Vampire High Sophomore Year

27



If Turk was back, I’d better know why. Mr. Shadwell would just have to be on his own for a while.

“Thanks,” I said. “Come on.”

We went downstairs.

Turk had come in with a new wave of visitors. Most of them were jenti, and all of those were Burgundians. Half of them had their patented jenti sneers firmly in place. The other half looked like they didn’t know what they thought.

“Thanks for coming,” I said to as many as I could reach while I searched for Turk. “Poetry and theater upstairs. If you hang around here for a few more minutes, we’ll have some traditional jenti stuff. Thanks, thanks.”

Turk was lounging around in her art exhibit with her hands in her pockets. She looked exactly the same, which surprised me for some reason. Maybe because it felt like she’d been gone for a long time.

When she saw me, she smiled and waved.

“Hi, Cuz,” she said. “Not bad so far.”

“Do Mom and Dad know you’re back?” I asked.

“I’m not back,” she said. “I just came to our opening. I’ll take off again when it’s over.”

“We’ll talk about that,” I said. “You left me holding the bag on this thing. You owe me.”

“It was good for you,” Turk laughed. “Forced you to act on your own. If you’d had me here to do it all for you, you wouldn’t have learned anything.”

I said something in jenti that would have made her slug me if she’d known what it meant.

“By the way, where’s the big guy?” Turk said. “You know, the dumb one?”

“He’s around,” I said. “Patrolling. Checking up. Being a duke. By the way, a war’s supposed to start tonight.”

“Cool,” Turk said. “That ought to get us noticed.”

From the other side of the room, Ms. Vukovitch’s throaty voice was filling the air with sexy-sounding songs.

Turk and I went over that way.

Most of the chairs were filled. Jenti and gadje were sitting close together, leaning forward, caught in the music.

Ms. Vukovitch finished her song and smiled.

“Thank you for coming tonight,” she said. “We all know this is not a usual night. Halloween never is. And this is not a usual Halloween. No one knows what’s going to happen. But then, do we ever really know? This is a song about not knowing, and finding out that you do not know. I used to sing it in Vienna about a hundred years ago.”

While she was singing, Gregor came in to the room. When he saw Turk, he stopped moving. He looked like he had when Justin handed him the Mercian eagle. He didn’t know what to do.

As Ms. Vukovitch finished her next song, he went over to Mrs. Warrener and whispered to her and Ms. Vukovitch.

“We have a request from our young duke,” Ms. Vukovitch announced. “A traditional jenti lament. It is the story of a jenti’s betrayal by an untrustworthy gadje. It is a song we all know well.”

Now Gregor looked straight at Turk, and she stared right back at him. They were eyeing each other like a couple of snakes.

The audience kept growing. People were filtering in from outside and being drawn to the music. There had been thirty; now there were more than twice that.

There was nothing to do here.

I went back upstairs to see what was happening at the poetry thing.

Mr. Shadwell was just getting up.

“This is a very special evening for all of us,” he said to the near-empty seats. “Something new is beginning here. One can feel it. And the voice of that thing is in the throats of these young poets. We can hear it calling to us. I, for one, intend to answer that call.”

And he changed into a wolf.

And he stood there, a wolf in a tuxedo.

“Xhat is better,” he announced, leaning his forelegs on the podium. His voice was thick now, and very deep. He couldn’t form words the same way with his long jaws, but it didn’t seem to matter. He had everyone’s attention now, even the Daughters’. Especially the Daughters’.

“Now I should like to recite from memory a fine Amerhican poem by Allen Ginsberg. Which some of you may recognize. I refer to his masterwork, Howl.”

Howl. I’d heard of it, but I’d never read it. Now I heard the whole thing, page after page of it, coming out of the jaws of a thick, gray wolf with fierce green eyes. Allen Ginsberg, whoever he was, couldn’t have asked for a better voice for his words, even if Mr. Shadwell couldn’t pronounce them all in the usual way.

A few people drifted in to see what the noise was. None of them left. There is nothing like a wolf reciting poetry to hold a crowd.

