Amateur Ambulance Ride

It might have been fine if it had been Grace's left knee that had gotten racked up. As long as she could use her right foot, she could work both pedals on the Plymouth and guide the huge car through the quiet streets of Chicago, then get to shelter before the sun came up. With a little luck, she could have managed it.

But nooooo, instead Slutty McFucksalot had targeted her right knee, which was why she was now in the backseat of the vehicle hoping like hell Melinda had gotten that voicemail. Her knee felt like it was twice its normal size by now, and she'd cut the seam of her pants open to give it room. She had found a bottle of Stoli in the glove compartment, and that seemed to be taking some of the edge off, but still, not good. The vampire lifted the glass container to her mouth, took a swig of vodka, poked at her wounded leg. At the least, she was going to have to get the car dealt with so some over-zealous cop didn't take it for abandoned and have it towed.

Hopefully she could beat the sun. It would all be moot if she ended up as a pile of ashes.

Urban sounds bloated the air outside the old Plymouth: distant sirens and accelerating cars, unfettered pieces of trash in the gutters, the underlying buzz of current through power lines. If one listened closely enough, even Grace's movements on the car seats, her raw-throat curses floating out the windows. After a time, steps joined the nighttime symphony, clipped and so sure-footed that they seemed to grind the flecks of asphalt mica into dust. Whomever it was, he knew where he was going.

Darian pushed up his sleeve and checked his wristwatch. He saw that sun-up wasn't a pressing danger, so the nature of the vampire's distress signal wasn't immediately clear, but he sensed it anyway. Need. Need bred opportunity. He thought he recognized the vehicle, and when he leaned down at the rear window and rapped on the glass, he knew why.

"You're sending a flare a mile high." The maker of deals took in the bottle, the propped leg with its fluid-filled kneecap. "Did you neglect to pay back your loan shark?"

"A funny thing happened on the way home from a murder scene," Grace said, head lolled back against the door. Her eyes were closed, determinedly so. "I gave her some of the what-for before the cops showed up. Not as good as last time, but almost."

The vampire opened one eye, scrutinized Darian through the half-open window. "I don't think my ride's gonna show. Fucking cellphones, as much as people carry them around you'd think they'd be reliable. Guess it got left at home or somethin'." She took another, more judicious drink from the bottle, pointed the neck at the demon. "Want some?"

The open bottle wafted a scent of Russian vodka. At the offer to drink without benefit of a glass, over the back seat of an outdated American car, his mouth twisted to one side. "I have trouble thinking of anything more classless. I'll pass." Perhaps it was a function of his late mystical trouble, but Darian was committed to minimizing personal embarrassment, for the time being.

He drummed his fingers on the frame of the car. A film of city dust faded the paint job. "Which one was it?" he asked, squinting under the orange streetlamp. "Ms. Lehane or Ms. Lee?" He might assume a newer member of the chosen ranks, but he decided to give Grace more credit than getting banged up by a do-gooder so green.

"Well, more for me," Grace replied, unruffled because having the shit knocked out of her was higher on her list of things to worry about than Darian's fastidiousness. "And it was that jailbird trash," she elaborated. "Last I heard she was wettin' herself just hearing about me. They forget so quickly. I'm gonna hafta re-educate that one. Take that stake from her and break it off in her right eye socket."

Her knee twinged, and she cursed under her lack of breath before examining the damage under the glow of the street light. She arranged herself a little more comfortably on the wide seat of the Plymouth, wondering where she could get a pair of crutches. She was going to have to lay in the cut for a few nights at least. No way was she going to be a lame duck for somebody to come along and finish off so easily.

"So are you working hard or hardly working?"

Privately, he thought it a shame Grace couldn't get along with the prison-friendly Slayer; when they met, he took a bemused sort of liking to her bravado and impulsive way of flinging herself at the world (and its inhabitants), ill-advised though it may be. That one wouldn't live to see her fortieth, he guessed. "You're not so different, but I think you know that," Darian said, straightening up and looking down the street.

"Officially, I was on the clock," he said and pocketed his hands. "Until a minute ago, when I realized who you were." Darian, who exhibited no real interest in automobiles, backed up to inspect hers. "Business is booming."

