“Huh,” Perry said, giving Grime a strange look. Then he shrugged. “We all have our pasts, don’t we? Here, Christian. Let me pay.” He pulled a surprisingly large roll of cash out of his pockets and paid at the counter.
“You hear about Dirty John?” the clerk asked as he took Terrill’s old coat from him with two fingers and threw it into a huge trash can behind the counter.
“What happened?” Perry asked.
“Someone murdered him. Butchered him, right behind the store. I almost didn’t come to work. That’s why you scared me so much when you banged on the door.”
“Butchered him?”
“Tore his arm clean off. John was nearly dead anyway, but no one should have to go like that.”
Terrill headed for the door without looking back. He kept walking and had gone a full block before Grime and Perry caught up to him, both men puffing with exertion.
“What’s wrong?” Perry said. “It looked like you’d seen a ghost.”
“Leave me alone, Perry. You too, Grime. I’m dangerous to be around.”
“Something to do with that girl?”
“That… and other things from my past. I’ve not been a good man, Perry. I don’t deserve your help, believe me. You neither, Grime. You’ve been friends this past day, the first friends I can remember having in ages. Ages.”
“We like you too, Christian,” Perry said. “So you aren’t running us off.”
“No, you don’t understand. People who associate with me die. I’m not joking.”
Perry and Grime continued to trudge alongside him, undeterred.
“Stop,” Perry said a little later. He was breathing hard, and Grime looked like he was on his last legs. Terrill realized he’d been walking so fast that the two shorter men had been nearly trotting to keep up.
“I’m going to tell you this once, and then we talk no more about it,” Perry said.
Terrill stopped to listen: he owed Perry that much, at least. But he wasn’t going to let these men get killed for his sake.
“I don’t have anything in this world,” Perry continued. “I don’t have family. I don’t have possessions. All I got are my friends. So if I can’t help my friends and risk my life for my friends, then there is no point to my life, understand? Are you trying to take away all the purpose and meaning in my life, Christian?”
Grime grunted in agreement.
“You’ll die,” Terrill said bluntly.
“Then we die. They were going to find us on the side of the road someday anyway, with the bottle still in our hands if we were lucky. That’s all we got to look forward to.”
Terrill had had a long existence, and for most of it he’d been alone and friendless. Something in what the homeless man said struck a chord.
He slowed down, and they walked the rest of the way to the homeless shelter together.
Chapter 30
Horsham was quite taken with his baby vampire. It didn’t hurt that newly Turned vampires hungered for sex as well as blood. Sex and blood, blood and sex: it was all mixed up in their ferocious appetites. It was the downfall of many a new vampire.
“Rule number two,” he said after a vigorous lovemaking session in his motel room. “Never leave the remains of a kill, or if you must, disguise the cause of death.”
“How do I do that?” Jamie asked sleepily.
“Why, you eat the evidence, mostly. Scatter what’s left. There are all kinds of ways. Don’t worry; I’ll teach you.”
He kissed her on the forehead. He should’ve done this years ago: became a Maker, or at the very least, adopted a baby vampire, as he was doing now and as Terrill had done for him. It was very fulfilling.
“Rule number three: Never feed where you live––which, since we aren’t going to stick around here much longer, means this whole town is fair game.”
“Hmmm,” she said, as if contemplating a mouthwatering meal.
“Rule number four: Kill at random. Never leave a pattern.” He paused. “Really, when you think about it, rules two through four don’t currently matter. We’ll be out of here before they know we’re here.”
She rose up on one elbow and stared into his eyes, fully awake. “Not until Richard Carlan pays for what he did.”
“Of course. That goes without saying. And not, I may add, until Terrill pays for what he did as well.”
She flopped back down, and he couldn’t get a read on her attitude toward the second statement. Did she desire revenge for her Turning? Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn’t. Usually, the longer they were vampire, the more their thoughts turned from revenge to gratitude.
“Rule number five: Never kill for the thrill. Kill only to feed,” he continued. “Frankly, I’ve never much liked this rule, though I understand it. But then again, what are we vampires for? To simply exist? To merely survive? In fact, I don’t think this rule is valid anymore. I reject it. Terrill created it and Terrill is a traitor.”
“What did he do?” she asked.
Horsham told Jamie about the origin of his vendetta, about his love for Mary and their betrayal by Terrill. It took half the night, he was so worked up about it. She seemed indignant for his sake.
“Down with rule number five!” she exclaimed. She was fully awake now and climbing on top of him, demanding the first of her desires. All thoughts of rules left his head for the next hour.
#
“I’m hungry,” Jamie said when they were done.
Horsham laughed. “You’re insatiable.”
“Well, it’s your fault,” she pouted.
“We could call for a pizza,” he said. “But if the pizza delivery guy disappears, I’d have to move again, and I just got here.”
She jumped out of bed and started getting dressed. “I’m starved.”
Horsham sighed and grabbed his clothes. The baby vampire was fun, but she was also demanding.
