(2006) Pale Immortal

by Anne Frasier

  She broke eye contact to draw her finger around a pattern on the tablecloth. "Yes," she whispered. She'd always been able to talk to him. How had she forgotten? Not forgotten, but deliberately locked away. It seemed so foolish now. Childish.

  But she'd been a child. They'd both been children.

  She'd never told him about the dead she saw. Nobody but her parents had known about them.

  The teapot whistled.

  "I'll get it." She rose to her feet. "Stay where you are." She almost touched his shoulder in a reassuring gesture, then stopped herself just before making contact. She crossed to the stove, shut off the flame, and filled their mugs. "Milk? Cream?"

  He shook his head, and she sat back down.

  He removed a tea bag from the container and unwrapped it. "I have tea sent from England. The new shipment hasn't arrived, and I'm running low, so not much of a selection."

  Ordering tea from another country was his way of bringing a little bit of the world to him. She understood that. "What about this?" She picked up an ornate silver tin from the center of the table.

  "That's loose tea I found in the back of the cupboard. Something my dad left. I tried it a few times, but it's pretty bad."

  She pulled off the lid. It was one of those weird, exotic teas with flowers and herbs and maybe even pieces of dried mushrooms. She took a sniff and recoiled. It didn't smell horrid, just surprising. Earthy and musty. She replaced the lid and handed the container to him. "That isn't something I'd want to drink, but then, I don't know anything about tea."

  He stared at the canister. "I was going to throw it away, but I might have to resort to drinking it if I run out."

  "Don't get rid of the tin," she said. "The tin is beautiful."

  He put it down, then leaned back in his chair. "What are you doing here, Rachel?" His shift made the angle of the light change, accentuating the indentations in his cheeks.

  He was sick. He was living some Russian tragedy.

  She felt an ache deep inside, and she thought of the seventeen years that had passed since she'd last seen him. Such a long time ...

  She was glad she'd come. She would come back again, even though he couldn't possibly help them with the murder case.

  "Stop it," he said.

  "What?"

  "Stop feeling sorry for me."

  Sympathy was replaced by irritation. "This is who I am. When I see someone who is pathetic, I feel sorry for him." Heat raced up her face. She couldn't believe she'd just said that. It was so easy to revert back to bratty, nasty childhood habits.

  He laughed. Laughed.

  "I'd better go." She got to her feet, the chair scraping the floor.

  "Oh, come on. Don't leave." He grabbed her arm. She could feel every one of his fingertips. "You just got here." He looked up at her, the pale column of his throat exposed. "Stay and entertain me. Drink your tea. Your English tea." He smiled in the most beguiling way.

  He let go of her arm.

  Should she mention the reason for her visit? But her silence would be sheltering him, treating him as if he were different.

  "I see you've been reading about the murder." She sat back down.

  His house was so quiet. You could hear the clock ticking. She remembered coming here when she was young, running in, dropping books on the couch, and racing to the refrigerator. Evan's mother would sometimes be baking cookies. His dad would come up out of the basement smelling like hot metal and gun cleaner.

  "I've been kinda busy today, but I read a little about it," Evan said.

  "We've contacted the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation. They requested a copy of the case file. Also the state police will probably send someone down to ask questions and basically get in the way of any investigating we're able to pull together on our own."

  He let out a snort that said he understood her problem.

  It was an old story: People who didn't live in Tuonela weren't interested. If anyone did come, they would be nothing more than a pain in the ass.

  Rachel's dad was interviewing Tuonela residents, focusing closely on the group calling themselves the Pale Immortals.

  Vampire clubs were common in L.A. Most of the people involved were a bit on the geeky side and into harmless role-playing, although some actually drank blood. Tuonela's Pale Immortals were just a bunch of kids, but Seymour was keeping them on his list.

  "I thought you might be interested in helping," Rachel said.

  Evan frowned, puzzled. "I'm no detective. I can't even leave the house during the day. What's this about?"

