Vampire Zero: A Gruesome Vampire Tale

by David Wellington

  Raleigh looked up at the ceiling. She exhaled a long and noisy breath and then launched into it. “I was young and very foolish at the time. I was also very bored. Jane and I were roommates in this tiny little place in Brussels. The rent was nothing, but we were always broke anyway. We ate a lot of French fries because they were cheap—they actually invented French fries in Belgium, did you know that? They aren’t really French at all. Living so cheaply was in some ways a very spiritual experience. There’s a liberation that comes with owning next to nothing. We would sit around talking about art, like, all night long. We didn’t get a lot of sleep, but we didn’t ever feel all that bad the next day. You know how it is when you’re young.”

  Caxton smiled and nodded, though she didn’t know at all. Her own experience had been quite different.

  “Jane really liked to party. You know what I mean? It was just drinking, at first. We had this really cheap wine that came in a blue bottle and it tasted awful, but you could buy cases of it for nothing. We would have people come over, other students, sometimes even Belgian kids, and we would just have so much fun. Laughing and singing until the people who lived downstairs would bang on their ceiling with a broom handle, which always just made us laugh more. Sometimes people would bring other things.”

  “You mean drugs.”

  Raleigh nodded and looked away. “That wasn’t my thing. I always said no. I mean at first. They would pass around a joint and it just looked nasty, with everybody’s spit on the end. Sometimes they had pills and then they wouldn’t sleep for days. Jane liked that. She loved doing her classwork at like four in the morning when it was quiet, she said. The guy who had the pills started coming around a lot more often. His name was Piet and he had really beautiful eyes. One time we were in the kitchen and he kissed me. Then he just stood there looking at me for so long, until I got embarrassed and ran out of the room. That same night he hooked up with Jane, and before long he moved in. He started bringing his own friends around and some of them weren’t so, well, nice.” Raleigh started to scratch at her arms as she spoke, digging her fingernails into the crooks of her elbows, through the sleeves of her shapeless dress. “They did heroin. Over there, it’s not like here. People don’t call you a junkie just because you tried something once. Jane started shooting up with Piet and then there were no more all-nighters. Then they would just collapse on the couch and they wouldn’t get up. She stopped going to classes.”

  Caxton sighed. “When did you start taking heroin?” she asked.

  That same startled look as before, as if Caxton had read the girl’s mind. “I didn’t say I did. I never said that.”

  “You did try it, though,” Caxton said. “Didn’t you?”

  Raleigh nodded in acceptance. “Yes. They said it was the best feeling in the world. They said you could do it a couple of times safely before you got addicted. That if you just did it a couple of times you would be okay. I figured—I mean, this was near the end of the semester. I thought I’d try it once. Maybe twice, if I liked it. Then I would have to fly home, since I already had booked my flight back, and I wouldn’t be tempted again.”

  “What happened then?”

  “I liked it. I liked it a lot.” Raleigh looked down at her hands. Under the table her feet were swinging back and forth. “I did it more than a couple of times. We didn’t have any money, I said that before. We couldn’t afford to buy drugs and pay the rent, so something had to happen. Jane convinced me we should cash in our plane tickets. We would explain to our parents that we needed the money for rent, and then they would send us new tickets. Except we didn’t want to go home anymore. The college called and said that if we didn’t come home we could get expelled. There was this funny thing that happened, it was like I knew that things were going bad. I knew it, but I couldn’t do anything about it. When I was high it didn’t matter, and when I came down I just felt like I couldn’t concentrate enough to do what I needed to do. We got kicked out of the apartment because we never did pay the rent, and we went to live with Piet. And his friends.”

  “What did you do for money then?”

  Raleigh looked up across the table and stared directly at Caxton. “I don’t want to say. Not when I’m being recorded.”

  “Okay,” Caxton said. She didn’t think she wanted the sordid details anyway.

