Vampires Never Get Old, page 19
“Are all the Wards like this?” Bea asked her mama.
“No. Each one is unique based on who lives there,” Mama replied.
“Is there always water?”
“No. Just in this one.”
“Why?”
“A vampire pissed off one of the conjure women and she flooded it.”
“How do you get to them all?” Bea pressed. “Can we visit the others?”
“Did you hear me before we left Charleston? You listening, child? Or you just like it when I repeat myself?” Mama snapped her fingers. “We won’t be traveling to the other Wards. We will stay put until it’s time to move on, and I hope Honey makes it quick. I never intended to ever return here, and I don’t want no trouble.”
But sometimes Bea wanted trouble. Anything that made her eternal existence a little more entertaining. Her stomach tangled with all the things she might unravel and uncover in this peculiar version of this peculiar city. But she knew one thing: She’d find eternal love here. An electricity crackled across her skin; the energy of certainty.
They turned off Dauphine Street, and Bea gasped. She knew immediately which house was their new home.
The primrose pink was the color of the blush Mama always wore. Window boxes spilled over with her favorite midnight roses and rimmed a double porch piped with iron-lace. Eight rocking chairs waited, one for each of them. Lanterns hissed, and all the big glass windows flickered warm beams of welcoming light. Through one of the windows, Bea spotted ceilings covered in flowers—an upside-down English garden—and glowing candelabras. A sign dangled above the cream white door—THE HOUSE OF BLACK SAPPHIRES: BEAUTY APOTHECARY AND PHARMACY OF DELIGHTS.
A black tongue of a pier awaited them.
“This one is the most beautifulest ever,” Baby Bird exclaimed.
“That’s not a word,” Cookie corrected.
Baby Bird scoffed. “It’s my word. I can make them up.”
“No, you can’t.”
“She can and it’s called a neologism,” Bea informed.
“Hush,” Mama replied. “All of you.”
The firebird perched on the porch railing, cooing and welcoming the Turners to their new home. Their new gilded coffin of delights. Bea’s heart lifted at the sight of Honey, the hum of mischief lingering right beneath the brown of her skin, and her incisors elongated, ready to bite, ready for mischief.
* * *
“The perfume atomizers go on the second shelf,” Cookie ordered as the Turner girls prepared their beauty pharmacy and apothecary to open to the public tomorrow night.
The Eternal women and vampires of this New Orleansian Ward would be able to get everything they needed: from tonics to keep their complexions clear after starvation periods to drams to lure partners to their beds to sun salves to help protect those who couldn’t tolerate it. The elixirs they bottled delivered on their promises, for there was no snake oil in these pretty containers. Only the Turner women knew the secrets hidden in each glass jar. A secret alchemy of blood and spices.
“Does it really matter?” Bea complained, but still placed one of the creams on its proper shelf.
“It’s how it’s been for the past three hundred years.”
“So does that mean it always has to be?” Bea replied.
“Why you all of a sudden trying to change things up? Don’t act brand-new just cause we’re in a different city.” Sora swept behind her and rearranged them. “No one wants to have to do this for you.”
“I do my work,” Bea snapped back.
“Biting folks Mama instructs you to don’t count,” Cookie challenged.
“None of you want to collect,” Bea replied.
“You’re stretching the truth. I will collect.” Sora pivoted to face her. “I just prefer to tend to the blood vault. I’ll do it when I have to.”
“And I like biting handsome men.” Cookie swayed and twirled. “Like Jamal Watkins from Detroit. Never been a better kisser than him. Should’ve turned him. He’d be my eternal partner now, and I’d have my own house and my own firebird. Maybe even a baby girl. Oof.”
“Bea, you’re the best at it,” Annie Ruth added. “Have the sharpest teeth of us all.” She flashed a crooked smile, exposing a set of perfectly pointed incisors. “And that weird tongue.”
“And Mama’s favorite.” May’s face twisted as she gazed up from her book.
“She loves me most!” Baby Bird protested with a stomp.
