Lorcan sat in the room of the seedy motel, thinking about the upcoming gig. It was around eight o’clock and he would have to leave soon for the club. Start time was nine thirty. He got up and crossed the room and took a drink. Awful! Marla’s body was getting cold and the blood was not palatable when not warm. He hadn’t really hunted yet that evening. He had risen at dusk and gone out to pay the manager for the next week. As he returned to his room on the back side of the motel, the young woman had followed him. He was instantly aware of her, but let her follow just to see what would happen. As he approached his door she came up behind him and pointed a pistol into the small of his back.
“Give me your fucking money and don’t make a sound or I swear to God I’ll kill you.” she said
Lorcan found her threat to be positively hilarious. With his back still to her he began to shake with laughter.
“Do you fucking think I’m kidding?” she asked
“Oh no my dear” he said softly “I’m sure you are very serious. Tell me, what is your name?”
“My name? What do you think this is the fucking prom? Give me your goddamned money. Now!”
With supernatural speed he spun around, knocked the pistol to the far edge of the gravel parking lot, and grabbed her by the throat, dragging her into the room. As he held her at arm’s length and raised her off of the floor she fought wildly, her eyes bulging in rage.
“Seems the shoe is now on the other foot my dear. Now, what is your name?” he asked, setting her on the floor and loosening his grip
“Marla, she gasped” coughing and sucking in air
“Do you believe in God Marla?”
“Fuck no, man. I believe in money!” she replied
“Hmmm. Money. And what would you do for money Marla. A lot of money, say five thousand dollars?” he asked
She regarded him suspiciously, taking her time to answer.
“That’s a pretty tidy sum mister. I’d kill for it. I’d fuck for it. Hell, I guess there isn’t much I wouldn’t do for that much.”
“What if I asked you to spend the night in this room with me and do whatever sexual act I asked you to perform? Anything. Would you do that for the money?”
“Well, make it ten thousand and you have a deal.” she said leering at him cheaply
“And what if I brought somebody else into the room and asked you to do terrible things to them?”
“What do you mean, sex stuff?” she asked
“No Marla, I mean abuse, torture, slow death.”
Marla sat down on the bed and cocked her head in thought.
“Yeah mister, I reckon I would. We are talking about ten thousand right? For ten thousand I’d fuck somebody up good. Do you have somebody in mind?”
Lorcan marvelled at her utter lack of any morals or conscience. He had been alive for two thousand years and had seen this depravity countless times. For the past two hundred years or so he would occasionally play this little game with them to see if he could find a criminal who had any limits to their greed. He had found none. It seemed that despite the human race’s advancement in so many areas, they never seemed to actually evolve. He so looked forward to the night when this little play would result in his finding a human flawed, but not totally bankrupt. In the meantime it was satisfying to kill them and rid the earth of their particular repugnance. Before Marla could move, Lorcan had pounced on her and ripped out her throat, feeding on the warm nectar flowing through her veins.
But now it was time to go. As far as Lorcan knew, he was the only vampire jazz musician in the world. He had loved music all his life and had been a musician as a human adult. Of course music and its practice, was very different then. During all the years of his immortal life he had been fascinated with the music of various countries and idioms. He was from Ireland and had eventually moved through Europe settling in different cities for extended periods. He had studied and played lute in England and Italy learned about village music in Turkey and Bulgaria, and settled in Vienna during Mozart’s time. He had studied with Mozart and Beethoven, and other great musicians and composers through the centuries and had mastered several instruments and even written some well known symphonies under a pseudonym. The problem was that as a vampire he possessed advanced abilities including enhanced hearing and ultra fast reflexes. He was also a great mimic. On one hand these abilities made him capable of virtuostic performance, but on the other it was difficult, even more s than for humans, for him to express genuine feeling and immediacy in his playing.
