Lifeblood - Chapter Eight

[kalinara]

So last time, there was some excitement when the vampire hunters decided to confront Jack while he's visiting with Bobbi. Fortunately, Bobbi Smythe is far more badass than they can handle.



So, since Braxton and Webber escaped the hotel detective's custody, Jack is taking the surreptitious way out. He's gone all mist form for this, and it's pretty disorienting. He ends up solidifying in a nearby pawnshop to take stock. He really doesn't want to lead them to Escott's, as he's going to be pretty fucking vulnerable there. They also may be staking out his car. He tries to think of whether or not any of the papers in the car could lead them back to Escott. He's pretty sure not. The move into Escott's basement's a very recent thing after all, so anything should lead them back to his old hotel room.

He's still annoyed to have to leave his car behind. Hard to blame him. Anyway, he mists up again and drifts for a few blocks, before finally getting to Escott's. Escott's not there, and a note on the table informs Jack that he's decided to take a night train out to NYC after all. He asks Jack to call him at the St. George Hotel when his package arrives.

I looked up the hotel by the way. Pretty swanky place during pre WWII era. F. Scott Fitzgerald and Johnny Weismuller stayed there.

Jack is a bit out of sorts at being on his own, which isn't completely fair, but he has had a fright. It's too late to call a cab and find a hotel. He's just going to have to hope Braxton didn't follow Escott from the restaurant. And that he hadn't bothered Gaylen. He does do something pretty clever though. Rather than sleep in Escott's house, he takes a bag of earth and drifts into the attic next door. There are people below, but he's willing to take the risk. Better found by them than Braxton. And it looks like they haven't been up in their attic for ages. It's a reasonable risk. Jack gets comfortable and it's a cute mental image:

Spreading the blanket, not for comfort, but to protect my clothes, I stretched out behind some old boxes, the pillow resting firmly over my face to block the light. The earth was in the crook of my arm and reminded me of the stuffed toy rabbit my oldest sister Liz had given me thirty years ago. They were her specialty. She’d made them for her own children and all the nieces and nephews of our big family. She was a sweet woman.

Aw.

Jack wakes up uneventfully the next evening. He's hungry. We're told that the small amount of blood he gets from Bobbi is love-making and doesn't really suffice as food. He'll have to visit the stockyards. Though interestingly, he's had to visit less since before they met. Once every three or four nights instead of every other night. Interesting!

He calls Bobbi, as a good boyfriend should. Bobbi tells him that Phil, the detective, told her that Braxton and Webber are staking out the hotel in a black Ford. Bobbi's seen the car herself and it's "new to the usual scenery".

Bobbi will be taking a cab to the studio. Jack's apologetic, but she understands. She also lets him know a woman named Gaylen called, and asks, jokingly, if he's stepping out on her. She does wish he'd told her he'd given out her number, but things had gotten a little hectic. Anyway, he plans on taking care of the Braxton business and coming to the studio himself.

“But what if you miss him?”

“I said don’t worry. You aren’t going there alone, are you?”

“No, Marza’s coming with me.”

“Then God help Braxton if I do miss him.”

“Oh, Jack.” She was exasperated. “The man is trying to kill you.”

“He won’t. I’m only trying to keep him from hurting others.”

“And I don’t give a damn about others”—she cut off a moment and collected herself—“I’m worried about you.”

Aw. He reassures her, tells her to break a leg (A phrase he'd "picked up from Escott", hee) and then calls Gaylen. She's upset because Braxton has been annoying her. She'd like Jack to come see her. Jack is reluctant, but she pleads, and Jack gives in because he's a softy. It means the schedule will be tight: Jack has to wait for Escott's package, deal with Braxton, see Bobbi's broadcast at ten, AND try to pop off to the Stockyards. But he thinks he can do it.

Indeed. The package comes (late), and Jack signs as Escott. He calls Escott, but the man's already checked out, leaving Kingsbury as a forwarding address. Weird. No messages for Jack. Then he pops over to see Gaylen.

