture had a large X drawn over it with red marker. It smelled of spilled coffee.

That put everything in perspective. The coffin in the picture had been empty. I knew this for a fact. I had driven Constance to scatter it's would be occupants ashes into the sea not three months earlier. His last picture was in a password protected folder on our hard-drive back at the studio. Crap. And crap again.

"Any others?" I asked.

Constance shook her head. "This is the only one in these shelves. There may be more in the bedroom." We were silent for a minute. At last, she looked up. "What do you think?" she asked.

"No choice," I said. "We must talk to him. But if he is in grief, he might be bitter."

"Yeah..." she agreed. Neither of us was really sure what we would do if the man refused to cover for us. We couldn't cast a mind spell that complex on the unwilling. I was half afraid I'd have to stop Constance from murdering the man and half afraid that I wouldn't bother. And not really sure why I thought I should, too.

I had no particular compassion for his life. What was the point in acting on a morality mere moments before the reason for it was destroyed? The practical problem no longer bothered me. I had worried at first, thinking about the possible consequences of an investigation. However, upon discussion, Constance and I had agreed that there were four easy ways with which we could make the death look like either accident or a suicide...

We would kill him if he didn't cooperate and try again with the auditor who replaced him. I was fairly sure of that. And yet, I didn't know why it mattered to me, but the thought made me guilty.

"Alright then," Constance said, rising gracefully to her feet. "Let's go say our hello." She led the way to the bedroom.

Walter Forester slept in white pajamas with green stripes. His king-sized bed dominated the room. Constance strutted past it, barely giving it notice, heading straight for the window. The curtain rings jingled as she yanked the curtain aside. The gentle snoring stopped. Pressing the tab, she pulled open the window.

I blinked. "What are you doing?" I asked. Constance spun and flashed me a manic grin.

"Wha..." Walter Forester sat up groggily. Constance's grin switched to him.

"Constance, don't..." I started to say.

"Hello, Walter," she said. She grabbed his collar and leaped out the window.

I followed, hissing 200 year old Islamic obscenities through gritted teeth. Walter Forester's terrified shriek echoed in my ears.

She moved fast. Perhaps not as fast as I'd ever seen her move, but faster than I could keep up. She arrived back at the studio well near a minute before me. She sat pixie-like, legs crossed, on the checkout counter as I burst through the door. Walter Forester groveled at her feet. His body shook in relieved spasms. He was making out with the floor, not quite willing to acknowledge that the source of his recent terror sat innocently less than a meter away, her boots dangling above the ground.

"Are you insane?!" I screamed. Forester froze. Even if he couldn't quite deal with the contradiction of Constance, he recognized the power behind my rage. Sensing a threat nearby, he cautiously begin to survey his surroundings.

Constance and I ignored him. She brought a finger up to her lips, flashing a mischievous grin from behind it. "Shhh. Descent in the ranks undermines one's negotiating position."

"So do acts of hostility, you moron!"

"Not always." She hopped off the counter, landing in a crouch in front of Forester's head. "Hi, Walter," she said, her voice bright and jovial. He blinked at her in incomprehension as if not quite seeing her. She nodded approvingly. "I'm Constance," she said pointing at herself. She pointed at me, "That's Sal. We own Death by Vampire Studios. You've been auditing us."

She reminded me of a cat with a rodent. And she was ignoring me like some kind of fucking bellboy! "This is no way to ask someone for a favor!" I snapped. I grabbed her elbow and dragged her up. Constance hissed, but let me pull her along. I dragged her out of the main showroom, until we were out of casual hearing distance.

I stopped in the hallway just outside the main bathroom. I held her close by her elbow so that she would have to tilt her head back. "You are a complete idiot," I growled.

Constance growled and my world spun. Before I knew it, I stood with my back pressed against the wall, not sure how I got there. She stood a full two feet away, hands on her hips, scowling. "Unlike you, I was not a penniless beggar when I was turned," she said. "You don't ask for a favor, Sal. You demand it!"

"This is a partnership, Constance. You will not kill him without my consent!"

Constance reached forward, grabbed the collar of my jacket, and yanked my face to her level. I resisted and the clothe should've ripped. Except it didn't. It pulled me along. She put her other hand on the back of my neck. Her palm tensed dangerously over my spine and held me from drawing back. Her eyes narrowed. "I will kill who I like."