When Mr. Shadwell got to the end of the poem, and finished on a high, wailing note that sounded like it was aimed at the moon, nobody clapped. Nobody did anything.

Then Pestilence screamed, “Far out, old man!” and ran over and hugged him.

Gelnda jumped up and down. Basil IX thumped Mr. Shadwell on the back. So did Hieronymus Bosch. Famine, Death, and War clapped. So did everyone else. All five of them. But it didn’t matter how few there were. They were loving the moment.

And at the door, clapping and cheering, was my mom.

“Mom, what are you doing here?” I said when I got over to her.

“Having the best time I’ve had since we came to New Sodom,” she said. “Cody, we had no idea.”

“Where’s Dad?” I said.

“Down at the concert listening to Ms. Vukovitch,” Mom said.

“Mom, I’d really like you to go,” I said. “It could get dangerous tonight.”

“We’ll leave if you do,” Mom said.

“I can’t. I’m sort of in charge,” I said.

“Then stop trying to tell me what to do, Cody,” Mom said.

But now the Daughters were standing in a knot around Mr. Shadwell, and he was waving his hands around saying, “Xhe work of xhese young people, crude as it is at first glance, contains many of xhe elemental strengxhs of poetry. Exactly xhe elements I try to inculcate in my students. We have heard vivid, promising xhings here tonight. And we have heard xhem because one young man, a forhmer student of mine”—he nodded at me—“will not be intimidated or defeated. It has been said that poetry is an act of courage in a dark world. Well, an act of courage in a dark world is a poem. And we must all salute—”

Everyone was looking at me.

“Mr. Shadwell, do something else,” I shouted.

“Right,” Gelnda rasped. “Do something else.”

“It’s your turn,” Mr. Shadwell told her. “But if you like, we can alternate. I xhink I went on too long with Penobscot. Let’s do shorter xhings and see if we can maintain xhis energy level.”

“Everybody: one page or less,” Gelnda said. “Pestilence, you’re up.”

The poets started to bounce their lines back and forth in short bursts. And whatever one of the Daughters said, Mr. Shadwell had something from an epic to come back with. It might not have made any sense, but it didn’t matter. Wave-ravaged shore-stones and rants about global warming sounded right together. Something was happening that didn’t have anything to do with slamming or reciting. People were loving the play between the kids and the old gray wolf. They made so much noise applauding that more people came to see what was going on. The place was filling up.

“Gotta go, Mom,” I said. “By the way, Turk’s downstairs.”

“Where is she? Is she all right?” Mom said.

“As good as she ever is,” I said.

Mom put her hand to her face and breathed deeply. Her shoulders dropped, and when she took her hand away, her face was almost happy.

“I suppose we should have expected it,” she said. “That girl is never going to miss a chance to show off. But thank God she’s back.”

“She’s over by her paintings, if you want to spank her,” I said.

“Thanks,” Mom said. “Maybe I will.”

I checked out the Sixty-Minute Shakespeare company. Every Shakespeare play was getting done in two minutes. The modern dancers were taking a break and watching the actors run through their show for the second time. People from downstairs were wandering in and laughing. Okay, nothing to take care of here. I went downstairs.

Ms. Vukovitch was finishing her last song. Maybe a hundred people were there to hear it. Turk wasn’t one of them. I saw her across the way, looking at someone else’s sculpture, a sort of cascade of broken glass and copper wire.

Gregor was gone. Probably he was outside again.

The applause started slow, jenti style, with everyone clapping together. Then it got faster and faster until it turned into a wave. A wave that went on for five minutes. I timed it.

Then Ms. Vukovitch announced, “This concludes the first part of the program. The next is a new piano composition, ‘Fantasia on Three Folk Themes,’ by Julia Warrener.”

Justin went over to turn pages for his mom.

She began to play, and it sounded like the same music Gregor had sung before the evening began—without the words, of course. But she took the music and wove it into something else, playing it faster and faster. She was turning the sad songs into music for dancing.

And then, a couple of the jenti did just that.

