by Morgan Rice
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Caleb walked into the local police station, Sam by his side, grim-faced as he thought of the business that lay before him. He was determined to confront that predator Kyle, the man who had tried to harm his daughter. He needed to look him in the eye, to know if all of this was nonsense, or if Scarlet had, indeed, truly turned Kyle into a vampire.
Deep down, Caleb didn’t want to believe any of this; he still wanted to believe he was living out some horrible nightmare, that everyone was just making some awful mistake. He wanted to discover that Aiden didn’t know what he was talking about, that Scarlet was not truly a vampire, and that she had returned home and all was well. He just wanted everything to go back to the way it had been. They had all been so happy as a family once, everything so perfect in their lives. He had loved Scarlet, and she had loved him. How had it all gone so wrong so quickly?
Caleb could not wait to look Kyle in the eye, to hear what he had to say about his daughter. He didn’t know exactly what he was looking for, but he felt he would know it once he laid eyes upon the man. If nothing else, he would love to knock him out—if he weren’t behind bars already.
Caleb walked side by side with Sam through the police station lobby, and as they neared the front desk, Caleb was struck by a terrifying thought: what if it were all really true? What if Scarlet were truly a vampire? How would he stop her? Would he have to kill her? He shuddered at the thought. He would never. He would rather be killed himself.
But then he had another thought: what if Kyle were truly a vampire? How would he kill him? Vampires, he had always heard, could not be killed, except in special ways. He had no idea what those ways were. A silver bullet? A stake in the heart?
Was he showing up to a fight unprepared?
As Caleb approached the police chief’s desk, the chief, a grim-faced officer in his fifties with graying hair and wide jowls, scowled back at him, a man Caleb had known most his life.
“Chief,” Caleb said, nodding.
The chief, usually warm, just looked back warily, eyes cold and hard.
“We don’t have anything on your daughter,” he said. “I told you we’d call.”
Caleb shook his head.
“I’m not here about that,” he said. “Well, not directly anyway.”
The chief glared back.
“What is it then? You’ve come on a bad day for our department.”
“What do you mean?” Caleb asked, surprised, realizing something was really off here. “What is it?”
The chief shook his head, and Caleb could see his eyes well with tears. Caleb wondered what could’ve happened; he had never seen the chief show emotion, not once in twenty years.
“Two of our own,” he said. “Killed.”
Caleb’s heart dropped.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “How?”
The chief shook his head, his throat choking up.
“It’s this business with your daughter,” he said.
Caleb’s heart started to pound as he felt an increasing sense of dread.
“My daughter?” he asked. “What did Scarlet have to do with it?”
The chief sighed.
“The perv we arrested at the bar,” he said. “Kyle. The boys were bringing him in, in the back of a cruiser. Somehow, he broke free. Don’t know how. Never happened before. Killed two of my boys. Just like that.”
Caleb felt his heart slamming at the news, filled with dread. Kyle had broken out of a police car, had killed two officers. Alone. Unarmed.
It felt ominous. Supernatural.
“I’ll kill him myself when I find this punk,” the chief said. “I swear I will.”
“Find him?” Caleb asked. “What do you mean? I came here to talk to him.”
“Talk to him?” the chief responded. “Are you nuts? The guy’s a cold-blooded killer. He’s not here anyway. Like I said, he’s gone.”
“What do you mean gone?” Caleb pressed. “Where did they transfer him? I need to talk to him.”
The chief shook his head, leaned forward, and slammed his palms on the desk.
“You don’t get it,” he snapped. “He’s gone. Meaning gone. He escaped.”
“Escaped?” Caleb asked, stunned.
The chief nodded.
“Everyone on my force, state police, even the feds are out looking for him. We’re gonna catch this sonofabitch and it’s gonna be a bloodfest before this night is through.”
Caleb turned over his words, and he wished he could believe him. But he had a sinking feeling, deep in his heart, that if they caught Kyle, the only ones that would be killed would be them.
*
Caleb drove down Route 9, Sam in the passenger seat, turning over again and again in his mind his conversation with the chief. He still could not believe what he had heard. It all felt sickeningly real—as if there could be some truth to all of this after all—but he did not want to believe it. He wanted to hear that Kyle was locked up, that he was just a normal bad guy. He didn’t want to hear about him escaping. He didn’t want to hear about him killing cops, breaking away.
And he certainly did not want to hear that any of this had anything to do with his daughter. Caleb wondered if the chief blamed him, hated him.
“Don’t you think this is a waste of time?” Sam asked.
Caleb snapped out of it. “Pete’s was the last place anyone saw him. Maybe someone there will know something. Anything. Maybe he said where he was going.”
“The guy’s a cop killer,” Sam said. “If we find him, are you ready? Because I am.”
Sam opened the glove compartment and as he did, a small pistol came sliding out. Sam picked it up and held it in his hands, weighing it. Caleb’s eyes opened wide in surprise. The stakes had just been raised.
“Never knew you had that,” Caleb said.
