Mercy's Debt

SIX



I came to minutes later, momentarily confused by the taupe ceiling above me. I nearly forgot where I was until I discovered the three sets of spectral eyes peering down at me anxiously.

Michael was at my side in an instant. “Are you alright, dear?” he said. The doting grandmother was back.

I sat up. “I’m fine. Really,” I said. “You took me by surprise is all.”

Stephano and Marlena stared at me like I was a poisonous creature about to pounce.

I still couldn’t process what I had just witnessed. I just couldn’t. I needed a moment to think.

I sat in silence, taking a few cleansing breaths. Once I felt relatively whole again, I lifted the cup off the coffee table, gulping down what was left of my cappuccino. My three companions gaped at me in amazement.

“Okay,” I said, pulling down the skirt of my dress. “Assuming that I haven’t lost my mind, and that I’m not hallucinating, let me try to get this straight. You three are… vampires?” I felt ridiculous even saying the word.

Michael nodded. “Yes, and-”

I held up my hand and shushed him. Stephano let out a chuckle. This amused him, me silencing Michael.

“Right. So, as I was saying, the three of you are vampires, you run a business for other vampires, and you want me to work for you as chaperone to these vampires. Is that right?”

Michael and Marlena nodded. Stephano smiled. “I like her,” he smirked. “She’s a spitfire.”

Taking no notice of him, I continued. “What I don’t understand is what you need me for. Why would any vampire want to hang out with a human, if not to eat them?”

“That’s a very good question,” Marlena said. Her voice was one of a politician. “As you can imagine, vampires wish to continue going unnoticed. However, with the advent of technology like the internet and camera phones, it’s becoming more and more difficult for us to remain underground.”

“Wait,” I interrupted. “How many of you are there?” I had so many questions that I wanted answered, now feeling more curious than scared.

Marlena shrugged. “I honestly don’t know how many vampires there are in the world. I imagine that there are thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands.”

“I don’t believe it,” I murmured.

“Oh, believe it, Mercy,” Stephano chimed in. “We’re everywhere. Most humans don’t tend to notice us, as we can only come out after sunset.”

“That whole bit about you guys going up in flames in the sunlight is true?”

“I am afraid so,” Michael answered.

“Now, as far as why we want you to work for us,” Marlena said, keeping us on topic, “let’s just say that humans help us blend in with mainstream society.”

“In what way?” I asked.

“As I mentioned before,” Michael said, “our clients are extremely wealthy. And with great wealth comes obligations. Dignitary clients have benefit dinners and galas that they must continuously attend. These are events which are typically hosted by human-owned businesses, and are only for the uber rich. You see, many vampires have acquired great wealth because we have been alive for so long. As such, the humans we typically mix with are also-”

“Loaded,” I said.

“Exactly. Honestly, Mercy, you would be surprised to learn how many wholesome household brands are actually owned by vampire CEO’s,” Michael smiled. “Certainly, there are impoverished vampires, too, just as there are rich humans and poor humans. Anyhow, without further digression, and to answer your question, having a human at our side allows us to maintain our façade. Some vampires can easily pass for humans, while others appear more… unearthly. Whatever the case, when we have a living, breathing human at our side, we stand out less amongst our human associates. ”

I mulled this over. “I guess that makes sense. Do any other humans- other than the ones working for Dignitary- know of your existence?”

“A few do, yes,” Marlena said, jumping in. “But it’s only at the vampire’s discretion. This is also why we have a need for chaperones. Most humans feel ill-at-ease when they’re alone with a vampire, particularly when discussing business matters. The chaperones that we provide act as buffers, serving the purpose of alleviating the stress humans feel at corporate proceedings like contract signings.”

“That is not to say, though,” Michael interjected, “that our chaperones only go to places where other humans will be present. You may sometimes go to vampire-only venues and be the only living person in the room. As strange as it sounds, having a human on your arm is a bit of a status symbol in the vampire world.”

