JULY 1977
“What do you do?” the woman asked.
“This and that,” Magnus said.
“Are you in fashion? You look like you’re in fashion.”
“No,” he said. “I am fashion.”
It was a bit of a twee remark, but it seemed to delight his seat companion on the plane. The comment had been a bit of a test, actually. Everything seemed to delight his companion—the seat back in front of her, her nails, her glass, her own hair, everyone else’s hair, the barf bag . . .
The plane had been in the air for only an hour, but Magnus’s companion had gotten up to use the restroom four times. Each time she’d emerged moments later, furiously rubbing her nose and visibly twitching. Now she was leaning over him, her winged blond hair dipping into his champagne glass, her neck reeking of Eau de Guerlain. The faint trace of white powder still clung to her nose.
He could have done this trip in seconds by stepping through a Portal, but there was something pleasant about aircraft. They were charming, intimate, and slow. You got to meet people. Magnus liked meeting people.
“But your outfit?” she said. “What is it?”
Magnus looked down at his red-plaid-and-black-vinyl oversize suit with a shredded T-shirt underneath. It was au courant for the London punk set, but New York wasn’t quite there yet.
“I do PR,” the woman said, apparently forgetting the question. “For discos and clubs. The best clubs. Here. Here.”
She dug around in her massive purse—and stopped for a moment when she found her cigarettes. She shoved one of these between her lips, lit it, and continued digging until she produced a small tortoiseshell card case. She popped this open and picked out one card, which read: ELECTRICA.
“Come,” she said, tapping the card with a long, red nail. “Come. It’s just opening. It’s going to be smash-ing. Soooo much better than Studio 54. Oh. Excuse me a second. You want?”
She showed him a small vial in the palm of her hand.
“No, thank you.”
And then she was fumbling out of the seat again, her purse bumping into Magnus’s face as she went back to the bathroom.
The mundanes had gotten very interested in drugs again. They went through these phases. Now it was cocaine. He hadn’t seen this much of the stuff since the turn of the century, when they’d been putting it in everything—tonics and potions and even Coca-Cola. He thought for a while that they’d put this drug behind them, but it was back again, in full force.
Drugs had never interested Magnus. A good wine, absolutely, but he steered clear of potions and powders and pills. You didn’t take drugs and do magic. Also, people who did drugs were boring. Hopelessly, relentlessly boring. Drugs made them either too slow or too fast, and mostly they talked about drugs. And then they either quit—a gruesome process—or they died. There was never a step in between.
Like all mundane phases, this too would pass. Hopefully soon. He closed his eyes and decided to sleep his way across the Atlantic. London was behind him. Now it was time to go home.
Stepping outside at JFK, Magnus got his first reminder of why he’d summarily left New York two summers before. New York was too damn hot in the summer. It was just touching a hundred degrees, and the smell of jet fuel and exhaust fumes mixed with the swampy gasses that hung around this far tip of the city. The smell, he knew, would only get worse.
With a sigh he joined a taxi line.
The cab was as comfortable as any metal box in the sun, and his sweating driver added to the general perfume in the air.
“Where to, buddy?” he asked, taking in Magnus’s outfit.
“Corner of Christopher and Sixth Avenue.”
The cabbie grunted and hit the meter, and then they pulled out into traffic. The smoke from the driver’s cigar streamed back directly into Magnus’s face. He lifted a finger and redirected it out the window.
The road from JFK to Manhattan was a strange one, weaving through family neighborhoods, and desolate stretches, and past sprawling graveyards. It was an age-old tradition. Keep the dead out of the city—but not too far. London, where he had just been, was ringed with old graveyards. And Pompeii, which he’d visited a few months back, had an entire avenue of the dead, tombs leading right up to the city wall. Past all of the New York neighborhoods and graveyards, at the end of the crowded expressway, shimmering in the distance—there was Manhattan—its spires and peaks just lighting up for the night. From death to life.
He hadn’t meant to be away from the city for so long. He had just been going to take the briefest trip to Monte Carlo . . . but then, these things can go on. A week in Monte Carlo turns into two on the Riviera, which turns into a month in Paris, and two months in Tuscany, and then you end up on a boat headed for Greece, and then you wind up back in Paris again for the season, and then you go to Rome for a bit, and London . . .
And sometimes you accidentally go for two years. It happens.
“Where you from?” the cabbie asked, eyeing Magnus in the rearview mirror.
“Oh, around. Here mostly.”
“You’re from here? You been away? You look like you been away.”
“For a while.”
“You hear about these murders?”
“Haven’t read a paper in a while,” Magnus said.
“Some loony-tune. Calls himself Son of Sam. They called him the forty-four-caliber killer too. Goes around shooting couples on lovers’ lanes, you know? Sick bastard. Real sick. Police haven’t caught him. They don’t do nothing. Sick bastard. City’s full of them. You shouldn’ta come back.”
New York cabdrivers—always little rays of sunshine.
Magnus got out on the tree-lined corner of Sixth Avenue and Christopher Street, in the heart of the West Village. Even at nightfall the heat was stifling. Still, it seemed to encourage a party atmosphere in the neighborhood. The Village had been an interesting place before he’d left. It seemed that in his absence things had taken on a whole new level of festivity. Costumed men walked down the street. The outdoor cafés were swarming. There was a carnival atmosphere that Magnus found instantly inviting.
Magnus’s apartment was a walk-up, on the third story of one of the brick houses that lined the street. He let himself in and sprang lightly up the steps, full of high spirits. His spirits fell when he reached his landing. The first thing he noticed, right by his door, was a strong and bad smell—something rotten, mixed with something like skunk, mixed with other things he had no desire to identify. Magnus did not live in a stinky apartment. His apartment smelled of clean floors, flowers, and incense. He put the key into the lock, and when he tried to push the door open, it stuck. He had to shove it hard to get it to open. The reason was immediately clear—there were boxes of empty wine bottles on the other side. And, much to his surprise, the television was on. Four vampires were crashed on his sofa, blankly watching cartoons.
He knew they were vampires at once. The draining of the color behind the skin, the languid pose. Also, these vampires hadn’t even bothered to wipe the blood from the corners of their mouths. All of them had dried bits of the stuff around their faces. There was a record spinning on the player. It had reached the end and was stuck on the blank end strip, hissing gently in disapproval.
Only one of the vampires even turned to look at him.