The Undead Heart

by Tate Jackson

  He had moments where he didn’t feel it, but as soon as his family popped into his mind, his stomach dropped and his brain was chanted:

  Your fault. YOUR FAULT! YOUR FAULT!!! In all the years that had passed, his guilt had never eased. He knew he was sending Beck back to save them but also to make the guilt stop.

  A few years later they lost Saphira and Heidi when they had been returning home from town. Usually, Richard, Harley, and Leso would walk them home, but they had gotten off work early and must have decided it would be safe for them to make the journey home alone. They had been wrong.

  They were ambushed on the way home. It was the Elderson clan. They were nice enough to leave a note, “You’re next,” written in the blood of their sisters. Once again, they buried their family’s bodies. One of Elderson’s vampyres had been killed as well. They just threw it’s body into the woods. Then it was Richard, Leso, Harley, and Jenny.

  Three years later, Elderson himself had gotten Harley. Then it was only Richard, Leso, and Jenny. Then Jenny was gone as well. From then on it had just been Richard and Leso. As it turned out, a hunter really did get Jenny, just not in the way that they had originally thought. They had killed hunters and vampyres throughout the years between then and now, but had run into very few vampyres since they came to the United States and no hunters, with the exception of Potter.

  He wondered how many hunters were left. It could not be many, a handful at most, and right now, Elderson had to be his main focus. Nobody seemed to know where he was. Richard had other vampyre friends that had been searching for him for years just as he and Leso had.

  No one had seen or heard of him in 23 years, but nobody made the mistake of thinking he was dead.

  If that had happened, the news would have been spread far and wide. Even if one of his own clan had killed him, they would have spread the news to let everyone know they had killed the great Elderson and taken his place. His clan was nothing if not vain. He was still out there somewhere, and one day, they would find him. He hoped it would be he that found him. They had a lot of unfinished business. He had broken Beck’s neck and ran. He had not seen her body vanish. Richard knew the ‘transmitters’ in Beck’s body were set to return her to her time on a certain date, but it must have also been designed to return her immediately in the event of her death.

  They knew they would be separated when the time came for her to leave. The separation would have been years for him but mere minutes for her. He was prepared as much as he could be for that separation but not for her death. For 95 years, he had hoped she would be born again but had never truly believed it until that day at the hospital. Now here she was, and he might be sending her back to die again. What kind of husband was he? But he knew the answer to that question, a desperate one.

  Chapter Four

  Beck woke up the next morning to a breakfast biscuit and a Coke.

  “Okay, what do you want to talk about?” she asked, yawning and unwrapping her breakfast.

  “I was thinking maybe this isn’t such a good idea. What if we’ve done this many times before and you always die anyway?”

  “Nope, this is the first time,” she answered with confidence. “How can you be so sure of that?”

  “You said that I didn’t know you when I went back the first time, and that I didn’t know your family. If that’s true, then it stands to reason that this is the first time you’ve ever came to me in the present.”

  “I didn’t think about that.”

  “So, what do you need me to do?”

  “I want you to analyze a sample of my blood, see what you can make of it, and if a weapon can be made with it.”

  “That won’t work.”

  “And exactly why not?” he snapped. She snapped right back at him, “Don’t get an attitude! I’m just saying that the blood in your veins is probably going to be that of whatever you ate last. I’d have a better chance with a sample of your toxin.”

  “Oh. Yeah, okay. I’ll give it to you but please be careful with it. My toxin may be as deadly to you as your blood would be to me.”

  “What else?” she asked.

  “I want you to research whatever you think may be a viable way to kill vampyres. If you think it might work, study it. I doubt there’s any history on hunters, but I would render a guess that what kills us would also kill them.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. The toxin that changed them had been altered. We don’t know that what would work on vampyres would work on them.”

  “Yes, I see your point. Well, you don’t need my help. You seem to know what you’re doing. Can you still get into a chemistry class?”

  Smiling she said, “With enough money, I can take any course I want. It will be a lot of extra work and time, though. It’ll cut my social life down to nothing, but I don’t foresee me doing a lot of dating anyway.”

  “I should think not unless you want those men’s deaths on your conscience,” he said, only half joking.

  “You wouldn’t,” she said.

  “I might,” he said. “You want to try me?”

  “Actually, I do,” she said, smiling as she pulled him onto the bed with her where they spent the rest of the day, only stopping to have pizza delivered. There was a knock on her door at 8:00 pm.

  “It’s Leso,” she stated, pulling on a pair of old sweats and a t-shirt before Richard answered the door.

  “It’s time to go,” Leso said.

  Suddenly distraught, she whispered, “Don’t go.”

  “I don’t want to, but I have to,” he said. He stepped to her and hugged her. “I’m sorry, Little One. It’s the only way I can do this.”

  “I love you,” she said.

  “Say it again.”

  “I love you,” she repeated. “I love you, too, Beck, more than you can ever imagine.”

  Leso stepped forward and hugged her next.

  “Take care of him,” she told him.

  “I will, don’t worry. Bye Beck.”

  And just like that, they were gone.

