Pale Immortal

by Anne Frasier

  He'd just killed a man.

  He staggered backward, his gaze going from Alba and the awful, surprised look on his face, to Evan. He could see from Evan's expression that he understood the horror Graham was feeling, and that made it worse, made it more real.

  He didn't want to be Graham anymore. He didn't want to be standing there, held together with Graham's skin.

  "It'll be okay," Evan said. Each word seemed to require a struggle. Like he couldn't breathe.

  And his effort did no good. It didn't ease Graham's despair.

  He'd killed a man. He was sixteen years old, and he'd killed a man. How messed up was that?

  He heard a sound and looked over his shoulder.

  Isobel stood in the doorway, silhouetted against a sky that was growing lighter by the second. "Get out!" he shouted, and waved her away. "Get out of here!" He didn't want her to see what he'd done.

  Sirens were wailing, very close now. He swore to God they were mocking him.

  She extended her hand toward him. "Come outside," she said softly. "Come outside with me."

  He stumbled forward, and when he reached her he threw his arms around her and pulled her close, hugging her to him, shaking all over, sobbing like a baby.

  Chapter 46

  Graham and Isobel sat on a quilt in City Park. It had been a hot day, but evening had arrived and things were cooling off.

  Without saying anything, Isobel extended her hand as if she were holding an empty cup. Graham passed her the smoothie they'd picked up at Peaches. Isobel stuck the straw in her mouth, took a long drink, and passed it back. "This is gonna be so cool."

  The event they were waiting for was called Music and a Movie. An actual band—a real band—was stopping on its way from Minneapolis to Madison. A relative of Isobel's knew the bass player, and had invited them to play. Everybody was shocked when they'd agreed, but then, who could turn down an overnight stay in the land of vampires?

  The band planned to play while Chaplin's City Lights was projected on a screen. It should be pretty damn cool.

  Isobel wore a black tank top and a floral skirt. Her feet, in black sandals, sported purple toenail polish.

  Graham loved her skin and the way she smelled. He might even say he loved her, which scared the hell out of him. Which was really weird, because they'd never even kissed.

  Most people changed as you got to know them. Isobel had remained Isobel. She was exactly the same person she'd been that day she'd picked him up along the road as he'd run away from Evan's house. She was real.

  Another weird thing was that she didn't seem all that bothered about what had happened in Old Tuonela. She'd seemed able to put it behind her, while Graham struggled with it daily. And nightly.

  He had bad dreams. Sometimes he saw Lydia. He would wake up and see her sitting by his bed, and it would freak the hell out of him.

  In Old Tuonela, the dead are never really dead.

  He believed it. He didn't want anybody else to know he believed it, but he did.

  The band was setting up, unloading equipment from a white van. More people were arriving, most with blankets and some with picnic baskets.

  Graham finished off the smoothie and leaned back on his elbows. "You could almost pretend this place was normal."

  His foot was still there.

  That was a good thing, but it had been pretty messed up, and he'd been on IV antibiotics for a long time. And he was going to a shrink. Not the school shrink, somebody else. A guy Graham actually ended up liking, even though he hadn't wanted to. The man was helping him, but certain things Graham wouldn't tell anybody, not even his shrink. Like seeing Lydia. They'd lock him up if he told anybody about that.

  When Lydia visited his room at night, the smell of rotting flesh was what woke him up.

  Why was he thinking of her now? Why did she keep intruding on his real life?

  Change the channel. Just change the channel.

  He couldn't stop. She'd been his guide out there in OT. He would never have made it without her. Maybe none of them would have made it. Now he didn't know if she'd been the monster she'd always seemed. Maybe he'd needed for her to be worse than she was. Maybe he'd needed to hate her so her lack of love wouldn't hurt so much. So that he could tell himself he didn't care.

  Evan's father was moving back from Florida. Turned out he missed Tuonela, and for some reason Evan thought it would be a good idea to have another adult around. That was cool. Graham liked old people. Too bad about Chief Burton. Graham had liked him. And now Rachel was sad. And maybe leaving town, he'd heard. But Graham had to quit thinking about that. He had his whole life ahead of him. And Isobel was right beside him on a blanket.

  They were seeing a band together in the park. That should make him happy as hell. It did make him happy.

  "Did you really hate that CD I gave you?" he blurted out.

  Wow. He'd finally said it. He'd been trying for days, slowly working up to it, like the time he'd finally gotten up the nerve to dive from the high dive. But now the question that had been dogging him for so long just popped out of his mouth with no prethought.

  "What do you think?" She was lying on her stomach, running her palm over the grass at the edge of the blanket.

  "I don't know."

  If she really hated it, could he still like her? God, that was shallow. Or was it? When you were passionate about something, and the person you cared about hated what you were passionate about, that wasn't good.

  She rolled to her back and smiled up at him, twirling a piece of grass in her hand. "I can't believe you didn't see through me. I listened to that CD every night when I went to bed. I still listen to it."

  He nodded, trying not to smile. "Oh."

  The band was doing a sound check, and the kid behind the movie projector was making sure everything was set up right.

  Graham felt better. "Have you ever crocheted?" he asked. "Because I was thinking I'd really like to learn to crochet."

  Chapter 47

  Evan swept from the house and charged down the dark, steep hillside. He hadn't completely recovered from his injuries, but he moved quickly, ducking under low limbs and sliding on soft, muddy soil.

  When he reached level ground he walked with long strides. Near the bluff, then down across the railroad tracks and beside the river. From there he took the decayed steps up through a maze of vines and bowed branches heavy with dew and summer leaves, winding to the street where Rachel lived.

  He looked up to see a light glowing faintly through the turret window.

