The Undead Heart

by Tate Jackson

  “I wonder if Bev would keep her scent if she became a hunter?”

  “We may never know,” he said, getting up. “Are you sure you won’t come into the water?”

  “I would rather play leap frog with unicorns,” she said off-handedly, looking back down at her magazine.

  He laughed and jogged back down the beach to the water.

  ***

  The months passed quickly after the wedding. She’d finally learned all of the hunter’s names and was getting a chance to get to know the new members of the family better. “How did you meet Heidi?” she asked Levi one day while they were watching the boys practice their martial arts skills. They were very good.

  “We met in Indonesia in 1930. I had gone to see the volcanoes. I used to be very fascinated with them.”

  “Used to be?”

  “Well, when I sensed other vampyres there, I was curious. So, I tracked them down. I found Heidi, Saphira, and Harley halfway up Mount Merapi, looking at the volcano.”

  He was very easy to listen to. He had a voice that held your attention, no matter what he was saying. He was easy to look at as well. He was nearly six feet tall with dark brown hair and blue eyes.

  “Mount Merapi? That’s the Mountain of Fire, right?”

  “It is. It’s one of the 129 active volcanoes that form the Pacific Ring of Fire.”

  “Isn’t 1930 the year it erupted, killing a lot of people?” she asked.

  “Yes. The pyroclastic flows killed at least 1,400 people and destroyed thirteen villages, but we were gone before that happened.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Anyway, I knew that the vampyres that I’d found could sense me just as well as I could them. When I got close enough, I could smell that, like me, they did not feed on humans. I didn’t sense any other vampyres or humans around, so I attempted to approach them.”

  “Attempted?” she asked, confused.

  “Yes, attempted. When I was several yards from them, I was picked up from behind, by who I later learned was Damon, and thrown through the air. Heidi was in front of me when I jumped up. We have been together ever since.”

  “I don’t understand. What about that made you not like volcanoes anymore?” she asked.

  “Oh, that. When Damon threw me, I landed not two feet away from a lava flow. Lava burns at around 2,000 degrees. I’m sure that would have been hot enough to vaporize even a vampyre. Almost getting tossed into one took all the flavor out of my fascination,” he laughed.

  ***

  In October, she sat on the roof soaking in the last of the fall sun and watched Richard and Leso build what appeared to be a large kiln.

  “What are they doing?” she asked Harley when he jumped onto the roof beside her.

  Rolling his eyes at her, he replied, “Building a kiln.”

  “Yes, I can see it’s a kiln, smartass. Why are they building it?Is somebody taking up pottery?”

  “No, they’re going to use it to heat Leso this winter so he doesn’t give Bev frostbite.”

  Shocked, she asked, “Leso’s going to get in that thing?!”

  “It won’t hurt him. He’ll only have to stay in it for a few minutes to warm up.”

  “Couldn’t he just sit in front of the fireplace in the house?”

  “It wouldn’t work. That would only heat his skin. As soon as he moved away from the fire, he would get cold again. The kiln will heat him all the way through.”

  “Won’t that make him to hot for Bev to touch him?”

  “For a little while, but after a while in the house, he’ll drop down to room temperature and stay that way until he goes back outside.”

  “He must really love her if he’s willing to climb into an oven for her,” she said.

  “He does, but the kiln was Richard’s idea. He thought of it years ago.”

  She couldn’t believe that she was actually touched that the man she loved had been willing to cook himself every day for her.

  “I’ve never asked you where you’re from before,” she told Harley.

  “No, you haven’t.”

  “Well?”

  He grinned, “Oh, you’re asking now?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Well then, I’m from Aberdeen, Scotland.”

  “When were you born?”

  “1697.”

  “Damn! That would make you 312 years old!” she said surprised.

  “311. I wasn’t born until December,” he said grinning and adding, “I’m still younger than you and will always be younger than you.”

  “Good point,” she said. “Can I ask you something else?”

  “Sure.”

