“If you want to risk going into a blacked-out basement with an angry vampire, be my guest.” He set his bag down on the coffee table and pulled out a red gas can. He slipped a pair of blue rubber gloves on before extracting three empty glass beer bottles and an old rag.
“Molotov cocktail?” I stared, wide-eyed at Gilchrist. “Are you insane?”
“Maybe a little,” he said.
I crossed my arms across my chest and went to peek through the front blinds. Someone was coming home with a van-load of kids. “We have neighbors,” I said.
“Approaching the house?”
“No.”
“Good. Here, take this and go find a back door with lots of sunlight along the way.” He opened his bag and took out an object that looked like a yellow price scanner.
“What is this?”
“Meth gun. Cops use it to detect methamphetamines at traffic stops with UV light. It's not as bright as the UV curing gun, but it's more portable a little easier for an amateur to aim.”
I turned on the device and held it in front of me as I started down the hall. There was a back door with blacked-out glass panels at the back of the kitchen. “I found a door but it's kind of dark back here.”
“Break a window!”
Right. I held the gun out with one hand and picked up the fire extinguisher from next to the stove. I wondered if it was Rawdon's or one that came with the house. It was one of those little residential extinguishers and I was able to lift it with one hand and swing the end of it into a panel. The glass cracked and a shard of it fell to the floor by my feet. The tiny opening cast enough sunlight that I was comfortable setting down the meth gun to use free up my hands. I smashed out the remaining panels with the end of the fire extinguisher.
I turned back to see Gilchrist standing in the door to the kitchen with two cocktails on the counter and one in his hand.
“Ready to run like hell?” he asked.
I unlocked the back door and nodded. The idea of killing someone didn't sit well, but I knew that Rawdon was already dead. More importantly, he was going to kill me.
“Three, two, one!” He lit the cocktails on the counter and then lit the one in his hand. He opened the basement door, chucked a cocktail down the stairs, and slammed the door shut. There was an immediate “Run!”
I threw the back door open and ran onto the snow-covered lawn. Gilchrist followed close behind. “What were the bombs on the counter for?” I asked as soon as I was a safe distance from the house.
“Insurance. Set the kitchen on fire, just in case he gets past the basement. Come on,” he waved for me to follow and set off around the house. “Before the fire's visible from the street.”
I ran close at Gilchrist's heals. When we got back to his truck, he tossed his bag into the pickup bed and hopped in the cab.
We were three blocks away before I felt like I could breathe again. “I just committed arson.”
“No, I did. You were an accomplice to arson.”
I laughed. “Holy shit.”
Gilchrist cleared his throat.
“Right, sorry. Religious. I can use the fuck word but not the Lord's name in vain.”
Gilchrist laughed. “The fuck word. I like that. Let's pick up lunch-- you're paying-- and head back to the house to work on Plan B.”
“But we just killed him?”
“We just lit his lair on fire. If he was in that basement, we'll be lucky. But he knows you're on the run and he knows I'm in town. Chances are, we're not lucky. He'll have gone to ground.”
We returned to the house with a stack of pizzas and a 2-liter of Coke to share. Gilchrist left after lunch to go sit on Cody's back porch and talk with someone in his cell phone. I didn't try to eavesdrop. I helped Cody with chores to earn my keep. I figured that I owed him a huge favor after making his house base-camp for Operation Vampire Kill.
“Geneva, you get the couch tonight. Gilchrist gets the bed. You get the floor,” he said as he threw my blankets to the floor and set clean sheets on the sofa for Geneva. “And tomorrow morning when I go to work, nobody gets in my way and slows me down. Got it?”
“Thank you,” I said. Geneva had returned to the kitchen to wash dishes. I picked up my blanket and folded it neatly before setting it on the floor at the foot of the sofa. “Really. He would have killed me if I had stayed at home. Thank you.”
Cody stared back at me and shook his head. “I just don't see why you didn't go to your family.”
“Because he's smart enough to look up my family. He can't track an ex he's never heard of.”