“You’re too old for a tantrum.” Cookie yanked one of her long twists. “But, of course, you’re right. She does.”
“None of this is true.” Bea whipped around. Accusatory brown faces glared back at her. “Mama doesn’t have favorites.”
But they were correct that Mama took Bea most often to collect. Each of her sisters had a gift bestowed upon them by Mama after their hearts stopped. She’d kissed them, leaving behind a unique talent she’d handpicked. Cookie could charm any person out of their fortune or a kiss. With a mere sniff of her nose, Sora identified any talents hidden within someone’s blood. If Annie Ruth hummed a certain type of song, she might make one dance until their death. At her command, May could reduce a person to laughter or tears with a look or the touch of her hand. And the littlest of them all, Baby Bird, remembered every detail, even those that happened before she’d been born.
“I’m not leaving this city without an eternal partner,” Cookie announced.
A tiny whisper echoed inside Bea: Me neither.
“I’ve made a decision. I’m ready for my own firebird and my own house. It’s time for me to be on my own.” Cookie smiled triumphantly.
“Does Mama know? Did you ask her?” Annie Ruth replied. “She’s not going to say yes.”
“You don’t know that,” Cookie said.
“If you’d stop being so picky.” Sora swatted at her.
“If you ain’t the pot … You complain about every man you meet,” Annie Ruth said.
“They’re never that interesting. Men rarely are until they’re at least two hundred years old.” Cookie hissed at her. “I just need to find someone like Daddy to turn.”
“There are no mortals here,” Sora challenged. “I can’t even smell them. This place is full of other immortal folks.”
“Maybe I’ll get a vampire, then.” Cookie pranced around, mimicking how white vampires walked as if they owned every place their ancient feet touched.
Baby Bird gasped. Bea bit her bottom lip. That would never be allowed.
“Mama doesn’t want us mixing with them. You know the history.” May climbed out of her chair like a house cat stretching. She nudged Cookie and Bea to the side so she could add price ribbons to the bottles.
“We all know she doesn’t like it. Mama won’t let us forget.” Bea dusted the shelves to make the ever-watchful Cookie happy.
Each one took turns mocking the serious tone Mama adopted whenever she recounted how their bloodline had become Eternal—white vampire slavers biting their enslaved for sport—and how the ancestors sent the firebirds to save them from this worsening fate, transforming them into a different sort of immortal being: an Eternal.
“If you marry a vampire, you won’t be able to have daughters. You have to marry a mortal like Daddy and then turn him after the last child. It’s the only way,” Bea reminded. “Or marry an Eternal man and have no children.”
“How do we really know that’s true? Mama just hates—”
The tiny ping of the doorbell ruptured through the room.
“How could we have visitors already?” Cookie headed for the window-doors. “No one even told the aunties where we ended up.”
They all rushed to the lattice balcony and peered down. The water spread out left and right, choked with boats and water-coaches and floating streetcars headed in a hundred directions.
A young man in a black top hat held a red envelope in his white-gloved hands. A layer of sweat glistened on his brown skin like honey spread over pecans. It was too hot to wear what he wore, and the whole thing made him look out of place; a trinket from another time, much like them. They never advertised it, always trying to blend in as much as they could and maintain the classic refinement Mama always wanted. But he seemed so proud to stick out, as if he’d fallen through time and tumbled onto their new doorstep. He was even more peculiar than the peculiar sort in this Ward.
Mama stepped outside to greet him.
“She’s nervous,” May whispered.
Bea watched closely. Her sister May had the talent for sensing emotions, but Bea noticed how Mama gripped her hands tight to hide a tremble. Only a trained eye would’ve detected it, the tiniest flutters rippling through her fingers. Which made Bea even more curious as to the identity of this handsome young man.
“Who is it?” Baby Bird asked.
“Never seen him before,” Sora replied. “But he reminds me of Tristan Hill. Remember him from when we were in Harlem? I used to love the way he’d kiss my neck before finding his way to my mouth. I should’ve chosen him for my eternal partner. I thought someone cleverer would come along and they never did. He’s been dead a hundred years now. I missed out.” She perched farther over the railing. “But I’d bite him.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Cookie said.