I grabbed her by the shoulders, trying to push her back, but she wouldn't budge. "So, what?" I growled. "One crisis looms and you're the guy with the boulder! Everything we've done here, everything we've built, what we've found – that's all out the fucking window! No thought, no rationality, no principle. Just a big rock and a monster to throw it?"

"Yes." She shrugged uncomfortably under my hands. "No. Both. You simplify beyond measure, Sal. No artist feels nothing nothing as his work is burned in front of his eyes. No mother stands idly by while her child is attacked. No governor sits back while his lands are being ravaged. Morality without perspective and context is impotent madness."

"We choose our contexts. We chose this one. That choice is paid for with the adoption of principles. Those who promise to fight, fight. Those who don't must resist it as they would any bigotry. If the bonds of our honor are betrayed at the first convenience, we cannot co-exist. That was true when we were human, it is doubly true as what we are now."

Her face softened and her grip on me loosened. Her hands flowed over my skin, caressing my neck and scalp, until she was holding my face between them. "But you make a fallacy, Sal." She let me rise to my height. " I didn't say I was going to kill him. Please, please trust me. I promise you'll get your say." She shrugged, a corner of her mouth curling ironically. "I'm just ... scared." I glared, a bit touched, less pissed, and not sure how to respond.

"You're a manipulator," I said. "And that doesn't resolve the issue."

Constance smiled without showing teeth. Letting her hands fall away, she stepped back. "No. No, it doesn't," she agreed. Her smile grew into a full grin. "And you're right, yee of little faith. I am a manipulator. There may not be an issue to resolve."

I frowned. I still wasn't happy, but if she was working with a plan, I'd be just as happy not to have to stress over the issue further. Constance studied me. She nodded triumphantly, spun, and headed back to the showroom, her ass swinging playfully as she went. I sighed, and followed. Of course, I was also a putz for letting her lead me around into letting her have her way.

Forester was still on all fours as we reentered the showroom. He stared beseechingly at the exit.

"Hello again, Walter," Constance said. His head spun around. He looked at us like a deer in the headlights. Unable to think of anything better to do, I crossed my hands over my chest, and mutely leaned against the wall by the hallway. "Sorry about the interruption," she went on. "We needed to talk some things out. Sal," she jerked her thumb back at me, "thought I was planning to kill you outright. Let me assure you, Walter, if I wanted that, I would've just dropped you out your window." She smiled and batted her eyes innocently. "So, do please get to your feet."

Constance took hold of his elbow and pulled him up. Forester stood awkwardly, slumped forward as if ready to go back to all fours at moment's notice. He kept looking around, seeming unable to account for what he was seeing, or maybe unwilling to look directly at Constance.

"Now then." Constance held out her palm. "My name is Constance." Forester looked at it. He looked around.

"Walter!" Constance's voice was reproving. Forester's focus snapped to her. Constance nodded. "Shake my hand," she said patiently. Forester's hand twitched. Tentatively, he brought it up. He touched Constance on the shoulder. She raised her eyebrow. His shoulders rolled uncomfortably. He looked down at her hand. His shaking hand hovered beside hers for a moment. Finally, their palms touched. Constance curled her fingers around his hand. Forester curled his around hers.

"Introduce yourself," Constance told him.

He gulped. "Walter... ?"

Constance smiled. "That's right," she said, shaking his hand.

Forester grunted dumbly, his hand shaking.

"I'm a vampire," Constance said. "So is Sal."

"Oh."

"And you're auditing us."

"Oh." Constance held his hand and visibly waited. Forester gulped. "I'm only doing my job..." he started to whine. Constance shook her head, frowning playfully. She looked like a big sister giving cues to save a younger sibling from getting in the muck with his parents. Forester paused. He looked at her for a long moment, thinking it over. "Yes," he tried.

Constance nodded. "I know," she said, leaning in conspiratorially. "It's like looking in the mirror, right?" I groaned. Constance flashed me a smile. Forester looked at me ... for directions. I shrugged.

"I think," Constance said, finally letting go of Forester's hand and stepping back. "That you need a stiff drink, Walter." Forester nodded cautiously. "And we have much to explain to you tonight about what we do here and what we are asking from you. I'm afraid we don't have much of a selection. Sal and I are not avid drinkers..." I barely suppressed my snicker. "We have no tolerance. But I think some bourbon on the rocks will do nicely."