She paints, apparently. Jack thinks that it looks flat, but the colors are nice, and he compliments her. He thinks, from her reaction, that she's planning to give it to him. They discuss Braxton, who frightened Gaylen. She asks how Jack is planning to deal with him, and he tells her the truth basically. He also wants to ask him about Maureen, and promises Gaylen he won't hurt Braxton.

They also discuss Charles briefly. Jack mentions the Kingsbury thing. Gaylen goes still and thinks about it, but she can't place it. There's something else bothering her though. She wants something from Jack.

She wants to be a vampire.

This seems like a very quick conversation, lady. It's your second meeting! But she's old, sick, and frightened. She worries she'll never see her sister again. I can't blame her. Vampirism does sound pretty swanky. Jack's not really on board though:

“I’m sorry.” I had to turn away and pace or blow up. Her eyes followed me up and down the small room until I stopped in front of the window to stare out at nothing. “You don’t know what it’s like. I’d give anything to go back, to walk in the sun again, to eat food, feel real heat and cold, to feel my heart beating. I have no stability. I can’t go back to my family and will never have one of my own. Worst of all, Maureen’s gone.”

“And yet she changed you. If the life you have is so awful, why did she do that?”

“Because the kind of love we had would have made it all bearable. There was no guarantee that I even would change, but it was a hope we shared. At the very least we would have been together for as long as I was… alive. But something happened and she had to leave.”

Gaylen points out that if Maureen comes back, Jack will still be here. She won't be. She says that Maureen had promised to change her and he's all of Maureen that's left for her. Jack asks why Maureen didn't do it earlier. Gaylen doesn't know.

She knew and Maureen knew. I didn’t and would have to go by my own instincts. A lot of emotions were getting in my way, and I wasn’t sure if I was right to say no, or reading things into her manner that weren’t there. I could do as she asked, the chances were very great it wouldn’t work, but everything in me recoiled away from taking that step.

Now this is interesting. I have to admit, I'm rolling my eyes a bit at Jack's verbal vampire angst. While there are definite downsides of vampirism, they're downsides that probably feel a lot different to a seventy-two year old woman than to a thirty-six year old man. Her family is gone already. She's past the point of having children. And while she might miss delicious food, an escape from illness and ailment may be worth it.

But this implies that there's a more instinctual reason. Poor Gaylen.

She asks Jack to at least think about it. But he apologizes and says if there's anything else she needs, she can call him. But not this. He doesn't feel great about it though, noting that his "guts gone cold and twisting like snakes".

As he goes to deal with Braxton, he thinks about Gaylen's offer more:

The cab dropped me within sight of a two-year-old Ford parked across the street from Bobbi’s hotel. Gaylen’s voice still lingered in my head, pleading. None of my reasons to refuse seemed very good now, but even after discarding them all, I was not going to do it. Something was bothering me; I wanted advice, or at least to have someone tell me I was right. Escott might be back in a day or two; I’d talk it over with him. Or maybe not.

I like that Jack is aware that his reasons kind of suck.

So Jack goes to the Ford. It's parked in line with other cars, and he'd never have noticed if Bobbi hadn't mentioned it. The guy inside isn't Braxton or Webber eitherL

“Been here long?”

“What’s it to you?” He lit his cigarette on the same match that fired mine, his long fingers shielding the flame from the faint night breeze. He was a good-looking specimen, with a straight nose, cleft chin, and curly blond hair. Up on a movie screen he might have stopped a few feminine hearts. I pegged him to be a college type, but he was too old and had seen enough to have a cynical cast to his expression.

Jack comments that he's making the hotel detective nervous. He learns that this guy is a private detective himself, investigating a "Mrs. Blatski". There is a funny moment though, when Jack gets a crazy thought:

“Charles, is that you?”

He gave me an odd look and I deserved it. A second and more detailed check on his face was enough confirmation that he wasn’t Escott got up in disguise. The eyes were the wrong color, brown instead of gray, and his ears were the wrong shape, flat on top, not arched.

Anyway, the guy thinks Jack looks familiar. He makes some cryptic comments that lead Jack to think he's a shakedown artist. He calls himself Malcolm, and they shake hands "briefly and unpleasantly". Malcolm had palmed a business card and passes it to Jack. Definitely sleazy, and Jack feels bad for the lady he's investigating.

