“Point I’m trying to make is this. He saw you were dying, and told me he didn’t think you were going to make it to the hospital. He said he loved you and he couldn’t let you die like that. He gave you some of his blood and you woke up. Suddenly how he feels about you is some big secret.”
My brain was spinning like improperly meshed gears, slipping and clicking and not quite working in harmony. “So that’s your big concern? Whether or not Wash is in love with me?”
Emma shook her head. “No, our biggest concern is John Smith.”
“The guy Wash is looking for? The one who attacked me? The one who killed my grandma?”
“And all those homeless people. And all of Smitty’s friends. In case you forgot. You got off easy, you know.”
I shook my head. “I’m not sure that going on the run and leaving my family and friends behind is easier than dying. At least if I were dead, it’d be over with.”
Emma pursed her lips, acknowledging this, if not implicitly agreeing.
“So is that the big problem?” I said.
“The big problem is John Smith keeps unchecked slaughter of innocent people. Have you been keeping up with the news in your home town?”
I realized I hadn’t checked since my first real bout of hunger had set in four days ago. I picked up my phone off the nightstand punched up the search engine.
“I’ll save you some time,” said Emma. “Smith killed ten people in the last two nights. He’s not being mysterious about it. He ripped their throats out. The police have gone on high alert, and while the newspapers are using rational words like serial killer, their comment boards are covered in vampire.”
“I can see where you’d put that as a priority over my so-called love life.”
Emma gave me a quizzical look, her head tilting slightly. “You think those are the only things we’re dealing with?”
I nodded, slowly. “It seems like enough.”
“So you’re not worried about the dead guy in the park?”
“Should I be?”
“Yeah. You should. You ended his life.”
“Helped him die, you mean.”
“Cute. Regardless, you’re a missing person. We ran away from an officer of the law, changed cars, and changed hotels, none of which makes us look innocent.
“But let me tell you something about Officer Garcia. He screwed up, and if he values his job at all, he’s sitting in his cubicle with a phone book calling every hotel in town trying to locate us. It’s only a matter of time before someone tips him off, if he’s any good at what he does.
“That means we need to leave town. I need to go help Wash because right now, he and I are the only ones who know what John Smith is and what John Smith is capable of.
“You know where you shouldn’t be? In the town you disappeared from. Even if the cops haven’t opened a missing persons case, there have to be people looking for you. Of course, I can’t send you somewhere else because you don’t know all the ins and outs of being a vampire yet. You need a guide. You’re still just a baby.”
“Which brings you to the no babysitter thing.”
“Right.”
I looked at the ceiling, processing everything Emma told me. “So, is that the worst of it?”
“No.”
I looked back at Emma.
“The worst of it is that because of the danger to the homeless population, all the homeless in your town are being sent to shelters, and all shelters are being guarded by armed police officers.”
“That sounds like a good thing.”
“Sure. Except for one problem. Wash is starving.”
CHAPTER 52
I burst out laughing. Apparently, hysteria was, for me, my new way of being upset.
“So essentially he’s surrounded by an all-you-can-eat buffet, and he needs to feed, only if he does, someone will put a bullet in him? Is that about the scope of it?” I said.
Emma nodded. “If they shoot him while he’s hungry, he’ll probably die. No blood to perform the needed repairs to his body.”
I rose, grabbing my bag and stuffing my clean clothes into it. “Then let’s go.”
Emma stood, much more slowly than I had. “Really? You think it works just like that?”
I shrugged. “I’ll drive. You get on your phone and get us some tickets on the next flight back home. We’ll rent a car, go find Wash, kill John Smith, and save the day. How hard can it be?”
I could see Emma wanted to protest but, I could tell she had no better ideas. Mostly because she didn’t offer any.
We got in our car and I used the GPS on my phone to get us back to the airport while Emma booked tickets. An hour later, we were in the air, and shortly thereafter, back on the ground.
With the exception of things like, “That’s our plane, let’s go,” and the occasional murmured direction, we didn’t speak. Emma didn’t even play with her phone, which told me how freaked out she was.
Me? I was too stupid to be scared. I didn’t know what was going to happen next.
If I had, I might have taken my chances in Denver.
CHAPTER 53
When we got to the airport, rented a car and headed straight for the Sundown Shelter.
Outside, a lone police officer quizzed each person before they were allowed into the place, writing down their names and the time they arrived.
Emma spoke for both of us, claiming we were sisters, friends of Wash, and I had a sore throat, sorry I couldn’t answer for myself. She was taking no chances I’d slip up and, say, give my real name.
Inside, the place was just short of packed. Wash, who had never offered food, now had a Coleman stove set up at the front desk with two large pots of oatmeal sitting on it.
People wandered up to it occasionally, picking up Styrofoam bowls and plastic spoons, scooping the hot cereal into the bowls, then heading back into the main room where they sat and ate.
Things had changed since the last time I’d been there. The bookshelves were half-empty as people came looking for entertainment. And there was a small pile of unwashed towels on the floor. Another first.