"Uh ... yes," Forester agreed.

"Excellent. Follow me, then." Constance led the way out of the showroom. She gave me a smug look as she walked passed, as if to say See, I told you so. I frowned.

Forester paused in front of me. He held out his hand. "Uh ... Walter," he said.

I sighed. "Saladin," I said, taking his hand. Forester's eyes widened slightly. He examined me carefully for a moment. Was he searching for my namesake, I wondered, looking for hints of some shared nobility? In response to the weight of expectation, I flipped on the light in the hallway. Walter smiled gratefully.

Arming him with a bourbon, we gave Walter a tour of our studio. Death, photographed, shrunk, enlarge, and decorated with Photoshop, hung upon every wall. Constance talked. She described our clients, telling him what she knew of their stories, and described the experiences that we organized for them. She kept little back. I added details, every now and again. Walter edged closer to me when he could, and farther away from Constance.

At last, we brought him back to the living room. Walter sat heavily on the black leather couch. I sat on the couch across from him. He stared at me thoughtfully, saying nothing. His heart pumped smoothly. He seemed to have exceeded the human capacity for shock early on in the tour, reaching some sort of enlightened state of introversion and resignation. He was still afraid of Constance and more comfortable around me, but, besides that, I hadn't a clue what he was thinking.

"Thank you," he said, as Constance brought him another bourbon. She nodded, setting it on the coffee table in front of him, before hopping down on the couch beside me.

"Alright," she said. "So, you've seen the sights. Now here's the last of it." She waited as Walter tipped back about a third of the glass in one swallow.

"Go on," he said.

Constance leaned back. She crossed her legs and rested her palms over her stomach. "Imagine," she murmured. "Imagine what it was like in the old days. No electricity, no street lights, so the nights were blacker than death. It didn't take a vampire to kill you. You could walk into a wall, jerk back, trip over a barrel, and break your neck, just because you couldn't see where you were going. The nights were terrifying. So, as the sun set, to a one, the human populace of the small towns and villages would get indoors, and hustle of civilization would pause, until the next sunrise.

"And imagine now that you were a vampire. Once human, now awake, alive, only when the whole of civilization had so disappeared. Century after century walking through these ghost towns of darkness. Night after night of loneliness, as if God had snapped his fingers and all of humanity had disappeared, leaving you all alone.

"Except for the hunger. That is your only contact with your once kin. A violent monstrous thirst that needs to be satiated before any other transaction. A thirst that drains the human body of its life fluid, leaving it a dead shell.

"Imagine this overlaid on sweet memories of warmth and family. Imagine also needing to hide every morning, fearing to let yourself be known, lest they hunt you down in the day and slaughter you in your sleep. Unable, thus, as self preservation, even to make a nightly acquaintance. Always moving. Always alone. Seeing the glint of light through the shutters and hearing the voices of children protesting sleep, and realizing that your only connection to them, even to the children, is death.

"Imagine this kind of experience, night after night, week after week, month after month, year after year. Century after century. Its maddening. Its depressing. You remember what you once were and realize that for all your immortality, what you are now is nothing romantic. Your existence is reduced to a parasite. A killer of the unlucky. And nothing else."

Constance took a deep breath. She leaned forward, putting her palms on her knee. I was holding my breath. Walter's hand was wrapped around his glass, which stood motionlessly on the table. His body was as still as humanly possible. He stared at Constance with complete concentration, drawn in by her words.

"Imagine now," she went on, "the modern age. Bright streets with people, all awake long after dark. At some point, you start to think you've made it. You can have some of it back! Those bright, smiling, familial faces, shining with scolding heat from your memory. You think it for a day, for a year, however long it takes you to realize that nothing has changed. You heard them through the walls before, you see them in the streets now. Thousand year old habits hold you in your place tighter than any old pair of manacles. You're still only a killer walking the streets. You're something else. Alone.

"But then, suddenly, you have an idea. What if you were a charitable killer. Or, better yet, a merchant plying your trade. What a thought! What if you could be what you are and yet be a part of that mass of humanity for which you've so longed. What if you could be what you are and give something back, instead of taking away. Provide a compassionate service so to speak. What a wonder of the modern age that would be!"

