Part 20 (1/2)

'You know, I almost went back for Pumpkin Bear,' said Cherie. 'I just knew that Mum would throw him away. But Dad rescued him. And he looked for me everywhere. But I wasn't on the street so he didn't find me there. He did try very hard. Poor Dad.'

'Are you going to keep working at the dress shop?'

'For a week,' she replied. 'Donna gave me a job when I turned up and said I couldn't go on the books. I owe her. But Dad says he'll spot me to do a catch-up school course next year and then I want to get into RMIT. Do fas.h.i.+on design. Donna's been letting me design Goth stuff for her. From next Thursday, Dad and I are going to have a holiday.'

'A good idea,' I said. 'Where are you going?'

'Here,' said Cherie. 'He's going to take me to the zoo and the movies and teach me to cook. He's a good cook. You wouldn't know it from his fridge, though. We're going to do all the stuff we would have done if ... it hadn't all gone wrong. I'm going to help him get off the bottle. We've got a lot of catching up to do. And I never dared take any time off, because I never had enough money and I didn't know if Donna could hold the job for me. I haven't had a day off since I left home, except that one time when I caught the flu. I need a rest.'

It struck me that Donna had got rather a good deal. I suspected that Cherie might be just the person to design clothes for today's well-dressed Goth. Then again, I had just extorted a week's free work out of an ex-junkie who slept in Flagstaff Gardens.

While she was talking, Cherie had been making up my face with effortless efficiency. She piled my hair up on top of my head and pinned it there with two black lacquered chopsticks and a few invisible hairpins. She buckled the spiked collar around my throat. The spiked armlets closed around my wrists.

I looked into the mirror. My face was bleached white. My lips were red as blood. Dark shadows rimmed my eyes, which looked much brighter in contrast.

I stood up, shedding my dressing gown, and Cherie dropped the red dress over my head without stirring a hair. I put on the corset and laced it as tightly as I could while retaining any lung function at all.

And there was the transformation. I was stunning. I rustled lusciously as I moved. My b.r.e.a.s.t.s rose as though I was floating in water. Cherie picked up my handbag.

'What are you going to need? You shouldn't carry anything in your hands but your whip,' she instructed. 'There're pockets in the dress.'

So there were. Deep ones. I dropped my wallet, lipstick, keys, a handkerchief and a mobile phone into the left one and they vanished without a trace into the depths of the dress. I felt for them and they were all there, hanging at about knee level.

'Make sure the phone is off,' warned Cherie. 'If it rings you are history.'

'It's hardly ever on,' I said. 'Anything else I need to know?'

'Keep your head up and take no s.h.i.+t from anyone,' said Cherie. 'Have a good time. I gotta go. I'm watching The Princess Bride with Dad. He bought the video.'

I thanked her and saw her out and indulged myself in a few twirls. I had never worn anything like that red dress. I loved it. I practised walking in it, like a lady, with the front held up in both hands. Then I practised stalking like a dominatrix and found that it swished agreeably as I strode.

Then the door buzzer went and I gathered my black cloak, threw it around me, and went down, almost hoping to meet Mrs Pemberthy in the lift.

A black stretch limo with darkened windows was waiting. A uniformed chauffeur opened the door. I got in. There was Daniel, swathed in black like myself. He leaned forward and kissed me. Mistress Dread was in the opposite seat. The car pulled silently away from the kerb.

'Have a drink, dear,' said the Lady of Phantoms, opening a drinks cabinet and taking out a c.o.c.ktail shaker. It was a White Lady, very strong.

'Nothing but red wine in the club,' she said. 'I always have one drink to soothe my nerves.'

'I don't believe you have any nerves,' I said admiringly.

'I have a little drink to soothe the nerves which I'd have if I was another sort of person,' she elaborated.

That made sense to me and we all drank. The limo pulled up outside a large warehouse at the top of the city. A small bra.s.s plate, like the ones on a doctor's office, intimated to anyone close enough to read it that this was the home of Blood Lines, members only.

Mistress Dread stalked up the steps as though she was coming to accept the surrender of a small city, and the doors opened before her advance. She did not slow at all as she pa.s.sed a person of indeterminate s.e.x who was lurking inside the door. The person was wearing peasant clothes circa 1500, including a hood and liripipe. Its face was covered in st.i.tches. I had seen the film. Films. This was the one who was always sent out for fresh brains at three am. I had read Terry Pratchett.

'May I drink your blood?' it asked me hopefully.

'No,' I said.

'Then may I take your cloak?'

'Thank you, Igor.'

