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“Back here, Jane,” came a muffled voice from the rear of the shop.
I followed his voice to the stockroom, which we had only rediscovered the night before. Mr. Wainwright had “misplaced” the door behind a rack of old Tales from the Crypt comics sometime in the mid-1980s.
“Mr. Wainwright?” I saw two brown loafers sticking out from under a carton in a horrible parody of The Wizard of Oz. Mr. Wainwright’s about eighty years old and looks as if you could snap him like kindling. His being pinned under a giant box of heavy books was not going to keep my paltry part-time employment checks coming in.
“Are you all right?” I cried, lifting the box off him with little effort.
“Oh, thank you, Jane,” he said, sitting up from his spot on the floor. He seemed to have made the best of his predicament. His ever-present lumpy gray cardigan was pillowed under his head. Clutched in one hand was an old dog-eared copy of Stephen King’s Nightmares and Dreamscapes. “Fortunately, when the box fell on me, this bounced off my head. I haven’t read it in years. You must admire the universal accessibility of Mr. King. He scares the bejesus out of me every time.”
“And he’s the reason I have clown issues,” I said, shuddering at the thought of It. “How long have you been down here?”
He rolled his shoulders. “Oh, three or four hours at the most.”
“Are you hurt?” I asked.
“I’m tougher than I look,” he said as I lifted him up and set him on a dusty folding chair.
“I thought we agreed you weren’t going to try to move things around without me here? After yesterday. When the other box fell on you,” I said, struggling to keep a patient tone. I couldn’t believe I was the practical one in this relationship.
“Well, yes, but I wasn’t trying to move anything, I was searching for the light switch, you see, and knocked the shelving unit over. I remembered a book I left in here that I thought you might be interested in,” he said.
“You remembered a book you left in here twenty years ago?” I asked him. “What am I saying, of course you did. Why don’t you tell me where it is, and I’ll get it for you?”
“Yes, I think that would be best,” he said. “Top shelf. In the box marked ‘Bell Witch.’ ”
I spider-climbed nimbly up the wall and plucked the box from the top shelf. Mr. Wainwright was grinning like a kid with a new comic book. He always got excited when I manifested my vampire powers. I unfolded the top of the carton and then thought better of it.
“If I put my hand in this box, is there anything that will bite, sting, cut, burn, or turn me into dust?”
This is one of the problems with working in an occult store. The previous week, I nearly lost a digit to a diary whose lock clapped a silver trap around keyless fingers. Vampires are allergic to silver. Touching it feels like a combination of burning, itching, and being forced to lick dry ice. If Mr. Wainwright hadn’t come along with the suspicious little lock-busting gizmo he carries in his pocket, I wouldn’t be able to make all those shadow puppets I like so much.
Mr. Wainwright chewed his lip. “Just to be safe, I’ll do the honors.”
From the cobwebby, mouse-stained cardboard, Mr. Wainwright pulled a book titled The Spectrum of Vampirism. “Here we are,” he said, handing it to me. “I thought you might find this useful. It’s very good, written by a Harvard fellow named Milton Winstead in the 1920s.”
“Harvard?”
“Well, they can’t all be law scholars and presidential candidates.” Mr. Wainwright shrugged.
“There are actual shades of vampirism?” I asked, reading over the table of contents and flipping to a chapter.
Vampires do not produce their own blood cells, which is why they must consume blood. The ingested blood is infused with the vampire’s essence when metabolized, giving the vampire the ability to turn others. A vampire’s power depends on the amount of vampire blood consumed during transformation. To make a childe, a vampire will feed on a victim until he or she reaches the point of death. The sire must be careful not to leave the initiate unconscious or unable to consume the blood needed to complete the transformation, usually two to three pints. The process is literally draining for the sire, meaning that a vampire will create only two or three children in his or her considerable lifetime.
The stronger and older a vampire is at the point of creating a childe, the more likely that childe is to be a “healthy” vampire. A quick or careless turning can result in a sickly vampire, who may suffer from the vampire’s weaknesses—sensitivity to sunlight and silver—but few of the strengths. Some humans seek this level of vampirism to achieve eternal youth and enhanced beauty. Several devotees of the theatrical profession have been rumored to have partaken in this ritual over the years.
“Huh, I thought vampirism was pretty much a yea-or-nay proposition.”
“Oh, no, no,” Mr. Wainwright said. “There are many subtle levels of vampirism, of power and ability. You see, there is so much for you to learn. It’s so exciting for me to be here with you for the journey from bloodthirsty neophyte to sophisticated veteran vampire.”
“Happy to oblige,” I said, shrugging amiably. “Although technically, I’ve never been what you’d call bloodthirsty.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, dear,” he said. “But don’t you see how lucky you are? Vampires are among the few beings who trace their history as they live it. You can see the past, present, and future. You know who your great-great-grandparents, great-grandparents, and grandparents are. As your children or, in your case, nephews—now, don’t make that face, dear—as your nephews have children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, you’ll be able to watch them grow and live and die, each generation, if you take care of yourself, for eternity.”
Staggered by the depressing nature of that thought, I patted his hands. “But you can do that, too, just on a smaller scale. I mean, everybody around here knows who their great-grandparents are. And you have your nephew. You’ve been able to watch him grow up and have children.”
“My nephew moved to Guatemala for mission work nearly five years ago, and I rarely hear from him. I don’t see him having children, if there is a just and loving God.” Mr. Wainwright shook his head fondly at the mention of Emery, his late sister’s Bible-thumping, personality-free son. “And I don’t know who my great-grandparents were, at least not any relatives in this area. My mother was from up north, upstate New York, and my father died when I was very young. I’m afraid their union wasn’t a very happy one, and she didn’t keep many of his things. He rarely spoke to her about his family. And it seemed to upset her to talk about him. It might have been nice to have relatives, but from what I can see, it’s a sort of genetic crapshoot. You’re not likely to end up related to people you like.”
“Case in point, my grandma Ruthie. But then you have wonderful chromosomal coincidences like my aunt Jettie and my dad.” He smiled. “How about I start clearing through these boxes and you can get back to the Internet orders?”