Constance uncrossed her legs. She rubbed her face and blew out a long breath through her nose. "We are what we are," she said. "We've found a way to co-exist, of a sorts. A way to do no harm. A way to do a little good, of a sorts. To give the one the thing that we have to give. To sell even - and how much more human does that make us?

"You, Walter, you can kill what we have here with a flick of the wrist. You have an absolutely awesome amount of power. For the first time, over the likes of us." She opened her hand, and waved it before her, as if offering reason on a platter. "We can't let you."

For a while, no one spoke.

"And?" Walter said at last.

Constance nodded. "And, we'd like you to make your audit go away peacefully."

"Or?"

Constance raised an eyebrow. "I should think I'd made that abundantly clear," she said. Her eyes glinted with amber. "We'll kill you."

Walter took a carefully sip of his bourbon. He brought up his other hand to the glass to steady its shaking. "What ... about my brother?" he asked.

Constance smiled. "Ah. We come to that, then," she said. "He was one of our clients. He had his reasons. He had a really beautiful fantasy." She shrugged. "It was an honor to be with him in his last moments. We took his picture. Would you look to see it?"

Walter shook his head. "No." He took another sip. He looked at me. "Will you participate?" he asked.

I couldn't quite meet his eyes. Instead, I leaned back and stared at the ceiling. What a question! It made me hesitate. Why, I wondered. I wasn't shy of killing. No. I had killed thousands over my span of nights. Dozens of thousands, if I was counting. Not all had been purely practical deaths either. There had been times of exploration, such as every vampire had, I assumed, when I'd killed more loosely than my nature demanded, when I had slaughtered the beautiful and the infant for the sheer sadistic joy of proving to the world that I could.

Was I tired of it then? Was this the first act of some weariness of the ages that would, over time, drag me into oblivion? Was my hesitation an unconscious play at a suicide? Morbid thought.

An old memory flashed through my mind, triggered I knew not by what. It was from my childhood. My parents had hired a music teacher all the way from Istanbul to come give me lessons. He had been famous, I thought, but I couldn't recall his name. I remembered the day had started with failure. Some intricate composition had eluded my fingers as they chased after it desperately over the harp strings. I remembered sitting, shamed and afraid, staring up at my teacher's bearded face glaring at me with disapproval. But then he had sighed and relaxed.

"Perhaps today is not the right day for that," he had said, nodding toward the harp. "I shall teach you something far more important instead. This will sound like a simple question, Saladin, but think about it with care. Are notes necessary to make great music?"

I was confused. "Yes," I said.

"Very good. And what are notes?" Eagerly, I started to list off music theory, but he shook his head. "No, no, no, Saladin. You are not answering the question I asked. I did not ask, what are the notes. I asked what are notes. What is a note, Saladin?"

I frowned. "A sound?" I ventured.

He nodded. "Very good. And why do you think one sound is a note and another isn't? What is the difference between the sounds you make playing the harp and the sounds a camel makes when it spits?"

"The harp is pleasing," I said.

He smiled. "Some Bedouins are quite fond of the sound of their camels spitting," he teased. "Try again." I was flummoxed. He took pity on me. "Remember what I tell you, Saladin, for it can teach you much if think of it often. There is no difference between the sound of a harp and the sound of a camel spitting. Great music can be made with any sound, but, and this is what you should learn, it cannot be made with every sound. A long time ago, we imagined a boundary between the sounds from which we make music and all other sounds. Every man since who has tried to make music has been limited by that boundary. It is the challenge of that boundary, which he strives to overcome, that leads him down the path to great music. All music, all art, is inspired by the boundaries that limit the artist."

I couldn't recall what my teacher said next, but that was enough. Memory led to inspiration. Perhaps I was thinking poorly. Perhaps I was not tired of living - I did not feel tired – perhaps I was just bored. Existence had boundaries too, after all. In becoming a vampire, I had traded one set of boundaries for another. I had lived with the limits imposed on me by my vampire nature for longer than any human could ever aspire to. Then, out of the blue, Constance had come into my life, with her bright idea, offering me, not in so many words, yet another set. A new instrument, a new music theory ... what marvelous existential music we were making, Constance and I! Of course, I didn't want to give it up.

Had morality always been an attempt to make an art of life or was I deluded? It didn't seem to matter. The analogy served.

The whole chain of thought flashed through my mind in an instant. My lips curved. I met Walter's eyes. "Probably not," I said. "But I would have no barriers to taking revenge in the afterward."

