Many Bloody Returns

by Charlaine Harris

  “And you never looked back?”

  “Not once.”

  Of course that begged the question of why they were there that evening, but he resisted asking until they reached an area with knee-high weeds that Stella insisted was the parking lot for the graveyard she’d abandoned. That was when he stepped into something he wouldn’t have wanted to go near with his former sense of smell, let alone with the vampire upgrade.

  “Why are we here again?” he groused

  “Because it’s my birthday,” she said.

  “That’s a lousy reason.”

  “How about because I’m your sire and I say so?”

  “Why are you my sire, anyway?”

  “Because I bit you, bled you to the point of death, and gave you my blood. Or are you asking why I decided to bring you over?”

  “No, I know you brought me over because you couldn’t resist my manly wiles. I mean, why are you my sire? Shouldn’t you be my dam?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “A sire is a male parent. A female is a dam. And damned if you’re not female.”

  “Vampires always say sire,” she said doubtfully.

  “That’s because vampire society is male chauvinist, and has been since Dracula developed a taste for Turks on a stick. Let’s strike a blow for feminism! From now on, you can be my dam. My dam of the damned!”

  As quickly as only a vampire could, Stella grabbed him by the neck and kissed him soundly. “That,” she said, when she was done ravaging his mouth, “is why I brought you over.” Then she went back to leading the way.

  Though Mark had no false modesty about his manly wiles, which included jet-black hair, green eyes, and a swimmer’s build, he knew part of the reason for the enthusiastic smooching was Stella’s nervousness. He recognized it even though the only other time he’d seen it was when he’d first woken up after his death, and she was there to welcome him to vampirehood.

  She’d been so afraid he wasn’t going to like it, that he’d be angry at her. It had taken some effort to prove to her her that he considered the Choice to be better than a lifetime pass to Disney World, and one of his other manly wiles was showing the strain by the time she was convinced.

  They reached the entrance, an open iron arch with the name “Spivey” overhead.

  “Spivey was your name?” Like most vampires her age, Stella had changed her name more than once.

  “No, Spivey was Mama’s maiden name. I’m a Boyd. Mama didn’t get along with Daddy’s people, so she had me and him buried here.” She hesitated.

  “Are you sure you want to go in?”

  “It would be right silly to come this far and not go in,” she said.

  “It’s silly to go to monster truck rallies, too, but that never stopped me.”

  She smiled briefly, then stepped through the arch. Mark followed closely in case she needed him and because her night vision was considerably better than his own.

  “Stella Boyd,” he said experimentally. “Not bad.”

  “Try again. My old name was Estelle,” she said, putting the emphasis on the first syllable. “But nobody calls me that now. Ever.”

  “Message received.”

  They kept on for a few minutes, Stella pausing now and then to read the words on tombstones that were nothing but black blocks to Mark. She finally stopped by a wide monument, with room for two names. “Here’s Mama and Daddy. I didn’t find out about her dying until a long time afterward, but I figured she’d be buried here, with Daddy and me.”

  Mark moved close enough to make out the inscriptions. “Caleb Boyd. Beloved Husband and Father. Oveda Boyd. Beloved Wife and Mother.”

  “Mine is over by that tree.”

  “What tree?”

  “Sorry, by that tree stump. It was a tree when I was here last. But there’s my stone.”

  “I’m guessing your epitaph includes ‘beloved.’”

  “I don’t know. It hadn’t been put in when I left—there was just a big fieldstone marking the place. I imagine Mama had to save up to pay for a tombstone.”

  Stella walked over to the grave, then went as still as only a vampire can.

  Mark, thinking she must be feeling like Scrooge had when confronted by the price of his sins, put an arm around her, but she didn’t respond. He looked down at the stone, then blinked.

  “It says ‘Jane Doe,’” he said. There was no birth date, and the only date of death was the year.

  “I know what it says.”

  “Then where’s your grave?”

  “You’re standing on it.”

  “Are you sure this is the right place?”

  “Of course I’m sure!”

