The Blood of Christ

‘Do ye believe in vampires?’ I looked pensively at Mikey, wondering what the hell brought that on – and how I was going to answer it. Usually I’m good at avoiding this sort of question. God knows, I’ve had practice. But there was something in Mikey’s eyes that prevented me from lying, so I said the only thing I could.

  ‘What? What do you mean?’

  ‘Y’know, vampires. Like garlic and sunlight and wooden stakes and all that shit. Me, personally, now I believe in them.’ I studied Mikey’s lined face for a moment. He didn’t seem to be lying or taking the piss or anything like that. Well, I thought, this should be amusing.

  ‘Oh, yeah? How so?’ I asked. I was actually genuinely interested to know. Most people put vampires in the same category as aliens, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster and every other beastie and strange occurrence that the National Enquirer writes about. And Mikey was definitely not the type of guy to believe in crap like that.

  ‘Simple,’ he said. ‘I seen one.’ On the outside I appeared calm, I think, but my mind was a swirling vortex of confusion. Mikey wasn’t lying, that much I knew. I know the truth when I see it. But the idea that a vampire had been spotted by Mikey, yet let him live... Now that was inconceivable to me. We always know when we’ve been seen in our other state. And we always kill the seer.

  It keeps the National Enquirer off our backs.

  ‘When did this happen?’ I asked jovially, even though I could feel my guts churning. ‘While you were watching the X-Files?’

  ‘Nah. Don’t watch that crap.’ He scratched his scraggly chin with the metal cap from his beer bottle, a gesture I knew he exhibited when he was thinking. ‘I seen him with my own eyes.’

  ‘Where, then? And when?’ I think he heard the urgency with which I asked those questions in my voice, because he gave me a strange look before continuing.

  ‘I seen him often over the past two years or so.’ The scratching intensified. ‘Matter of fact, I see him right now.’ If I actually had any of my own blood in my body, I’m sure it would have run cold. And I knew it showed on my face, too. ‘Yeah, Kev. Y’know the guy I’m meanin’.’ He looked me straight in the eyes.

  ‘Mikey, what on God’s green Earth are you going on about?’ I was panicking. If I really was found out . . . Let’s just say that I dearly hoped that Mikey lived to be ninety years old and with grandkids. Something that’s not gonna happen if he keeps this line of talk up much longer.

  ‘You, Kev. I seen ye feed.’ I dropped my bottle of beer and it shattered into thousands of pieces on the bar floor.

  ‘Jesus, Mikey. Don’t say shit like that. You’re making me nervous.’ I was trying to cover up for all I’m worth. I think I was still hoping at that stage that Mikey face would crack into a smile and that he would yell ‘April Fool!’.

  In the middle of November.

  But Mikey still looked as serious as all hell, even though he let a small cynical smile play around his mouth.

  ‘I seen ye feed, Kev, and I know what ye are. So let’s just cut the bullshit and play open cards here.’ How could this be? I should be able to know!

  ‘Okay Mikey. Let’s say for argument’s sake you did see something feed. How could you know it was me?’ He stared at me for a while. I grew uncomfortable as all shit. ‘Assuming vampires exist, of course.’ I added rather lamely.

  ‘Yer bracelet, Kev. Yer the only one I seen with a bracelet like that. Ever.’ He looked pointedly at my left forearm. There was a bracelet made of real thorns. It was a rough piece of work, petrified with age and shiny from wear. Even though he pretty effectively identified me as a vampire in that sentence, my mind was immediately put at ease when he mentioned the bracelet.

  ‘How can you see that Mikey? You shouldn’t be able to see it.’ I was smiling now. Mikey seeing it meant he wasn’t human – at least not completely.

  ‘My mam was a Yitch.’ Yeah, that explained it, all right. But by the Dark One, how did a Yitch manage to survive the Slaughtering that took place two thousand or so years ago?

  ‘Yer wondering how my mam could have escaped, right?’ I nodded my head.

  ‘She didn’t. But she did give birth to me before He could use her like he used all the others.’ His voice was bitter, and with good reason to. Yitch’s were, in the grand scheme of things, actually pathetic creatures with little to no power. No power that they could use, at least. But hey, look just under the surface and there is a reservoir of crackling energy. Useless to them, but very useful to the Master.

  ‘Why didn’t He use you?’ I asked. He was scratching his chin with the beer cap again.

  ‘The power didn’t come with me. My dad was human.’

  ‘A human? Mikey, you know as well as I that a Yitch cannot conceive from a human.’ The fucker was lying to me, I knew it. But he looked unperturbed as he continued.

  ‘My mam took some of his blood just before he died.’ Technically, although I’ve never heard of a confirmed case of that happening, he could be speaking the truth. That’s how most demons reproduced, allegedly.

  ‘But you still got the sight.’ It wasn’t a question. Nobody without the sight would have been able to see my bracelet. He nodded. I voiced the one thing that was bothering me the most.

  ‘How did you see me feed without me knowing, Mikey?’

  He snorted. ‘For someone so old yer damn stupid.’ A conflagration of anger flared up in me. How dare this insignificant creature call me stupid? But I kept my face blank and held my temper in check. I wanted to hear what he said. ‘I take it not even the other vampires c’n see ya?’

  Shit. This was a mess. I was flabbergasted. That phrase that had been running through my head from the start increased in intensity. How could he know? I tried to answer him, but my throat seemed to have disconnected itself from my brain.

  ‘Ye got that power from the one who that belongs to.’ He pointed to my bracelet. I couldn’t do anything but nod. ‘And I got mine from the same man.’ No! This was impossible!

  ‘Mikey,’ I managed. My voice sounded dry and flaky. ‘Your mom got the blood to conceive from Him?’ He nodded again.

  ‘While he was on the cross. She couldn’t resist the scent, I do’n think.’ He stared at me, scratching the cap of the bottle against his chin again. His voiced sounded dreamy, far away. ‘She’d ‘ve lived if ye hadn’t found her there. But ye saw her and ye took her to the Dark One. Ye killed my mam, Kevin.’ Understanding dawned on me and memories from that day flooded my mind. I remembered.

  ‘She was the last thing I ever brought to Lucifer, Mikey. I got out of that business.’

  ‘Ayuh, I know. Ye drank blood from the Saviour so that Lucifer couldn’t find ye and ye got away. But ye still killed her.’ I was getting tired of this conversation.

  ‘So what, Mikey? What are you going to do about it? You’re half Yitch without enough power to even boil water. You’re not gonna kill me, that’s for sure. So what’s your angle here?’

  ‘Y’know how ter break a curse, Kev?’

  I nodded. ‘You get hold of the objects used to put the curse on you.’ Where was this going?

  ‘Well, I’m thinkin’ it might work the same with a blessing, wouldn’t ye say?’ He reached into his shirt pocket and took out a small sliver of wood. He grinned evilly at me. ‘Granted, it ain’t flesh from the saviour now, but I think wood from the cross might do. Lucifer will know yer face soon, Kev. Very soon.’

  He straightened the piece of wood in his hand and thrust it down toward my arm with uncanny speed.