“Right.” Cody sat down on the couch. He picked up the remote and turned the TV to the Discovery Channel. They were showing reruns of A Haunting. I sat down next to him.
We watched until the commercial, when I decided to break the tense but non-hostile atmosphere by trying to make conversation.
“So how are you doing?” I asked. “Work going well?”
Cody nodded. “Yeah. I'm up for a raise after my review. It's supposed to be next week but I hear they take their time and then do retro-pay on those things.”
“Are you seeing someone?” I asked.
“Yeah, I am,” he said. “Kristin. I met her at work. We went out Friday, actually. Probably should have called her, but then you showed up on my door.”
“Went out for the first time Friday?”
He nodded.
“Oh.”
“What's it to you? We've been broken-up for three months.”
“I wish you'd stop snapping at me,” I said. “Really. If you've moved on you don't need to be yelling at me all the time.”
“I am trying to move on, Kendall. But you being here doesn't help. I was finally able to go one day without thinking about you, and now you're in my house asking me to save you from some psycho vampire.”
“I never wanted you out of my life completely,” I said. “I told you when we split that I wanted to be friends.”
“Well, I don't,” he said. “I wanted to marry you. I'm not going to be happy being just your friend. And you don't want to be my friend. You just want to keep me around as an option.”
“Excuse me?”
“Which is why you didn't want to marry me.”
“I'm twenty-three, Cody,” I argued. “I didn't want to marry you because I'm twenty-three.”
“Bullshit,” he snapped. “We dated for two years. The word 'love' was a regular part of our vocabulary. You practically lived here, but the moment I gave you a key and asked you to make it legitimate, you ran. Why? Not because you're twenty-three, but because if you moved in, if you agreed to marry me, then you wouldn't be available in case something better came along. And that's what it really boiled down to. You thought you could do better and now you're on the run from a vampire and I'm trying to move on with my life. I'm ready to find someone to settle down with. I'm moving on.”
Ouch. I looked down at my hands, trying to imagine the beautiful ring that Cody had tried to give me that evening in August. How would it look on my finger. Had I made a mistake? I looked up at him. His eye contact was intense, but I couldn't tell if he was still angry.
“Cody,” I said. “I'm sorry.”
“I invested two years of my life into our relationship,” he said.
I leaned closer. “What if we gave it a second shot?” I asked.
Cody stood up. “No. Don't even try that, Kendall. You can get out of my house right now if you prefer. I'm done with that chapter of my life.”
“You're not exactly being clear, here,” I said, standing up. “You're telling me that you wanted to marry me, but you don't want me back?”
“Wanted. Past tense. I've moved on. I'm ready to find a woman to spend the rest of my life with and you clearly haven't grown-up at all these past two years. I'm going out with Kristin.”
“One date and you've decided she's the one?”
“No. But I stand more of a chance of finding happiness with her than with you,” he said. “You're selfish, Ken
dall.”
Cody's eyes darted to the door to the kitchen. Geneva was standing there with a pizza box.
“Sorry,” she said. “I just... who wants cold pizza for dinner?”
“I'm going out,” Cody said. “When I come back, don't talk to me.”
Cody came back from dinner right at sun down. Even his anger couldn't keep him out when Rawdon was awake. He shoved a black takeout box in the fridge and retired to his room. Gilchrist finished off the cold pizza. He went around the house, closing the blinds and curtains, and then went into the guest room and closed the door behind him.
“What's going on?” Geneva asked.
“We torched his lair, but Gilchrist says he probably buried himself for the day. We have to wait and see if he was even in the house.”
“You what?”
“Well, Gilchrist did. He fire-bombed it.”
“Holy crap, Kendall! You killed him?”
“Maybe. Hopefully.”
“You kill--”
“He was a vampire, Geneva. I know you don't believe me, but I saw him lift a 50's jukebox over his head like it was a cardboard prop. He's a vampire. I'm not crazy.”