  "There's more to it than your average homicide. Something that wasn't in the papers." She paused for effect. "The body was drained of blood."

  That got his attention. "The Pale Immortal?"

  "Same MO. With your background in folklore and knowledge of the Pale Immortal, I thought you might be able to help us."

  "You think he's returned?" He smiled. "Risen from the grave?"

  "Of course not." She made a face that said his words were ridiculous. At the same time she tried to push aside the fears she'd had last night in the morgue. "Someone might be imitating him So we need all the information we can get."

  He held out both hands so she could see how badly he trembled. "I'm weak as a kitten That happens when I'm exposed to sunlight."

  "We just need information With the research you've done ... Maybe with enough information we can predict the killer's next move, if he has a next move."

  "I'll do what I can." He picked up a pen and began to doodle on the edge of the newspaper.

  "In your research, did you come upon any clues to the whereabouts of the Pale Immortal's grave?" She leaned forward, elbows on the table. "Some peo- ple say the body was burned. Others believe it's buried in Old Tuonela."

  "Why are you looking for the grave?"

  "We figure anybody so obsessed with the Pale Immortal would also be obsessed with finding his grave." Not many clues had been left at the crime scene. Her hope was that they might find clues at the grave of the Pale Immortal. Offerings. Trinkets. Flowers. What did vampire worshipers leave for vampires?

  Evan clicked the pen. "Some people think a dummy grave was created in Old Tuonela, and that the real grave is in the corner of a farm field."

  That made sense. Years ago dummy graves were commonly used for criminals. Otherwise, families of the victims would dig up the corpse, tear it to shreds, and burn it in order to keep the soul from finding peace.

  Evan tossed down the pen. "But my research has led me to believe it's in Old Tuonela. Do you know Jacob Johannsen? He died a few years ago, but he claimed his father dug the grave for the Pale Immortal. And when they were done an oak tree was planted over it."

  "Why a tree?"

  "To keep the Pale Immortal from rising up."

  "I've never heard that."

  "Jacob seemed pretty sure it was in Old Tuonela. In the graveyard next to the church, but you know how these stories are. Most of the history I've gathered on Old Tuonela isn't history at all, but tall tales and fabrications."

  "Still, it should be looked into."

  "Don't go out there by yourself."

  By herself? After last night she didn't want to go out there period.

  The dark basement with cement-block walls smelled faintly of a sewer and a lot of mold.

  This would be over soon.

  The camera flashed again, blinding him.

  Graham hadn't gotten a good look at the guy—he was pretty sure that was intentional. The man with a digital camera had answered his knock on the unlit basement door wearing some kind of fishing cap pulled down to meet the top of silver aviator glasses with blue lenses.

  Kind of the fishing-hat bandit meets the Una-bomber. Pervs were never cool. Pervs never had any sense of style. Not that Graham had known a lot of them, but he watched the news.

  "Come on."

  The perv had motioned for Graham to follow him down the wooden stairs into a dark hole. Graham had known it was stupid, but he wen
t with only a second of hesitation.

  And now Graham stood naked in front of a tripod and camera while the guy snapped away. It should have been awful. It should have been degrading. But it was so weird and stupid that Graham had to stifle the laughter that bubbled in his throat.

  "Turn around."

  Graham complied. I aim to please.

  Click.

  Flash.

  Had Isobel listened to the CD he'd given her? If so, had she liked the Sonic Youth song, "Diamond Sea"? It was a little darker than most of the music he listened to. He tended to lean toward songs that were light and upbeat, passing over music that made him sad and put him in a dark mood. A young heart could take only so much.

  "Turn around."

  He turned again.

  Had she liked the line about the kids dressed in dreams? He loved that. Loved it.

  The man stepped away from the camera. "I can't pay you the full hundred dollars."

  "Why not?"

  "The scars."

  "What difference do a few scars make?"

  "I don't want to see them. They make me uncomfortable. I'm not into any of that sadomasochism shit."

  "You said a hundred bucks."

  "You said there was nothing wrong with you."