Wash stood by the dryer, pulling out a load of hot towels when we found him.
If you weren’t a vampire, you probably wouldn’t have known something was wrong. Perhaps he looked a little tired but that was normal given all his extra guests, right?
Except if you had my kind of eyes, you could see he was barely holding it together. His normally perfect hands had a collection of small cuts and bruises on them from his nightly labors and they weren’t going away.
Wash spotted us as we walked in and his first words were to Emma. “She’s not supposed to be here.”
Emma rolled her eyes. “I told you when we talked. I didn’t have anywhere to put her. If she sat around in Denver she was going to end up in police custody sooner or later, and then what?”
“She’s not supposed to be here,” Wash repeated.
“Well, she is,” said Emma. “Now, you go to the front door and tell your friend out there we’re going to mind the store while you go get supplies, and then you need to go find a hospital or something and eat.”
Wash’s eyes flicked to the clock. “The sun will be up in half an hour. Not enough time. Going to have to wait until tonight.”
“Fine. But the moment the sun is down, you’re out of here.”
“What about them?” I asked, pointing over my shoulder at the main room. “Where are they staying?”
“A few local churches and YMCAs have opened up their doors to anyone who feels unsafe on the streets right now,” said Wash. “I’m going to clear everyone out of here in about five minutes. Then I need to clean. A lot.”
“We’ll take care of that,” said Emma.
A few minutes later, just as he said, Wash sent everyone out the door, reminding them to stay safe. The officer headed out. We put Wash to bed and locked the front door.
Having helped Wash clean up before, I was kind of shocked to see how messy things
got when the place was at full capacity. Some of it was the unfortunate trouble of being homeless, dirty clothes and no pajamas make for disgusting sheets, but some things were just plain old lacking in cleanliness. Bowls and spoons left on the floor, dirty Kleenex in the bathroom sink, un-flushed toilets.
It was gross.
Super gross.
And having vampire senses only made it worse.
I could go on and on.
Anyway.
After every sheet was stripped, every cot Lysoled, every floor mopped, and every toilet scrubbed, we still had a large chunk of the afternoon to sit around and do nothing.
At first I thought about invading the collection of books but then I remembered I had a virtual stack of books on my phone. More than I would get through in a year, most likely.
Then I realized something. After getting everything arranged, Emma had vanished.
Obviously, she couldn’t have gone far. I walked through the laundry room, into the office, and into the main room.
At the other end of the room, the door to the back room was open just a tiny crack.
I let my senses tune up a bit, listening to see if Emma was on the phone, or at least pressing on the face of her phone, as she so often did.
At first, I heard nothing. And then, bit by bit, as I forced my hearing abilities up to the point where the outside traffic sounded like screaming jet engines, I heard something that sounded like the sloshing of water in an almost empty bucket. Emma was crying.
CHAPTER 54
Of course, vampires don’t cry the way humans do. Crying is a great outpouring of emotion, something vampires aren’t really capable of.
The sloshing I heard was the sound of Emma’s eyes going just past glassy. Tears wouldn’t fall from them, there wasn’t enough water. But some could gather at the corners.
That was what I heard.
In human terms, she was practically in hysterics.
Of course, being vampires, now we were both in an uncomfortable position. She heard me enter the room and I was quite certain she also knew I knew she was crying.
It was that same feeling you get when you encounter a girl from one of your classes crying in the bathroom between bells. Do you offer a friendly nod, hoping they’ll ask for help if they need it? Do you ask if they’re all right out loud? Do you offer a tissue?
In Emma’s world, I was a baby. And what comfort does a baby have to offer an adult?
Not much, really. But at least the baby can listen, even if it doesn’t understand.
I crossed the room, stopping just in front of the door. I left it closed. “Do you want to talk?”
There was a pause. “Not really?” Her voice went up at the end. A question, instead of a statement.
I pushed the door open and looked in. Emma was sitting on the fresh sheets of the newly-made-up cot. “Do you need to talk?”
“Need?”
“Need and want are two different things. You might not want to talk. But do you need to?”
Emma steepled her hands and said something in a language so foreign I wasn’t sure she was using words at all.
“I…” I trailed off. “That was, like, words, right?”
“Yes. Actually, it was a really dirty string of curses.”
“Did I hurt your feelings?” I asked. I was starting to wonder if my grasp of vampire emotions wasn’t as good as I thought.
“No. It’s just…this conversation. I’ve had it before and it always ends the same way. No, that’s not right. It starts the same way. The end varies a bit, from person to person.”
I sat down on the cot next to Emma. “How does it end?”
“Well, chances are you won’t believe me at first, and that’s fine. You’ll probably ask me a bunch of questions I can’t really answer and frankly, make me uncomfortable. You’ll start asking about historical events I wasn’t at, people I haven’t met. You’ll realize I’m really pretty boring, and being a really old vampire isn’t nearly as astounding as you’d think. You’ll start to question what the point is of living forever, if so much of it is so deathly dull.”