  ***

  For days, she expected him to pop back up, but he didn’t. She threw herself into studying but found she couldn’t focus. She knew it was because she couldn’t sleep. When she could sleep, it was only for 2 or 3 hours.

  She finally went to the campus clinic and got a prescription for Ambien. She had to get some sleep. She had to learn this stuff. It wasn’t just her grades that depended on it. About three months later, Potter brought her a vial with about two drops of clear liquid.

  “Vampyre toxin,” he said.

  “Can I ask you to do me a favor?” she asked.

  “Sure. What do you need?”

  “A vial of your blood.”

  “I guess, but why?” he asked.

  “I just want to see how it compares with the vampyre toxin,” she lied.

  “Cool, let me know what you find out.” They walked to the Chem. Lab and drew his blood with a silver needle she’d had made, and not just for this occasion. As she walked him out, she told him she had to do the test at night when nobody would walk in and question what she was doing.

  She spent a fair amount of time with Jenny, mostly sightseeing and shopping.

  Jenny told Beck something she hadn’t thought of. “You know, if this works and you do come back, you will be the only one who remembers all of this.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, all of our pasts will change,” Jenny stated. “You mean Richard and I may not be together when I come back?” she asked in a gasping panic.

  Jenny just laughed, “That’s not even possible. Richard and you are like me and Potter; soul mates. I just mean that everyone’s memories from the time you leave the past until you return to the future will be different. Everyone’s memories except yours. It’s bound to be confusing for you. Seven years of your life will be altered from what you remember. We’re going to have to come up with a reason for you to have amnesia or something so everyone doesn’t think that you’ve
gone crazy.” That gave Beck something to think about. Richard wouldn’t remember coming to her here. Jenny would have no memory of dancing her around the room or of all their shopping trips. She could live with that as long as she had more family to come back to.

  When she got a chance for a moment alone in the Chem. Lab, she put the vampyre toxin under the microscope. Nothing. It was like looking at a drop of sterilized water. She then looked at a small drop of Potter’s blood. A-positive just like hers, but for all intents and purposes, human blood. She saw no mutations. She put the rest of the blood into a plastic vial and put it in her dorm room freezer.

  ***

  She was in her second year when she started her official study on the Jack the Ripper murders, but she had already read everything she could about them. She was on the top floor of the library one night, looking for a detailed book on the Ripper, when a man approached her.

  “Can I help you find something?” he asked. “No.”

  She could feel he wasn’t there to help her. It wasn’t until that moment that she realized how truly alone she was. Not many people were in the library on a Friday night, and she didn’t remember seeing anyone else on this floor.

  “Come on, let me help you,” he said stepping closer to her and almost touching her.

  “I said no.” she hissed loudly.

  “Come on, don’t be like that,” he said, grabbing her wrist. “I believe the lady said no,” a familiar voice said from the end of the aisle.

  She turned her head and saw Richard standing there. And he didn’t look happy.

  “Nobody asked you, did they?” the man asked.

  Richard walked towards them. He emitted danger, but this man obviously didn’t sense it.

  Richard looked at the man. “Leave.”

  “Me and the lady’s talking,” the man said. “You leave.”

  When Richard got to them, he leaned down and she saw that the whites of his eyes were filled with blood.

  “Leave now or die,” Richard hissed. Richards hiss was different than hers. Her hiss was human. His sounded as if it came from the deepest bowels of hell, and the man holding her wrist finally understood that he was in true danger.

  The man pulled Beck in front of him like a shield, putting one of his arms around her throat. She looked nervously at Richard. She’d thought he’d looked mad at her graduation, but that was nothing compared to the way he looked now.

  She saw just a flash of movement and heard the man’s arm break. The man screamed and dropped to his knees. Richard picked the man up by the back of his neck and threw him down the aisle into a brick wall hard enough to make it crack.

  He was headed towards the man again when Beck stopped him. “Richard, you’re going to kill him.”

  He turned and looked at her. “Yes, that was the general plan.”

  “Please don’t,” she said, rubbing her throbbing wrist.

  Suddenly, he was right in front of her, “Are you alright, Little One?”

  “Yeah, I think it’s just sprained.”

  Richard took her wrist gently and examined it closely.

  “You’re right, it’s not broken, but we should get some ice on it, and a bandage, I think. Come on,” he said as he led her out of the library. “What about that man? Will he be alright?”

  Richard just shrugged his shoulders.

  They got into his car and he drove them down to the corner store. He went in and came out of the store with a bag of ice, zip lock bags, and an Ace bandage.

  “How did you know where I was?”

  “I’m always around.” Back at the dorm room, he iced and wrapped her wrist. “So what? You just watch me everywhere I go?”

  “Pretty much,” he answered curtly. “And you couldn’t drop by and say hello?”

  “No, I couldn’t,” he said quietly. “And why not?” she demanded. “Because just watching you is tearing my heart to pieces . To spend time with you, and then leave again may just rip my very soul apart.” he said fiercely.

  “You’re here now,” she said. “You needed me.”

  She moved her wrist and cringed. He got up, went to the dresser drawer and pulled out a bottle of Hydrocodone the clinic had given her for a pulled hamstring she had gotten about six months ago in a self-defense class she was taking.

