Chapter Thirty-One

J.B. was particularly scathing about their vampire idea.
"Look, I've seen some bits of old vids and read predark comics and books. So I know what their ideas were on vampires. There was some writer who had big sellers about vampires, but it was just fiction. All of it was made up."
"I find your argument strangely unpersuasive, John Barrymore Dix. If you will forgive me for saying so, the idea that someone has written fiction about a subject means that the subject doesn't exist in reality is absurd."
"Course," Mildred agreed. "Man writes a novel about the Civil War. According to your theory, John, that means that the War between the States never happened. That what you're saying? It can't be, can it?"
The Armorer shrugged. "I've traveled the old battlefields, MillieAntietam, Chancellorsville, Manassas, Shiloh. Load of them in our travels with Trader. Course they existed. But I never met anyone who saw a real ghost or a vampire. Reason is, they don't exist."
Jak had been standing by the fireplace. "Folks in bayous believe ghosts, J.B., and see them."
"Vampires?"
The albino shook his head. "Don't know vampires. Voodoo believes them. Walking dead like zombies. Suck blood. Kill with stake in heart. Or silver bullet. Or cut off head. Or expose in sun. Vampires don't like sun."
J.B. sniffed. "You're all crazed. Been browsing among the locoweed for too long."
"What do you think then, love?" Mildred asked. "You got a better explanation?"
"For the Family? I don't deny for a moment that they're mutie freaks. But vampires?"
Doc stood with legs slightly apart, thumbs hooked in the buttonholes of his vest, looking as though he were about to begin a lecture on The Place of Romantic Poets in a Schismatic Society.
"Their skin and reluctance to appear in light. That's one. The locked cellars and attics. Unusual strength. Rotten breath like moldy earth. That's two and three."
"And four," Dean said, grinning at having caught the old man out.
"Right. The fact that they don't appear on the film of poor Johannes. It was a well-known fact about vampires that they didn't leave a shadow or cast a reflection in a mirror. The blurring of the film stock is a modern version of that."
"And there was that strange research section, locked away up at the redoubt. Could be that has something to do with them," Mildred stated.
"The pallor and weakness of so many of the poor devils from Bramton." Doc pointed a gnarled finger at J.B. "Oh, ye of little belief! The evidence is so strong. What we should do is try and find where in this rambling pile the Family go for the rest from their evildoing."
"I saw a comic, Doc, where some vampires with pointy teeth lived in coffins filled with the dirt from a graveyard and drank blood from girls with big tits. Sorry, Mildred and Krysty. But they did have"
Krysty held up a hand. "All right, all right. I think we get the picture."
It was at that moment that Norman had appeared from a door hidden behind rows of books to announce the news about Ryan being back in the room upstairs.


RYAN HAD BEEN DOZING, still under the influence of the drug, when they all burst into the room.
He woke with a start.
"Fireblast! What's?"
"Hello, lover," Krysty said, sitting on the side of the bed, reaching and holding his hand. She noticed without comment that Ryan jumped nervously and started to pull his fingers away from her touch.
"Hi. Don't feel great. Head's like the inside of a lumberjack's ass."
Mildred perched on the other side of the bed, Ryan knowing it was her from the faint whispering of the beads in her plaited hair.
"How about the eye?" she asked casually. "They do anything for it?"
"No."
"They try anything while you were drugged?"
"No."
"How can you be sure?" J.B. asked, "if you were out colder than a snow bear's dick?"
"I'm sure, is all. Just what the fuck are you getting at, anyway?"
"Nothing. Settle down, Ryan. They said they could help you to see again. So it's not unreasonable to ask you a question about what they did and how you are."
"Yeah, I guess Sorry." Ryan could hear J.B. take off his glasses and start to polish them, which he often did when something had embarrassed him.
"So, what did they do, Dad?"
Dean was leaning on the end of the bed, making it rock back and forth in a distinctly irritating way. But Ryan held his temper.
"Nothing. Like I said, they drugged me. But I was conscious all the time." He fumbled for a believable and convenient lie. "I think they did try to do something with my eye. They rubbed some kind of grease on it and stuff like that."
"But it hasn't helped, lover?"
"No." He decided not to mention the odd flashes of light and color that he thought he might have seen, not wanting to raise anyone's hopes, not wanting to raise his own hopes.
"Your pants are buttoned up wrong, Dad."
"What?"
The room was flooded with stillness.
Ryan could feel everyone stopping whatever it was they were doing, all looking at the front of his pants, where Dean was pointing.
"Boy's right, lover," Krysty said, her voice calm and cool. "Buttoned up crooked and one of them's not done up at all. Surprised you didn't feel the draft."
Ryan reached down, his fingers clumsily putting things to rights.
"Stupe," he said. "Must've happened when I went for a piss on the way back from the attic."
"Up the stairs on the top floor?" J.B. sounded excited. "They took you there? What was it like? What did you ? Oh, dark night! Sorry."
"What did I see, old friend? That your question? Answer is, not a lot."
"Looks like they got some of that grease you mentioned on the front of your pants, Ryan." Krysty's voice moved remorselessly from cool to cold.
"Yeah. I can just feel it with my fingernail."
He hastily changed the subject. "What've you all been doing today? While I was out of it?"
It took some time to tell him everything, culminating in Doc and Mildred's theory.