The vampire let out a very soft growl, eyes turning a yellow that was dulled by pain and booze. "Funny, she didn't seem to care for the notion when I pointed it out to her."

She shifted again, got a look at her watch. A few hours until sunup. After holding the bottle up where she could see the level of vodka left in it, she reluctantly found the cap and screwed it back into place. Her leg hurt, the wound in her stomach was throbbing, and she could smell the drying blood in the interior of the car. The tip of her tongue appeared between her teeth, and she ducked her head so that she could see Darian standing in the street.

"Are you busy now?"

"What would you expect, humble gratitude?" The lower portion of his face worked itself into a smile, however short-lived. Balancing on one foot, Darian toed a scuff on the rear quarterpanel of the car, intending to find out if it was dirt or body damage. The vampire didn't seem the sort to drive a car carefully; she was utilitarian.

"I'm not busy," he told her. The scent of blood aroused his curiosity, so he approached the window and bent down, searching for the source of it. He saw the dark spot on her shirt and went so far as to reach inside and prod the gash, as if testing for protruding intestines. "Are you going to ask me to play field nurse?"

Grace made a noise and slapped Darian's hand away, not entirely playfully. "I presume you can drive a car," she said testily, picking the cloth of her shirt away from the wound so she could inspect it. It was still oozing, but it was already mostly closed. She was going to have to clean it out when she got back to the house, then bandage it up cleanly. Christ only knew how rusted that metal might have been. The Stolli got an almost wistful look, and then she set the bottle down in the floorboards.

"If I can just get my ass indoors so I can wipe some of the blood off, I can take care of it myself. But my knee's all screwed up and I can't pilot this thing right now." The vampire set her teeth together, looking up at the roof of the car. She had never asked Darian for anything before, had never had to, and she wasn't really wild about having to now. But sometimes things had to be done, especially when her choices were so limited. Grace cleared her throat, the noise like a cough.

"If you'd not mind, I'd consider it a favor."

"Grace." The demon cocked his head to one side. "I'm offended that you think I keep a tally."

Darian withdrew his hand and wiped the blood on a clean handkerchief. The wind played with the corners, meticulous seams done at right angles on a high thread count. Once he got rid of the worst, he flipped it inside-out and tucked it in a coat pocket. "Where are your keys?"

The door opened on a whine of mechanical parts and he got behind the wheel. It took him a minute to get used to the set-up. Driving a vehicle was at least a two-year-old memory, but older cars weren't difficult to figure out.

There was the sound of creaking leather, both Grace's jacket and the Plymouth's upholstery, and she sat up enough to extend her hand in Darian's direction. A keyring dangled from between her thumb and index finger, and she placed it in the Dealmaker's palm as gently as if she were handing him something made of the thinnest glass imaginable. She studied the demon in profile for a second, then eased back against the seat, looking at her leg somewhat balefully.

"She's a tough bitch, like me," she said, a note of muted pride in her voice. "Runs damned good for an old beast too. They used to make real cars, not like these plastic boxes people drive today. Not everything changes for the better."

The vampire scrubbed at her forehead, aggravated and hurting. Maybe next time she'd just bring a gun and finish off Little Miss Faith for good. See if a Chosen One could survive a bullet in the head. "You don't care that much about cars, do ya?"

The demon's legs outstretched hers by a few inches, which meant his body was pinned uncomfortably against the steering column. He hunkered down and felt for the lever to move the front seat back. "What was your first hint?" After a moment, the seat slid on the track.

Darian sorted through the keyring and inserted the proper one into the ignition. He cranked it and the motor roared a few times as he tested the gas pedal. He adjusted the rearview mirror and looked at the place where Grace's reflection should've been. "I've been in this form since 1692. I'm more comfortable on horseback than on a highway," he said. Most of the time, he didn't need either.

He flipped on the headlights and pulled onto the road.

She imagined that for a second, the Dealmaker on a big black horse galloping across some big open space. She even put a tricorn hat and a powdered wig on him. That made her laugh, which made her stomach hurt, and so she stopped after a minute. "Everything was cars when I was alive," she said once she'd sobered. "Whose went the fastest, whose had the most chrome, who could outrun the fuzz on a dirt road in the middle of the night with no headlights. Good times."