  “How did you become a vampyre?” She saw him flinch. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. It’s none of my business.”

  “I’ll tell you. You saved my life.”

  “You don’t owe me anything for that.”

  “Really, I don’t mind.” He was quiet for a minute, and she could feel his uneasiness. “I was 19 years old when I was changed. I had three little brothers and one little sister that I took care of. We’d lost our mother the year before, and my father was a mean drunk who would disappear for weeks at a time. He used to beat on the younger kids until I put a stop to it.

  “Then I came home one day and heard my sister screaming. I rushed into the house to find our father slamming her into a wall. She was only two years old, and I’d had it enough.. I beat him pretty badly and threw him out of the house.

  “He was a useless man, and we didn’t need him. He had not helped take care of my mother when she was sick, nor had he helped bury her when she died.

  “He’d left that to me, as he had everything else. Six peaceful months had passed since he had left. My twelve year old brother had helped take care of the smaller children while I found work anywhere I could. We didn’t have much, but we got by. For the first time in a long time, we were happy, but it did not last.

  “I’d been away overnight, working, and came home to find all of my brother’s bodies laying scattered in the yard. All of them dead, and all of their throats ripped out. I ran into the house to find my sister. What I found was a man leaned over her body, feeding from her neck. It was my father.

  “He threw her lifeless body to the ground like she was nothing, and then came at me. When I woke up, I fed for the first time. I went home, buried my brothers and sister beside our mother, and left. I never knew why my father only bit me, and I didn’t bother to ask him before I killed him a few months later. Maybe it was revenge for throwing him out, but the ‘Why?’ never mattered to me. After that, I traveled alone for years until I found Bruce. A few years later, we found the Youngs, and then you found us, and here we are.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” she said sniffling.

  “There’s nothing to say. Don’t cry, Beck. It was so long ago that I don’t even remember my sister and brother’s faces,” he said, patting her shoulder. He was lying about that, but she didn’t call him on it. “I’m going to go find the twins and see if they want to shoot some hoops.”

  He flashed her a smile and dropped from the roof.

  She looked back down to where they were building the kiln. Richard was looking up at her. She could see clear tears on his cheeks, and knew that with his improved hearing, he had heard Harley’s story. She also knew they would never talk about it.

  ***

  “Hey, Ma! Come look!” Tiarnán yelled from the front yard.

  It was January, and they had gotten about two feet of snow overnight. She stepped out the front door and gasped. All the snow on the ground and the surrounding trees was gone, and there was a twenty foot tall snowman in the front yard. It had two hubcaps for eyes and an orange safety cone for a nose. She had to give it to them; when her sons decide to make a snowman, they did not fuck around. The dogs, Bailey and Blaze, were chasing each other around the base of it.

  “It’s huge,” she said in amazement.

  “Cool, huh?” they said together.
/>   “I’m impressed. How did you get the snow out of the trees?”

  “We shook them,” Seanán replied.

  How many mothers could say that their boys could shake thirty foot tall trees?

  Richard stepped out of the house, and froze. “Good Lord! Were you two bored?”

  “A little bit,” Tiarnán said. They really were a family now. The boys couldn’t have felt more like her sons if she had given birth to them herself.

  “I heard that your birthday’s are today,” Richard said to the boys.

  “Yeah, we’re 279 years old today,” Seanán answered.

  Beck laughed, “Neither of you look a day over 17.”

  “Gee, thanks Ma,” Tiarnán said.

  Richard smiled at them. “Hop in the truck, and we’ll go pick up your birthday presents.”

  “We get presents?” they asked, surprised.

  “Sure you do.”

  “We haven’t gotten a birthday present since we were human,” Seanán explained.

  “Then today’s your lucky day,” Richard said. “Let’s go.”

  She waited two minutes after they left before yelling, “They’re gone!” at the top of her lungs.

  All of the hunters and vampyres started coming off of the path from the woods carrying boxes and bags.