I flipped through the channels and found reruns of Law & Order SVU. Geneva and I sat down to watch. I could feel the tension radiating off of her. She wasn't sure if she was supposed to believe me or report me to the police.
Neither of us had spoken about the conversation she had interrupted with Cody. I was still replaying it in my head. He had called me selfish. At first I had been angry, but then I started considering that maybe he was right and maybe I was the worst person on the face of the planet. Now I was here, putting his life at risk, because I was worried about myself. I hadn't worried about Rawdon hurting Geneva to get to me; could I live with myself if he did that?
I stood up and walked to the window. The curtains were shut and the light from the TV was the only sign of life in the house. I wondered if Gilchrist thought that it would make the house look abandoned. I parted the curtain and looked out into the cul-de-sac.
Rawdon was standing in the street, staring directly back at me.
His cold blue eyes were like silver disks right now, his pupils reduced to pinpricks. It wasn't right. Human eyes would be dilated in the dark. He hadn't bothered to put on his glasses. I closed the curtain and jumped back, yipping in surprise.
“What?” Geneva asked, not looking away from the mystery Benson and Stabler were solving.
“Rawdon,” I gasped. “He's here.”
“Shit.” Geneva clicked off the TV. We were plunged into darkness.
“The lights!” I shouted. “Lights!”
Geneva and I knocked into each other in our rush to find a light. She screamed.
“What's going on?” Gilchrist asked, bursting into the room with a UV curing gun in hand. This one was far more high-tech than the wannabe hairdryer that he had sent me. This light was an oblong black shape with a digital menu screen and buttons on the side. It cast a straight beam, but the light didn't travel far.
“She saw him,” Geneva said. “He's here.”
Gilchrist ran to the window and looked out. I peeked over his shoulder. Rawdon was gone.
“Alright,” he said. “Stay calm. He can't enter the house without permission from the owner. Cody, get in here!”
Cody came out of the bedroom. He was already wearing pajama pants and had taken out his contacts. He wore reading glasses. “What?”
“He's here,” I said. “He's outside.”
“He can't come in unless you invite him in,” Gilchrist said, “But he can hypnotize. Under no circumstances are you to look at him or talk to him. Stay at the center of the house. Stay alert.”
“He can't come in,” Cody repeated. “Are you sure? He could still torch the place.”
“Depends if he's fed recently,” Gilchrist said. He walked into the guest bedroom and came out with a crossbow. He must have brought it into the house in one of those black leather bags. “If it's been a while, he'll be low on blood count and more dry. It would be stupid to play with fire when he's extra flammable.”
“We can tell if he's fed by trying to look at him in a mirror!” I said.
“Right, but you see, we have to be able to see him with our eyes. We have no idea where lover-boy is,” Gilchrist said. “Here,” he added, handing the crossbow to Cody. “Hold it up near eye level. Keep both eyes open. It's automatic so you cock it by pulling here. There's no stirrup. It takes a second to reload and he's fast, so aim well before you fire.”
“You want me to shoot him?” he asked.
There was a crash of breaking glass at the back of the house. Cody ran into his bedroom and came out holding a dagger. He unwrapped a note from around the handle and held it out for me. “I assume this is for you.”
The handwriting was beautiful.
Miss Kendall Harker,
From the night we first met, I knew that you belonged at my side. There was something extraordinary about you, even in your most fragile moment.
In all of my time on this earth I have never met a woman as beautiful as you who has the wit and the strength of will to match it. Feeling the pounding of your heart through your breasts, warm against my chest, as we lay together, reminds me of what it feels like to be alive. Not since my death have I felt such excitement and hope for my future. Our future.
All of my roaming through time has been for the sole purpose of finding you. I never wish to be separated from you. Never again will I have to go to my grave alone. My daily death will be a sweet respite with your body next to mine. You are mine, and either you or I or both shall perish before I ever let you go.
