Victor Gischler - Vampire A Go-Go

He stepped carefully as he left the stall, slipped in some of the puke anyway.

“Hell.”

The café beyond the men’s room was still crowded and smoky. His face slick with sweat, Allen felt he might be sick now too. He pushed through the crowd and found a narrow hall, which lead to an old wooden door. He opened it, stepped out into the alley. The night air was cool relative to the interior of the Globe. Allen closed his eyes, breathed in through the nose, out through the mouth. He felt better. Slightly.

When he opened his eyes again, he saw the blonde with the braids at the end of the alley. There was just enough street light to see it was her. She held her hand up tentatively, a shy wave. Allen waved back.

She lowered her hand slowly, regarded him a moment, then gestured for him to follow as she disappeared around the corner. Allen stood a moment, baffled, then looked over his shoulder. It was still and silent in the cobblestone alley, the dim light casting lumpy shadows. The blonde in braids might almost have been some kind of ghost, except Allen doubted the tourists would tolerate a ghost that looked like a California sorority girl in a centuries-old city like Prague.

He headed toward the mouth of the alley, turned the corner.

She stood there waiting in front of a parked car, some foreign model Allen didn’t recognize. The trunk was open. She gestured toward the trunk.

What the hell is this?

“Tell me your name.”

She shook her head, put her finger to her lips in a shhhh motion. She nodded at the trunk.

Allen inched forward. “You want me to look in there?”

She nodded. Her smile was warm and inviting.

“Sure.” Allen stepped to the edge of the trunk, looked inside. It was empty.

“Okay,” he said. “I guess I’m not getting it. Did you want-”

Something heavy slapped him at the base of the skull. He tumbled forward into the trunk, felt somebody lifting his feet. His eyes went crossways, and he saw the fuzzy image of the blonde leaning into the trunk, touching his forehead, her lips moving with unspoken syllables.

Then the trunk thunk ed him shut into darkness.

He thought he might pass out. The base of his skull throbbed with a deep, nauseating pain, but he didn’t lose consciousness. He heard a group of muffled voices, some heated conversation, but only one word came through clearly. Zizkov .

Where had Allen heard that word before? He faded a little as the throb in his head worsened. The next thing he knew the car was moving. He shifted and slid in the trunk as the car accelerated and made turns.

Allen had the fleeting thought that he’d left Father Paul stuck with the check back at the Globe.

The car continued to bump along, and Allen remembered where he’d seen the word Zizkov. He pulled The Rogue’s Guide out of his back pocket, along with the disposable lighter. He sparked the lighter, which dimly illuminated the interior of the trunk, and flipped through the guide until he found the page he wanted.

• Zizkov: This working-class neighborhood is rich with authentic pubs, serving a variety of Czech beers at working-class prices. Although they are unlike the more touristy pubs of Stare Mesto, it turns out they are still more than happy to accept tourist money. Smelly backpackers can stretch their drinking budget here. The area is named for one-eyed general Jan Zizka. Stumble around long enough and you can probably find a few statues of him, both on horse and not. One of the area’s primary sights is a giant, blocky Commie monument at the top of Zizkov Hill (known as the National Monument). The monument’s architecture is of the typical “look at us, we’re big” Soviet variety, but the view from the top of the hill is actually pretty decent. The monument’s tomb, formerly occupied by party dignitaries, now lies empty-presumably waiting for somebody important enough to kick off.

There was more, but Allen broke off from his reading when he felt the car stop. He extinguished the disposable lighter, held his breath, and listened.

Footsteps on gravel. More muffled voices. The footsteps retreated, and Allen found himself alone in the silent darkness.

He pushed up against the trunk, tried to give it a kick but couldn’t maneuver for leverage. He was going nowhere. He waited, drifted off.

Allen’s dreams swam with cold blue eyes. He ran through mist, the smell of moist earth all around him. He ran through the deserted streets of Prague, the night pressing in on him, and wherever he went he felt colder and colder. He ran faster, a freezing wind at his neck.

His eyes popped open. Allen shivered. He was stiff and cold and his head ached, probably a combination of getting hit and too much Czech beer. Shots. Good God, he’d done shots of some unknown booze with the priest.

How long had he been out? He couldn’t tell if it had been two minutes or ten hours. Maybe Father Paul would call the police. Maybe after he noticed Allen was missing, he’d tell somebody, get some help. But how would help find him? For all Allen knew, he was five hundred miles from the Globe.

No. Surely he hadn’t been out that long, and they hadn’t driven that far. Someone had mentioned Zizkov, a neighborhood that wasn’t so very far. And anyway, The Three had warned him against trusting the priest.

Who warned you, dumbass? The nice people who smacked you on the head and shoved you in a car trunk? What the hell am I in the middle of?

If only he could get out of the damn trunk.

The trunk opened.

A flashlight seared his eyes, and Allen winced. The outlines of two figures beyond the flashlight.

“He’ll be fine,” said a female voice. “I put a spell of well-being on him when we put him in.”

“Well, he looks like hammered shit,” said a male voice. “Let’s get him out of there.”

Allen felt hands under his arms lifting him out of the trunk. He felt weak, and his legs were wobbly as he felt his feet touch the ground. “Who are you?”

“Friends, Mr. Cabbot,” said the man. “Although that might be hard to believe at the moment.”

Allen felt a cool hand on his forehead. It was the braided blonde. “You’ll be okay,” she assured him.

“So you can talk.”

“I couldn’t speak during the luring spell, or I would have muddled the magic.”

Allen pulled away from her hand. “Luring spell?”

“To lure you to the back of the car. So we could put you in.”

“I’m full of beer, and a pretty girl wants to meet me outside. More like hormones than a spell.” Allen looked down, saw a small automatic pistol in the man’s hand. “You don’t seem like friends to me.”

“Yes, I see what you mean,” he said. “It’s important that you don’t give us a lot of trouble until we’ve had an opportunity to explain ourselves. Amy, show Mr. Cabbot into the house, and we can all get comfortable. I’ll be right behind you.”

Allen followed the girl, the man with the pistol bringing up the rear. Allen expected to feel the gun stuck into his back like in the movies, but that didn’t happen. He was acutely aware of the pistol anyway.

They were in the cramped, gravel parking area behind a small house. There were tall hedges on one side and a stone wall on the other, so Allen wasn’t able to get a good look at the surrounding neighborhood-not that he’d be able to recognize anything in any case. He’d been in Prague less than a full day, and so far he’d had bizarre nightmares, gotten drunk with a priest, slipped in puke, been hexed by a sorority girl, and stuffed in a trunk.

And there was still the jet lag.

And the man with the gun right behind him.

He followed Amy into the small house. It was unimpressive, utilitarian, and drab, probably built during the iron curtain days. They ushered him into a small sitting room, and the man pointed him toward a threadbare easy chair with the pistol. Allen backed toward the chair and sank into it. The man sat across from him in a stiff-looking wingback.