Page 9 of Desperately Seeking Vampire
“Who?”
“A literary character. I’ll find some of the books for you. You might like them. They’re dated, but some of the movies are well done.”
“Ah, the cinema. I always enjoyed that.” Ivo felt a little spike of interest. Perhaps remaining on the surface for a few days would be a good idea. If nothing else, it would give him something new to think about for his submersion.
The next five hours were eye-opening, to say the least. Finch introduced him to a number of modern devices that seemed to make life incredibly easy, everything from the tablet he kept mentioning—and which turned out to be a miraculous device that Ivo half suspected was magic in origin—to thick rectangles that Finch claimed were personal traveling telephones.
By the time morning’s light had stretched across the sky, Ivo felt sufficiently in touch with modernity that he was confident he could pass without risk of undue attention amongst the mortals who congregated outside Christian’s castle.
“Get some rest,” Finch said as the two men clung to the shadows as they returned from a stable that had been converted into a garage. “We can go out this evening, once the sun has set. Are you hungry?”
“Yes,” Ivo answered. “But not desperately so. I will not partake of the pig’s blood, if that’s what you were going to offer next. Rest does sound good, however. My muscles feel as if they have been stretched too tight.”
Finch eyed him as they entered the castle. “You look better, but you’re too thin. You should feed as much as possible before you go noctambul again.”
“Possibly,” Ivo said, holding tight to the magic tablet that Finch told him he could use to catch up. He particularly was looking forward to some quiet time so he could investigate something called AOL. During the brief tour of it that Finch had conducted, Ivo had noticed a video of a cat doing a belly dance, and he very much wanted to see that. “I’ll see you later, then?”
“Yes. I need to work more on my book, but let me know when you’re ready to go to the festival, and I’ll put it aside.”
They parted, and after an extremely entertaining two hours wherein Ivo found a plethora of dancing-cat videos, which then led to dogs playing in snow, and somehow to a woman in the States with plentiful tattoos who was filmed shearing placid, round sheep, he fell asleep with the tablet clutched to his chest.
Several hours later, the music drew him from the castle. He didn’t want to disturb Finch if he was working on his book, and since Christian was nowhere to be found, Ivo strolled down to the meadow where a big wooden stage had been set up, black metal scaffolding surrounding both sides and the back of it, while in front, a sea of blankets and small chairs rippled back toward the road that led up to Drahanská.
Snatches of conversation in a variety of languages—mostly Czech, but some German, French, and English—wove a tapestry around him as he strolled toward bright lights that had been set up to the east.
“—not as good as the Pillowed Pigeon Eaters, but what do you expect from ska?”
“Dude! Did you see that Goth chick? Her nips were double pierced. Double pierced!”
“—and I’m not in the mood for this attitude, Jakob. Open means open for both of us, not just you. If you don’t like me banging other men, then maybe you need to keep your dick in your pants, and not be constantly sticking it in every hole you can find.”
The crowd, which had been streaming away from the stage, were all headed in the same direction. Ivo followed with them, pausing at the end of what must be the traveling fair that Christian had mentioned.
A small wooden platform sat to his left with a couple of metal chairs scattered in front of it. Clearly it was a stage of some sort. Just beyond it, a man sat hunched in a chair, a packing box between him and a woman with the most glorious red hair he’d ever seen. No, not red, he corrected himself, copper. A bright, glossy copper that, even in the blue-white lights that hung illuminating the fair, glowed with life. The woman appeared to be playing a card game.
Ivo was no stranger to card games, having played them with mortals while he served in the British medical corps. Despite his best attempts, he was never able to keep from being fleeced by the company sharps, and he cast a suspicious look now toward the woman. No doubt she was taking the poor, unsuspecting man for all of his funds. The foolish mortal wasn’t even watching the cards; he was staring at her with a lascivious look that for some reason Ivo found offensive. He took a step toward the stage, intent on discovering if she was a card sharp and was purposely beguiling the man with her glorious hair, but before he could do so, he was accosted by a small woman with bleached white hair that stuck up like a hedgehog’s.
“Are you here for the poetry slam?” she asked him.
“No, I—slam?”
“Yes.” She nodded toward the small stage, and consulted a clipboard, on which was a sheet of lined paper. It was empty of all writing. “Luckily, I can just fit you into the schedule. Name?”
“Ivo Zeman,” he told her, about to protest that he didn’t want to slam anything, let alone poetry, of which he had a fondness despite society’s refusal to view him as the twentieth century’s version of Lord Byron.
“Excellent. You may take the stage,” the woman said, then snatched up an oblong black device, flipped a switch on it, and spoke into it, saying, “Welcome to tonight’s poetry slam. Up first, we have Ivo Zeman, from ... ?” She looked at him.
“Bucharest,” he answered.
“From Romania. Take it away, Ivo!”
She handed him the device, then backed up a few steps, applauding lightly.
A few people who drifted past the area cast him a curious glance, but no one sat down to watch him slam.
Ivo pursed his lips, slid a glance toward the shining-hair woman who was still in the middle of demonstrating some card trick to her mark, and decided there was no better place to keep an eye on her than the stage. He stepped onto it, holding the device up to his mouth, startled when his voice blasted out of a small red-and-black box behind him. “Good evening. Er ...”
“Hold it a few inches from your mouth,” the clipboard woman said before she hurried off.