#
The night before, after they had left the neighborhood of her family home, he had led her into the darkness by the side of the river and they had waited for a jogger. There was almost always an early-morning jogger these days, running in the darkness of the predawn hours.
Horsham let Jamie have the middle-aged, overweight woman, taking only a few ounces of blood for himself as refreshment. She tore into the body sloppily. Blood was everywhere. So much for rule number two, he thought fondly. They should have at least dragged the body off the trail.
Jamie consumed all the fleshy parts, and they threw the bones into the rapids of the Deschutes River. They’d be discovered eventually, but it was better than leaving them for the next jogger to find.
The woman had whimpered like a baby, and after it was done, Jamie said, “I only want to kill bad people from now on.”
“What’s that?”
“Only bad people. From now on.”
“Sure,” Horsham said. “Plenty of those.” Of course, it wasn’t so easy. Who was bad and who was good, and who decided which was which? But she’d get over it before he’d have to explain it.
Jamie washed up in the river. She climbed out, the lighter colors of her clothes now a soft pink from the partly rinsed-off blood; then she demanded that they go back to the Hardaway house.
He obliged, intrigued by what she might do. Eat her parents? Try to Turn her sister?
#
Jamie ignored her parents, who were staring, stoned-faced, at a television screen, watching a situation comedy.
Jamie quickly climbed to her sister’s room. She smashed in the window. Downstairs, her parents continued to watch TV with dull eyes. Jamie came out with her purple diary in hand.
“It isn’t enough to just kill Richard,” she said when Horsham raised his eyebrows at her. “I’ve got an idea of how to make him suffer.”
“It won’t matter if he’s dead,” he said.
“No, he’s going to die, all right. But that doesn’t mean he can’t suffer first.”
It seemed pointless to Horsham, but he didn’t say anything.
“Trust your inner sense of time,” he said. “What does it tell you?”
Jamie’s eyes widened. “We need to get out of here!”
He smiled. “Best not to attract attention by hurrying. Try to be aware.”
In the end, they did have to run the last few blocks, but they made it inside before the sun rose.
#
Now, after a day of sleeping and lovemaking, it was dark again. Now that Jamie mentioned it, Horsham was hungry too. This adventure had stimulated his appetite, obviously. He should get out of Europe more often. Maybe it was time to finally transition to the New World, which by his reckoning was still new.
He looked toward the Walmart parking lot, where the ghost city of RVs still stood. There was a new motor home parked beside them, so it was only a matter of time before the remains of the vacationers were found.
He probably shouldn’t have been so hasty, but he’d been sure that he’d find Terrill right away. Now he was risking exposure if he lingered around too long.
And yet, when would he have a better chance? Did he really want to wait decades more for Terrill to slip up again? It made him uneasy to be breaking so many of the Rules, and with an undisciplined baby vampire in tow as well. Perhaps he should cut her loose. She was an unnecessary danger. But damn if she wasn’t cute and sexy and adorably naive.
Besides, though he was certain he could defeat Terrill, it didn’t hurt to have a little insurance.
Before they left the motel room, Horsham turned on the police scanner one last time, and the room was suddenly filled with urgent voices, speaking in tones that usually meant murder and mayhem. He started listening, and it became clear that there had been a stabbing in a homeless camp off of Empire Road.
“The body isn’t here,” one of the officers at the scene was reporting. “He was apparently stabbed in the heart, but he supposedly walked away.”
Horsham turned to Jamie. “Your breakfast will have to wait for now. But don’t worry; we’ll eat before the night is through.
She seemed disappointed, but it was gratifying that she was still following his orders.
“Now,” he said, “where’s Empire Road?”
Chapter 31
The homeless camp off of Empire Road was in the far northern part of town. Jamie, who had worked with the homeless, knew exactly where it was.
“I have to stop somewhere first,” she said. The tone of her voice made it clear that she would brook no argument, and Horsham gave in readily.
They had the whole night to get done what they needed to get done. Terrill didn’t seem to be trying to leave town, and it wasn’t that big of a town in the first place. They’d track him down without too much trouble now that he was in the wind, without resources. There were only so many places he could hide. Horsham knew that all he had to do was follow his own vampire instincts, and they would lead him to his prey.
They were on foot, but both vampires moved fast in the darkness. They’d recently fed, and Jamie was nearly bursting out of her skin with energy, the excitement of being newly vampire. It tickled Horsham; he remembered those early heady, dangerous days before Terrill had taken him under his wing: the sudden exhilaration, the increased strength and energy, the knowledge that existence would extend into an endless nighttime.
They stopped at a subdivision in the northeast part of town, one with cheaply made, bungalow-style houses cheek by jowl, each staring directly into the neighbor’s yard. In one cul-de-sac, Jamie quickly walked around to the back of one of the houses, reached under a bird feeder near the sliding doors, and extracted a key.
They entered the home quietly. They didn’t need to turn on the lights. The interior of the dark house was clear to them, clearer than it would be to a human in daylight. She went upstairs and into a small den/office. There were certificates on the wall, awards for Richard Carlan’s police work.