“Does this mean I finally get to learn how old you are?”
Emma smiled, grimly. “It means you can’t learn just one thing about me. You have to learn it all.”
I sat up. I sensed I was going to hear something important, and that sitting up would somehow make it easier to retain.
Emma rubbed the bridge of her nose. “The thing is, you already have a history with John Smith. He killed your grandmother. You know that.
“What Wash hasn’t told you is John Smith is in town because Smith sired Wash over one hundred and fifty years ago. It was an accident and Smith has been trying to correct it ever since. But that’s Wash’s story to tell.
“Here’s what you need to know about me. John Smith accidentally sired me as well. About two thousand years ago.
“Smith is the one of the oldest vampires in the world.”
CHAPTER 55
Sadly, my excellent posture didn’t help me process any of that news. “You look pretty great for being two thousand years old.”
The corners of Emma’s mouth quirked. “Well, in human terms, I’m younger than you. Probably seventeen. Maybe sixteen. It’s hard to be sure. Birthdays weren’t a big thing back then.”
I started to speak, and Emma held up a hand. “I know what you’re going to ask,” she said.
“You can’t be sure,” I said.
Emma reached into the breast pocket of her shirt and pulled out a slip of paper. “Try me.”
I looked at the paper, sure this was a trick. “Did you ever meet Jesus?” I asked.
Emma handed me the paper. My exact question was scrawled on the paper in spidery handwriting. I looked up at Emma. “Freaky.”
“I’m two thousand years old. Well, older than that, by ten or fifteen or twenty or thirty years. The Gregorian calendar is kind of a train wreck,” said Emma. “It makes sense people would ask.”
I realized Emma had just said a mouthful without saying anything. “You’re stalling.”
Emma looked around, the corners of her mouth turned down in a grimace. “Yes. I met him.”
“What was he like?”
Emma pulled another slip of paper out of her pocket, and handed it to me. “You really do get these questions a lot,” I said.
Emma nodded.
I opened the paper. It was blank.
Emma laughed.
“Well played,” I said.
“Are you starting to see why I never talk about this? I’ve had to tell this story so, so, so many times. And it’s not really a nice story. But it’s like I met a celebrity. No, I take that back. I met someone who continues to influence the world, even now. Some people would say I met God. If humans knew I existed, there would be some kind of cult based around me, I’m sure.”
I barely heard most of what she said. “What do you mean it’s not a nice story?”
“I mean it starts with death, and ends with a lot more death.”
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“It’s important that I do. Sometime in the next few days, we’re going to have to confront John Smith. He’s a part of this story, too. It’s important you understand what kind of a monster he is.”
EMMA’S EPIC
When I was about thirteen, my parents died. Disease. I don’t know which one because back then, if you got sick you mostly just hoped you’d get better. There were roots and herbs and such, but we’re talking about a time when penicillin didn’t exist.
We had a small farm. A couple of goats, a small patch of land to grow things on. I didn’t know how finances worked. I didn’t even know how to read. I had some family but they lived in another town and we had only visited them once. I wasn’t even sure where they were. I tried to run the farm for a couple of days but that wasn’t what girls did back then. My job had been to cook, clean and get water from the well.
A few days after my parents died, a man showed
up with a document he said was the title to our land. He claimed my father didn’t own the land, or had borrowed money against it. I don’t remember what he said first because the story changed over the years.
As I said, I didn’t know how to read. I told him my parents were dead, and as far as I knew, there was no money in the house to pay our debts.
He asked me how old I was, and even though I thought I was thirteen, I said I was fourteen, a marriageable age. I was hoping this man would offer to help find me a husband. I thought he might have a son and consider making a match for me so I could stay on my land and he could have someone to work it.
I know that doesn’t sound horribly romantic but there wasn’t much in the way of romance back then. I thought I was being clever.
As it turned out, the man did know someone who needed a wife. Himself. He claimed if I married him I could keep the land in my family’s name. I’d come live with him and when we had a child, our child could claim the land.
In the meantime, of course, all of our animals would come live in my new home. But he would, naturally, carefully note everything in the original homestead and replace it when it came time for our offspring to have a house. And all I had to do was marry a complete stranger.
I have no idea if that was what he wrote down on the back of the contract or if he just scribbled or if he wrote anything at all. At that point in my life, all I knew was my parents were dead and I had no options.
I couldn’t work the land. I didn’t really know how. I could have become a prostitute. Or offered myself to one of the richer households as a slave or servant for a period of time.
But I didn’t know how to approach someone about that. Fourteen might have meant I could get married but it didn’t mean I knew what I was doing.
And it doesn’t matter, because none of that happened. What happened was, we got married. I ran his household the best I knew how, which, as it turned out was not very well. Sometimes he tried to put a baby in me. Which was as romantic as I’m making it sound.
Blood Calling (The Blood Calling Series, Book 1) Page 14