by Lund, S. E.
“Fine,” I say and pull away from him. “Give me your wrist.”
He does without hesitation, no more argument in him. He’s already run a nail across his vein so that blood drips from the wound. I drink, a mouthful and then two. It’s enough to satisfy me and I hand his wrist back and he licks the wound to heal it.
Then I lie down on the bed and pull the covers up, my back to him, the endorphins already making me feel warm. With his blood in my system, I can feel his sadness from a distance and it softens my heart towards him.
“It’s really sweet of you to care enough to want to turn me, Julien,” I say, “but it’s the very last thing I’d want, considering what happened to my mother.”
He says nothing, but I hear him finish undressing. He gets under the covers and lays without touching me. On my part, the blood is starting to work its magic and warmth spreads through my body and I need him. I can’t deny it. I dig my nails into my palm in an attempt to block the desire from building, and to keep Julien from sensing it.
“I already know,” he says and sighs. “Why are you so damn stubborn? Why don’t you want me?”
“It’s the blood, Julien.” I breathe deeply to try to gain control over myself. “Nothing else. Besides it’s really late. We have to work later. I need to sleep.”
He turns over and it's only hours later that I do fall asleep.
* * *
When I wake, he’s asleep on the bed beside me. I should be with him, but it's still too soon. I need to find my way back to him.
While coffee perks on the small wet bar counter, I perform a series of yoga positions to limber up. Then, I go through my morning routine of Nitō Ichi martial arts moves – the moves we did to start our day at the abbey.
For that, I have my two short Wakizashi swords forged in Japan. One is a blade, one is a stake. I pull them from their cases and quickly clean them to keep them in good shape. I hold the blade up and run a cloth over the edge, remembering the night I passed the test. After I finish my routine, I shower while Julien sleeps, a pillow over his head.
After he's up and showers, we sit at the small table and plan our day.
"If there are any vampires here, they're in deep cover. I saw no one last night, on the street or in the bars. After we get a look at the body, we'll talk about our strategy. We may have to settle here if anything suspicious turns up in the police and coroner records. The term at the Catholic College started last week. If you need to, you can register and become a student. Fit in. All three victims attended there."
"Catholic college? I don't know if I want to do that. I’m not a practicing Catholic anymore or a good actor."
"Come on, Eve. You can do it if it means getting to know the victim's friends."
I nod. It will be a real challenge.
"We'll look for a cottage somewhere on the coast if we do stay," he says and that thought appeals to me. If so, I wonder what kind of place we'd find. I'd like a cottage overlooking the ocean – like Michel’s back in Ipswich.
"I'll check out the town and see what I can turn up," I say. "I'll come and get you for lunch then we can go to the sheriff's office."
"I've got someone local to ghost you, make sure you're safe. If you get in trouble, look for a man with a red cap." He puts the pillow back over his head. "Make sure you have your gun permit with you."
I pat my pocket. It’s there, right next to my Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms ID – the ATF being our current cover.
"Yes," I say. "Don't go all big brother on me."
"Just looking out for my secret weapon. Don’t want them hauling you in for possession of a firearm without a permit. Red cap won’t be able to help you if that happens."
I let the door slam behind me, smiling despite my best intentions.
Chapter 63
"Nothing is meaningful except surrendering to love."
Rumi
* * *
I walk down the street to a large community information kiosk in the town's main square, looking for directions to the Catholic college. I notice a man following me a block behind, wearing a red cap. It makes me feel a little safer.
The map shows Bishop McDermott College is located a few blocks from the main street. I put on my best imitation Catholic college student's face and walk down the quiet streets to check out the red-brick building.
The campus is small, with a huge football stadium out back with stands. They take their college football seriously, despite being a small private school. Students mill about the grounds, entering the old building up a flight of stone steps. Some sit in groups under ancient trees.
About a century old, the building has ornate brickwork and quaint ivy-lined walls. I feel a bit of anxiety about attending here, but I remind myself that I'm a survivor first and foremost. I'll just have to swallow my unease at lying about who I am, try to fit in, but stay under the radar. Not that it will be easy for a new girl in town to slip under anyone's radar, but I'll try.
I walk to the Sheriff's office, which is located in one of the older buildings in the town square. Julien and I will come back later to speak with him. The SCU has already contacted him about us, telling him we're with the Council and that our cover is that we're ATF agents on a mission. He'll give us whatever resources we needed.
Next, I make my way to the water because I have time to kill. I look behind me and about a half block away is red cap. He's carrying a newspaper and stops when I do, leaning against the wall of a building on the wharf. I've barely met anyone on the streets. It's off-season and the tourists have all gone back to their homes. Kids are all in public and high school.
I love the ocean, having lived near one for part of my childhood, when my father had a position with the local symphony orchestra in Cardiff and we spent time in Wales. Summers found us on the coast in a cottage overlooking the Celtic Sea. The scent of brine brings back so many memories of better times when I was just a girl learning piano, enjoying life with my family in our cottage on the coast. It also reminds me of my time with Michel, after we met again and he spent those strange days with me, walking the beach, looking at stars. I feel a surge of sadness but quash it. I'm not going to let guilt over Michel ruin my time with Julien.