  “It’s been a while since you’ve been here, right? And the circumstances that night were pretty much tailor-made for making you forget the exact location.”

  “I’m sure. A person doesn’t just forget something like that!”

  She stayed there while Mark wandered over toward the neighboring graves, hoping to find the correct one, but there was no Estelle Boyd. Eventually he came back to where she was still standing.

  “Maybe your mother moved you somewhere…” He stopped before saying nicer. “To another cemetery.”

  “She wouldn’t have moved me and left Daddy here. I was a Daddy’s girl from the day I was born—she wouldn’t have separated us.”

  “Well, maybe nobody realized you were already here. I mean, you said there was no tombstone.”

  “Are you saying my own mother didn’t buy me a tombstone?” she said, an edge in her voice.

  “No, I’m just saying—Hell, I don’t know what I’m saying.” He looked around helplessly, but there was no night watchman to bespell and question. “Let’s go back to the hotel. I’ll hit the web and see what I can Google about Jane. Okay? We’ll find out what happened.”

  Fortunately they’d already fed, so they could go straight to their hotel, where Mark immediately booted up his laptop. By searching for “Allenville, NC” and “Jane Doe,” he found a hit on the Allenville Sentinel’s website archives.

  “Here we go,” he said. “Story dated a year and a half ago. Jane Doe to be buried in Spivey family plot. Unknown murder victim. Believed to be between sixteen and nineteen years old. Found raped and strangled in Allenville six months previously. No funds in the budget for burial, so Officer Norcomb offered room in his family plot. He must be a relative of yours.”

  “I suppose so. The Spiveys always were a fertile bunch. Mama would have had a house full if Daddy hadn’t died so early.”

  Mark continued reading. “Ongoing investigation. Norcomb still hopes he’ll be able to identify her and her killer. There’s a photo of the funeral, complete with locals paying their respects.”

  “Nothing about relocating the previous inhabitant of the grave?” she asked.

  “Nope. Shouldn’t they have found your coffin?”

  “There wasn’t much left of it when I broke out of it.”

  “Vilmos didn’t dig you up?” he said, appalled. Stella had arranged it so that he’d never been buried, but sometimes it was necessary to placate the human world. In those cases, the vampire’s sire dug up the coffin as promptly as possible.

  “He was late. It took him longer than expected to find some men to bespell to do the digging. I could have waited, but I panicked.”

  “No wonder. Why didn’t he dig for you himself? He could have done it faster than bespelled humans.”

  “Vilmos get his hands dirty? Please!”

  Mark supposed it wasn’t surprising that he disliked Stella’s sire so intensely.

  “At any rate,” Stella said, “the coffin was broken up pretty thoroughly. Vilmos splintered the rest, tossed it back into the grave, and had it buried again. I don’t know how long it takes wood and cloth to rot, but I don’t expect they found anything when digging Jane’s grave that would have told them I’d been buried there. Only there should have been a marker of some sort. Let me see that picture.”

  He moved the
screen so it was aimed toward her.

  “No tombstone, no fieldstone, no nothing,” she said. “I don’t understand. Why would Mama have moved the marker? Why didn’t she get me a real tombstone? I know they’re expensive—she had to save for a year to pay for Daddy’s—but…I guess she decided not to bother.”

  “Hey, don’t make assumptions! Tell you what—tomorrow I’ll go back and see what the story is. There must be records of who’s supposed to be where.”

  “Probably not. When Daddy died, Mama just picked a spot and buried him. I’m not even sure who owned the land then, let alone now.”

  “I bet Officer Norcomb will know. I’ll track him down and ask him.”

  “It doesn’t matter anyway. You were right. It was stupid to come back.”

  “I didn’t say it was stupid—I said it was morbid. And I’m going to find that guy tomorrow and see what happened.”

  She shrugged, saying only, “I am a little curious.” Then she reached for the TV remote control. “I wonder what they’ve got on pay-per-view.”