“Really? Why is that?” I asked.

“Think about it,” Michael answered. “To vampires, humans are the exotic creatures. Sure, we encounter them every night, but do we ever get to really interact with them? No.”

“Okay…”

“What I am about to say may sound horrible to you, Mercy, but I swear to you that I am not intending it as such. For a vampire to have a human at their side is on par with a human possessing an exotic beast, like a tiger. Although vampires were once human themselves, some may have been turned so long ago that they have forgotten what it is like. As such, vampires want to be close to you, to learn about you. We are envious of humans in many ways: how they can eat food, drink wine, and walk in the sun. It gets a little lonely and monotonous, only associating with other vampires.”

“Hmm,” I murmured. Everything made sense when he explained it that way. Vampires sounded like such a sad species. I kind of felt sorry for them, feeling regretful about the way that I’d reacted during Stephano’s big ceiling reveal.

“Also, because our clients know that you are aware of what they truly are, they can be themselves,” Michael said. “You have no idea how tiring it is for us to have to constantly make up excuses about why we are not eating, why we are so pale, and why we can only have meetings at night. Humans can be so nosey, no offense. With a hired human around- again, I am not trying to be derogatory with such straightforward terminology- we have a built-in scapegoat. We can blame our inability to meet before sundown on your work schedule, and explain away our lack of appetite by claiming that we have already dined with you.”

“While we’re on the subject of dining…” I ventured. “To borrow your terminology, Michael, I intend no offense by what I’m about to ask. The thing is, though, I’m a little concerned about my safety. Have your vampire clients every, umm, bitten any of your chaperones?”

Michael, Marlena, and Stephano snickered in unison. The back of my neck prickled in embarrassment. I thought that it was a valid question.

“Oh, heavens no!” Michael chuckled. “No, we vampires sorted out our feeding problems long ago. We buy our plasma at blood banks just as humans go to the grocery store to buy milk. It has not always been that way, but throughout the centuries vampires have needed to evolve in order to keep up with the times. We cannot just go around killing people; there would be repercussions. It is the same for humans. That is not to say that some vampires do not slipup from time to time, just like humans do. But none of our clients ever have. Not once in the ninety-seven years that we have been in business.”

I still had my doubts. It sounded a little too packaged and perfect. “So, nobody has even been hurt, then?”

Stephano opened his mouth to answer, but Marlena delivered him a brutal assault of dagger eyes, silencing him promptly. Michael and Marlena exchanged a quick nonverbal dialogue that only husband and wife seem to be capable of having.

Michael looked deflated. “I guess there is no point in hiding this,” he said. “If you do end up working for us, you are going to hear it from one of the other chaperones anyway. I rather you hear it from me, so at the very least your opinion of vampires will not be tainted by their speculations. Some of the chaperones have quite vivid imaginations.”

This did not sound good. I knew there had to be a catch (well, in addition to the whole vampire part).

“Umm, okay,” I said.

“Throughout the years,” Michael continued unhappily, “a few girls have disappeared. Before you ask, no, none of them have ever disappeared while chaperoning our clients.”

“What happened to them?” My voice was almost a whisper.

Michael shrugged. “I honestly do not know. One day they were here, working for us regularly as a chaperone. The next- poof- they were gone. Honestly, Mercy, it breaks my heart because I do not know what became of any of them. There have been four girls who have vanished throughout the years: one in 1924, one in 1963, one in 1985, and then the last one.”

I shuttered. “When did the last one disappear, Michael?” I asked.

“She- Penelope- vanished just last month.”

Last month!

“I am telling you, Mercy, it was like she literally disappeared from the face of the earth. Everything she owned was left inside her apartment: clothes, furniture, wallet, and even an envelope filled with five thousand dollars in cash.”

He dabbed at his eyes self-consciously. “Sorry,” he muttered. “She worked for us for a little over three years. I thought of her like a daughter.”