  “Where do you want this stuff?” Gavin asked.

  “Put the presents in the living room, and the cakes and decorations on the kitchen table,” she told them as they filed past her into the house. She walked into the kitchen and saw six cakes sitting on the table. She’d bought seven. “Where’s the other cake?”

  Potter faked a frown, “Uh…yeah, sorry about that.”

  “You ate a whole cake?”

  “I was hungry.”

  “We do have other food, you know?”

  “I know, but none of it tasted like cake,” he laughed.

  She tossed him a box, and said, “Here, hang these decorations up, you pig.”

  The decorations were hung, and everything was ready when the truck pulled back into the driveway. “Happy Birthday!”everyone shouted when the boys came through the door.

  The boys froze in shock. They looked at the banner that read ‘HAPPY 17TH BIRTHDAY… AGAIN’ and looked at Beck. “You threw us a party?” Tiarnán asked.

  “Yep.”

  “We’ve never had a party,” Seanán said.

  “Come on and open your presents.”

  They opened the gold watches Jenny had gotten them. They also got new video games from Leso and Bev, and various other gifts from everyone else. After the boys had thanked everyone, Beck announced, “Time for cake.”

  “Wait!” Potter said. “They haven’t gotten my present yet. It’s out back.”

  They walked around the house to find an eighteen foot long ping pong table in the backyard.

  “Awesome!” the twins chimed. “Thanks, Uncle Lugh!”

  “You’re welcome,” Potter said, watching them run to the table.

  Beck was astonished. “I didn’t know they make ping pong tables that big.”

  “They don’t. I had to cannibalize two tables to make that.”

  “Well, it was nice of you to do that for them.”

  Potter laughed. “It was, wasn’t it?”

  “I can’t believe they’re going to play now. It’s so cold out here,” she said, pulling her jacket tighter around her.

  “You’re still a newbie hunter. In a hundred years, you won’t even notice the cold anymore.”

  “Great! Then I’ll see you in a hundred years. Until then, I’m going back in the house where the heat is.”

  ***

  “The grills are ready,” Bev called to Beck.

  It was a warm day in March, and they were having a cookout. All of the hunters were there, and they were having to use five grills to cook all the food.

  “Remember to cook my steak all the way through. I can’t eat it all bloody the way you do,” Bev reminded her. “It’s gross.”

  “I know how to cook your steak,” Beck said. “ But I’m telling you, a well-done steak doesn’t have any flavor.”

  They’d had this argument many times before.

  “You don’t like a good juicy steak?” Potter asked Bev, picking up a raw steak and taking a bite out of it.

  Bev gagged, leaned over, and threw up.

  Looking at Potter and wiping her mouth, she said, “I was right. I don’t like you.”

  “Yeah, you do,” Potter answered, cracking up. “You would not make a good vampyre.”

  “No shit, Sherlock. What was your first clue?,” Bev asked. “The gagging or the vomit?”

  Richard came up and put his arms around Beck’s waist while Potter and Bev were bickering.

  “Are you sure we only have two children?” Bev stuck her tongue out at him and went to sit down at one of the new picnic tables. “Can you make my steak well-done, too? I’ve consumed enough blood to last me a lifetime.”

  “I’ll do it, but it’s a waste of good meat,” Beck said with a sigh.

  “I’ll risk it. Do you want to go to our cliff later?”

  “I’d love to. We haven’t been there since last fall.”

  “I know. I kind of miss it.”

  “You know what I miss? That lake in London,” she told him.

  “We can go visit it whenever you’d like. We own that property.”

  “We do?”

  “We do,” he smiled.

  “Can we go there on our anniversary?”

  “Maybe. Will you swim naked in the lake for me?” he teasingly whispered in her ear.

  “Maybe.”

  “Hey, Pop,” Tiarnán yelled, coming out of the house with a basketball. Richard kissed her and took off across the yard to the court.

  A little while later, Bev came across the yard with two bottles of soda. “Here, I brought you a coke.”

