Smoke And Mirrors

11. Justice

"It is not human," said the magistrate, "and it does not deserve the trial of a human thing."

Ah," said the advocate. "But we cannot execute without a trial: there are the precedents. A pig, that had eaten a child who had fallen into its sty. It was found guilty and hanged. A swarm of bees, found guilty of stinging an old man to death, was burned by the public hangman. We owe the hellish creature no less."

The evidence against the baby was incontestable. It amounted to this: a woman had brought the baby from the country. She said it was hers, and that her husband was dead. She lodged at the house of a coach maker and his wife. The old coach maker complained of melancholia and lassitude, and was, with his wife and their lodger, found dead by their servant. The baby was alive in its cradle, pale and wide-eyed, and there was blood on its face and lips.

The jury found the little thing guilty, beyond all doubt, and condemned it to death.

The executioner was the town butcher. In the sight of all the town he cut the babe in two, and flung the pieces onto the fire.

His own baby had died earlier that same week. Infant mortality in those days was a hard thing but common. The butcher's wife had been brokenhearted.

She had already left the town, to see her sister in the city, and, within the week, the butcher joined her. The three of them-butcher, wife and babe-made the prettiest family you ever did see.

She said she was a vampire. One thing I knew already, the woman was a liar. You could see it in her eyes. Black as coals they were, but she never quite looked at you, staring at invisibles over your shoulder, behind you, above you, two inches in front of your face.

"What does it taste like?" I asked her. This was in the parking lot, behind the bar. She worked the graveyard shift in the bar, mixed the finest drinks but never drank anything herself.

"V8 juice," she said. "Not the low-sodium kind, but the original. Or a salty gazpacho."

"What's gazpacho?"

"A sort of cold vegetable soup."

"You're shitting me."

"No."

"So you drink blood? Just like I drink V8?"

"Not exactly," she said. "If you get sick of drinking V8 you can drink something else."

"Yeah," I said. "Actually, I don't like V8 much."

"See?" she said. "In China it's not blood we drink, it's spinal fluid."

"What's that taste like?"

"Nothing much. Clear broth."

"You've tried it?"

"I know people."

I tried to figure out if I could see her reflection in the wing mirror of the truck we were leaning against, but it was dark, and I couldn't tell.