by D. M. Nash
I say “lawn,” but that’s not quite right. There’s not a lot of extra water in this part of the country, so people aren’t really big on sod. I mean, some people try for a typical lawn, with mixed results, but the owner here had it landscaped nicely with native grasses and plants, which I always liked. And really it just makes sense. Why fight for a plant that needs way more water when you can just have stuff that thrives here in the wild? Stuff that’s way more interesting than uniform grass anyway.
Judging from the decorations, the person or people who lived here also had a penchant for pixies, fairies, and gnomes, but I didn’t think that was quite going to prepare them for actually being faced with creatures who were probably not too far a cry from these.
The door was open, but the sun was so bright I couldn’t make out anything beyond the shadow of the doorway. I couldn’t hear anything either. No shouts, no conversation, no intense questioning. I only heard the raspy breath coming from my own mouth as I tried to get my pulse and head under control. I felt about as conspicuous as a teacher who shows up to proctor a test naked, but I wasn’t about to start glancing around to see if anyone was looking at me. Hopefully the raking guy was more interested in getting the leaves cleaned up than whatever he thought I was doing.
“Uh-uh,” a voice said from around the house’s corner. “I’m pretty sure the Legend wouldn’t want you following him in there, and with good reason.”
XIi
“Richard?” I asked, seeing him in the stark shadow of the building. This was the first time I’d gotten a look at him in daylight, and I was kind of struck by what an engaging-looking guy he was. He wasn’t some cut hunk or anything, but he had something of a pale, sensitive artist thing going on for him that was actually pretty cool. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m watching over Mr. Briar. Don’t you have school to get to?”
This was just getting weirder. Trying to imagine being in school right now seemed… bizarre to say the least. “Like I’d be able to focus on anything knowing exactly what my dad is up to,” I told him.
He surprised me by saying, “Fair enough. Get over here, at least, and be quiet.”
I did as he said. To be honest, seeing him was a huge relief. I mean, what was I going to do in there? Bust some heads and take some names? Unlike my dad, I didn’t have a Batman-esque utility belt cinched around my waist.
Wait a minute… Richard was here in broad daylight. That meant… “You’re a sunner?” I said.
“No,” he said in a hushed voice with enough attitude to start a hair salon, “I just like getting burned to little bits.”
“Sorry.”
I guess I should have known better. This was a sensitive topic with a lot of vamps who were sunners. At least, that’s what I’d heard. I’d only ever met two aside from Richard. Sure, they could go out in the daytime and eat regular food, but the whole “sunner” thing came along with a whole laundry-list of undesirables. Not being able to transform into anything and having about half the physical strength of a normal vamp were right there at the top of that list. “I really wasn’t trying to—”
“Shhh!” He shushed me urgently and cocked his head to one side like a dog. He was listening to what was going on inside. What, to me, was silence mixed with the predictable sounds of suburbia, was something important Richard could actually make out with his heightened vampiric senses.
I wanted to ask him what he could hear in there, but I didn’t want him to miss something important. Tense seconds passed, and I realized I was clenching most of the muscles in my body that could be easily clenched.
Making a habit out of surprising me, Richard put one of his very pale hands in mine and squeezed. Coming out of nowhere like this, the touch was interesting, and kind of endearing. Especially because I wouldn’t have guessed he would think to give me any kind of comfort when so much of his attention was turned elsewhere. I wanted to repay the kindness, but I wasn’t sure what to do, and anyway, he wasn’t as shaken up as I was. It wasn’t his dad in there with bad guys that nobody but a couple crackpots had thought existed a few weeks ago.
Then the black suits ran out the door and took a sharp right at the sidewalk. They were both as white as Dick Cheney, or else I would have been sure one of them had to be Will Smith. What I’m saying is the MIB-vibe was strong with these guys.
