Teeth_ Vampire Tales - Ellen Datlow [52]
The skin on the back of her hand was scabby and blotched with raw pink skin. She wrapped it up again quickly. “It was worse before; we heal fast. That doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt. I hate that mean old bitch!”
She had killed the meth head, but her own situation was pretty dire. He couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. Not enough to hug her or anything like that, but sorry.
“Hey,” he said, propping his hip against the sink. “Want to hear a new song? It’s not exactly finished yet—I mean, I’m not through working on it—but I think it’s a pretty good start. I’m calling it ‘Love Birds.’”
He sang, mezza voce:
“Raven hates her own harsh tone.
She hacks and hawks to spit it out.
Swallow down her razor kiss
Salty, icy, light as bone,
To sweeten Raven’s song.
She’ll be your love, your turtledove,
If you sweeten Raven’s song.”
“‘Turtledove?’” Crystal mimicked scornfully. “What century do you come from? Makes no sense, either. Well, that’s cool. You can’t eat music, and I’m starving.”
She was always hungry, and she always had to be reminded to stop.
Next time things seemed back to normal. Crystal, Grand Theft Auto champion with a stuffed arcade bear to prove it, was on the monitor again, checking for comparables to Odette’s latest find: a rare Chinese pipe, all delicately curved brass tubing and carved wood. Josh, already tapped by both vampires, dozed in a beat-up armchair on the other side of Ivan’s desk.
“Oh, shit!” Crystal leaned back and yelled, “Odette! MacCardle’s in Dallas!”
Odette swept into the office and tilted the monitor around to see the news photo. It featured a scrawny, self-satisfied-looking guy with suspenders holding up his pants, shaking some fancy suit’s hand in an auction showroom.
Odette snarled silently, showing a gleam of fang (Josh looked away; he hated thinking about where those teeth had been). But all she said was “Fine. He’s there, we’re here.”
She went back to inspecting the Chinese pipe.
Crystal whispered fiercely, “Fine my foot! If MacCardle comes sniffing around here, we are so gone.”
Josh was jolted by a stab of realization: He didn’t want them gone—not without him. (God, could he really be thinking like this?)
“He looks harmless,” he observed cautiously. “Not exactly a Van Helsing type.”
“He’s Quality, dummy. He comes sneaking around after Odette trying to snag the good stuff first, which makes her so mad! You won’t like her when she’s mad,” she intoned, wiggling the fingers of her now-unblemished hand.
“What, she turns green and smashes the place up?”
“No joke,” Crystal said.
“Okay, this is for real, right? People who live forever by drinking human blood spend their time fighting over high-priced junk?”
Crystal snorted. “Are you kidding? They love to feud over scraps—ugly old vases, souvenir ashtrays from Atlantic City, dried-up baby shoes. Some of them are addicted to anything from their own time. Mostly, though, it’s about personal pride and protecting their investments.”
“They hunt down enameled kitchenware, just like some retired bus driver desperate for something to do, and that’s about pride and investment?”
“Hey, look around you,” she said. “Even mass-produced trinkets get valuable if they survive long enough. A vampire can wait a century for his tin plates to become rare and then sell them for a bundle. Then there’s the thrill of spotting a trend first and getting in there before anybody else. Odette’s amazing at that. Timing the market is a real competition for them; they bet on each other. Gambling’s always been the favorite pastime of the upper crust. Well, crust doesn’t get any upper than the Quality.”
An idea sparked, then glowed. “Crystal? What does Odette collect for herself?”
“What you want to know for?” She stared at him suspiciously. “Anyway, you’re asking the wrong person.”
“It can’t all be just merchandise to her,” he insisted. “What does she find in a place like this that she won’t resell?”
Crystal absently twisted the ears of the trophy bear as she thought