The advent of American jazz helped to change that. Here was a form that required the player to express a truly individual approach. To put technique and viruosity in the service of communicating a truly personal message to the audience. Playing jazz allowed him to immerse himself in the practice of learning to express himself truly. To develop his ‘own sound’. He was hooked. Over the course of the twentieth century he was active in the early Chicago school, the classic big bands, the bebop scene of the forties and fifties, right up to the present. He could not afford to maintain any kind of celebrity or high profile, but he toured the backwaters playing small clubs with local rhythm sections, blowing his alto saxophone like a pro. And that was how he happened to be in Biloxi, Mississippi this fine evening.
Normally he would rise at dusk, go out for a stroll, then hunt. He didn’t particularly enjoy killing humans as he had during the first thousand or so years of his vampire existence. It was enjoyable to put a pathetic creature like Marla out of its misery, but the enjoyment was no longer in the sheer act of killing. However, a vampire did have to eat. So, he tried as much as possible to find the worst of the worst for his meals. Murderers, thieves, pimps and the like were fair game. He generally left prostitutes alone unless they were killers too. He never killed musicians or artists no matter how hungry he was or how much one of them might offend him.
He grabbed Marla and with supernatural speed ran across the gravel parking lot and across the highway to the woods on the other side. No one had been around, but even if they had, he had been moving too fast for a human to see. It took him about fifteen seconds to dig a five foot deep hole, pitch the body in, and refill it. Now it was on to the club.
As he walked into Bing’s Hideaway he spotted the bass player at the bar. He had just met the band the evening before and didn’t want to seem too familiar. Humans could be weird, but jazz musicians could be really weird. He said hello to the bass player, ordered a drink and took a seat to wait for start time. He was suddenly aware that another vampire was in the club. He wheeled around on his barstool to survey the room and there in the back corner he spotted her. Gwen.
She was stunning. Five feet tall with dark auburn hair and delicate features. A classic beauty. He hadn’t seen her in a few hundred years. She had been made about ten years after him, probably by the same vampire, Byrne, who roved the Irish coast in those days. One night while he had been out hunting, they had crossed paths. Over the next couple of years they both hunted the villages of what is now County Cork, frequently spending their evenings walking the green hills together. Being newly made, they didn’t know that vampires cannot really be friends or lovers, but they play at both. It never ends well and it hadn’t ended well for them. Even after trying several times. They had finally gone their separate ways in 1235 but did run into each other intermittently, sometimes never speaking, sometimes bickering and fighting. Now here she was. He wasn’t sure what her feelings toward him were. There had been resentments, the fights, and some blood, though it had all been so long ago. However, he knew that she could really hold a grudge. She glanced at him and nodded slightly then pulled out the chair next to her, signalling him to join her.
Lorcan moved to the table cautiously and sat down beside her, bending and kissing her on the cheek as he sat.
“Hello Gwen. It has been a long time. What brings you to Biloxi?”
“Hello Lorcan. I’ve been following your career for the past few years with interest. I thought it might be nice to tour the South and come see you. I heard you on a record a few years ago. Great playing, and handsome as ever darling.”
“Why thank you. And as usual, you are quite fetching. I’m flattered, and somewhat surprised, that you even think of me anymore, much less follow my career. I hope you haven’t come to settle some old score or anything. I thought we had put all of that in the past.” he said
Suddenly the musicians, who had mounted the stage, began to tune up and adjust their instruments.
“I’m sorry Gwen. I have to get on stage. We’ll talk later?”
“Absolutely.”
Lorcan grabbed his alto out of its case and headed for the stage. After an opening blues number, the band played Dizzy Gillespie’s ‘Be Bop’ at a very accelerated tempo, then ‘Body and Soul’, a ballad. The piano player stood and came to the microphone to introduce the band. After the introductions he said “Ladies and gentlemen, tonight we have a guest in the house who is going to join us for a number or two. Please welcome Gwen Birnie.” She came onstage and approached the mic gazing evenly at Lorcan and carrying a tenor saxophone..
“This is a surprise, but I’m sure that was the intention” he said
“We’ve had our problems in the past and it took a long time to get over them” she said. “But I thought it might be fun to do some metaphorical blood letting without tormenting each other with claws and fangs. Tonight, we have an old fashion cutting session!”
And with that she turned and counted off ‘Cherokee’ at about 300 mm.
Comments