  “Thanks.”

  She’d just reached to take the bottle from Bev when it happened. She felt a warm gush of blood between her legs. Damn it! This wasn’t supposed to happen anymore! She felt a weight slam into her back, smashing her into Bev, and knocking both of them to the ground.

  Bev screamed. Beck knew Richard wasn’t holding her down, and she was right. When she turned her head, she found Declán. She only saw him for a second before he was pulled away from her and thrown across the yard. Richard landed on him and was punching him with bone-crushing force.

  “Stop! Richard, stop!” she screamed at him.

  They couldn’t afford to lose any more people. They were already down by two. Richard either didn’t hear her, or chose to ignore her, because he

  kept right on shattering Declán.

  “Potter, stop him!”

  Shocked, he asked, “Are you crazy?!”

  “Just do it!”

  “Fine, but if he beats the hell out of me, it’s all your fault.”

  He jumped on Richard and knocked him off of Declán. Declán popped up and ran at her again, but Damon grabbed him, held him off the ground, and ran out of the yard with him. It had all happened so fast that no one had helped Bev off the ground yet.

  Tiarnán picked her up. “Aunt Bev! Are you okay?!”

  “No, I’m not okay! I think that bastard broke my arm!” Bev yelled.

  “Where’s Leso?” Beck asked.

  “He went across the creek to get ice. I’ll go get him,” Seanán said, jumping over the house and vanishing.

  “What the hell just happened?” Bev asked.

  “You said this wouldn’t happen anymore,” Beck said to Potter.

  “I said I didn’t think it would happen. Obviously, I was wrong.”

  “Obviously,” she replied dryly.

  Bev asked confused, “What?”

  “She started her period,” Potter explained.

  “Why don’t you tell everyone?!” Beck hissed.

  “Everybody but Bev already knows. We can smell it, remember?”

  Beck glared at him. “You still don�
��t have to announce it. What the hell got into Declán anyway? He’s never jumped on Bev like that.”

  “You’re a female hunter. Your scent is more enticing to the hunters, I guess.”

  Richard looked at Potter accusingly. “Does it attract you?”

  “Eww, she’s my sister! That’s just nasty!” Potter exclaimed with a grossed-out look on his face.

  “Just checking.”

  Leso came rushing out of the woods and slid to a stop next to Bev.

  “Are you alright?” he asked in a panic.

  “No. I need to go to the doctor.” Leso reached to pick Bev up, and she yelled, “Stop it! He broke my arm, not my legs. I can walk.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to kill Declán?” Richard asked Beck after Leso and Bev left.

  “No. It’s not his fault. I’m going to go cleanup. Potter, take the meat off the grill.”

  She went into the house, took a quick shower, dressed, and went back outside. Damon was back and eating a steak. “Where’s Declán?”

  “Two miles from here. He asked me to tell you he’s sorry.”

  “It’s okay, I guess. Where are the boys?” she asked, looking around the yard.

  Damon gasped. “Oh shit! Declán!”

  He jumped up and ran into the woods, Richard behind him, and Beck behind Richard. She could hear screams before she saw the boys. They were beating Declán like a piñata.

  Damon bellowed, “What do you think you’re doing?!”

  “Teaching Declán not to touch our Ma,” Tiarnán said, stomping down on Declán’s femur with a crunch, causing him to howl in pain.

  “That’s enough!” Beck yelled. “He couldn’t help it.”

  “I bet he’ll be able to help it the next time,” Seanán said, kicking Declán in the ribs.

  Declán cried, “Stop it! I said I was sorry.”

  “You’re not sorry yet, but if you touch our Ma again, you will be,” Seanán threatened.

  “Let him up,” Richard told the boys. “He’s had enough.”

  They let him up but held onto his arms.

  “Declán, are you okay?” Beck asked sincerely.

  “Yes, ma’am, I’m fine. I do apologize for what happened before. It won’t happen again,” Declán promised.