  "There isn't. Come on, man. I need the money."

  "Okay. Listen. There's one way you can make it up."

  "How's that?"

  "Ever do it with a man before? I'll wear a rubber. I'll make it quick."

  It was another one of those this-can't-be-happening moments. Graham had been having a lot of them lately.

  Everybody had a line they wouldn't cross. Graham had just reached his. But the scary thing was that he'd actually thought about it for a quarter of a second.

  Graham quickly pulled on his jeans. Forget underwear. Sockless feet shoved into unlaced boots. He grabbed the rest of his stuff. "Fuck you."

  He ran, leaving with no money.

  Chapter 8

  Rachel tucked the hardback copy of Terror Twilight under her arm, pressed the metal security bar, and stepped out of the public library. Like most buildings in Tuonela, the library had been built on a steep hill. Across the street was St. Paul's Church. The steeple appeared to be falling over as the sky pressed down upon it.

  Rachel could smell earth and new grass, a scent she associated exclusively with Tuonela, even though she was fairly certain grass grew other places. It was unusually warm for early April, so warm she'd left her coat at home, the sun's rays penetrating the back of her black short-sleeved top.

  On the way to the van, she stopped near a tall, moss-covered stone wall, pulled out her cell phone, and keyed in Evan Stroud's number. "I just picked up your new book at the library," she said when he answered.

  "You should have told me you wanted one when you were here last night."

  "That's okay."

  "Return it. I'll give you a copy."

  "That's okay."

  "I don't like library books. They've been imprinted with the previous readers. And they smell. Not like paper, but like people. I want my books to be clean."

  "I'm sure Mrs. Douglass would love to hear you talking that way about her library books. If I remember correctly, you and I spent a lot of hours at the library. I don't recall you having a dirty book problem then."

  "It's a more recent development."

  Ah. If he could see better, his sense of smell was probably also more acute.

  A teenager came rushing around the corner. He was tall, with curly golden hair, wearing jeans and a long-sleeved black T-shirt. He almost ran into her.

  "Sorry," he mumbled, putting up a hand as if to steady her. He made eye contact, then quickly glanced away.

  It looked as if he'd been crying.

  Rachel watched the boy as he strode down the hill, his movements heavy from a large canvas pack he carried on his back.

  "Rachel?" came Evan's voice from the cell phone.

  "I gotta go. Talk to you later." She disconnected and hurried down the hill after the kid. "Hey!"

  Half a block away, he stopped and turned.

  She continued to walk toward him, but more slowly now, because she didn't want her movements to come across as threatening. "Are you okay?"

  His mouth opened in alarm. He gave a little launching hop, spun around, and took off, running like hell. At the intersection of Church and Jefferson the light was green, and traffic was coming from both directions. He slowed and took a right, skidding around the corner.

  Rachel hurried down the hill, but when she reached the intersection there was no sign of the boy.

  Her cell phone rang. She expected Stroud, but it was her dad.

  "I made arrangements to meet Phillip Alba at his home near Old Tuonela late this afternoon so I could have a look around the place," he said. "But I've had something come up and I haven't been able to get in touch with him. Would you have time to run out there? Just have a look around. Take Dan with you."

  Weakness flooded her arms and legs. Old Tuonela was the last place she wanted to go.

  "Rachel? You still there?"

  She pulled in a deep breath. "I'm here."

  "I lost you for a minute. Did you hear what I said about Alba? He has play practice tonight, so he's making a special trip to meet with me."

  "Yeah, I heard. I can do that."

  Sure, she could. Going to OT was exactly what she needed to do. A chance to prove that what had happened with Chelsea Gerber's body had been nothing more than an illusion caused by poor lighting, or low blood sugar, or fumes....

  She told him good-bye and disconnected. She pulled up her phone book, found Dan's number, and pushed the call button. She got his voice mail and left a message, telling him to call if he wanted to ride to OT with her.

  Two hours later, when she hadn't heard back from him, she headed to Old Tuonela by herself. It was probably better this way. If she freaked out, there would be less explaining to do.