“How do you know? You’re always trying to tell us what we would and wouldn’t do halfway in between all the things you say we should and shouldn’t do. Just ’cause you the oldest. Always acting like you Mama,” Sora snapped.
Cookie slapped her leg, and Sora squealed. “That’s a Shadow Baron, silly.”
The young man lifted his sunglasses and glanced up. They all went silent. He smiled, tipped his hat, and sauntered down the pier and back into his boat.
Shadow Barons were the mortal enemies of Eternal women. They were Walkers of the roads of the dead, ready to pull those who had cheated death or lived a little too long with their canes. They were keepers of the crossroads.
Bea didn’t take her eyes off him until he became as tiny as a black pepper grain in the distance.
But she wanted to know every single thing about him.
* * *
“What kind of party is it, Mama?” Bea asked, as her three older sisters, Cookie, Sora, and Annie Ruth, stood at the edge of their house pier waiting for the water-coach Mama had hired.
“I told you exactly what you need to know,” she replied, while inspecting each one of the dresses she’d handpicked for them to wear. “We’re showing our faces. We always do this when we arrive in a new place. We’ll be there an hour tops, so don’t get comfortable.”
“Who goes to a ball for that short a time?” Sora complained.
“We do, that’s who.” Mama adjusted the pearls on Cookie’s collarbone and smoothed the satin neckline of her dress. “This isn’t a friendly invite. It’s a summons—and the Turner women will only oblige but so much. They operate by different rules here. It’s Mardi Gras season. This fête brings all the Wards together. It’s supposed to foster peace. Help all the peculiar folk of the world mingle.”
“But—” Sora started.
“We don’t know how long we’ll be in this wretched place, so it’s best to get on with a few folks here and be cautiously friendly. Everyone is all mixed up, and it requires a particular sort of manners.”
Ever since the young man dropped off that invitation, Bea had wondered about what other sorts of immortal folk lived in all the versions of this city. When they’d arrive in other places, Mama would host a small dinner party, inviting other Eternal Black women—mostly her sisters if they were close enough—or hosting the Amaranthine if near their nations or any others. Mama would sometimes even invite a few carefully curated white vampires, sharing a decadent meal of blood-infused cocktails, richly beating hearts—collected by Baby Bird—and congealed blood puddings. Bea’s favorite gatherings were blood-tastings, where Mama would have Sora infuse blood with spices and herbs. This unlocked their deep flavors and exaggerated latent talents and memories hidden in mortal hemoglobin, the result giving the most glorious high.
But they’d never been to a ball. Her stomach squeezed. Bea had only read about them in books. The dancing and champagne and pretty people. Lovers meeting in dark corners. Lovers talking until sunrise. Lovers kissing and out of breath. This would be the place where she’d look for it.
“Don’t stare. Don’t wander off. Don’t ask intrusive questions. Mind your business. We don’t need anyone minding us,” Mama added.
The water-coach arrived and they eased into it as though sinking into a warm blood bath, careful not to ruin their beautiful gowns. Its lanterns bobbed left and right, scattering a constellation of light over Bea’s mother and sisters. Bea thought she’d never seen them look so beautiful. Cookie was wrapped in white silk that hugged her, then flared out in a beaded mermaid’s tail. She could’ve easily been en route to her wedding. Sora wore only black, always, and her gown rippled out in dark waves of tulle like she was a ballerina who’d escaped the underworld. Annie Ruth’s mid-length gown revealed slivers of her perfect skin through its lacy pattern.
Their mother wore a velvet dress, a red ribbon curling itself around every curve of her hourglass frame. Her red lip told all that she’d bite; her teeth the sharpest. Bea felt like she’d never look as stunning as Evangeline Turner. Mama often dressed up, but never like this, as if she wanted to be seen, as if she wanted to be a storm, the boom of thunder and the crash of lightning in a room. Bea gazed down at the layers of her own dress, the yellow of sunlit honey, and wasn’t sure Mama made the right choice.
