Charlie Huston - Already Dead

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From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. After two hard-boiled hits, Caught Stealing and Six Bad Things, Huston does an irresistible and fiendishly original take on the vampire myth. Manhattan is teeming with the undead, the island divided into often-warring vampire clans such as the Society, the Hood and the Enclave. The most powerful is the Coalition, whose goal is to protect its members from public scrutiny and persecution. Rogue PI Joe Pitt (aka Simon), who like all vampires is infected with a virus that requires him to drink blood regularly, is hired by Marilee Horde, a prominent New York socialite, to locate her runaway teenage daughter, Amanda, who may be slumming with homeless goth kids in the East Village. Meanwhile, a "carrier" is on the loose, infecting its victims with a bacterium that turns them into brain-eating zombies. The Coalition wants Pitt to find and destroy the carrier, since the carnage the zombies are causing brings unwanted attention to the undead community. Huston has fun playing with the conventions of the genre, creating his own hip update that will appeal to fans of Quentin Tarantino and Buffy the Vampire Slayer alike.
From Bookmarks Magazine
Already Dead is not for the squeamish. Even so, it surprised even critics who had never thought themselves fans of Count Dracula. Huston portrays a noirish, gritty, alter-Manhattan world, with political rivalries comprised of all sorts of vampires, even "revolutionary" gay and lesbian ones. The terse, hard-boiled prose and characters contain shades of Raymond Chandler, Hunter S. Thompson, and Quentin Tarantino, but are wholly original. Despite the novel’s sophistication, it’s not for everyone. "Huston deserves hardcover publication and will get it soon enough, but it’s probably true that this book’s core audience is among the young, the cool, the hip, and the unshockable" (Washington Post).
Those stories you hear? The ones about things that only come out at night? Things that feed on blood, feed on us? Got news for you: they're true. Only it's not like the movies or old man Stoker's storybook. It's worse. Especially if you happen to be one of them
Just ask Joe Pitt.
There's a shambler on the loose. Some fool who got himself infected with a flesh-eating bacteria is lurching around, trying to munch on folks' brains. Joe hates shamblers, but he's still the one who has to deal with them. That's just the kind of life he has. Except afterlife might be better word.
From the Battery to the Bronx, and from river to river, Manhattan is crawling with Vampyres. Joe is one of them, and he's not happy about it. Yeah, he gets to be stronger and faster than you, and he's tough as nails and hard to kill. But spending his nights trying to score a pint of blood to feed the Vyrus that's eating at him isn't his idea of a good time. And Joe doesn't make it any easier on himself. Going his own way, refusing to ally with the Clans that run the undead underside of Manhattan - it ain't easy. It's worse once he gets mixed up with the Coalition - the city's most powerful Clan - and finds himself searching for a poor little rich girl who's gone missing in Alphabet City.
Now the Coalition and the girl's high-society parents are breathing down his neck, anarchist Vampyres are pushing him around, and a crazy Vampyre cult is stalking him. No time to complain, though. Got to find that girl and kill that shambler before the whip comes down . . . and before the sun comes up.

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– That was work, baby. I know it sounds like crap, but that woman was the job.

She faces me again.

– And what's that, Joe? I don't even know what the job is. I don't know what keeps you out and why you get beat up and where you get money and why you have guns or what you keep locked in that little fridge. Is it drugs, Joe?

She leans in to whisper.

– Is it drugs? That's fine, you know I don't care. I just want to know. So what is it, what's the fucking job?

I twist the tip of my cigarette against the edge of the tray, lathing away the ash.

– It's hard, baby. The job is hard.

She turns back to the band.

– Great. Thanks. That's a big help.

I keep playing with my smoke.

– The job is hard. But you're harder, baby.

She keeps looking at the band.

– You're the real work.

Still looking at the band.

– And you're worth it.

She tucks a strand of red hair behind her ear.

– Give me that.

She plucks the cigarette from my hand, takes a drag.

– I changed my mind.

She holds the cigarette out to me and I take it.

– Yeah?

– Yeah. It's not OK for you to fuck other women. Or men. Or fucking anybody.

I look at the faint print of her lipstick on the smoke, and put my lips around it.

– No problem.

– And I want to go to dinner.

– No problem.

– Tonight, after work. I want a late dinner. And not diner food. I want to go to Blue Ribbon for oysters.

– No problem.

– And I want to sleep over.

– No problem.

She narrows her eyes.

– You sure you didn't fuck that bitch?

– Yeah.

– OK.

She grabs a beer from the ice and gives it to me.

– I've got to work.

– No problem.

She goes to work, taking care of all her regulars who have been patiently waiting while she fights with her boyfriend.

I drink beer and smoke and use the time until she gets off work. I use it keeping my promise to Daniel. Thinking about my life.

I think about it.

I think about what I do and how much longer I can keep it up. How much longer Predo is gonna let me hang around now that I've finally spat in his face. When Terry's gonna get tired of having me on his turf. How long it might be before Tom slips the leash and lays for me in an alley with a gang of his anarchists. I think about what Daniel said, about digging in.

I could go back to Terry, tell him I'll take my old job back. Tom would have to go. Terry'd make that happen. Kill two birds that way. But then I'd be back where I was twenty-odd years ago, the lash in my hands. And sooner or later Terry is going to get itchy about someone else knowing he has the teeth. No, I've been with the Society, and that hole's not for me.

I could go see Christian. Get my own hog. Bunk out in the Duster clubhouse. Live the Pike Street dream. They'd be happy to have me. The Dusters are always happy to have another good man in a fight. But I'd have to wear the colors, a uniform. And I'd look terrible in a top hat.

I could split the city. Go try my luck in the Outer Boroughs. Maybe find some unclaimed turf. It's out there. Red Hook. Coney Island. There could be good blocks out there. Clear off any other Rogues and start my own Clan. Make a name. Be a boss. But that's a long-odds bet, very long odds. Impossible odds. And I'm not ready to roll those bones yet.

Or I could do as Daniel says, become Enclave. Embrace my nature. Live a life of discipline. Learn how to master the Vyrus. And when the time comes, I could let it take me, and see if I survive. Daniel seems to think I might. But Daniel is crazy. And he's dying. And I'm not anybody's savior.

Amanda Horde knows that.

Besides, none of those lives has Evie in it.

The band plays "Silver Dagger" and I watch Evie open beers. Every now and then she throws me a wink or comes by and leans across the bar and whispers something funny in my ear.

I look at my life, and I find it lacking. But it's my life. I creep a little closer to the edge every day. One day the edge will crumble under my feet and I'll fall.

Fine.

Why should my life be different from anybody else's?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Charlie Huston is a novelist. He lives in Manhattan with his wife, the actress, Virginia Louise Smith.

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