  He closed his eyes and inhaled. He smelled the scent of sage and the sweet smell of her skin. An image flashed into his brain of her lying in the zinc tub. So close to death.

  He needed to talk to her, but the more time that passed, the harder it got. Soon it wouldn't matter. Soon she would hate him.

  He climbed the hill to the morgue.

  Rachel rolled the coffin and cart from the autopsy suite and down the hallway, parking it near the door.

  She missed her father. Sometimes she got confused and forgot he was dead. There were times when she heard his voice, and times when she thought she saw him. Just a glimpse from the corner of her eye. But whenever she turned, he wasn't there.

  She wanted him to be there. Ghost. Illusion. She would take whatever she could get.

  So far Victoria hadn't reappeared. And as time passed, Rachel began to think she hadn't really been a ghost at all, but a premonition, a warning she'd failed to heed.

  Rachel had worked hard to convince the city they should buy back Old Tuonela, bulldoze the buildings, secure the fences, and let nature take care of what was left. The city council had almost agreed to the plan, only to discover that some unknown person had bought the property from the Alba family before they'd put in an offer.

  Who would want it?

  Travis had confessed that he and some of the others had broken into Evan's house, looking for evidence that would prove once and for all that he was a vampire. They'd hoped to f
ind Evan himself, asleep in a coffin in the basement, or at least asleep in the middle of the day so they could steal his heart. When they hadn't found him at home, they'd taken personal items that had contained Evan's DNA. Chelsea Gerber's body had been transported in the trunk of Craig Johnson's car, where it had come in contact with that DNA.

  The March girl had finally recalled being "rescued" from Evan by Alba and the Pale Immortals. They'd taken her to OT, where she would have died if she hadn't escaped. Travis's fate hadn't yet been determined, but many were hoping he'd be tried as an adult. He'd implicated Rachel's assistant, Dan, in the mess. They'd found the body of the missing Summit Lake woman jammed into a crevice in Old Tuonela. Apparently she'd been Alba's first kill.

  Someone knocked on the delivery door. Rachel opened it to find Evan standing there. He slipped inside, smelling like night air—kind of damp and boggy. He unbuttoned his coat, jamming his hands in his pockets.

  She'd seen him only a couple of times since the events in Old Tuonela. She knew he'd found her in Alba's house, but she had only a vague memory of it all. Since then there had been no personal conversation other than his voicing sympathy over the loss of her father.

  He was keeping a deliberate distance.

  "My father is coming home," Evan said. "He's going to help with Graham."

  "That's nice."

  "He misses Tuonela."

  Rachel thought about how the mummy's face had turned into Evan's that night. "Would you like to say good-bye to Richard Manchester?" She swung open the coffin lid to reveal the remains of the Pale Im- mortal. "It's a shame I can't find his scarf, don't you think?"

  There had been a lot of discussion about what to do with the Pale Immortal. Some residents thought he should be reburied in Old Tuonela, that his removal had unleashed a sinister evil. Some thought he should be put on display in their local museum. Rather than running from history, residents seemed ready to embrace their strange heritage, especially if it meant tourists and money. Rachel could see it now. The Pale Immortal Pancake House. The Pale Immortal Taffy Shop.

  Celebrities and millionaires had offered staggering amounts for the mummified remains of a heinous monster who had slaughtered women and children.

  Who owned the dead? That's what they were trying to decide. Normally it would be family, but half of Tuonela's inhabitants were descendants. Until a decision and agreement could be made, the Pale Immortal would be stored in an undisclosed location.

  "I hate for him to leave here without his scarf." Rachel looked up, hoping Evan would admit to taking it.

  His face was ashen.

  "Evan?" In that moment she finally understood that part of her own longing for Tuonela hadn't been about Tuonela at all.

  We are good at keeping secrets from ourselves.

  He pressed long, pale fingers to his temple. "I have to go."

  "You should sit down. You're doing too much too soon."

  She wasn't herself yet either. The loss of blood had left her weak and anemic. She fell asleep at odd moments, and would wake up disoriented from strange dreams.

  He whirled around. "I have to go."

  She closed the coffin lid, sorry she'd used such juvenile tactics to draw him out. "Let me drive you."

  "I'll be okay."

  In a flurry of coattails, he was gone.

  She reached the door in time to catch a glimpse of his dark, lonely figure moving down the street to finally vanish under the tree branches.

  Alba had been a bad person, but would he have killed if not for the close proximity of ground that had been cursed and imprinted by the horrors of the past? And had the fresh murders, so reminiscent of the old, awakened evil?

  They would never have all the answers. There simply weren't answers for such questions. But she knew people weren't supposed to know what happened to them after they died. Death was supposed to remain a mystery. The door to the next world, whatever the next world was, should remain firmly closed.

  She'd always tried to tell herself that the stories surrounding Old Tuonela were wrapped in ignorance and superstition. Now she could finally admit the truth; that Old Tuonela was a place no human should ever go.

  Evan headed out of town. He drove too fast, so lost in thought that later he had no recollection of the trip. He found himself in an overgrown lane, the headlight beams illuminating a for sale sign. He got out of the car, removed the sign, and tossed it aside. Then he dug the antique tin from his coat, lifted the lid, and studied the remaining contents.

  He'd drunk tea made from a vampire's heart. He wasn't sure what it had done to him, but he knew he was no longer completely human and that a part of the Pale Immortal now dwelled within him.

  Nobody must discover his secret. Especially not Rachel and Graham.

  He put the tin away, pulled out the mono-grammed scarf, and wound it around his neck. Then, his hands deep in his coat pockets, he walked up the lane to Old Tuonela, land of the dead.

  * * * THE END * * *