  They picked out something violent and mindless, and when it was over, Mark produced the birthday present he’d hidden in his suitcase. Stella demonstrated her appreciation for the sapphire pendant ardently, proving once again that her years had given her skills beyond safe driving. Still, Mark could tell her unbeating heart wasn’t in it, though he certainly enjoyed her efforts on his behalf.

  As the night ended, Stella got into bed, and after making sure the door was locked, the windows thoroughly curtained, and the DO NOT DISTURB sign was in place, Mark joined her. An instant before dawn arrived, he felt her start to cry. Then they both stiffened in death.

  At some point, Mark shifted from a vampire’s death-sleep to human sleep, and he woke when it was nearly eleven. Stella would remain cold and unmoving until dusk, but his body was still fighting off the vestiges of humanity.

  Normally he stayed nearby while Stella rested, especially when they were away from home, but finding out about Stella’s grave took priority. His first target was Officer Norcomb, the one who’d given permission for Jane Doe to be buried in the Spivey plot. While en route to Allenville, he used his cell phone to call the police station to find out if Officer Norcomb was in. According to the cop who answered the phone, Norcomb was on his lunch break, and he directed Mark to Benny’s Truck Stop near the highway.

  Mark had noticed Benny’s the night before, admiring the glamor of the chubby neon chef and his flashing burger. In the daylight, it was less glamorous, but the gas and diesel islands were doing a brisk business. As Mark got out of the car, he tried for a deep breath of fresh country air but instead breathed in a horrible mix of ammonia and general nastiness coming from the buildings a field away. He stepped inside quickly.

  As the only police officer in the place, Norcomb was easy to spot. A skinny man, despite the remains of gravy-soaked meat and mashed potatoes left on his plate, and as far as Mark could tell, he didn’t bear the slightest family resemblance to Stella.

  Mark approached his booth and, with his friendliest smile, said, “Officer Norcomb?”

  Norcomb gave him such a suspicious look that Mark used his tongue to make sure his fangs weren’t out. “You the one who called the station looking for me?” he said.

  “That’s me. Can I join you?”

  “If this is about a traffic citation, don’t bother. I don’t fix nobody’s tickets.”

  “Nothing like that,” Mark assured him. “I’m here about Jane Doe.”

  Norcomb sat up straight, and before Mark could put rump to the sticky vinyl of the bench, the cop said, “Do you know who she is?”

  “No, I’m afraid not, I just wanted to—”

  “Are you a reporter?”

  “Why don’t we start over? My name is Mark Anderson.” He offered his hand, and Norcomb reached over his late lunch to take it. As they shook, their eyes met, and Mark exerted the force of will a vampire used to bespell his victims.

  A moment later, Norcomb said, “You going to let go of my hand anytime soon?”

  “Sorry,” Mark muttered. Stella assured him he’d develop the ability to bespell victims before too much longer, but so far, nothing. Since his compelling gaze hadn’t worked, he’d have to rely on his backup plan. “I believe you and I are related,” he said.

  “Is that right?” Norcomb said skeptically. “I don’t recall any Yankees in the family. No offense.”

  “None taken. If we are related, it’s only by marriage. You see, my wife’s great-aunt Estelle is from Allenville, and she’s always said she wanted to be buried in the Spivey family cemetery. Since I’m in Raleigh on business, my wife asked me to confirm that it’s still in use.”

  “I’d heard there were some Spiveys who moved up North, and I know old folks are big on coming back home to be buried.”

  “Exactly. Aunt Estelle is getting quite frail, so I don’t think it will be too much longer.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Norcomb said with enough genuine sympathy to make Mark feel guilty.

  “At least she’s had a long life,” Mark said, which was true enough. “I found the Spivey cemetery the other day, and while I was checking for recent burials, I noticed Jane Doe’s grave. I was curious, so I did some research on the web, read that you gave permission for Ms. Doe to be buried there, and figured you were the one to talk to. Do we need to fill out any paperwork?”

  “Shoot, we don’t get that formal around here. If Aunt Estelle is family, she’s welcome.”

  “My wife will be glad to hear that.”

