The Vampire Always Bites Twice | Wattys 2022 Grand Prize Winner

2

Madame Margarita,  ̶R̶e̶f̶o̶r̶m̶e̶d̶ Necromancer

Oh God. Oh shit. Oh fuck no.

Blood oozed, juicy and red, from her bloated puffer coat. It covered her hands. My coffee table. Under her nails.

"Don't be dead," I jammed my fingers into her jugular over and over, trying to find a pulse she didn't have. "No!"

One of the girl's eyes was wide open still. The other was closed in a ghoulish wink. Gotcha, the corpse might as well have said.

A potted plant flew over my head. A restless ghost with a good arm and jealous for attention, no doubt.

"Go back to hell! I don't have time for you!"

I heard a scream. A women's, faint, and angry, and echoing. The room stayed cold. Yeah, I didn't think that would make the ghost piss off. Just pissed off.

I released the girl. She slumped over on her side, smearing my rug. I nudged her onto her back and ripped open her coat zipper. The garment was so heavy. Drenched with blood. The pillowy pockets must have been absorbing all the while she sat here. And the wound in her side was, well, gnarly.

She'd been torn open. Just under her ribs. Pink sweater shredded and now a gory red.

"Why didn't you call a fucking ambulance!" I screamed at her.

I wiped some blood and wool away from the angry wounds. She didn't flinch. The gash was ragged. Her skin thrashed and shredded. It would have hurt, bad, if she could still feel it.

What had done this?

Why did she come here?

What will I do when the mortal cops come... or worse, the Magistrate?

"Gritty's tits!" I yelled.

The cat ignored me, instead swatting at whatever hidden entity was loitering near my refrigerator. "I can't let her die in my shop, Grumpkin," I panted.

My eyes fell on my first aid kit.

I ripped open another needle pack with my teeth. Fumbling with the plunger, I didn't even bother with the alcohol pad. I hadn't done this in a while, to be honest. I mean, not to a person. But necromancy was like riding a bike, am I right?

My cat hissed. Loud.

I yanked the needle out of my arm and stabbed it into the dead girl's neck.

The shadows in the corners of the room grew heavy. I focused my will, carried through my blood, into her body. Her neck pulsed once. I whispered to her. The dead girl. Prayers and chants and promises from the darkness. The veil between the Netherworld and that of the living thinned. Voices of spirits longing to escape their afterlife echoed, their bony and invisible fingers picking hungrily at my flesh. But I was not summoning any lost souls tonight. My only desire was to restore life to this girl. This stupid, fragile, crazy girl.

I laid an anchoring palm on her cooling chest. Beneath it, I could feel her spirit, like a balloon, beginning to float away from her. I pressed down, hard, shoving the girl's ghost back inside her bone bag like I was shoving clothes in an overstuffed drawer.

Then I felt a frigid hand encircle my wrist. It yanked, hard, throwing me off the girl and on top my back. "No! Get out of here! Leave her alone! ¡Vete! ¡Dejala!"

The restless spirits didn't let up. Of course. They scratched at me with their invisible talons, pressing me into the floor, as I swung blindly back.

With a yowl, a ball of black fur hurled itself at me. Grumpkin's claw sank into my chest. He hissed and the cold hands holding me dispersed, their wails ringing in my head. Grumpkin leapt off me and scurried beneath the chaise.

"Good boy!"

I popped up, slamming my hands back onto the dead girl's chest.

I focused my will on her—this girl I didn't even know. I didn't want anyone else. Not a dead former tenant of my building, not Cary Grant, again, and not the wailing bitch she'd tried to summon for pixie dust even knows why, why, why would a girl bleeding to death go to the local fortune teller to summon some other dead person—

With a violent gasp, the girl woke, pushing me off her.

A flare of pain exploded in the back of my skull and the world went black.

Speak Philadelphian: Gritty [gri-tee]. Hero. Scoundrel. Elder God and Eldritch Horror. Orange. Googly eyes. Patron Saint of the city of Philadelphia.