My dad was right on their heels, but once they rounded the corner onto the next street to bisect this one he gave up the chase. I didn’t want to be there then, and I wished I’d gone to school like he told me in the first place. Putting myself in danger on his behalf was a Briar family misdemeanor, standing next to a vampire was something akin to a federal offense. But there was no way to avoid a confrontation now.
He turned back around, no doubt to make sure the car was actually gone with me in it, and he saw us. Of course, nothing really changed about his appearance, but I could imagine Dad as a six-foot-tall live coal at that moment.
“Sunner.” He was loud enough for me to hear, so I know Richard didn’t miss it. He said this the way a few of the uncouth individuals in the American South said another certain word, and honestly I was a little embarrassed. That said, this was not the time to give my dad an etiquette lecture.
But then Dad did something I wouldn’t have expected in a million years, and it really brought the danger to the fore-front of my mind. He would not have said what he said then if he’d thought there was any other real hope for my safety.
He looked at Richard and said, “Don’t let her out of your sight.”
Richard nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Wow. And I hadn’t even had a chance to coach him on the right way to talk to Ray Briar. I was glad that he avoided another vampire stereotype that was unfortunately pretty true: being flippant and condescending.
“You hypnotize?” my dad asked. It was like I wasn’t even there.
“I don’t like to,” said Richard, “but yes it is an ability I possess. To a point.”
“There’s a woman in there. She’s probably going to wake up in about three minutes.”
“What did you do to her?” I asked, not as an accusation, but as a real question. The movies made it look pretty easy to make somebody pass out, but in reality chloroform didn’t have that effect on people; really, nothing did that was actually safe to use. That is, nothing that the mainstream scientific community was aware of.
“Just an aurora,” he said defensively. “She should be okay, but it would probably be a lot neater if she didn’t remember this. Can you handle it, sunner?”
Richard nodded. It was beyond bizarre to watch my dad have a conversation like this with a vampire. In the last three or four conversations I’d been privy to between Ray Briar and a member of the undead legion he’d treated them about the way most people would treat a dog that was foaming at the mouth.
I took a peek around the house and didn’t see Mr. Rake-His-Leaves-and-Mind-His-Own-Business anywhere. That was good. When I was done with my visual survey of the street all I got of my dad were his sneakers. He was out of here, back on the trail of the black suits.
“What does he think he can do to them?”
“Kill them,” Richard said, and I realized it was kind of a stupid question. “Let’s go in.”
XIii
Not only did Richard not need “this is the right way to talk to the legendary Mr. Briar” lessons, he also didn’t need “this is how you walk around and look like you belong” lessons. Heck, he was better at it than I was.
In the house I felt like a trespasser, but Richard didn’t seem to have that problem. He hoisted the old woman up by the armpits and sat her upright on her couch. Dad hadn’t let her fall in a sprawl on the floor, so I wasn’t too worried about any damages she might have sustained. From the looks of her, I was guessing her name was either Mildred or Gertrude.
“What my dad was talking about,” I said, “an aurora… It’s spell-charm. It’s like a little trinket that has a one-time-use spell in it. He’s not a witch, but whe
n you have one—”
“I know what auroras are,” he said.
“Oh,” I said. “That’s cool.” This was, maybe, the lamest thing I’d ever said, but I kind of just wanted to fill up the silence. It was actually kind of weird that a vampire knew about them, since anything that has to do with witches is pretty rare, but I let it go for the time being.
It didn’t really matter how lame I was being, though; Richard wasn’t paying me a lot of attention. After getting Ol’ Granny Millie set up on her couch, he’d gotten a glass of water from her immaculate kitchen and set it on her coffee table. Now he was feeling her scalp for reasons I couldn’t begin to guess at.
He sat on the table next to the glass of water, and all of a sudden all activity stopped and we were just waiting for her to wake up. I wasn’t sure if I should sit down, or what, but I did know it was more than a little awkward. In another world, about a mile away, school was going on. Becca was probably wondering where I was, and if my absence had anything to do with last night’s visit. Kids were getting ready to take tests, wondering if their crushes liked them back, sending texts, reading books, listening to lectures…
And I was here. In an old lady’s house, waiting for her to wake up so a cute vampire guy I kind of knew—and had held hands with—could hypnotize her into not remembering a hunter and two wannabe MIB’s had been here to question her to death.
