by Tate Jackson
“I don’t know what you see when you look at it. I want to know what your favorite places are. Will you show me, Little One?”
“Sure. Let’s go,” she said and laid down her fork. Her appetite for lunch had been ruined anyway. They started with the fairgrounds.
“What do you like about this place?” he asked.
“Bev and I used to come here for the carnival, the circus, or to just feed the ducks and hang out. From what I hear, though, it won’t be here much longer.”
“Why is that?”
“The city is going to turn it into a ‘marina’ for the rich folk.”
“Beck, you are the ‘rich folk’.”
“I’m not the kind of ‘rich folk’ who try to take a cruise in a two hundred foot wide river.
“Point taken,” he said before taking a picture.
Their next stop was Cumberland Drive.
“Our class came here to watch them blow up the old bridge so they could build a new one that goes straight across to the college. See? You can still see the road it used to connect to. We were way back there, but when they blew it up, you could see it, hear it, and feel it. It made you feel like you were gonna fall down or pass out. It was pretty cool.”
He didn’t say anything, just took another picture, and they were off again.
“This is Clarksville’s first high school. It opened in 1908. Think about it, that’s 83 years before I was born and twenty years after I died. Pretty cool, huh?”
“No, not particularly,” was all he said before taking another picture, and they were off yet again.
That’s how it went for the rest of the day: her first school, her favorite park where they shot water out of the ground, her favorite place to grab a burger, the river walk where she saw him for the first time. It was getting dark by the time they left the river walk, so they headed back to the house.
The next time he spoke was as they pulled up at the house. “I want to show you one of my favorite places. We will need to take the truck, though.”
***
She got out of the car and into the truck. He ran into the house, but was back in a couple of seconds with an old fashioned picnic basket. They drove through the woods for fifteen minutes before they stopped at the cliff wall. She got out and looked around. It was really dark here. It was a clear night with a full moon, but the light didn’t reach down here.
“This is one of your favorite places?” she questioned, confused.
“No, up there,” he said, pointing up.
“That has to be forty feet. You can jump that high?”
“Let’s find out,” he said teasingly, putting his arm around her waist, pinning her to his left side, and leaping straight up, landing softly at the top of the cliff.
“That’s amazing,” she exclaimed when he sat her down on the ground.
He turned her so she was facing the field below. She gasped. The breeze moving through the bright, moonlit field made it look like an ocean. He took a tablecloth out of the basket and laid it on the thick carpet of grass on the ground beneath their feet. He took out a plate of paper wrapped sandwiches, chips, and cokes. She ate, he tasted, they talked, and made love on the tablecloth spread out on their cliff above their ocean. “This is where I came yesterday when I ran away from you. This is where I was when I found out that this beautiful place is the ugliest place in the world without you here to look down on it with me. I love you,” he whispered into the cusp of her ear.
After a time, they both fell asleep.
Chapter Six
When he awoke, he noticed the moon had shifted its position in the sky. He shifted her weight to the side, careful not to wake Beck. His whole left side was warm with the heat from her body. He got up, dressed, and put their things back into the basket. He couldn’t have asked for a more perfect wedding day. He was laying back on the ground next to her when he felt a familiar tickle in the center of his brain.
Was it Leso or Jenny coming this way? No, wrong direction…Shit! He rolled onto his stomach so he could peek down onto the field. A single vampyre made its way through the moonlit crop below.
Was there just the one? He cast his senses out, scouring the area around them. Yes, it was alone. What could it be thinking to come here alone? What in the hell was going on here? He stood up and jumped, but not soon enough.
Out of nowhere, Potter streaked out of the night. Potter needed no help from him and yelled for him to stay back. He collided with the vampyre, throwing him back twenty feet. Potter was on his feet; crouched and ready for the battle, long before the vampyre jumped up from the ground.
When the vampyre had regained his footing, he launched himself at Potter, but Potter was quicker, darting under the launch and shoving his shoulder up into the vampyre’s ribcage, throwing him into the air. Before the vampyre got more than seven feet high, Potter grabbed him by the ankle and slammed him to the ground. The vampyres bones broke with the sound of gun shots through the night air. “Stop! I mean you no harm, Hunter,” the vampyre pleaded. “As if you could harm me,” Potter said in disdain. “What is your purpose here?”
“I only seek an old friend, a vampyre named Richard,” the vampyre said.
“He’s an animal feeder, or he’s portraying himself to be,” Potter called across the field.
Richard walked over to them and looked down at the vampyre on the ground. “Jeremy?”
“Aye,” the vampyre answered, stretching his hand up in what appeared to be a friendly gesture, but Potter kicked it out of the air with a snake strike quickness, breaking more bones.
“Would you please stop that, Hunter?”
“Don’t move until you’re told,” Potter ordered the newcomer. “Richard, would you tell him I’m your friend?” Jeremy asked.
“Were, you were my friend. It has been many years since we were friends,” he said, and turned to Potter. “Where’s Leso?”
“Sleeping.”
“Damn! Watch him, Hunter. If he moves, kill him,” Richard stated, and he threw a quick wink at Potter to let him know not to really kill him; yet.