  Norcomb seemed to be pulling himself together in preparation for leaving, so Mark hurriedly said, “I know you’ve got to go back on duty, but I did wonder how Jane Doe came to be buried with the Spiveys. Is there reason to suspect she’s a relative?”

  “We don’t have any idea of who she is, bless her heart.”

  “Really? I realize it might not be proper to talk about an ongoing investigation…” He tried to bespell the man again, and was almost certain he felt something. Or maybe Norcomb just felt like talking.

  He said, “The case is still open, but I wouldn’t exactly call it ongoing. That poor girl’s been dead over two years, and we don’t know a bit more than we did a week after we found her. Wasn’t far from where we are now, as a matter of fact. Just on the other side of that chicken barn you can see from the parking lot.”

  “So it’s chickens in that building. What a stink!”

  “You should smell then in the middle of summer. Anyway, some boys found the girl in a field, partially covered up with leaves and brush. She’d been stripped, and the killer bashed her face in so bad that she was unrecognizable, so we had no clue who she was. Nobody’s ever claimed her.”

  “I read online that she was seen in Wal-Mart.”

  “That’s right. The manager identified her from her hair, believe it or not. She had it dyed solid black and cut kind of funny. One of those Goths. We don’t get many of those in Allenville, which is why the manager remembered her. Even though she bought some things, she paid cash, so that was no help, and she wasn’t with anybody, either. I went through the store’s security tapes and got some pictures of her to run in the newspaper, but nobody knows who she is.”

  “I take it that her purchases weren’t helpful, either.”

  “Actually, that was kind of peculiar. She bought herself a whole outfit, and afterward, she went to the store’s bathroom, changed into the clothes she’d just bought, and threw the old stuff into the trash can.”

  “That is peculiar.”

  “My take is that she was in trouble, maybe drug-related, and wanted to disguise herself. But whoever was looking for her found her anyway, and nobody in town saw anybody suspicious.”

  “Isn’t that strange in a small town?” Mark said, tactfully not suggesting that a local could have been involved.

  “Not as much as you might think. We get all kinds of people passing through: runaways, transients of every description. Plus Rale
igh is a big city, with big city problems, and sometimes that causes us problems, too.”

  Having spent time in New York, Boston, and London, Mark didn’t see Raleigh as big or dangerous, but perspective was everything. “I still don’t understand how Ms. Doe came to be buried in the Spivey plot.”

  “We kept her in cold storage for a while, hoping something would turn up, but decided it would only be right to bury her. Bob Henry at the funeral home donated a coffin and tombstone and the florist sent flowers, but when nobody had a burial plot they were willing to part with, I offered her a place with my family.”

  “That was very decent of you.”

  The cop looked abashed. “We had plenty of space—that whole corner of the lot was nearly empty. Besides, I was the first officer on the scene, and I feel bad that we’ve never found out who she was. Not that I’ve given up, mind you. There’s not enough time or money to keep an investigation moving indefinitely, but I’m like a bloodhound—I may not have a scent to go on now, but when I get one, I’ll not give up.” He started to rise again, and said, “Now I do need to get going. You have your wife give us a call, and we’ll pick out a nice place for Aunt Estelle.”

  “I’d do that. Thank you very much for your time.”

  “Hey, what are families for?”

  The two men shook hands, and Norcomb headed for the door. Mark was about to follow him when he noticed his stomach was growling. Stella no longer needed food, other than the occasional dose of dark chocolate she claimed vampires required, but he still ate one or two regular meals a day. So when the waitress came to clear off Norcomb’s table, he ordered lunch.

  On the way back to Raleigh, Mark speculated about how Stella would react. He honestly had no idea—Stella’s unpredictability had been part of what had attracted him to her in the first place, even before she confessed her undead status. Some days she seemed as young as she’d been at death, while others she demonstrated every day she’d lived. Most of the time he was happy to go along, so even though he didn’t understand why she’d wanted to make a birthday pilgrimage to her grave, he hadn’t argued.

  Now there was one thing he was sure of. Stella wanted her grave back.