  “You asked me about the last time I saw my dad. I’m sorry. I’ve been rambling. The answer is I saw him about six months ago. He knew something was up when I didn’t come home. He went to Vesta Polder and asked her to take a look, to see where I was. She can do that sort of thing. Anyway, she came back to him and said she’d found where my body was, but that she couldn’t see my soul anywhere.” The girl’s voice rose in pitch as she finished her story. “Daddy came for me. He showed up and he hurt some people. Some of Piet’s friends. I called him so many bad names, I said such mean things, but he didn’t even listen to me. He dragged me out of there and got me on a plane. We sat next to each other the whole way back. I got sick, really sick. I threw up a lot. He held my hair back but he wouldn’t talk to me. Not while I was like that. He told everybody I was just airsick. When we got home he brought me right here. He couldn’t come in through the gate, but Sister Margot took one look at me and just brought me inside. They locked me up for a couple of days, and when I finally came out of my room they were just waiting with this ugly set of clothes. They said if I wanted to stay here I had to dress like everybody else. I put the clothes on, because I needed something. I needed something to replace the heroin. I had no idea what I was getting into. I can’t tell you how scared I was. Now everything’s different.”

  “How did your father know to bring you here?”

  “Vesta recommended it as a place where I could get clean again. It’s really special here. You should spend some time with us.”

  “I’d like that,” Caxton lied. “So this all happened six months ago.” The summer of 2004, then. Just a few months before the massacre at Gettysburg. He’d never told Caxton about what had happened, not even a hint. That wasn’t surprising, though, if you knew Jameson Arkeley at all.

  “He saved me,” Raleigh said, sitting back in her chair. She looked spent, as if the effort of telling the story had taken something out of her. “He saved my life. And my soul.” She shook her head. “I heard what he did to Uncle Angus. So horrible. I’m doing a three-week fast in his honor.”

  “That’s…nice of you,” Caxton said.

  “He’s not my father anymore. He’s not the same person anymore, is he?”

  “Your poor mother didn’t think so,” Caxton agreed.

  “My poor mother? What do you mean?”

  Caxton’s heart jumped in her chest. Raleigh didn’t know. “I’m so sorry. I assumed the Bellefonte police would have contacted you. I guess maybe they didn’t know where you were.” She wondered if she should reach a hand across the table, to comfort the girl, but she didn’t. “Last night your father killed her. Exactly the same way he did your uncle. I’m—I’m sorry.”

  Raleigh started to scream.

  27.

  Sister Margot threw the door open and grabbed Caxton’s arm and pulled her bodily out of her chair. Caxton didn’t fight back but let the nun drag her out into the hallway. She didn’t want to find out what Margot was capable of when excited.

  Margot’s face was wracked with pure anger, her delicate features twisted around and darkened by congested blood. Her eyes were narrow slits pulsing with rage, and spit flecked her lips. She looked as if she was about to invoke some dread curse. Then she looked toward the open door, looked in at where Raleigh was crying with her head in her hands. Visibly struggling to regain her composure, Margot closed her eyes and then said, in a sweet, soft voice, “Is everything alright?”

  Caxton frowned. “I had to give her some bad news. Her mother died last night.”

  A vein in Margot’s left temple throbbed alarmingly. “Yes,” she said. “I know.”

  “You do?” Caxton was confused.
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br />   “The police called me last night, and when I said they couldn’t talk to her, they told me what it was about. I decided, after long contemplation, that it would be best for Raleigh to not be exposed to such negative outside influences.”

  “Do you think that’s fair to her?” Caxton asked.

  Sister Margot lowered her eyes. “She’s undergoing extensive therapy for drug addiction, and that takes a great deal of time, rest, and peace. The first time, when they came to tell her about her uncle, I allowed her to go to the gate and hear the news herself. She came back quite disturbed. I would have told her about her mother eventually, of course, but I decided that two such shocks in such a short space of time would completely unhinge her.”

  “I see,” Caxton said.

  “I wasn’t sure whether to let you talk to her at all, but in the end I decided I did not wish to create trouble with the police. I’m beginning to wonder if that was a mistake. Is your business with us done now?”