I’d seen jenti dance once before, at Ileana’s birthday party last year. It had been amazing. They’d turned from these quiet, cool people with about as much life as department store window dummies into hawks, spinning across the dance floor and throwing each other at the sky.

That’s what happened now. One couple, then another, then a whole line of couples swinging around the gallery.

Somehow, the chairs disappeared. Mrs. Warrener’s music crashed louder and louder as the jenti feet thumped on the old wooden planks.

Then Ms. Vukovitch took my dad’s hand. And he danced. He didn’t dance like a jenti, but he danced, and Ms. Vukovitch didn’t pick him up and throw him over her head or anything like that, but everyone was watching the jenti and the gadje dancing together. And that did it. In another minute, everybody but me, Turk, and Gregor and his guys was out on the floor.

The dancers who’d been watching the actors came downstairs to see what was going on and jumped in. One girl grabbed Gregor’s hand. The next time I saw her, she was being flung between him and Vladimir in time to the music, soaring up like a beautiful bird.

Then the singer of Styx of One came up, looking like he couldn’t believe what was happening.

He grabbed my arm.

“Hey, man, I came up to complain about the noise,” he said.

“What noise?” I said. “Deal with it.”

He looked around at the swirl of bodies and shook his head.

“All right, man, we will,” he said.

In a few minutes the band was back, with their drums and their amps, and they started playing along with Mrs. Warrener.

Now everybody in the rest of the building was pouring in. The poets came down, and Pestilence grabbed me, and we started dancing. I saw Mr. and Ms. Shadwell close by. She’d changed into a wolf, too, and they were jumping and chasing each other around so fast it was like two streaks of red and gray flowing together. The actors came in next, and they started doing a kind of Elizabethan partner dance, but sped up to match the music, and pretty soon they had jenti learning it.

After a very long time that was too short, the first jenti-gadje band in the history of New Sodom crashed to a stop. Everybody cheered. We cheered ourselves and the band and each other. Gadje hugged jenti, and jenti smiled. A lot of fangs were out, but nobody seemed to mind. It was excitement, not hunger.

Mrs. Warrener and the band’s singer had their heads together. After a minute, she announced, “The group and I have decided upon a set. Please stay and rock out if you like.”

And the music started again.

“This is quite a night, Diaghilev,” Pestilence said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe that angel who was passing by decided to stay.”

“Huh?” Pestilence said.

I explained about un ange passe.

“That’s my last name,” Pestilence said. “DiAngelo.”

“Oh,” I said. “What’s your first name?”

“Angela,” Pestilence said. “But never call me that. Not if you want to live.”

Angela DiAngelo. I wouldn’t have picked her for an angel. But maybe she wasn’t the only angel here tonight. Maybe for tonight we were all angels. Why not? Halloween was all about becoming something different.

Justin came over to us and stood waiting to be introduced.

Pestilence looked down at Justin. She was maybe half a head taller.

“Who’s this? Nijinsky?” she said.

“Pestilence DiAngelo, my friend Justin Warrener. Justin, Angela,” I said.

“Heard some of your poetry,” Justin said. “Pretty good.”

“Thanks,” Pestilence said.

“Heard you once or twice down at the Screaming Bean, too,” Justin went on.

“Oh, yeah. That stuff. I’m doing better work now,” Pestilence said.

“Think you might have some time to take a look at some things of mine? Tell me what you think?”

Justin was blushing.

“Sure,” Pestilence said. “What kind of things do you do?”

“Sort of like yours,” Justin said. “Only I usually try to work with forms. Villanelles, pantoums, stuff like that.”

“You can write a villanelle?” Pestilence said. “Damn. You’d better take a look at my stuff. I’ve never been able to finish a villanelle.”

“They’re tough,” Justin allowed.

“Justin Warrener, huh?” Pestilence said.

“Justin Warrener,” Justin agreed.

“And you’re a friend of Diaghilev here,” Pestilence said.

“My best friend,” I said.

“And you’re jenti,” Pestilence said.

“All my life,” Justin said.

“Come on,” Pestilence said. “I want to see some of the stuff upstairs.”