“I never carried it,” Sam said. “Until now. If we find that guy who hurt Scarlet, and he tries anything, I have no problem using it.”
Caleb nodded back.
“I’m ready to do what I have to do,” he said. “Don’t use every bullet. Save one for me.”
Caleb pulled into Pete’s parking lot, the gravel crunching beneath the tires. He parked and they both jumped out and marched up the rickety wooden steps. As they approached the door, Caleb was shocked to see police crime tape all over the place, the door shattered, the place looking as if it had been hit by a bomb. He didn’t recall leaving it in such bad shape. Had something else happened here?
Caleb and Sam walked through what was left of the creaking door, and into the dimly lit bar, and Caleb was amazed to see it look even worse on the inside. Shattered glass everywhere, it was like a war zone. The place was empty, police tape up all over it.
There came a shuffling of feet, and Caleb saw a bartender, bruised and cut up, picking up pieces of glass off the floor and setting them on the bar.
“We’re closed,” he snapped, not even looking at them. “Can’t you see the sign?”
Caleb marched right in, Sam beside him, and as he did, it brought back fresh memories of his brawl with those men. Caleb had no love lost for this place, or this bartender, or anything about this place, which he associated with the worst of everything, the spot where his daughter was almost killed.
“You’re not closed anymore,” Caleb answered.
The bartender suddenly reached behind the bar, pulled out a shotgun, and pointed it at them.
Caleb and Sam stopped in their tracks.
“I’m not having anyone else waltz into this bar. Happened once already. So you two best just turn around and get the hell out of here.”
The bartender held out the gun, and Caleb thought twice. But he was not about to back off.
“I would,” Caleb said, “but my daughter’s out there and I need answers. I figure you’re the best person to give them to me.”
The bartender squinted, lowering his gun as he studied Caleb.
“You’re the dad?” he asked.
Caleb nodd
ed back, and the man set down his gun.
“Sorry about that. I’m jumpy these days.”
Caleb saw how banged up he was, and he had a feeling.
“Kyle?” Caleb asked. “Did he do that to you?”
The bartender looked back, surprised.
“How did you know?” he asked.
Caleb approached the bar, and the bartender set down the gun and raised a glass.
“Beer?” he offered.
Caleb shook his head.
“No,” Caleb said, “I don’t drink. I just want answers. I want to find my daughter.”
“We all want something,” the bartender said. “I want my broken nose to heal. I want that bastard Kyle dead—and so do a lot of other people. Cop killer. Can you imagine? I’m damn lucky he didn’t kill me.”
“I need to know where he went,” Caleb said.
The bartender looked at him as if he were crazy.
“And if you find him, what are you going to do? He’s a cop killer. You think you’ll stop him?”
“I know I will,” Caleb said, determined.
The bartender looked at him, hearing the seriousness in his voice.
“It’s your own funeral,” he shrugged. “I’d tell you if I knew. But I don’t.”
“You don’t understand,” Caleb said. “I need to find my daughter.”
The bartender raised his brow.
“That’s funny,” he said. “That’s the same thing Kyle wanted—when he came back in here.”
The hairs stood on the back of Caleb’s neck.
“Kyle was asking about Scarlet?” Sam said.
The bartender nodded.
“Why would he be doing that?”
“I have no idea. Seems like he’s fixated on your daughter. Guess he can’t find someone his own age.”
Caleb scowled, furious.
“And where did you tell him my daughter was?”
“How was I supposed to know?” the bartender said, defensive. “I have no clue where she is. I told him that. I said I knew nothing about her. All I knew was that she went to the high school.”
Sam scowled.
“You told him that?” Sam said. “You told him she goes to our high school? How stupid can you be?”
“What’s wrong with that?” the bartender said, confused. “Do you really think he’s going to march up to her school?”
Caleb shook his head.
“That’s exactly what he’ll do,” he said. He turned to Sam.
“But I’m going to get there first.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Caitlin sat on the floor between the stacks in the dark, silent library, bleary-eyed, her back against the metal frame and every muscle in her body aching as she hunched over a stack of books in her lap. It had been a marathon of reading, and books were strewn everywhere, as if an avalanche of them had fallen down upon her. Her eyes were blurry and she rubbed them again, determined to keep going.
Caitlin read beneath the dim emergency light, as she had been for hours, ever since the library had closed and its lights had shut down. She was grateful that she had not been detected, and she was determined to make the most of it, tearing through volumes, devouring them from the second the doors to the main library finally slammed close.
Caitlin had had a long and lonely night, squinting through book after book, searching for any clues, anything she could find. She waded through volumes on lost cities, lost races, lost civilizations, reading the most fantastical things, most of it legend, myth. Frustratingly, she had come across little having to do with vampires.
Caitlin began to see a soft light filtering in from the stained-glass windows high above, and she knew dawn was breaking. Soon the doors would open, everyone would be back, and she would have to slip out before they caught her. Her time here would be over. She did not think physically she could spend much more time reading anyway, exhausted from having not slept and not eaten, having barely moved from this spot.