She squinted through the window at the buildings going by, tried not to poke at the hole in her stomach. "Did you come over here with Columbus and those guys? Somehow I can't imagine you as the explorer type. More like a land speculator."

The wide seat was surprisingly comfortable, and even when they passed over a couple of potholes she only grunted before re-arranging herself for less discomfort. She was still just about ready to go home and pass out, though, let herself heal. Unlive to fight another day.

"Columbus was 1492," he said, cutting the empty mirror a pitying look. "And no, I didn't leave Europe until the 1920s, and then it was to St. Louis." He steered the car into another lane and kept his route straight until instructed to turn. At least she didn't picture him on horseback and run it all the way to an American southwest scenario with rope and cattle.

"But interesting you should mention that," he said, but didn't further elaborate on his real estate prospects in Lincoln Park because, for the moment, he was struck by the disturbing similarity of himself to a taxi driver. All that the situation lacked was a running meter. He frowned. Perhaps she owed him a favor, after all.

"I know when Columbus came over, handsome," Grace said with a raspy chuckle. Where the hell had her smokes gotten to? "I did go to school. I meant in general." Change in her jacket pockets made noise as she dug a crumpled pack of Marlboros out, then tried to get one lit. The sound of the engine was familiar and soothing despite her injured state, and she exhaled bluish smoke before leaving the cigarette dangling out of her mouth. At least she could have a nicotine fix in spite of all this other shit.

"What was St. Louis like?" she asked randomly. "I passed through there a couple of times, but it was a bit after the twenties. Was it durin' Prohibition?"

"I thought you went to school." Darian couldn't resist a dry jab. He depressed the brake at a stop light and brought the car to a slow, lumbering roll. "Yes, it was during prohibition. St. Louis was fine." There was something unpleasantly tight about the way he said that, an association he preferred not to make. "I stayed a while longer than originally planned, which is how things usually go wrong." The light went green and he accelerated across the intersection.

"In 1492, I didn't speak a human language," he added, getting back to the other topic. "Which would've made land prospecting a challenge, and I admit to being more interested in exploiting people than places." He thought to what the vampire said about fast cars and dirt roads in her youth. "When you were alive, were you interested in cars, Grace?" It was beyond him to picture her as a skirt-wearing, feminine type of woman from that era, more eager to investigate what happened on top of car hoods than underneath them.

"And sometimes the boys who drove them."

She was looking out the window, casting her thoughts down the years as she looked for the memory of it. "Make the next right," she added absently. The landmarks were getting familiar. "Sometimes the older guys would race on the backroads for pride, just to see who could beat who. It was about the only fun there was in those days, at least where I grew up. I'd go out and watch 'em roar back and forth, spend the afternnoons watching the dirt fly up from their tires."

The vampire looked at the back of Darian's head, watched the night breeze ruffle his thick dark hair. "If I try real hard, I can still remember how the sun felt. It's like somethin' that happened to somebody else most of the time."

"But you like your sire. That's interesting," he said, steering the car onto a different road, its headlights illuminating the building fronts. When Darian met him in a bar and got a good look at the vampire, questions he had about her began to come into focus. He tried to drum up the memory of what Grace had called the roughneck who turned up in Las Vegas a couple of years before.

Right. Her lovin' man. The idea of that made his mouth turn down, as if tasting something sour. If his own lover ever attached such a nickname to him, Darian thought, he would wrestle her down and cram a bar of soap in her beautiful mouth. "Why were you so eager to leave the mortal coil?"

"Well, there are boys and then there are boys," Grace clarified, ignoring the set of Darian's mouth. "Ruben is somethn' separate, someone separate. But yeah, I do like him, he's good. He was a farmer's boy from Oklahoma, the Depression scattered his people and he ended up on a bread line. His sire got dusted before I was ever around. He's got this way of just..."

Her voice drifted off into nothingness, and after a second she released a snicker into the dimness of the car's interior. "Well, never mind, you don't wanna hear about that. He's just different from most other boys 'cause he made me." The car rolled over a patch of rough pavement, and she grabbed the interior door handle, letting out a grunt of pain. Knees were always a bitch, and the last things to heal. She hoped she didn't end up with a permanent limp from this.