It was weird, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t also kind of fun.
“Mildred” was breathing, but from the looks of her she could sleep from now until tomorrow morning. But I knew that was just the aurora at work. Any second now she’d be wide awake feeling like she’d just had the most restful nap she’d ever taken.
With nothing else to do, I studied Richard from the profile view I had of him. With his heightened senses, he no doubt was aware of my gaze, but maybe I didn’t mind if he knew I was looking. Looking, not checking him out. There’s a difference, and I know what it is.
He was young. Well, his body was young, locked into whatever age he’d been when he’d first been turned. I would guess anywhere from sixteen to twenty, but it was kind of hard to tell. He had a little bit of muscle, I could see that thanks to his short-sleeve t-shirt, but he was still a bit on the scrawny side. His blond hair fell to his ears and little over his forehead, making him kind of a summer version of Connor Oberst. His nose was hawkish, but I thought it gave him personality. His eyes were typical vampire eyes: gray and fathomless. In life, maybe they’d been brown, but there was a new depth to them there that could be a little disturbing or a little exciting. Or, let’s face it, a lot disturbing or a lot exciting, especially if Richard was trying.
Then she woke up, and it kind of startled me. She had the second half of some sentence on her lips, “—and I couldn’t let you.”
But Richard cut her off. “Everything’s alright,” he said, and his voice was compelling. He wasn’t even looking at me and yet a wave of peace overcame me.
Despite the plain positivity of the feeling—everything’s alright—I didn’t like it. A deeper, more aware part of me rejected the calm, the foreign sense of rightness, because I knew it wasn’t real.
The old lady didn’t have that hang-up. Her eyes went glassy and a druggie smile crept onto her face. I didn’t know if she was able to accept the peace I couldn’t because he was staring in her eyes, or if it was because everything in her world really was the way it should be, before the black suits had showed up today. Or maybe she just wanted it more than me. I didn’t really have much use for peace right now. She could have it.
“Nothing strange happened today,” Richard continued. “It was just a normal, normal day.”
Again, my mind knew this wasn’t true, but it suddenly seemed true. The feeling was kind of scary, and I definitely saw Richard in a new light. I wasn’t exactly an expert on the subject, but I didn’t think most vampires were as good at this as it seemed Richard was. And what was it he’d said about it when Dad asked him if he could hypnotize?
He’d said, “I don’t like to, but yes it is an ability I possess.”
I’ll say, I thought, watching in awe as he continued on with the process, describing for the woman what she’d been doing for the last half-hour or so—a mundane fiction he wrote on the spot, no doubt—ending with her deciding to sit on her couch for just a moment to rest her eyes. He went so far as to tell her even this little detail would not seem strange to her once we were gone. She’d go about her day from here as if none of this had ever happened.
His words created an uncomfortable double-memory in my head. I knew everything that had happened to this point, but I could also remember being the woman, kind of, and doing the things Richard described to her. It was more than a little disconcerting, and I wondered if Richard even knew I was being affected.
Soon it was time to go, and I felt rattled and washed out from the whole experience. What I really needed was a nap, even though just thinking the word “nap” made me feel roughly five years old.
“Where’s your car?” Richard said.
I pointed to where it was still running back up the road. “I can’t drive,” I told him lamely. My mouth felt like a stretched-out rubber band.
“Go turn it off and leave the keys tucked between the visor and the ceiling. My car is a couple streets over. I’ll drive. You look pretty bad.”
This snapped me to attention in a hurry, though I could feel the tiredness behind the sting. I’m not vain, but who wants to be told they look “bad?” Richard must have seen something in my eyes with his flat-yet-limitless gray-brown ones, and corrected. “I mean you look really tired.”