Jamie pushed some papers off the desk and sat down, extracting a black pen from a jar on the shelf above the desk.
Ignoring Horsham, she started writing in the dark, biting her lower lip in concentration.
Richard has threatened me again, he read over her shoulder.
Horsham left her to it and began wandering around the small house, though there wasn’t much to see. He’d almost forgotten that people lived this way: bland furniture, bland decor, bland colors, bland everything. He would rather open the curtains to the sun and burn than exist this way.
Jamie was still writing, so he wandered out into the backyard. He caught a glimpse of movement in the next-door neighbor’s upstairs window. Had they been seen? Could the police get here before Jamie was done? He suspected that she was trying to frame her asshole boyfriend for her murder, and she wouldn’t want a break-in reported. It would nullify what she was trying to do.
Horsham leaped toward the second-story balcony, his hands catching the edge, and pulled himself up. He made his way to the window. It was open; it probably never occurred to the human that anyone could climb up there without being seen and heard. He could see the man on the other side of the room picking up the phone.
Horsham reached him before he could dial the third digit of the emergency number. The man squealed once before Horsham tore his throat out. Horsham wasn’t hungry, but he ate enough to make sure the man wouldn’t revive. There were enough baby vampires already in this town.
He dropped what was left of the man’s body to the floor with a thump.
“Are you all right, Daddy?” he heard.
There was a teenage girl at the door. She couldn’t see him because the room was too dark. Her hand was reaching for the light switch. Horsham was on her before she could flip it.
She, too, was quickly disposed of. Her blood sprayed against the walls, because he was already full and couldn’t drink it fast enough.
One way or another, Horsham was going to need to get out of town in the next twenty-four hours. He was still confident he’d find Terrill before then. But in the back of his mind was his exquisite vampiric sense of timing, and it was telling him that he was breaking just about all the Rules of Vampire.
“Did you have to do that?”
Jamie was at the window, looking a little disturbed. She still had a bit of human empathy, Horsham reminded himself. It wasn’t her fault.
“He was calling the police,” he said.
She was staring at the body of the girl, who was maybe a couple of years younger than Sylvie, her little sister. “Their lives are short,” he said curtly. “You’ll understand that soon enough.”
She must have found a change of clothing in her old boyfriend’s house, because she was dressed in some Kmart special of a dress and a bulky coat. He grimaced at the lack of style, then looked down at the blood that covered his magnificent and very expensive suit. He rummaged through the dead man’s closet and found some nondescript trousers and dress shirts. Reluctantly, he put on a pair of the pants and one of the shirts.
“Is there a mall around here?” he asked. “I need to get some real clothes.”
“Yeah, just north of town. On our way,” she said. She perked up, still human enough to be excited by shopping.
#
The mall was open until eleven o’clock, and they got there just in time.
The clothing store clerk was by himself; the stores on either side had already closed. He looked annoyed as they walked in, but as both customers began piling up expensive clothing, he started getting excited. Working on commission, Horsham assumed.
He was probably a high school kid. He had a bad complexion and sallow skin, greasy blond hair, and bloodshot eyes. He’d probably been toking a bit in the back of the store on a slow night.
Horsham knew his own sizes exactly and knew what he was looking for. There wasn’t much available, but some classic lines never went out of style, and
he loaded up with them after first dressing himself in a better outfit.
At first, Jamie tried on a couple of demure dresses, but Horsham sat back on the dressing room bench and shook his head. “You’re a beautiful girl. You’ve got a great body. Show it off!”
He surreptitiously pushed the dressing room door open as she tried on something much more daring. As he expected, the clerk was hovering outside, trying not to look but unable to look away.
Horsham egged Jamie on as she tried on ever more daring clothing, convincing her that the outfits needed to be tighter and more revealing. The young man couldn’t hide his interest. Jamie was transforming from a nice-looking small-town girl into someone much more glamorous and sexy, like someone out of a rock video.
When she had picked out enough of a wardrobe to last her for a while, Horsham sent her with the cart to the front desk. She was wearing the sexiest outfit he could convince her to wear: leggings, a short skirt, and a tight blouse.
“Hey, kid. I really appreciate your staying late for us. I’d like to give you a tip.” Horsham was still sitting on the dressing room bench, considerately folding the rejected clothing. The clerk didn’t suspect a thing.
The vampire had already eaten enough for a month, and this pimple-faced kid simply wasn’t appealing. He stabbed into the kid’s chest and then twisted, catching the heart with his razor-sharp claws. The kid died looking strangely disappointed, as if he realized he was going to lose out on his big commission.
Horsham searched the clerk’s pockets until he found his car keys, then propped the body in the corner of the dressing room and closed the door so that it locked behind him.
Jamie was laying the clothes on the counter, tags up and easily accessible. So thoughtful, Horsham mused. He grabbed a couple of bags and started stuffing the clothes inside them.
“Aren’t you going to pay?” she asked, looking around for the clerk.
The Vampire Evolution Trilogy (Book 1): Death of an Immortal: Page 15