  “How did you know those were there?”

  “I could smell them,” he said as he shook one out into his hand and got a glass of water from the bathroom.

  “I don’t want it. They make me sleepy.”

  “It’s late. It’s time to sleep. Take it.”

  “Only if you stay with me until I fall asleep,” she said stubbornly. Soothingly, he assured her, “Of course I will, Little One.”

  She took the pill, and he helped her change into her nightshirt.

  “So, what did you learn from the toxin I sent you?”

  “Nothing at all. It was like looking at sterile water. I don’t know what’s in it that causes the change, but it doesn’t show up in any chemical test or under a microscope.”

  She had a plan, but she wasn’t going to tell him. She could have secrets, too.

  “Damn! I was hoping it would be of some help,” he said disappointed, then sighed and asked, “So what have you been studying?”

  “This last semester has been about werewolves. Do they exist?” she managed to ask between yawns.

  “No, that one was made up. However, fairies, gnomes, vampyres, ghosts, Bigfoot, and witches are real, along with lots of other things,” he teased as he watched her eyes drooped and she drifted off to sleep.

  ***

  He knew he should leave, but he couldn’t pull himself away just yet. It had been torture all this time to be close enough to smell her scent but never close enough to touch her. He wanted to tear apart every man that turned their head to watch her walk by. Jealousy had never been a strong emotion with him, but that had changed.

  He saw her having a cup of coffee with a young gentleman in the courtyard about a month ago, and had an overwhelming urge to go over and rip the man’s heart out through his mouth. Only willpower had stopped him. And now there were going to be questions about what happened in the library. He would leave her a note telling her that if they questioned her to say she had seen nothing unusual that night. He also knew now that she had gotten her fighting skills from self-defense courses.

  Hopefully, this time when she went back, there would be no need for her to use them, but it was nice to know she could if need be. She could probably keep herself safe, but it was his place to keep her safe. He’d wanted to ask her who the man she was having coffee with was, but he had no right.

  He’d left her, and he knew she would not betray him. He had not betrayed her since the moment she had vanished. No other woman held any interest for him. And now he had to leave her again. He sat and watched her until the sky started lightening with the morning sun, and then he quietly left the dorm.

  ***

  When Beck woke up, he was gone. The news about the man in the library was all over campus. His arm was broken in three places, his shoulder was pulled completely out of its socket, and he had a fractured skull. He claimed to have no memory of what had happened to him. Who knows, with a fractured skull, he may not ever remember. Or, he may not remember because; he was not a student at the school, had no reason to be on the property, and didn’t want to explain himself to the police. Either way, he’d live.

  Weeks passed and Richard never showed himself again. It was strange knowing he was there but always out of sight. She had to admit it made her feel safe. She put all her focus into her Ripper studies. She needed to learn as much as she could on the subject.

  All the victims were known prostitutes. The first victim was Mary Ann Nichols. She was killed Friday, August 31, 1888. Her body had been found at 3:40 a.m. She had been murdered on Bucks Row less than 200 yards from London Hospital. Her throat had been deeply slashed twice. Her lower abdomen had been partially ripped open by a deep wound. There were a
lso cuts across the upper abdomen and up to four cuts down her right side believed to be caused by the same weapon.

  The second victim was Annie Chapman. She had been killed Saturday, September 8, 1888. She had been murdered at 29 Hanbury Street between 2:00 and 6:00 a.m. She had been killed by two deep cuts to the throat, her abdomen had been cut open, and her uterus had been removed.

  The third victim was Elizabeth Stride. She had been killed around 1:00 a.m., Sunday, September 30, 1888, in Dutfields Yard off Berner Street. She was killed by a single knife wound to the throat. Police thought her attack was interrupted due to the fact that she was still bleeding when her body was found. Catherine Eddowes was the fourth victim. She was killed Sunday, September 30, 1888, between 1:35 and 1:45 a.m. within an hour after Elizabeth Stride’s murder. She was murdered in Mitre Square.

  Witnesses saw her walking in the direction of Mitre Square at 1:35, and her body was found at 1:45. She had been killed by two deep wounds to the throat, both of her eyelids had been sliced, her nose and part of her uterus had been removed.

  The fifth and final victim was Mary Jane Kelly. She had been killed Friday, November 13, 1888. She was killed in a room at 13 Millers Court between midnight and 10:45 a.m. when her body was found. Hers was the most gruesome murder. Her throat had been sliced twice and severed to the spine. Her face had been horribly mutilated. Her abdomen had been cut open with the entire contents emptied and scattered around the body on the bed. Her breasts had also been removed and placed on the bed. The skin and tissue had been removed from her thighs all the way down to the bone. The heart had been removed and never found. There were more murder victims during that time, but only these five were thought to be Ripper victims. The description of the Ripper from alleged ‘eyewitness’ accounts was a white male, 20-40 years of age, average or below average height, well dressed, and possibly a foreigner. Though how they would know he was a foreigner was anybody’s guess. The top four suspects were: Montague John Druitt, Aaron Kosminski, Michael Ostrog, and none other than Prince Albert, grandson of Queen Victoria.