"VAMPIRES."
Krysty patted him on the leg. "Nobody tried to suck your blood, did they, lover? I mean, like that Mary Cornelius didn't try to suck your blood?"
The pause was slight enough, but Ryan heard it. Everyone except Dean heard it.
He tried to ignore it, clearing his throat. "No, she didn't, Krysty."
"Good. Glad to hear it, lover. So, what do you think of the theory?"
Ryan lay back. "Sorry. Felt a bit sick again." He closed his eye. "I reckon it's possible. Like Mildred says, they aren't old ghostly vampires. I believe they don't exist. I don't believe they ever existed."
He heard someone walk across the room and tug back the draperies. From the lightness of the feet, it had to be Jak. But there was a shaft of brightness that Ryan saw.
Really saw .
This time there was no mistake about it. But he still kept quiet.
They sat around the bed, talking animatedly about what they should do.
There was a general acceptance that the Family wasn't a force for good, therefore it made sense to get away from their house as soon as possible.
"Dawn," J.B. said.
"Agreed." Ryan looked blindly around the room. "Watch yourselves at supper and keep close. No wandering. I'm not sure that the Family is completely finished with us yet. No. Not by a long country mile."


EVERYONE WENT back downstairs, leaving Krysty and Ryan with some time alone.
He heard the door close with mixed feelings, hoping that the subject of precisely what he'd been doing with Mary Cornelius might not be raised.
"You fuck her, lover?"
So much for a vain hope.
A part of the cement that held Ryan and Krysty together was honesty. However unpalatable the truth might be, and however much it might harm their relationship, it never occurred to Ryan that, faced with a direct question, he should lie.
"She fucked me."
"While you were drugged and tied hand and foot to the bed? Was that it, Ryan?" The bitterness of betrayal rode at the front of her voice.
"It was just like that."
"Sure it was. And I just bet you hated every moment of it, didn't you?"
Again there was the temptation to shift sideways and sort of skirt around the truth.
"I hated the way they made me do it." He coughed to clear his throat. "I hate anytime that anyone makes me do anything beyond my control."
"But you didn't actually hate it when it was going on. That what you're saying?"
"Not really."
She copied his voice, mocking it. "Not really. Oh, no, Krysty. I hated being fucked. In fact it didn't work because I never even got an erection." She changed back to her own voice. "You get a hard-on, lover?"
Ryan turned on his side, away from her, but she grabbed at his arm and tugged him back. "Don't you fucking do that to me, Ryan! Not ever!"
"Sorry, I told you. They drugged me. There were three of them there. At least three. Thomas and Elric, as well as the woman. They've got strength that And I was blind. Krysty, I swear I couldn't have stopped them. It was as close to rape as it can get for a man."
"All of a sudden, my heart bleeds," she said bitterly. "What happened to the blaster?"
He sat up, staring blankly at where he thought she was, wondering with a small part of his mind whether he was imagining seeing a spark of sunlight burning off her bright red hair.
"The blaster never left my holster. You can't imagine what it was like. If you'd been tied down and forced to have sex, I wouldn't behave like this. Blaming me. Hating me. Hurting me even more than I'm already hurting."
To his dismay, Ryan found that his voice was breaking and his right eye was brimming with unshed tears.
The silence stretched on and he felt Krysty stand up from the bed and walk across the room.
"Think running away'll change anything?" he shouted. "Because it fucking won't!"
The sound of boot heels on the carpet stopped. "I wasn't running away, Ryan."
"Wellwell, I guess that's something. So, where were you going?"
"To look out the window. Sort of gather my thoughts together. Work out just how I was going to tell you that I was sorry for behaving like I did."
"Krysty." He stretched out his hand toward where he thought she was standing.
"What is it, lover?"
"Just wondering"
"What about?" She moved back and sat again on the edge of the bed, her fingers clasping his hand.
"I was wondering."
"You just said that, lover."
"Wondering how you felt about taking off some of your clothes and climbing into the bed for a while?"
"I feel like that's the best offer I've had for Well, the best offer today."
They made love three times before a gentle knock on the bolted door told them that supper was ready.