  “No,” Caxton said. “Believe me. I’d love to leave the whole bunch of you in peace. I’m afraid I’m going to have to spend the night, though.” She could see Margot’s face darkening again, so she added, “This is an emergency situation. Do you know about Raleigh’s father?”

  “The vampire?”

  “Yeah,” Caxton said. “I have reason to believe he’ll come here and try to harm her. It looks like he’s intent on destroying his own family. If I had any choice in the matter I’d take Raleigh out of here right now and get her somewhere safe.”

  Margot didn’t seem impressed. “I can assure you there’s nowhere safer than here, especially from that sort. No such creature would ever dare cross the threshold of this place. It’s still holy ground. And as he is a man there is no chance of any of the sisters inviting him inside.”

  “You mean, because a vampire can only enter a place where he’s been invited first? That’s a myth,” Caxton said. “They don’t have to be invited into a place. They can go anywhere they want. Even on holy ground. Sorry.”

  “Perhaps we’ll see,” Margot said, with a wry smile. “Very well, I’ll find a place for you to sleep—”

  “I’ll need to sleep in the same room as Raleigh,” Caxton interrupted.

  “You might find it a tad crowded. She shares a very small room with Violet,” Margot warned.

  “I’ll make do.”

  “So be it. Is there anything else you require, Special Deputy? If not, dinner will be served at five o’clock. If you would be good enough to leave Raleigh alone until then, I would appreciate it. And please, would you do something for me? Don’t tell her you think her father wants to kill her. That would just be too much for her mental constitution to take.”

  That sounded like a terrible idea—Caxton had always lived by the notion that forewarned was forearmed—but she just nodded her head.

  When Sister Margot was gone she considered going back into the small room to comfort Raleigh, but then decided she wasn’t the one for that job. Instead Caxton found her way out of the dark building and into the fading light of afternoon. It was three-thirty and already the sun was low in the sky, casting long sharp shadows across the snow-crusted lawn. She spent a while just walking around, checking out the wall, looking for any place a vampire could sneak through. Of course, a determined enough intruder could climb over the wall anywhere, but she thought Jameson might try for a stealthy approach. The biggest weakness she found in the wall was a brick-lined arch at either end of the property where the creek flowed through. Neither arch was more than three feet high, but Jameson could easily crawl in through them.

  It would be next to impossible to guard both arches unless she had some help. She had to make some phone calls.

  Caxton took out her cell phone—she didn’t want to antagonize Sister Margot again by using her office phone—and was not surprised to find that she got terrible reception even outside the ex-convent, just a single bar that flickered in and out. She tramped around the grounds until her shoes were soaked through, hunting a clearer signal. She only found it as she approached the iron gate where she’d left her car. Immediately the phone chirped, telling her she had a message waiting.

  It was from Clara. “Hey, honey, I hope you’re having a good day. I dropped by your HQ earlier so I could meet with your forensics guys. I missed them, but they left a report for me to read. There were two things in it that sounded important. One was that they couldn’t get a positive ID on the half-dead, but that they were trying to rebuild its skull so they could build up a computer-enhanced facial reconstruction. I wouldn’t hold your breath, though—they said it could take a couple days to do the rendering. The other thing was that they were able to match the fibers taken from the motel bathroom window. They found three different kinds of thread: cotton, nylon, and an aromatic polyamide, um, which they said also goes by the trade name of Twaron. I hope that helps.”

  Caxton bit her lip. It didn’t help at all, of course. It was just like she’d told Fetlock. Fiber analysis was no use on this case. She called Clara, intending to thank her for her help anyway, but the number went straight to voice mail. She left a short message and hung up, then dialed Fetlock.

  “I’ve got the location secured, as much as possible,” Caxton told him when he asked how she was going about protecting Raleigh. “I’ve got some ideas on how to handle him if she shows up here. Though I have to say I’m not looking forward to it.”

  “Understandable,” he told her.