After he composed himself, I softly asked, “What makes you think that vampires had nothing to do with the disappearance? It seems like too much of a coincidence.”

“We are talking about only four girls vanishing in a time span of almost ninety years, Mercy,” Marlena said dismissively. “I’m sure even human businesses have had a few employees go missing during the same amount of time.”

“I guess so,” I said, not convinced. I’m sure she wouldn’t think of it as “only” if she’d been the one to disappear.

“There is what Marlena said,” Michael piped in, “plus the fact that vampires have no reason to hurt our employees. Our chaperones unequivocally know that they are going to be associating with vampires, and the vampires know just as equally that they will be associating with humans. So, it is not as if the chaperones will be exposed to some detail that they did not already know that would then make a vampire want to harm them. When a person is a chaperone for Dignitary, and when a client hires one, both parties are in the know. Vampires no longer have their secrets to hide.”

“Furthermore,” Marlena chimed in, “some of the girls didn’t exactly have their heads glued on straight.” She rolled her eyes, accentuating her point.

Her frequent interruptions were really starting to piss me off. I thought I’d made it abundantly clear that I’d directed my question to Michael. Her superior tone also left something to be desired. It didn’t take a fortune teller to see that she believed she possessed a superior intellect to everyone in the room, maybe even everyone on the planet for that matter. I’d gone to Dewhurst; it wasn’t the first time I’d encountered a person who behaved in such a manner.

I gave up on liking the woman. I figured that I’d done my civic duty for the greater good of womankind by giving Marlena, a fellow female, the benefit of the doubt. I couldn’t help it if she was turning out to be a real bitch.

“What do you mean?” I asked pleasantly, cocking my head to one side.

“Umm…” she faltered, surprised by my question. It didn’t take her long to recover. “Raquel, the girl who vanished back in the twenties, was a bit unpredictable. She was a stage actress, always chasing her next big break in Hollywood. She was sweet, but a bit naïve. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’d landed herself in a mess with a crooked man who claimed to be a director. It wasn’t uncommon for actresses to disappear back then. A lot of unscrupulous men took advantage.”

“Poor girl,” I said.

“Indeed,” Marlena responded with the utmost insincerity. She drummed her chin with her blood red lacquered fingernails. “Oh, then there was Daisy, the girl who went missing in the sixties. She was a beautiful little thing, but such a flake. Anyway, she was always hitching rides and hopping on tour buses, so no telling what happened to her.”

The woman had an answer for everything.

It was evident that both Michael and Stephano didn’t exactly buy into Marlena’s propaganda, but they remained quiet. I didn’t blame them. I’d hate to tangle with her, too.

Something told me that Marlena had a knack for rebuking those who dared to contradict her. Her demeanor made me think of a program on rainforest animals I’d once watched on Discovery Channel. At one point during the show, a gorgeous black panther glided into view. The film crew halted as the camera man gasped, “Nobody move! This is one beautiful but ferocious beast that is best left alone. One wrong move and she could very easily claw our faces off.”

That was Marlena; magnificent but lethal, and willing to tear the face off of anyone who got in her way.

I was done chatting. I’d have been crushed if I permitted Marlena to shovel any more of her bullshit on me.

“Okay, so let’s say that you’ve convinced me and I want to become a Dignitary chaperone. How would I be paid?”

Michael clasped his hands together, smiling. “Oh, yes, the money! You probably want to know how much you will be paid, correct?” he asked rhetorically. “You would be our full-fledged, taxed employee. You would work for us under the guise of being our personal assistant or something of that nature. Obviously you cannot exactly state that you are a vampire chaperone on your W-2, now can you?”

I grinned. “I never thought of that, but you’re right.”

“You appear surprised, but I can assure you that we run a very legitimate business. We pay our taxes just like every other American. It helps, of course, that we have vampire associates who work at the IRS. Most humans think that the IRS is run by a bunch of bloodsuckers anyway, but they really do not know how true that actually is.” He chortled at his own joke.