Jack pops in on Phil to fill him in, and reclaims his car. He does make it to the broadcast, and Bobbi had left word about him so he's let straight in.

The room was smaller than I’d expected, roughly divided between audience and performers, with only slightly more space given over to the latter. There was a glassed-in control booth to one side filled with too many people who didn’t seem to be doing much of anything at the moment. Bobbi was on the stage, looking outwardly calm. She was seated with a half dozen other people on folding chairs, all of them dressed to the nines, which didn’t make a whole lot of sense for a radio show. Across from them a small band was tuning up, and in between, seated at a baby grand, was Marza Chevreaux flipping through some sheet music.

He gives Bobbi a thumbs up and she lights up when seeing him. He thinks she's in her element. It's all very cute.

Jack enjoys the show. Bobbi sings a fast novelty number about a guy who is like a train and she's trying to catch him. She's a hit. Yay! Unfortunately, Jack's enjoyment is interrupted when he's poked from behind by Braxton, with a gun. He wants Jack out in the hall. Jack goes out in the hall.

Braxton explains how he'd found Jack (basically he called around to find out which station Bobbi was performing at), and ends up leading Jack to a men's room. Jack manages to quick-hypnotize Webber into staying still, then overpowers Braxton and pockets his gun. He drags Braxton into the restroom.

There, he does the hypnosis trick. It takes a bit to get Braxton calm enough, but it works. He asks about Maureen. Braxton has no idea where she is, which is disappointing. He does get backstory though. Basically, Braxton met her when he was about twenty-five or so. He'd just opened the bookshop and she was a customer. Jack gets a little jealous and asks if they were lovers.

Braxton's answer is interesting. He doesn't know:

“I was, in my dreams. I loved her at night in my dreams. She would kiss me.” One of his hands stole up to his neck. “She would kiss me. God, oh my God…”

I turned away. I never meant to hear this. “Stop.”

He became quiet, waiting and unaware while I mastered myself. There was no point in hating him, no point in condemning Maureen; not for something that had happened nearly thirty years ago. She’d loved Barrett and Braxton and then me. Were there others? Had she indeed loved me?

Jack's response is interesting too. It must be difficult, after five years of silence, to parse out the nature of a relationship. It didn't sound like Maureen left willingly, but Jack has to wonder.

Anyway, he asks if Braxton ever "kissed" her back. No. Maureen wouldn't let him. Jack finds that comforting.

So Braxton had seen her for about a year, but then she was gone. Some twenty years later though, she came back and hadn't aged a day. She hadn't recognized him but he recognized her. And he recognized who she was. He believed that he'd become what she was unless he killed her. He started hunting her. This was 1931.

So this was the man. She’d run from him, leaving me standing in an empty room, a scribbled good-bye note in one hand and the life draining from my eyes. Five years of hurt, doubt, anger, and fear because this foolish man thought she wanted his soul instead of the warmth of his body when he was young.

He asks if Braxton found her. He didn't. He did learn about Jack though. And sadly, to Braxton's mind, Jack died before Braxton could kill Maureen. He apologizes for not being able to save Jack. Jack questions him a bit more about who knows: only Matheus. And possibly Gaylen. Braxton is about to explain that she knew something, when they're interrupted.

Someone's out the door, demanding that Jack come out or he'll "scrag the kid".

What the hell? I yanked the door. He was in a long coat, which changed him enough from the last time, so from a distance he was unrecognizable when he stepped off the elevator, looked at his watch, and walked away. A long coat, which was all wrong because it was only mid-September and still mild. But he wore it because that made it easy to walk into a building with a sawed-off shotgun concealed under it. He shouldn’t have been here, he was supposed to be in a parked Ford waiting for Mrs. Blatski.

He grinned at my surprise, his dimples nice and deep, and without any more expression or warning he pulled first one trigger, then the other, emptying both barrels into the open doorway.

The chapter ends here. And that's definitely a cliffhanger.