Potter nodded once, and Richard was gone. He was back up the cliff in two seconds. Beck was already dressed and waiting for him.
“I need you to do something.”
“Okay.”
“I didn’t tell you what yet.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
He truly did love this woman. He picked her up and jumped.
She giggled. “Sorry, dropping tickles.”
He smiled and said, “Let’s see how you like this.”
He ran about a dozen feet and leapt, two more leaps, and they landed at Potter’s side. He sat her down behind him and dropped into a defensive crouch.
With a hissing growl in his voice, he addressed Jeremy, “If you even look at her wrong, I’ll take your head off myself, old friend.” Dropping his voice into a more normal tone, he said, “Now tell this woman why you are here.”
“How is this possible?” Jeremy asked amazed.
Richard’s crouch became a wider stance, his upper body dropping to balance itself on the fingertips of his left hand, his right hand suspended in mid-air over Jeremy’s head.
“Last chance.”
“I am here to see Richard, to warn him of Elderson. I am not a friend of Elderson, nor part of his clan. I am only here because Richard is my friend.”
“Is he telling the truth?” Potter asked.
Her answer was given without hesitation, “He is.”
Richard stood and offered Jeremy his hand, but Jeremy popped up on his own.
“Your trust has waned over the years, Richard,” Jeremy said, eyeing Potter cautiously.
“I’m sorry,” Richard said. “It was necessary.”
“I’d like to know why,” Jeremy said.
“I’m sorry, but no,” he said, offering nothing.
“Christ, man! Were you not paying attention at all?” Potter asked Richard.
“It’s my wedding night. I had
other things on my mind,” he said as they turned and headed back toward the cliff.
“Well pull your head out of your ass, mate, before you get us all fucking killed.”
“Watch yourself, Hunter,” he warned.
“Ya’ll fight in a strange way, more speed and force than skill,” Beck said from behind them.
Richard couldn’t help but laugh at her. His mistake! Before he’d stopped laughing, his legs had been kicked out from under him, a small push between his shoulder blades took away his opportunity to recover his balance, and he fell on his face.
He felt her weight as she fell to her knee in the middle of his back, quickly put her right arm around his neck, and gripped her bicep in her left hand, yanking his head back toward her weight on his back, and kissed the top of his head. DAMN! She had gotten him! If she’d been a vampyre, he would be dead now.
“What the hell was that!?” he asked from his place on the ground.
“Rear Naked Choke,” she said.
“Hunter, throw this human in the air.”
Potter was still laughing at him, but he didn’t hesitate. He put a hand on each side of Beck’s waist and shot her straight up into the air. Richard was up on his feet before she was ten feet off the ground. He cocked his knees and waited for her to stop rising.
“Is that really her?” Jeremy asked, still not believing his eyes.
She crested at about thirty feet and started to fall.
“Yes,” Richard answered and launched himself into the air.
He caught her like a baby in mid-air, sailing higher with her. They crested at about fifty feet and started to drop. He spun like a top with her laughing in his ear. He touched the ground lightly and kissed her.
***
She’d had such a perfect day. Neither her parents, nor the fight in the field, had been able to ruin it. They were all in the living room now, listening to Richard talk to Jeremy.
“The Jeremy I knew wouldn’t have taken such a beating like you did tonight.”
“I haven’t had much reason to fight in the last 100 years or so, and your hunter is very fast.”
He was a good looking man, about 5’11” with short, black hair, a slender but muscular build, and she would bet he was in part Mexican decent because of his skin tone and the shape of his dark brown eyes. He was honestly there out of concern, but Richard had asked him wait until Leso woke up before telling them of Elderson.
“Could we stop with the ‘Hunter’ shit now?” Potter scowled. Richard stated, “Sorry, I forgot. Jeremy, let me introduce you to Potter, Jenny’s husband.”
“Husband? A hunter and vampyre marriage? How does that work?” Jeremy asked.
“Like any other marriage, I would imagine,” Potter said stiffly.
“Forgive me, I meant no offense,” Jeremy said. “It’s just that I thought hunters were driven to kill vampyres, yet you are here guarding them, even married to one. I’m just confused.”
“I vowed to kill the murdering vampyres, that’s true, but my family doesn’t drink human blood,” Potter explained. “They’re not murderers, and I will guard them until the day I die.”
“Your family?” Jeremy said in awe. “Amazing,” Potter had another question for Jeremy, “How did you know about Beck?”
“I didn’t meet Richard until after she’d died, but he spoke of her nearly every day of the five years we traveled together. He spoke of her abilities, her keen knowledge of other’s emotions. The way he spoke of her could leave little doubt that there would never be another mate for him.
Then tonight, he brought her to me to read my emotions, ready to kill me if I so much as twitched in her direction. It’s impossible that it could be her, but also impossible for it not to be her. I take it that you still won’t explain how this came to be?” he asked Richard.
“No, none of us will tell you. I’m sorry.”
Jeremy nodded “No, I didn’t think you would. Still I’m very happy for you. Men so rarely get two bites from the same apple.”