As we got to the car and I plunked myself down in the passenger seat, I said, “I am. I don’t know why, but I am.”
“Residuals from the black suits,” he said. “It’s a part of how they kill. They exhaust their victims, wear them down so they can’t help but answer question after question, all the while sucking out their energy at the same time.”
I could believe it because I was so unaccountably, embarrassingly tired. I said, “Dad says they slit the person’s throat, though.”
My makeshift chauffeur barked out a harsh little laugh. “Almost,” he said. “They do bring a ritualistic knife with them, but what they really do is a bit more macabre. They ‘let’ the victim end their own life once they’ve sucked out all the life and information they can from them.”
“Gross,” I said in a voice that was almost a whisper.
I wasn’t really thinking anymore. I let my head rest on my propped-up palm, and the world went black.
XIV
When I woke up, I was pretty embarrassed. I was in bed, under the covers, and Richard was sitting at my little writing desk, staring out my window. My laptop, a rainbow of various stickers on the back taped over with packaging tape, sat next to his elbow. I like the way it looks, but for some reason I wished I could hide it just then.
He probably realized I’d woken up—like I’ve mentioned, not much gets past vampire senses—but he didn’t make any motion, and for that I was glad.
It wasn’t that I’d never had a boy in my room before, but this was different. For one thing, I was in bed. For another, the boy in question had put me there. For a third… I didn’t really know if he was a “boy” or not.
“How old were you when you got turned?”
“Nineteen,” he said without looking.
“When was it?”
“Six months ago.”
I was shocked. I think my mouth might have actually been hanging open. I had never met a vampire who’d been one for less than a decade. They were always totally adjusted to their undeadness.
“I’m sorry you got killed,” I said. It seemed like the polite thing.
“Don’t be,” he told me, and there was a line of cold steel in his voice that betrayed the uncommonly sensitive creature of the night I had thought him to be. Maybe he wasn’t the soft, poetic type after all. “I asked for this.”
&nbs
p; That was another stumper.
It’s true that some vampires were glad to be what they were, but that was usually after a lifetime of adjustment. On the whole, they were a vengeful, angry lot when it came to the subject of their turning.
Not knowing a safe way to continue down that conversation path, I instead said, “Thanks for your help. Do you think my dad’s okay?”
“Hmm,” he looked at me. His thoughts had been a million miles away. “Oh… yeah. I do. For now, anyway.”
I thought he would be okay, too, but it felt callous for me to be here, napping, playing hooky with Richard, while Dad was out there putting his life on the line with mythical beings. I guess he did that a lot, but I wasn’t usually this privy to the details.
Remembering what Richard had been saying in the car when I’d conked out on him, I said, “You sure seem to know a lot about black suits.”
“I guess.”
“And about a lot of stuff in general. Spell-charms. My dad. Me.”
This got his attention again and he looked at me. He smiled. “Who says I know a lot about you?”
There was a weird little lump in my throat when he looked at me.
Damn. It was going to be hard to get this guy off my mind, and that made me mad. He was cute, sure, but he was also dangerous, and despite the other night’s hand-holding routine—still pretty lost on where that had come from—I wasn’t actually sure the interest here was totally mutual. But whether he liked me or not, he was potentially dangerous. I remembered his little display of hypnotic power he’d put on, albeit reluctantly, at the old woman’s. This was not a guy I should be letting my guard down with.
And yet…
And yet, and yet, and yet…
Thankfully Dad stopped the ill-conceived list of pros my mind was about to cook up on Richard’s behalf by coming home. He came to my doorway and looked us over. As far as any boy being in any girl’s bedroom was concerned, there was really nothing for my dad to complain about. Yes, I was in bed, but I still had my clothes on (Richard must have taken off my shoes, but that was all), and the boy in question was on the other side of the room, sitting at my desk, not even fully facing me. It was the definition of propriety. On top of that, Richard had thought to leave my door open, another plus.