  Her parents didn't know it, but Rachel had sometimes ridden her bike the five miles to Old Tuonela. A foolish thing for a young girl to do.

  She turned off a narrow, unmarked asphalt road to an even narrower gravel drive. Getting there wasn't easy. You had to know the way. If you didn't know Old Tuonela was back there hidden in the hills, you'd never see it. Which was perhaps why the original settlers had chosen that spot.

  When she reached a rusty for sale sign, she turned left and headed up a steep rutted lane leading deeper into heavy woodland.

  You could feel it before you got there: the change in the air. It became heavy and seemed filled with static electricity. Maybe that was one of the things that had drawn her as a kid.

  She drove over a shallow, rocky stream and finally came to a stop in an open, treeless area. In the distance, a dark two-story house stood outside the boundaries of Old Tuonela. This time she was prepared for the fear that overcame her. It didn't surprise her or make her weak, but it fluttered insistently in her belly.

  A conditioned reaction, that's what it was. A childhood fear and fascination revisited.

  This was where her dad had said to meet Alba. She checked her watch. She was ten minutes late. Had he been here already, gotten tired of waiting, and left? But she hadn't met another vehicle. And there was only one way in.

  Rachel got out of the van.

  She'd parked downhill from the house, which made the building tower over her. No one knew for sure, but some said the two-story house, made of dark stone chiseled from a quarry that no longer existed, had been built by Richard Manchester, the Pale Immortal. It stood in a cleared area on top of a small knoll. There were a few ragged shrubs near the house, but not a single tree.

  Sometimes Rachel agreed with the people who thought Old Tuonela's rotting buildings should be demolished and burned, all trace of its existence wiped out. But others felt the town should remain undisturbed, that something bad might be released unless the place was left alone.

  An old fear crept into Rachel's head. What if the g
round itself was cursed and imprinted by the evil done there a hundred years ago? What if their ancestors had been right to walk away and not look back?

  Phillip Alba's parents were from Chicago. As outsiders, none of them had believed the superstitions that surround Old Tuonela. They bought the OT property and began restoring the main house. When they couldn't stir up interest in their plans to turn OT into a tourist village, they packed up and moved on. Rachel had never met Phillip Alba, but he was the talk of Tuonela.

  As a graduate student he'd been involved in a horrendous bus accident. He'd been the only survivor. His girlfriend had died. His best friend had died. A tragic story. His parents told him he could recover in Old Tuonela, finish the restoration, and keep an eye on things in case any buyers showed up.

  His parents were idiots. Who would send someone to such a place of a horrors to get over a tragedy?

  Damn. There she went again. Believing all the hype and superstition.

  Go see for yourself that nothing's there.

  Old Tuonela was a scary campfire story, a flashlight under the chin.

  Off in the distance, treeless grassland met dark woodland. The woodland was surrounded by a fairly new fence. Rachel climbed the locked gate, her feet landing solidly on the other side.

  She looked back toward the van. Still there. She hadn't passed through some invisible barrier, she noted wryly. She began walking in the direction of Old Tuonela, staying between the ruts left by horse-drawn wagons and buggies.

  She'd been twelve or thirteen when she'd ridden her bike here. She would lean it against the fence, then slip between the loose strands of barbed wire that had surrounded the place then. One time she'd scratched her back. When her mother asked how it had happened, she'd lied. She'd rarely lied to her mother, but it had been a compulsion, just like riding her bike to Old Tuonela had been a compulsion. Girls on the cusp of puberty did weird things, had strange ideas.

  Old Tuonela's pain and loss and tragedy had spoken to her, and she had responded.

  The lane opened up.

  Suddenly there was the town, or what was left of it. The buildings looked as if they were growing out of the ground. They had sunk over the years, slanted, decaying, shrouded in vegetation. Except for the flour mill at the opposite end of the street, most of the structures were being devoured by moss and creeper vines, the wood beams rotten and mushy. Roofs had caved in, and what was outside had come inside.