'Lucky guess about the name, Mistress,' said Igor.

I shed the black cloak and shook myself into order. Daniel did the same.

And there he was. He was naked to the waist. The rest of him was clad in leather trousers and boots. A design had been painted on his chest. There was a studded dog collar around his neck and he dropped to his knees and offered me the loop of his leash.

My hormones did that thud at the base of the spine thing. I was about to protest when his shook his head very slightly and said, 'Please, Lady Medusa?'

'Very well.' I took the leash and tightened it so that I drew him almost to my hem. 'If you are good.'

'I'll be good,' he said, with an undercurrent which went straight through the corset into the breast underneath.

'If you will sign in, Mistress Dread,' said Igor, cringing. 'And you, Mistress,' he added to me. He did not address Daniel. Clearly pets did not have to register. I signed 'Lady Medusa' and paid over my fee. Igor led the way to the curtained door.

'You are very decorative,' I whispered to Daniel as we went towards the inner door, covered by a heavy red velvet curtain.

'Celtic design. Meroe drew it. It's your mark. It means that I am yours and anyone who wants to borrow me has to ask you first.'

'I have no intention of lending you,' I said. I meant it. I wondered what Meroe had felt, so close to this admirable body, this smooth skin, this scent of spices, using his skin as her canvas. I hoped she had also given us a spell for success.

I joined Mistress Dread at the curtain, which was drawn back to reveal someone in the last stages of decomposition, dripping with what I hoped was very good fake green slime. Huge screens showed the Hammer horror movie Brides of Dracula. Christopher Lee's mouth, fanged and three metres high, approached a vulnerable, proffered neck. I had no need to speak. I would not have been heard if I had. The loudness of the music was almost beyond bearing. Not techno, however. Not Eversun. This was death thrash metal and they were singing about ...

'Andre Norton?' I asked.

'It's Bloodhag,' yelled Mistress Dread. 'They combine education with heavy metal. In concert they throw cheap editions of the books at the audience. Their motto is ”the faster you go deaf, the more time you have to read”. Good, aren't they?'

'Terrific,' I yelled back as the three nerds on the big screen segued into 'HP Lovecraft'. I followed Mistress Dread to the bar. Funnily enough, on the approach of a six-foot woman in a black corset and carrying a whip, the crowd melted away. The bar person was a wolf. I delved for my wallet and the wolf man pointed to a sign. It read 'Blood type O, two gold. Type Rh negative, four gold.' I produced four gold and Daniel leaned up against my thigh, begging. 'Lady?'

The wolf seemed to understand. He gave me some Rh negative in a plastic winegla.s.s and poured more into a bowl marked 'Dog'. I placed it on the floor. I knew I shouldn't be enjoying this. But I was. Oh, I was.

Mistress Dread put one stilettoed foot on the bra.s.s rail and we surveyed the crowd. The elaborately framed mirror behind the bar produced no reflection. Clever. The room pulsed to the thrash metal beat. There were a lot of vampires, I noticed. Dead white complexions, discreet fangs parting blood-red lips, ruffled s.h.i.+rts for the men, artfully draped shrouds for the ladies. One girl danced past me wearing Ophelia's shroud from the Millais painting, long draperies speckled with flowers from her last bouquet: pansies, rue, rosemary. No violets. 'For they wither'd all when my father died.' Her hair was long and somehow pre-lanked, looking wet and clinging to her pale, greenish, drowned face.

Then three leather Goths strutted past; a knee-length dress made of leather with studs on every available surface and two boys dressed mostly in an a.s.sortment of straps. High boots were universal except for the girls in filmy white damsel in distress costumes, who had pale bare feet. I had never seen such a fascinating crowd in my life. Costume parties, yes, I had been to them. People wearing hired clothes and looking uncomfortable, mostly. Whoever had painted the henna designs on that almost entirely naked girl had spent hours wors.h.i.+pping her body. The same went for the guy who had spent a whole weekend armouring himself in a sh.e.l.l of studded leather. There was real conviction in these dancers. They lived their dream.

Admittedly it was a dream of darkness and death. Their only chance of immortal life was to be bitten by someone with the right sort of teeth. But it was a dream and, as Daniel said, they had a mission. I drank the wine, which was surprisingly good. Daniel nudged my knee.

'Will the Lady dance?' he asked.

'Can I dance with you?' I whispered back. He read my lips. It was silly to whisper in a place where Bloodhag was belting out some comments on the literary skill of Frank Herbert with a backing track that sounded like a 747 landing.

'Order me to stand. Flick the whip. Then we can dance,' he mouthed.