Walter frowned. He looked down at his lap. "I-I would like you to," he said quietly.

I blinked.

"You would like me to, what?"

Walter took a deep breath and tipped back the last of his bourbon. He made a face and hissed at the taste lingering in his mouth. His heart beat faster. His muscles were tense. He stared into his lap. I could smell his fear rising. Oh shit, I thought, he's going to stand on principle. But there was something else ... As he looked at Constance, blood began to flow into his cock. "You do an excellent job at intimidation," he said to her. "I..." he looked back in his lap. "You are really quite terrifying and intimidating." He snorted. "It's a pattern with me, actually. You're merely the high point. All my life I've been intimidated by women. My mother was something else! And every woman after her. But my brother never was." Walter looked up at me.

Now I was well and truly lost. Did he want Constance to sleep with him? There was a thought! Maybe this whole thing could've been resolved a lot more smoothly. Fuck! Too late now.

"Okay," I said, noncommittally.

Walter seemed to take it as some sort of blessing. He rushed on. "I always wanted him to teach me how. My father was from Kuwait, you know. He wasn't very traditional, but I grew up on the mythology. There is something in the culture. To really dominate a woman. I always wondered what it would be like. My brother had the knack for it." More blood was rushing to his penis. It seemed less likely that he wanted to sleep with Constance though. If she terrified him, that was the inverse of his fantasies. Did he want to sleep with me?

He looked at Constance again. "You shocked me. You are very intimidating. But as you were giving me your tour and you were talking about all the fantasies you'd fulfilled, I realized I wasn't afraid. I want it!" Oh shit, my mind screamed again. The pieces fell into place with remarkable ease. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit! The bastard had just flipped the tables on us. His gaze switched back to me. "That's my fantasy," he said. "I want to find and dominate a strong woman with my brother. I want ... I needed him to lead and show me. I'm too meek on my own. But if ... once, just once ... he died a year ago. I guess that's the crux of it. I should've started with that. I haven't had a whole lot of fun since then. But if I could ... just once ... that would be a good beat to die on. Yes. That would be fine."

This was brilliant! I tried not to burst into laughter. Or start crying. The man had come up with the one counteroffer we absolutely couldn't accept. And, simultaneously, he had all but nullified our threat. Great, just great!

"So, you propose a trade," Constance said calmly.

Walter nodded at her. "Barter. You want to be mercantile. I want this! I'll settle your audit as payment."

"That's un..." I started to object. Constance's hand closed over my wrist with near crushing force.

"I think we can accommodate you," she said. She grinned into my quick look of protest. "I think this'll work fine for all involved.

I lent Walter my jacket for the trip back to his home. I rode in the taxi with him and picked his lock for the second time that night. He talked excitedly, explaining to me again why it would take a week to close our account with the IRS. I nodded assurances and fled the moment he stepped through his doorway. He never saw me disappear. When he turned, I was simply not there.

Constance waited for me in the living room. She lay on the couch, her fingers crossed over her stomach, her head propped on the arm. She grinned smugly as I arrived. "Am I good or what?"

"You're wiz."

She could hear the lie in the pulse of my blood, if she couldn't see it in my face. Her eyes narrowed. "What's wrong?"

I sat on the couch across from her, where Walter had sat some hour or so previous. I leaned forward, bracing my elbows over my knees and twining my fingers. "As a solution, this is dangerous," I said. "The death or disappearance of an IRS auditor is no matter for pickles. You know it was a last resort from the start. Try again with the next one and hope to survive the investigation. There will be questions. As his last case, we will certainly be investigated. Only, this time, we might not see it coming."

Constance winced and scratched her neck. "You know, Sal," she said. "You're usually not that stupid."

My real smile crept out despite my best efforts at seriousness. It had been a long night; bantering with Constance felts like a homely return to the norm. I raised my eyebrow. "Really?"

"Weeeell, a wee bit less..." She smiled too, nodding. "Seriously," she went on. "You've been so preoccupied with your moral tangles over the man's death that it's all you can see. Wrong script." She pivoted into a sitting posture, leaning forward, mirroring me. "After the account is settled, we can simply make him forget about us. You saw him, he isn't all that strong minded to begin with. He'll be on with his work and nothing to remind him about any of this. It's as neat as either of us could've hoped for." I sighed and shook my head. She frowned. "What?"