  “The big thing worrying me right now is that I know he’s going to go after Raleigh and Simon, but I don’t know which one he’ll try to hit first. I could be in the wrong place right now, just spinning my wheels.”

  “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  “Yeah.” Caxton rubbed at her eyes. She needed sleep. Well, she’d needed sleep since Arkeley took the curse. Since Gettysburg. She was learning to live on just a couple hours a night. “Did Glauer call you about checking some possible lairs?”

  “Yes. I have people on it.”

  Caxton closed her eyes. “How many people? Do they know how dangerous this could be? How many places can they check out before dark?”

  “Let me worry about that. You have enough on your hands.”

  Caxton held the phone away from her face and tried not to scream. Of course she was going to worry about it. This was her case. She wanted to say a number of things in response. Then she rethought them and instead just said, “Okay, good. Did you send a deputy up to Syracuse to collect Simon?”

  “I…did,” Fetlock acknowledged.

  From his tone Caxton could guess what had happened. “He refused protective custody, I take it.” Shit, she thought. She had called that one.

  “I’m told he refused to leave his current residence. Said he had an experiment going on he couldn’t let out of his sight. Is Simon some kind of scientist?”

  “He’s a college student. Probably worried about getting a B in geology or something. Not the most levelheaded guy I’ve ever met.”

  Fetlock tried to sound encouraging. “I’ve detailed three units to watch his place, in shifts. We’ve got round-the-clock coverage. If Jameson shows up there we’re ready for him.”

  She thought of the cops she’d sent to protect Astarte. “No. We’re probably not. If he comes for Simon tonight I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

  “So what do you want to do, Special Deputy?”

  “I can’t be in two places at once,” Caxton said. “And I’m already here. I’ll keep in touch, Deputy Marshal.”

  “Please do,” Fetlock said, and hung up.

  She made a couple more phone calls, preparing for the night to come, and then headed back to the convent building—it was time for dinner.

  28.

  Dinner at the convent proved simple enough, a salad of mixed greens, vegetable barley soup, and some grainy bread that Caxton chewed and chewed until it was soft enough to swallow. She was seated at a long table with twenty girls, all dressed in oversized clothes
that covered them from neck to ankle. Apparently attractive clothing was a distraction, and therefore to be avoided in the retreat. None of the girls spoke a word as they ate, but they all kept looking up at Caxton with wide eyes, clearly wondering what she was doing there. Raleigh sat on the other side of the table but didn’t make eye contact during the meal.

  Tall arched windows lined one long wall. Nothing showed beyond them but blackness. If Jameson came crashing through one of them, if he chose that moment to attack his daughter, there would be little Caxton could do to stop him. In the dark she would be at a distinct disadvantage. To Caxton the dining hall was a swaying cavern of guttering light. To a vampire it would be lit up like Christmas—they could see human blood glowing with its own light even in the thickest gloom. To make matters worse, if Jameson attacked the room would be full of panicked girls running every which way. Caxton couldn’t shoot through that crowd, not if she didn’t want to hit Raleigh or one of the other inmates by mistake.

  She was relieved, then, as the sisters rose one by one from the long tables and left the dining hall without a word. They stacked their soup bowls and their plates in a tall metal rack by the door and filed out individually, presumably headed for their rooms. When only a few remained, struggling with their hard bread, Caxton bused her own bowl and plate and then made her way toward where Raleigh still sat.

  The girl sat alone, her arms wrapped around her chest, staring down at the rough surface of the table. No food sat before her, just a glass half full of warm water. Caxton remembered that she was fasting in honor of her uncle Angus, and maybe in honor of her mother now as well. She supposed she had to respect that kind of reverence, though she doubted a doctor would agree—Raleigh couldn’t weigh much more than a hundred pounds, a fact even her baggy clothes couldn’t hide. Caxton touched the girl on the shoulder and she looked up and nodded, then stood and started walking toward the door. Caxton followed close behind, only turning around once when she noticed Violet following them at a discreet distance.