I stand at the top of a hill overlooking the bay and breathe in the salty air. Vampires would like my memories. Due to my amnesia, my childhood is all I do remember. Sharing memories with humans is what vampires crave most besides blood. Even Julien wants our human experiences, to feel our emotions, using telepathic connections with us to keep his human side alive.
Now, some of them want to be our rulers. They want us, not as prey they have to hunt down and kill, or as suppliers of blood in vials, but as slaves and cows, as Julien said, providing them with blood. I'm not ready to let them take our world just because they're sick of hiding in plain sight.
Overhead, gulls wheel through the sky, gliding on the breeze and cry. I could live here for a while, if needed. Julien and I need time to get to know each other in more than just a carnal way. A month or two living here undercover would be like a vacation – or a honeymoon.
I find a quaint coffee shop on the picturesque wharf and get a pastry and cup of coffee. I find a table on the deck overlooking the water, open my iPad and read the morning headlines. Red cap gets a coffee and sits a few tables away from me.
If it wasn't for him, I'd feel almost normal.
* * *
Towards noon, I return to the motel and wake Julien up. He dresses quickly and we walk to the waterfront, hand in hand. We eat our lunch on a bench overlooking the bay with seagulls as our audience and I decide to have fresh shrimp, editing my vegetarianism so that it excludes only mammals and birds. Since I've been a blood slave, I feel a desire to eat flesh. It must be the blood but whatever it is, my compromise is that I'll eat crustaceans and smaller fish because, well, they seem to have less personality.
The local marina is filled with sailboats and yachts and there's a dock where fishing boats fuel up. An indoor farmer's market is located
just a block from the water. I plan on going there for fresh fish, if we end up staying here for any length of time. I haven't had much chance to learn to cook, but if we stay here, I'll get a chance to play a normal twenty-one year-old woman and that appeals to me. Maybe, I'll even get to go to a bar with Julien and we can be a normal couple.
I feel as if I’ve missed so much since losing my memories and being a single-minded vampire-hunter in the making.
Next, we make our way to the Sheriff's office, located a couple of blocks from the water. Sheriff Steve Conyers is a man in his late forties and he looks like he belongs in the Marines instead of small town Massachusetts. His hair is salt-and-pepper which he wears in a brush cut and has dark eyes that seem to read you like a book. He shakes Julien's hand and then mine, eyeing me over.
"Isn't she a bit young for this kind of work?"
Julien laughs. "Special Cases Unit, special regs."
We sit in his office and Julien presents our papers. Sheriff Conyers checks them over and rubs his chin. He turns to his computer screen and logs in, then clicks through some screens for a moment before turning back.
"I got an email from Bishop Vasquez, telling me you'd be arriving yesterday and the whole story. I'll cooperate in any way I can."
Julien nods and changes positions in his chair. "We need to look at the case file if possible, so you'll have to tell your staff we're here undercover for the ATF. But if we decide to stay, we'll want to blend into the community as quickly as possible. Our cover with the civilians will be that we're here to escape the big city, and that Eve wants to attend college somewhere quiet. We'll try to infiltrate whatever group exists in town."
"No problem. I've got a copy of the forensic report right here. Dead girl's name was Christie Hamilton. Had the lead in the college musical. Just got the part and was all excited. The vampire who killed her and the other two should be staked and pissed on and I'm all for helping you do it.” He hands Julien the file. “If you want, I'll just say that you were looking for advice on where to live in town. My sister is a real estate agent."
Julien examines the file, flipping pages. "Did you get the request for special blood and tissue tests?"
Conyers pulls out another file, handing it to Julien. Julien checks it over and then passes it to me. I read the results of the blood test – extremely high levels of oxytocin – far higher than normal and extremely low levels of dopamine. Both are signs that the victims were long-time blood slaves. I glance at Julien and he nods to me, understanding at a glance why I'm smiling.
Blood slave. Adept. We'll be staying. I'm almost happy.
Make that I am happy.
"What does that mean? Those tests?" Conyers asks, pointing to the sheet of paper I hold.
"It means that I'm going to college and we need a house to rent," I say and smile at Conyers. "What's a good neighborhood to live in?"
The Sheriff leans back in his chair and regards me for a moment. "You going to McDermott?"
"Hope so."
"Smaller than most colleges. Only two hundred students. Have a great football team, and their drama and music departments are first rate, from what I hear. They put on plays and concerts at the old theater downtown. Got a couple of new teachers from England in a few years back. Students rave about them. As to a house, my sister can hook you up with something. Lot of absentee landlords here who rent out houses on the coast to vacationers. It's off-season, so you might get a deal if you sign for three months."
I raise my eyebrows at that. Julien throws me a look. I might like to stay for three months.
"Semester started last week, so you're a bit late getting registered."
"Eve will have no problem getting in. Right now," Julien says, "I'd like to spend some time going over any other deaths you've had recently. Any the coroner ruled natural causes."
"Our coroner is pretty on top of things," he says.
"We might have to have more tests run on any that look promising, see if the deaths were connected. If so, we likely have a Blackstone cell located in town and will have to stay, gather evidence and then take it out once we're sure."