The water-coach glided along, its glittering nose slicing through boat traffic as they made their way to the Garden District. The houses transformed into decadent tarts on a series of silver platters; some rosy red or robin’s egg blue, and a few mint green or the indigo of a sunset. Garlands and window boxes frosted them like ornate icing.
Bea knew the house they were headed to before they turned onto St. Charles Avenue. An energy tugged at her bones as if cords had been tied to them, threatening to yank her forward.
A four-story midnight-black home stretched high above, three lattice balconies spilling over with the best-dressed people Bea had ever seen. Lavish water-coaches paused at a double pier, unloading pretty passengers.
“Do you feel that?” she asked.
“Feel what?” Annie Ruth replied.
“I feel it, too,” Cookie said.
“Same,” Sora added.
“When many immortal folk gather, it creates that pull. And the Barons are here,” Mama said. “It’s a warning.”
A sensation made Bea jerk.
Cookie gasped. “But they’re our enemies.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Mama replied.
Annie Ruth shivered with fear despite the thick heat, but Bea felt curiosity rise inside her. They’d always been told that the only thing that could kill an Eternal woman was the men who walked the roads of the dead and tended to the crossroads. Not garlic, not holy water, not the sun, not werewolves, not silver, and never any stakes.
Only the Shadow Barons.
But Bea had never seen what they looked like until that young man showed up on their doorstep earlier. In her head, a Baron was some disgusting creature, a boogeyman waiting to drag them to the layers of the land of the dead. After her hundredth birthday, when she was trusted enough to venture out on her own, Mama gave her the talk. “You’ll feel real danger for the first time. You’ll see the mark: the key to the crossroads branded on their deep-brown flesh.”
“Why would the Barons be invited?” Annie Ruth asked. “Why would they bring the invitation in the first place?”
“They didn’t consult me on the guest list, babies,” Mama snapped. “It is the night the five Wards come together. All old grudges and grievances put aside for the moment. All to frolic and fellowship. I used to attend every year with my own mama before she petrified.”
“Who else is in there, Mama?” Bea whispered.
“All the folk of the world. The conjure women will have their cauldrons, the fae their enchanted fruit, the soucouyants their fire, and more. This place is a tuning fork.”
Bea had known that other types of peculiar folk roamed the world, but she rarely came across them. Some of her earliest memories included releasing a werewolf from a bear claw in their lawn at the Colorado house, spotting the boo hag Mama caught lurking in their wardrobe in the Lowcountry, and watching the conjure woman who came for blood to mix into her potions when they lived in Kingston, Jamaica.
The water-coach waited its turn to dock. A tuxedoed porter helped them out and onto the marble pier.
“You all stay close to me. I’ll be saying hello to a few acquaintances and introducing you, then we’ll be on our way. Our driver will be on standby,” Mama instructed.
“All dressed up for five minutes,” Sora mumbled.
“What was that?” Mama’s eyes narrowed.
“Nothing.” Sora glanced away. “Just saying how pretty you and my sisters look tonight.”
“That’s what it better be.” Mama smoothed the front of her gown, stretched upright, shoulders squared, and turned on her heel. “Stick close. Especially you, my honeybee.” Her eyes cut to Bea.
* * *
The cavernous ballroom spilled over with the most beautiful people Bea had ever seen. They sauntered in and out of plush game rooms and decadent tea salons and balconies. At first glance, they all seemed exceptionally glamourous, but upon deeper inspection, she spotted their eccentric details: Many held goblets of blood and exposed their pointed teeth as they laughed and smiled; tipped ears peeked out from behind tall and festive headdresses; many faces flickered as they shifted back and forth through various forms, light fuzz coating the arms and necks of several; and some sauntered about with plates of party food floating at their sides. Bea made mental notes so she could tell May and Baby Bird every detail when they returned home.
