Thirsty - M. T. Anderson [65]
Chet is still tapping on his knees. What he’s tapping sounds like “I’ve got rhythm, I’ve got music, I’ve got my girl, who could ask for anything more?”
I can’t believe it. I’m almost laughing. “He’s really gone?” I insist.
“Yes, he really is. Forever.” Chet smiles at me. “Congratulations to both of us.”
I laugh. It is a ragged little laugh, a little hoarse cough-y thing that would not get much on the open market — but it is a laugh nonetheless. A human laugh. “I, um. You know? I thought you were working for the vampires.”
“No,” says Chet. “I had the appearance of that, but I would never work for vampires. Not seriously. I needed them to interrupt the spells of warding so that Tch’muchgar would be freed up for just one crucial moment. Just long enough for him to jump and be destroyed. I guess I’m a double agent. Christopher, I might even be a triple agent.”
He rises, clapping his hands together to shake out the kinks in his muscles.
“So, you were just using the vampires? I mean, Bat and everyone?”
“Mmmm, yes. Poor, poor Bat. For a strapping thing of a hundred and seventy-two, that boy certainly doesn’t act his age.”
I do my ragged laugh again. Then I say, “Do you know how relieved I am?”
“No, Christopher. How relieved are you?”
“I am more relieved than a very relieved thing from Planet Phew.”
He nods. “I’m happy to hear you’re that relieved,” he says. “It does my old heart good.”
“I thought you were a servant of the Forces of Darkness,” I explain.
“You didn’t!” replies Chet.
“I did.”
“Well, I’m not,” says Chet, shaking his head.
“See, and that’s why I’m relieved.”
“Well might you be relieved,” he agrees. “And you can lay your fears to rest. I have never been and never will be a servant of the Forces of Darkness. I’m a mercenary, of course. I work for them freelance, on a job-by-job basis.”
At this, my head shoots up. He’s not facing me. His grin has changed a little bit. Now I can see his teeth. They are gray.
A few lone crickets start wheezing hoarsely.
“What?” I say.
“I said I work for them freelance. On a job-by-job basis.”
I scramble to get to my feet. He’s looking proudly out across the lake, as if he has just finished gluing all the trees and islands there. The crickets are picking up, more and more of them chittering.
“What do you mean?”
“I think I’ve just explained this. I work for the Forces of Darkness, Christopher, but on a freelance basis. Meaning, I’m employed by Tch’muchgar.”
“Tch’muchgar? But you just killed him. Do you mean, Tch’muchgar — the Vampire Lord?”
“Christopher, it’s not a common name.”
“I don’t understand.”
Chet turns and finally looks at me. “Would you like me to explain?” he asks me.
The crickets are calling to one another in gasping choirs.
“I think it would be obvious to you by now, Christopher. Locked up like that with nothing to think about, nothing to do but hate his captors, hate himself for his failure, hate life — the only escape he wanted in the end was escape from his own tedious, circular, dream-starved thoughts. There’s nothing Tch’muchgar wanted to do more than die. But of course, he couldn’t. Completely powerless. That was the hell of it. Couldn’t even move, figuratively speaking, to slit his own wrists.” Chet stops for a moment. Broods on his tale. Rubs his hand over his face. “God he was depressing.” He sighs.
“Enter: me. I was drifting without direction, disembodied, between worlds, looking for work, when, lo, I heard a voice from on high, saying to me, ‘Blessed are the dead, for they rest from their labors.’ It was Tch’muchgar — completely suicidal, unable to move, only barely able to cry out.
“An agreement was made; we settled on a price. I reentered your time-stream about twenty years ago and began to make arrangements. I prodded the vampires into action, promised them a Golden Age, another reign of the Vampire Lord. About a year ago, I made a sweep through the area, disembodied, and settled on you as the most likely of several local