Andrew didn’t say much but I think he was relived because he wouldn’t have to cover for me any more. He never did find out that in addition to having a murderer under his roof he also had a jewelry thief and a drug dealer’s goon.
I got in touch with John through his people and we met on a bench in Lincoln Park. People jogged around us in the cool summer night while dogs jumped on each other and sniffed each other’s butts. We were meeting a little closer to my house than I cared for but I figured that if his rival drug dealer knew where I lived then he would as well.
I handed him a Whole Foods bag with the stolen jewelry at the bottom of it. I figured that the cops wouldn’t notice something so suburban.
“This is some interesting merchandise.” He said, “It would have been more subtle to drive a semi into the building and then run off with it.”
“Yeah, maybe next time,” I said.
“They’re scratched a bit and clearly they aren’t still in the boxes so it makes it a little more difficult to sell.”
“Shit. I should’ve asked if they could gift wrap them for me.”
He smiled a little for, I think, the second time.
“I’ll give you three grand for all of them.”
“Come on. Help me out a little here. How about five?”
I wanted to make my money back and a little on top if possible.
“All right, five it is. I’ll make it seven if you can help my guys run an errand.”
“I really can’t. I don’t know how you do what you do but I need to chill out a bit. The police are looking for me because of Leanne Washington, killing some guy up north and now the jewelry store.”
“Ah yes. You have been rather busy. I’m sure the jewelry store incident raised some eyebrows with some of the members of the Council but I will assure them that you are leaving and plan on taking it easy until then. I won’t regret doing this for you, will I?”
“No. Not at all.”
“Come over to the car with me.” Then we headed over to his SUV. I was a little worried that I was going to get the trunk treatment like Charlie. The trunk popped and he reached in, pulled out a cooler and handed it to me.
“Keep this cold and it will be good for about three weeks. To be safe, you should probably ditch the leftovers after two weeks. There are very few things that are worse for us than bad blood.”
I peeked into the cooler and saw bags of donor blood under an inch deep layer of ice.
“Thanks.” I smiled at him, showing my fangs. Now I didn’t have to worry about leaving a trail of dead people across the country.
Then he handed me a card and said, “If you find yourself in Harrisburg, Montana for any reason, visit this guy.” The card said Torin Connaker and it had an address underneath. “He’s an interesting character and he’ll teach you a thing or two about being a vampire. He’s over a thousand years old.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it. I appreciate all the help you’ve given me.”
He smiled and then got in the car. I watched his taillights drive into the night.
Chapter 18
I contacted Simon through John to let him know that I would be heading to Alaska. Simon told me that I was free to come and go as I please but that it was customary to speak to the Council before leaving their jurisdiction for good. They would also contact the new jurisdiction so they could prepare for another vampire living there. Also if I didn’t arrive they would know.
Once again Simon arranged to pickup me at Lincoln Park with Roger driving. It was déjà vu all over again. Simon handed me the bag to put over my head and I did.
“It saddens me that you are leaving, Stephen,” Simon said to me through the bag. “We were getting used to having a cub around.”
“A cub?” I asked.
“It started out as a joke among vampires and for some reason it stuck. Mainly because lion prides have more females than males, like us. Lions leave prides to become nomads or to join other prides but females tend stay in the same area with each other. Young males always leave their original pride and rarely they return, but females always return, if only for a visit. I suppose to you modern folks it sounds sexist or some other bit of silliness but that’s the way it is. There isn’t malice in the terms.”
“I plan on coming back,” I said defiantly. When I said it I meant it at the time, but it didn’t take long to realize that I didn’t have much to come back to. The people that tied me to the area would die in a relatively short time it in the terms of an immortal. “I don’t really want to leave our pride, but I have to go home because my mother is sick.”
“One of the hardest times in your new life is watching your family and friends die one by one. At some point we’ve all had to cast off the vestiges of our old lives.” He said. It sounded like he was facing me but with the hood on I wasn’t completely sure. It would have been nice to see his eyes when he was telling me that. “If you are like most of the others before you, after your time of passage into the new world, you will want to wander a bit, wondering what to do with yourself. If you want to come back, please do.”