"And I wasn't 'eager'," the vampire said, making quote marks in the air with her fingers. "I was...I'd gotten hostile. We don't all have the good fortune to magic ourselves into the lives we want. Some of us have to choose a harder path."

Good fortune? That was a radical take on it, but what did the vampire know of aspiring to be more than how she started, of deals made with men who reneged upon the terms, of spending over a hundred years in metaphysical servitude? Whatever talents Darian possessed to 'magic' himself into the existence he wanted, he gained them by crook or by hook.

"That sounded pointed, Grace." A glance of hazel eyes into the mirror; Darian couldn't see her, but he knew the vampire saw him. "Be careful. You wouldn't want to presume to know everything." The car ran over another pothole, which could've been avoided, had he the inclination to serve on her behalf. He was perfectly content to roll in a straight, bumpy line and call it choosing the harder path.

Grace cursed virulently, profanity escaping from her mouth as naturally as oxygen would have if she had needed it. Her knuckles whitened as she gripped the door handle, and she adjusted the position of her leg again once the ride had smoothed out. "All right, you sumbitch, it ain't necessary to do that to make a point, if'n that's what you're doin'. I wasn't contrastin' and comparin', not really. But no spell made me what I am, even you'll admit that."

The neighborhood was improving, rundown businesses giving way to upper-middle class homes, and the vampire said, "It's the next left, and then one more right before you reach my driveway. For someone who doesn't like cars, you're a damned good driver. Ever give racing a shot?"

It was his opinion that Grace should thank her lucky stars for that fortune. Creation by something other than magic made it harder to reverse it by the same; the threat of reversal hung over him for centuries. But his general lack of respect for vampires -- there were notable, but few, exceptions -- meant he was grateful for not coming by his species her way, either.

"Why would I do that," he wanted to know, "When I could blink and be at the finish line?"

Darian made the left and right turns and came upon her driveway. He steered the automobile into the small avenue and brought it to a stop. The gear shift click-clicked into park, the engine rumbling to a subdued halt. On an index finger, he offered the ring over his shoulder, the keys making a tinny sound as they collided together. "Cheer up, Grace. It looks as if you won't have to sleep in the trunk after all."

"Everybody says 'why.' Me, I say 'why not.' When you have forever, you might as well try everything at least once."

Grace reached over the seat, took the keys out of Darian's hand. They rattled again as she put them in her pocket, and after some manuevering she managed to get the door open and herself out of the backseat. Six steps up to the door. Six steps had never looked like so much work. The vampire turned so that she could face the demon through the Plymouth's window.

"Thank you, Darian." It was almost formal the way she said it, because she didn't give thanks that often, but this had been an extreme circumstance. And she actually liked the bastard anyway, as much as she was capable of liking anyone. "If you need anyone's head busted, you know where to find me as soon as I'm back to a hundred percent."

After climbing out of the automobile, he gave her the slightest dip of his head, a mockery of a bow for a lady, and shut the heavy door. "Right. If the need arose for violence, you'd be the first person I thought of, besides of course myself." Darian stuck a hand inside his coat pocket and produced a brown prescription bottle with a white cap and no pharmacy label. A half-dozen painkillers large enough to choke a horse clattered inside. He tossed them at the vampire.

"I wouldn't mix those with Russian vodka, unless you're in the mood for a coma. Good night, Grace." Leaving her to fend for herself with the steps, he put his hands in his trouser pockets and walked back down her driveway.

She caught the bottle one handed, the other gripping the railing. "Good night, Darian." She held up the bottle, looked at the contents under the glow of the streetlamp, then turned and began to use the railing to haul herself up the stairs, putting as little weight on her bad knee as possible. Fucking bitch, she was going to run Faith down with the car the next time she saw her. A few tons of rolling steel should put the Slayer in her place, that was for damned sure.

First, though, sleep and healing. The thought of bed had never been so welcoming, even if there was no one to share it with tonight. Grace fumbled with the door keys, unlocked the house and let herself in. The door banged shut in her wake, and there was the sound of locks engaging. She would take two of the pills, then crash. It had been one hell of a long night.