Forever Yours,
Rawdon Hale
The last words felt like sleet running down my spine. He was never going to let me go unless he was destroyed. The situation was clear to me now. We couldn't stay in Cody's house forever, holed up, waiting. We would never know where he had gone to ground to kill him and we would never be able to be certain that he wasn't waiting somewhere in the shadows at night. He was stronger. He was faster. Gilchrist had been trying to kill him for fifteen years with no success.
I picked up Cody's car keys off of the end table by the door. I didn't put a coat on, I just opened the front door in my bluejeans and sweater and ran.
“Kendall!” Geneva screamed.
“Get back in here, you idiot!” Gilchrist called after me.
I threw open the door to Cody's truck and hopped up in the cab. I slammed it shut and then Rawdon was at the door, looking through the driver's side window at me. His lips moved, but through the window his voice was muffled. I tore my eyes away before he had time to hypnotize me, turned the key, pushed the shifter, and slammed the gas.
I heard a thunk as I peeled out and looked in the rearview mirror. Cody had climbed into the bed of the pickup and had made it over the tailgate in time for me to pull away. Rawdon stood in the road behind us, the shadows creeping up to swallow him.
Cody slapped the back window of the cab. I reached back and popped the lock before peeling around a corner.
“What the hell are you doing?” he snarled as he climbed through the window.
“I was trying to lure him away from you. This is my problem.”
“In my new truck.”
“To hell with your truck,” I said.
Rawdon was in front of me. I instinctually slammed the brakes. It's a natural reaction, upon seeing a person in the road. As I was screeching to a halt, I remembered that he was dead and that he wanted to kill me. I switched my foot to the gas and struck him. We crashed through a picket fence at the end of the cul-de-sac and he vanished under the bumper of the truck.
“Is he dead?” Cody asked as the truck grinded to a halt on some unfortunate homeowner's lawn. The once flawless, candy-apple-red paint was covered in gouges and splinters of white wood fencing.
“I don't know,” I said. “We should check.”
“Or we could back up, run him over again,
and go home.”
“I like that idea.” I put the car in reverse. The engine stopped. “Oh my God, Cody. The truck.”
“He must have pulled the fuel line.”
There was a knock on my window. I turned in time to see Rawdon's fist striking the glass. He came at it again and again. Cody threw open the passenger side door and grabbed the back of my shirt to pull me with him. Rawdon's fist struck the window once more and it shattered. Bloodless gashes covered the hand that grabbed my collar and pulled me away from Cody. I watched in horror as the wounds closed before my eyes.
I opened my mouth to scream, but his hand covered my lips, just like it had when I found the refrigerator of blood.
“Kendall,” Rawdon said calmly. “Why did you run away from me?”
I kicked and flailed, but he had me tight in his arms.
“I found your scent at the house. Did you help Gilchrist burn down my home?”
With my mouth covered, I nodded.
He clicked his tongue. “I would have given you everything,” he whispered. “Did you know that?”
I was shivering. Frost had settled on the street outside and Rawdon's hands, without the warmth of life, were like ice against my skin.
He screamed in my face, “I would have given you everything!”
I began to cry.
Rawdon became calm again. “But I forgive you,” he said. “Because I love you. You're just holding on to life. I can show you, Kendall. I can show you how free you can really become, once you let go of it.” He opened his mouth and his incisors lengthened and sharpened.
I scrunched my eyes shut as tight as I could and shook my head. No, I thought, no. I wasn't going to become a vampire. He could kill me, but I wasn't going to let my body become a walking host to a demon. I wasn't going to consent.
Rawdon's teeth sank into my neck. I cried out, muffled by the palm of his hand pressed tight against my lips. I had never felt so much pain in my life. My nerves were on fire, and the blood was being pulled from me. My life was being pulled from me.
There was a simultaneous crunch and squish and Rawdon' body pushed down against mine. His bite relaxed. I opened my eyes to see him frozen, eyes wide, with surprise on his face. He slumped over sideways, unmoving with a splintered piece of picket fence driven far into his back. Cody stood behind him, panting. “Jesus... you weren't kidding.”
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