“How will I get in touch with you?”
“Just show up. We will know.” Then the car stopped and he got out. I sat there for a moment and waited for Roger to let me out. When Roger took the bag off of my head, Simon was gone. I wouldn’t see him again for a long time.
The Council members were sitting in a big room that was more like a corporate conference room than anything else.
They weren’t sitting three across like they had been on the judge’s bench. The head female judge sat in the middle of the table, the lone male sat at the head of the table. The other female judge sat on the same side of the table as me but lounging in a chair against a far wall.
“I hear you are leaving us?” the head judge asked me in an informal, almost pleasant tone.
“Yeah. I have to go home and say goodbye to my mom.” I was trying to make eye contact with all three of them at but they were sitting too far apart and it was like watching a tennis match so I settled on the head judge.
Then the male spoke. “It will be difficult but you mustn’t change your mother.”
“I know.” I sighed without thinking about it.
“How do you plan on getting up there?” His voice was low and gravelly like he had spent an eternity smoking.
“I’m going to drive. It will give me and the dog a chance to see the country. Timing a flight based on the sun is tricky and if something happened during the flight I might get trapped on the plane.”
“That is a good plan. The less people that you are around you the better.” Then he looked at the head judge indicating that he didn’t have anything more to say.
The head judge looked at me for a moment. “We will get in touch with the other Councils to let them know that you will be travelling through other districts and finally staying in Alaska for a bit. Lastly, you should know that we gave Charlie way more chances than other councils would have. In some districts the first vampire she created without permission would have been grounds for the death penalty. ”
“Okay. Thank you.” Then the door opened and Roger was standing there waiting with the bag in his hand. I looked at the three of them separately and tried to smile but nothing came out.
I left the room and Roger handed me the bag when we got to the car. I put it on and we drove off.
The next day the phone rang. The number came up as private so I figured it was either John or someone calling from Capitol Hill.
“Hello?” I said, a little distracted. The moment that I woke up the dog was ready to be fed. Diablo kept walking in front of me trying to herd me towards the kitchen to fill her bowl.
“Okay, okay,” I said to Diablo. “Take it down a notch.”
“Yes,” I said, “Hi. Hello?”
“Hello Stephen, this is John. When you told me that you are leaving DC, I made peace with our friends that we had some problems with.” He was pretty good at being coy on the phone b
ecause he suspected his phone was tapped.
“I’m glad to hear it,” I said. “Do I play any part in the agreement?”
“Yes, albeit a small one. You can’t ever come back to DC once you leave. If so then it will be open season on all of us. You don’t plan on coming back, do you?”
“No. Not for a while.”
“That is good. In exchange they will leave your friends alone.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Besides, mortals don’t have a long life span. Particularly the ones in my line of work.” He made a heh, heh sound. “Until we meet again.” Then he hung up.
On my last day, I had a small dinner with my old DC friends. Andrew told everyone that I had his wife to make a special dinner at home for me, which is why I wasn’t eating. I didn’t want to make a big deal about leaving because people left DC all the time. I had ten times more friends come and go in DC than friends who chose to stay. I had to divorce myself from my mortal life. I couldn’t continue to kill people in a city with over 10,000 cameras. My friends were going to grow old and have families. I was stuck in time.
I had to say goodbye to my family in Alaska, not just my mom. I wanted to see them for one last time and then it would be over. It would’ve hurt my mother too much to disappear without seeing her again.
When I was little, my mom used to make me promise that I wouldn’t ever die before her. It seems strange to say that now but for a few years I had a couple of friends die in accidents and it worried her immensely. Now that she is going first I knew that I was on the raw end of the deal.
Growing up I used to love watching cowboys on TV. My favorite part of the show was when the cowboy rode off into the sunset. Instead of riding off into the sunset like a hero, I drove west, away from the sunrise, like a villain.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Clayton Hanson was born and raised in Alaska. He enjoys naps and pizza. For the past three years he has worked as a writer and editor for a news service providing analysis and information about Congress in Washington, DC.
He is currently working on his second novel, Ms. Remorse.
He can be found at Facebook.com/Hanson.Clayton and on Twitter @SnuffyMcDuffy.
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