“Thank you, old friend,” Richard said sincerely, but his eyes were on Beck.
She didn’t know how to feel about Jeremy’s story. She knew Richard had waited over a century to see her again, but not until now did she understand that he had lived everyday of those years in sadness, and knowing that when she went back again, he would have to live through those years again. But, she had to go. She had to try to save them. “What’s going on?” Leso asked as he walked into the room. Then he saw their guest. “Jeremy?”
“Hello, Leso. Nice to see you, again,” Jeremy said, standing to shake Leso’s hand.
“How did you find us?” Leso asked.
“I didn’t know where else to look. Richard once told me that his mate had been from this area. I thought maybe he would come here to feel closer to her. Imagine my surprise to find not only him, but her as well.”
“Why were you looking for Richard?”
“He was just about to tell us,” Richard said.
He pulled Beck onto his lap, and everyone settled down and waited for Jeremy to speak.
“Elderson was the vampyre that created you. Did you know that, Richard?”
It took a couple of minutes for the shock to fall off his Richard’s face. Finally, he spoke, “Why?”
“Because you killed his brother.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Oh, but you did. Think back to your human life, to a little girl being attacked.”
Richard thought back, searching for the dim, distant memory, and tried to bring it into focus. He remembered a girl screaming. He found her on the ground in an alleyway, a man’s hands around her throat. He rushed to help the girl, punching the man behind his right ear. He had not meant it to be a fatal blow, but neither had he felt a moment of remorse about it.
The girl had recovered, but the identity of the attacker had never been discovered. Two years later, he had been bitten. All the pieces now came together in his mind.
“Why did he wait so long to attack me?”
“He was not yet a vampyre, and he was a coward in his human life. After he was bitten, he found you. He had never intended for your existence to have any peace or to last so long. He wanted your hero’s soul to be tortured by killing human after human to survive. He then planned to kill you after forcing you to watch the death of your brother.
“His plan may have worked too, had he not been forced to run when stronger vampyres than he moved into the area. Three years later, after the others had left the area, he returned intent on finishing what he started. He was enraged to find that, not only had you given up the pursuit of human blood, but had turned your brother into a vampyre, thereby, taking Leso’s human life out of his reach forever.”
“Well, he actually did me a favor,” he said, pulling Beck tighter into his embrace.
Jeremy hesitated and continued, “You will not think so in a minute. You see, he spent many years considering what to do next. Killing your brother no longer interested him. He had given up and was going to kill you both, but when he sent for you, you killed his messenger and joined the Young clan. He couldn’t reach you then, not with you surrounded by so many others.
“Then all of his dreams came true. You found a mate, your true soul mate. He starved himself for weeks so you wouldn’t smell him, driving himself nearly insane with hunger, striking only when near other vampyres, so your senses would be dampened. Then, he had done it. He had taken the life of your mate.
“He left you in hell. When it looked like you weren’t miserable enough, he would take some of your family. He never thought that one day, you would hunt for him. When you did, he ran and hid like the coward he still is, leaving you in the hell he had created for you. I came to tell you that he’s looking for you again. Now I’m even more concerned. If he finds you happy, and with the same mate that he has already killed, he will take her life again.”
“He can try!” Richard had growled, pulling Beck even closer to him.
“He
may already know of her existence,” Leso said. “I killed a vampyre in her front yard the other night. That’s what brought us here.”
They talked for awhile longer until Richard insisted Beck go to bed. Now, as he watched her sleep, his guilt rolled in his stomach. It wasn’t about her. It had never been about her. He had put her in this danger. If he hadn’t pursued her in the past, she wouldn’t have died. If he hadn’t pursued her in this time, Elderson would never have known she existed here.
He had to convince her to not come to him in the past, to go a different way so she wouldn’t cross his path this time. She had to find a hotel and stay in it until she vanished back into this time. If he didn’t know she existed, she would never be in danger. This had to stop.
He found her box in the closet and silently dumped it on the floor, kicking the dresses to the side, snatched up the scattered needles, and crushed them to dust in his hand. He tore the blood bags to pieces, then threw it all back in the box, and stuffed the dresses back on top. He put the box away, deciding not to tell her until the night before she left what he wanted her to do. He wanted to enjoy these last days with her, even if he would never remember them.
***
They were in the kitchen the next morning looking at the wedding pictures that Jenny had developed yesterday when Beck’s cell phone rang.
“Is this Ms. Rebecca Stockdale?” the voice inquired.
“Yes, it is,” she replied. “Hello, Ms. Stockdale. My name is Dr. Mike Rogers. Can I have a minute of your time?”
“Sure. What can I do for you?” Beck asked as she walked out the front door for a little privacy.
Richard was in the backyard somewhere with Leso. “We were looking over some reference for an experiment we’re running and saw that you graduated at the top of your class at Duke, and that you are considered somewhat of an expert in the field of Jack the Ripper. Is that correct?”
“Yes, that is correct.”
“We would like to use your expertise in our experiment. It doesn’t pay very much, but I think you will enjoy the experience. Do you think you would be interested?”