Caitlin was beginning to wonder if this had all been a huge waste of time. What had she been thinking? Did she really think that she would stumble upon something that Aiden himself had been unable to? She was smart, of course, but so were a lot of other people who had gone down this route, searching for the same thing. Would she ever find a cure for her daughter? A weapon to stop it? Did either even exist?
All Caitlin really cared about was Scarlet; all she wanted was for her daughter to be happy and healthy and back to the normal girl she was. Caitlin had always been able to find a solution to everything through her scholarship, through reading—but not this time. It frustrated her to no end. For the first time in her life, she was beginning to wonder if she would come up empty. Despite all her scholarship and reading skills, she herself could not unlock the mystery to get her daughter the help she needed.
Caitlin closed her eyes, leaned her head back against the metal frame of the stack, and rubbed it, caressing her aching head, rubbing her fingers between her eyes, over her eyebrows, trying to make the dull pain go away. She felt like crying, collapsing, giving up on the world.
Please, God, she prayed. It was the first time she’d prayed in she did not know how long, certainly since she was a child. Yet she had never felt as desperate as she did now.
Please, God. Bring my baby back to me. I’ll do anything. I’ll give anything. Please. I don’t pray for riches or power. I just pray for clarity, for insight, guidance, and wisdom. Please. Help me save my daughter.
A loud bang suddenly startled Caitlin, and she looked over and was surprised to see one of the large dusty books she had stacked beside her had slipped off the mound and fell by her knee. Caitlin, puzzled, examined it, a huge, heavy, leather-bound book, nearly two feet long, and realized it was one of a few books she had not yet read.
It was so heavy as she pulled it off the floor and placed it on her thigh. The book must have weighed a good ten pounds, and as she turned the oversized pages, she realized it was a rare volume, hundreds of years old. She could be sent to jail for being here, she realized, for doing all this, sitting here, trespassing, holding these invaluable items, which collectively were worth millions. She knew, having worked with rare books, how much they were worth. They were priceless.
Caitlin turned page after page, fingering the goldleaf, the beautiful illustrations, and reading closely the elaborate penmanship. It was in Latin, but Caitlin understood it.
The book was about lost places. Caitlin read and read, and unlike the other books, it was riveting. She became intrigued. Her heart started beating faster, as she finally began to feel like she was onto something.
The mythical city of Atlantis, of course, can be looked at in two ways. One is as a myth, a metaphor for some greater civilization, some place we strive to attain to as humans. The other is a real place, a place swept underwater, perhaps by a flood, or by a volcano or some other catastrophic event. The notion of a lost city, though, is not so far-fetched. Consider the lost libraries. Alexandria burned to the ground, taking with it half of our civilization’s scholarship. And what of the Hall of Records—fact or fiction?
Caitlin blinked, processing it all. She’d never heard of the Hall of Records, and was thrown off guard by this oblique reference to it. What on earth was the author referring to?
Feeling a glimmer of hope, Caitlin flipped page after page, her heart sinking as she could not find a mention of it again. She wanted to scream. She felt like jumping back in time and grabbing and shaking this author, this person who would tease her in this way and then not expound on it.
As she turned the next page, though, she came upon an elaborate color illustration of the Sphinx of Egypt, the sun shining behind it, its rays filling the page, so bright it looked as if it might jump out at her, and as she read the inscription, in tiny letters, she was immensely relieved to discover that the author did, indeed, revisit the topic:
Considered the greatest library known to man, the Hall of Records is a mythical lost library containing the most precious s
crolls known to man, supposedly hidden under the Sphinx in Egypt. Various theories have the library being built there by aliens, by a civilization ten thousand years old, or by a race of vampires.
Caitlin let the book fall from her lap, her mouth open in shock, and it landed with a thump on the floor. She sat straight up, feeling a jolt. She suddenly felt wide awake, as if she had just lost all sense of time and place. She picked the book up again, her throat dry, and read the words again and again, desperately, like a castaway starving for water.
Of course, there have been many archaeological expeditions, many attempts to find the Hall of Records. Egyptian authorities have forbidden all expeditions, in an effort to preserve the integrity of the Sphinx. While there are many tantalizing clues, including visible holes within the Sphinx itself, to indicate that there indeed is a lost city beneath it, that indeed a lost civilization lived there, that indeed there may be the greatest library known to man, still, it remains closed off by authorities and no one of record has managed to find a way below ground. Could it be that no such entry exists? Could it be that the Egyptian and other authorities have a reason for keeping others out? What are they hiding? What has one generation after the next been hiding for 10,000 years?
Caitlin sat there, processing it all, feeling in her heart that she had stumbled upon something real, something authentic. Its words rang in her head. A vast library. A lost city. A lost people. Vampires... It all felt right to her.
As Caitlin closed her eyes and imagined it all, the strangest thing happened: suddenly, an image flashed through her mind. She saw herself standing in a vast city beneath the earth, surrounded by thousands of vampires, all of them dressed in black, torches everywhere, raising their fists and shouting.