“Sure,” Justin said.

They went up the stairs ahead of me.

I had a feeling I’d had my last kiss from Pestilence DiAngelo.

Villanelles? I’d heard of them. But I’d thought they were musical instruments. Or something you could only see under a microscope. And Justin wrote them. He wrote poetry. Justin.

“Boy,” I thought. “You think you know a jenti and it turns out there’s whole rooms in them that you never had a clue about.”

I figured I might as well go up and check out the second floor art. I hadn’t really paid attention to it so far.

A lot of it was a series of plywood sheets painted black and gouged with a chisel. They were called scars. Scar #1, Scar #2, Scar #3, all around the walls on one side. The tall windows between them were black, too. They looked like they belonged with the paintings.

And then coming up the stairs was the one person I never thought I’d see there, that night or any night.

Ileana. And with her were her father and her mother, the Queen of the Burgundians. And with them was a gray, wispy, elegant little man I didn’t know, but he had to be a Mercian. He was wearing the silver eagle on his lapel.

Ileana and her mother came over to me with the little man between them.

“Good evening, Cody,” Ileana said. “May I present Captain Ethan Prentiss of the Order of the Mercians? Captain Prentiss, this is Mr. Cody Elliot.”

“Good evening, Mr. Elliot,” Captain Prentiss said in a sad little voice.

“Are you one of the thugs who beat me and my cousin up?” I said. “’Cause if you are, I’ve got someone I’d like you to meet. Name’s Gregor Dimitru. I think he’ll have a lot to say to you. I don’t.”

I started to go, but Ileana’s mom put her hand on my shoulder.

“One minute please, Cody,” she said.

“Her Majesty was good enough to give me her protection tonight,” the captain said. “Mr. Elliot, I came to tell you that you have won. I have informed the Mercian Order of my decision to surrender to the forces of Burgundy. And I have given the police the names of those whom I believe participated in the crime against you and Miss Stone. Nothing I can say or do will make up for what was done to you. But I want you to know that the honor of the Mercians, to say nothing of my personal honor, has been smirched beyond restoration by what was done to you both. For any of us to attack a marked gadje is beneath contempt. Therefore, I have informed Her Majesty that we are laying down our arms. I have given the Order my personal opinion that the appropriate course now is for us to disband permanently.”

“Gregor is disarming his men,” Ileana said at my elbow.

“So that’s it?” I said. “War called on account of dishonor?”

“I hope so,” Captain Prentiss said. “Frankly, I cannot be sure that everyone will follow my orders. That is why I am here. To be present in the event of an attack.”

“So there’s still a chance of that,” I said.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Captain Prentiss said.

“Then I don’t think Gregor should disarm anybody,” I said. “Not that what I think matters in the wonderful world of the jenti. ’Scuse me.” I turned back at the foot of the stairs.

“Oh, Captain? That’s my cousin over there. The one your thugs grabbed when they beat me. Just in case you want to tell her what you told me.”

When I got to the third floor, I heard steps behind me. I turned.

It was Ileana. She was looking drop-dead gorgeous.

“Cody, please,” she said, and held up the key to Gregor’s rooms. “Gregor loaned me this. Come in here with me.” She unlocked the door.

“What for?” I said.

“I need to ask you some things,” she said.

I snapped on the lights.

“Okay. What?” I said.

“Cody, don’t you see what is happening? You have won,” Ileana said. “This place is open and people are sharing it. My mother is here, and I am here. And Captain Prentiss is here. To join you. After tonight, Crossfield will start to mean something different to New Sodom. We are grateful to you, Cody. All those Burgundians and Mercians who did not want this war. You have saved us from each other. From ourselves. This victory is ragged around the edges, but it is yours. Do you not see this?”

I wasn’t quite sure what to say. So for a while, I stood there thinking about it.

“Please, Cody,” Ileana said finally. “Say something.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think I really get you people.”

“And yet, if I were ever to do as much for my people as you have, I will be remembered as a great queen,” Ileana said.

“I’m sure you will be,” I said. “Listen, I should get back.”