"You have my full cooperation," Conyers says. He stands. "I love Davis Cove. I'll do whatever it takes to protect our people."
* * *
Sheriff Conyers leaves us alone in a small office in the rear of the building. We spend an hour going over the most recent deaths for the town and there are a few that seem like they might need a second look.
"Look at this one," Julien says, handing me a file as we sit with the case files from the coroner spread out on the table. "A woman with cancer died in her sleep in the palliative care wing of the local long term care facility where people who are dying are placed for the last days of their lives. The coroner's report failed to mention that she'd lost all her blood."
I take the file and read through it. She was in her sixties and had lived in town all her life. She'd have ample memories for a vampire to feed on and although she had cancer, her prognosis said she probably had weeks to live beyond what she did. Like Julien and Michel did eight hundred years ago, vampires sought out the dying in order to benefit from their blood, bringing them a peaceful death instead of one in pain, then compelling any family or officials to ignore the loss of blood as a cause of death. It was perhaps the only thing they did that had any value – giving the dying a peaceful death. I check the photograph, but there was no autopsy due to her prognosis.
About a half-hour in, I find another case that looks promising.
"Here's one," I say and flip a page in the file. "Older man. Lived alone and was in good health, other than being depressed because his wife had died earlier in the year and he missed her. Supposed suicide. Hung himself in his basement."
Julien glances up from a document he's reading. "Did they do an autopsy?"
"Nope, due to the noose and suicide note."
"Suicides are always suspect. Easy to compel folks because it's so horrific to deal with, people don't want to pursue it."
Finally, Julien finds a case that's a year old. "Here's a fourteen-year-old kid with terminal cancer who died in the hospital one night when the parents though he'd be OK and left him alone, sleeping in their own bed for a change instead of on a mattress on the floor. When the nurse came in the next morning, the kid was dead. No sign of a struggle. Peaceful. Blood loss wasn't mentioned in the coroner's report but our tests will pick it up."
I finish my coffee. "How can they be sure these were due to blood loss? Won't the bodies be too decomposed?"
He put down a file and rubs his eyes. "There are tests to check for the normal and abnormal decomposition profiles. When you have a full volume of blood in you, the breakdown products are different than if you're drained. We'll have to check all their contacts as well."
It's unlikely that there'll be only one vampire here. Most likely several. Could be anyone, but most likely new residents. We'll get a list of all new residents in the town and start investigating each one.
I remember the Sheriff saying that the drama and music teachers moved to town from England a couple years earlier. One of the first things I’ll do at school is sign up for the drama and music courses.
* * *
That afternoon, we go to McDermott College to register. The registrar is only too happy to enroll me once Julien finishes speaking with her. She makes everything so easy from then on – the paperwork, picking up classes, even permission for me to go into the music class despite it being full, due to my background.
"Professor Rhys will be only too happy to have you in class," she says. "She studied at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England, and is very talented as a teacher."
I smile. She'd be the first person I'd check out, and I'll know immediately if she's a day-walking vampire or Adept. As one of the newest residents in town, and one of the dead girl's teachers, she'll be a prime suspect. I also manage to get into her husband's drama class. I'm a little more concerned about that. I'm such a poor
actor, despite trying to act happy for years, act sane, act anything but who and what I am.
I need the practice at deception.
The rest of the classes don't really matter – even Catholic Ethics. I'm an atheist, but enjoy reading and learning about religion so I don't care what faith it is. I do like Catholic churches and music though, so Catholicism isn't so bad. It reminds me of my life before my mother's death, when I was a good little Catholic and believed in God.
“You start tomorrow,” the registrar says as she hands me my timetable.
After I register, Julien and I meet with the Sheriff's sister about renting a house. We go to see three cottages on the coast that are available. We chose one high on a hill overlooking the ocean. It has three bedrooms, a fireplace and a great yard. Nestled in a grove of trees, it's a short walk to the hilltop and a narrow walkway down to the beach. I can't believe our luck and finding such a gem.
I love it.
I could be really happy here. It reminds me of our cottage in Wales. There's a sense of peace in the cottage, and in this small town. I haven't known for a very long time.
All it needs is a piano and perhaps, a violin. I'd love to play a duet with Julien one day.
"When can we move in?" I ask, as we stand outside overlooking the beach.
"You can have the keys once you put down a deposit and pay the rent."
I look at Julien, who's also smiling. He loves the ocean as much as me. I hug him. I'm actually happy.
Julien gives the real estate agent a check for three months rent and a damage deposit and we have the keys. The cottage is fully furnished with plush overstuffed furniture and we're able to move our paltry belongings in that night, checking out from the motel a day early. I'm glad to be out of there, and even more glad to have our own bedroom. The house is equipped with a security system, but even so, Julien has arranged to have a security detail on the cottage, just in case.
Our bedroom is at the front of the cottage, looking out over the ocean, sliding doors to a small stone patio and I'm ecstatic. The room is a bit prettified for me, all pink and white roses, with a four-poster bed and ornate dresser with a full mirror. A hand-made quilt covers the bed, and a hooked rug with a cabbage rose pattern lies on the floor.