“Okay, so I’d be paid… Hourly? Weekly?” The suspense was killing me. I’d pretty much already resigned myself to accepting the job- money was money after all, even if it came from the hand of a vampire- but I wasn’t just going to work for peanuts.

“You would be paid bi-weekly, like you would at any ‘normal’ job. We pay two hundred dollars an hour, and you would usually work a five hour shift two or three times a week.”

I quickly did the math. That was a salary of $8000 to $12,000 a month; on the low end it was nearly a six-figure yearly income. That was more than what most PhD psychologists made. I did a mental cartwheel. I could pay my debt down in no time.

“I’m sorry, did I hear you right? T-two hundred dollars an hour?” I stuttered. “And, to clarify, there is absolutely no sex of any kind involved? I’d just be hanging out with vampires?”

Michael smiled politely. “That is right. Like I said before, we do not run a brothel. I may be many things, Mercy, but I am no pimp.”

Backpedaling, I quickly said, “I wasn’t trying to offend you, Michael- any of you for that matter- but that just seems like an exorbitant amount of money.”

“What you asked was a fair question, Mercy,” Michael smiled, clearly accustomed to such an inquiry. “We pay excessively for a few reasons, but our main motive in doing so is to buy your silence, so to speak. With the amount that we pay, we feel fairly confident that you will not risk your job by blabbing to your human acquaintances about us being vampires.”

He paused, shifting in his seat uncomfortably. “That is our number one rule at Dignitary, by the way,” he continued. “Under no condition can you tell anyone- not even your family or closest friends- about what you do, not for the rest of your life. This rule is not in place just for our safety, but for yours, too. If you even allude to other humans that you have proof of vampirism, you will be placing your life in danger. The vampire community, as much as we adore human companionship, will absolutely not tolerate treachery of any sort. I must warn you that some vampires can read minds, and many will listen to your thoughts to discern whether or not you have been talking.”

I gulped. They could read minds. I wondered if any of them were prying into my thoughts at that moment.

“Got it. No blabbing,” I confirmed. Good thing I didn’t know a lot of people that I could accidentally spill the beans to.

“Another reason we pay well,” Michael continued, “is because you would be doing more than merely hanging out, to use your words. We recruit our chaperones because they are smart, attractive, articulate, and can handle themselves in all sorts of situations and around all sorts of vampires. We know that you are not going to embarrass Dignitary by behaving vulgarly. Plus, like I mentioned before, our clients sometimes need alibis, and so you will have to lie convincingly to other humans. We also recognize that you are taking a gigantic leap of faith each time you place yourself in the path of vampires, and we feel that you should be compensated greatly for this.”

It was a lot to consider. “Okay, is there anything else?”

“No, not really-”

“Actually, there is,” Marlena interjected once again. “We do have another rule, which is in regard to interpersonal relationships with our clients.”

“Okay.”

“Chaperones may not engage in any sort of sexual relationship with our clients.” She glared at Michael. “This is a policy that Michael and I tend to disagree on, but I don’t think it’s professional for our human employees to become romantically involved with vampires. As such, your employment will be immediately terminated if I discover that you’re dating anyone that we’ve paid you to chaperone. Is this clear?” She was speaking to me as if I was already guilty of breaking such a rule or was perhaps mentally incompetent.

“Sounds reasonable,” I smiled sweetly, fighting the urge to tell her to go f*ck herself.

Marlena didn’t actually believe that I was just chomping at the bit to hop into bed with a cold, dead, blood-drinking vampire-man who probably didn’t have a heartbeat, did she? I wasn’t even sure if such a thing was even physically possible. Maybe humans and vampires were sexually incompatible, like chimpanzees and gorillas. Although vampires and humans looked similar, they were still two very different species.

“So, does this mean that you want to work for us?” Michael asked elatedly.

I stood and held out my hand for them to shake. “It sure does,” I confirmed, hoping that I hadn’t made a decision that I’d later regret.