“Cody, please forgive me,” Ileana said.

“Well,” I said. “Forgive you for what?”

“For … for … Damn it, Cody Elliot, you know what for, or you should.”

And she started to cry.

I put my arms around her, trying not to notice how wonderful that felt.

After she’d stopped, and blown her nose, I said, “Ileana, I don’t need to forgive you. And I don’t think you did anything that needs forgiveness. You disagreed with me, but that’s just two people disagreeing. Maybe you think you need forgiveness for breaking up with me, but I don’t. I mean, it hurt like hell. It still does. But—”

And then she kissed me.

“You were talking too much,” she said.

We just held each other for a while.

Under our feet, the music stopped playing. It wasn’t the end of a set, either. It was in the middle of a song.

“Uh-oh,” I said. “Bet I know who’s here. Excuse me.”

We went down the stairs and heard voices coming up.

“… illegal assembly … trespassing … evidence …”

When I got to the main floor, I saw five cops standing by the wigwam. They were surrounded.

“Hey, guys,” I said. “’S’up?”

“We don’t want to arrest anybody,” the first cop said. “We’re just here to break this up.”

“Break up?” I said. “We just got together.”

“Don’t get smart,” the second cop said. “We know what you’re doing here, and we don’t want a lot of trouble. We just got orders to shut this thing down like it never happened, okay?”

“But it did happen,” I said. “It is happening.”

“And it will continue to happen.” Mr. Shadwell came over, walking on his hind legs. “Officers, xhere is somexhing unique about xhis night,” he said. “A tectonic shift, if you will. Xhe very earxh is moving under our feet as we stand here. Now xhe men who give you your orders recognize xhis, but xhey don’t know what to do about it. So xhey sent you to do somexhing about it for xhem. In my opinion, xhey should never have put you in xhis position.”

“Look, Rover, nobody asked you,” the second cop said. “Back off before you get in trouble.”

“Back off from a fight for freedom of speech?” Mr. Shadwell said. “I’d sooner burn my master’s degrees.”

And he showed his fangs.

He seemed to get taller all of a sudden, or maybe the cop just looked smaller because Ms. Shadwell was standing on the other side of him now and licking her chops.

“Hold on, everybody,” I said. “How about if you guys just arrest me and let the evening go on? I’m the one who cut the yellow tape.”

“You lie!” Gregor was beside me all of a sudden. “I cut the tape. Arrest me.”

“You damn well did not,” I said.

“Actually, it was me,” Turk said, coming up on my other side. She put out her hands in front of her. “Cuff me.”

“You were not even here,” Gregor sneered. “You deserted us. You have no claim to be arrested.”

“Arrest me, then,” Mrs. Warrener said. “I have an illegal piano over there.”

“No, me!” came a voice from the back.

And then everybody started volunteering to be arrested, laughing and clapping.

“Nobody gets arrested,” the first cop said. “Those are the damned orders. We just shut this thing down, okay?”

“Not really okay. No,” Dad purred, coming forward. “And if you try, I’ll sue New Sodom for everything but the sidewalks. And believe me, I can do it.”

“Dad, you would? What about Leach, Swindol and Twist?” I said.

“We can’t lose this,” Dad said. “This has to go on.”

Everyone cheered, except Ms. Shadwell, who howled.

“We will not go gentle into that good night,” Mom said, laughing and punching Mr. Shadwell on the foreleg.

“Rrrrrrrrr,” Mr. Shadwell agreed.

“Don’t tread on me,” Pestilence shouted.

“Don’t tread on us!” Mrs. Warrener cried, and banged on her piano.

“Oh, come on, people,” the second cop said. “Give us a break.”

Ms. Shadwell howled, and everyone clapped.

“All right, then. We’re gonna call for backup,” the first cop said.

And he did.

And we all stood around talking about what a great Halloween it was turning out to be, and how there’d never been anything like it, and why hadn’t somebody started a center like this fifty years ago, and what would we do next?

And right about then, somebody standing near the entrance to the basement said, “Hey, I smell smoke.”