Gidion's Blood

by Bill Blume

  The arrow above the words pointed towards the far wall and the wedding portrait of his mother. The train of her long, white dress spilled out behind her to form a circle on the floor. She’d been in her early twenties at the time the picture was taken, less than a decade older than he was now, but her young face wore an air of an earlier time. He often wondered what she would have looked like if she was still alive. He wondered how she died, all the things Grandpa and Dad hadn’t told him.

  For her wedding, Mom pulled her long red hair up into an elaborate style, wearing it like a crown. This picture was how he remembered his mother, what she looked like, but she’d never worn it in that fashion when she’d been alive for the first four years of his life.

  ‘Who is she?’

  He wondered who left the note. One of the vampires from the park? The assassin? He couldn’t understand why they’d find anything about his mother’s portrait interesting, why they’d even give away that they’d been in his house.

  His eyes went to the message and then back to his mother’s face and that crown of red hair.

  Then he saw it.

  He saw her, and every lie he’d ever been told by his father and grandfather, even the ones he’d never known about until this moment, made sense. The truth buried into his heart, a dagger more painful than steel. His chest ached. He stumbled back, unable to look away from his mother’s face. The image of what she’d look like in a pair of sunglasses slid into place, and he didn’t need to imagine how she might look today.

  He knew.

  He’d seen her in the park tonight.

  Mom was the shade.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Gidion no longer felt the cold. Everything went numb, a defense mechanism to make him think and act. He always believed he got that from Dad, but now he wondered how much of his detachment and guile came from the woman in the portrait.

  He pulled out his phone and looked at the messages he’d exchanged with Dad—no, the exchange he’d had with someone holding Dad’s phone. The confirmation he’d gotten came from something in his childhood, the kind of thing he didn’t doubt Dad would have shared with Mom.

  He glanced at the phone number on the envelope. Who left that there?

  Only one thing was certain. Dad needed his help, either held captive or on the run.

  Gidion needed to know which problem he faced.

  He needed something from the past few days, something even Mom wouldn’t know, that Dad wouldn’t have bothered to tell anyone.

  ‘Where did we get our coffee the night Grandpa died? Who gave it to us?’

  Typing the text took longer than usual. His hands shook so much that he didn’t feel the vibration of his phone as the reply appeared on the screen.

  ‘Gidion, I need you to hurry. I’m near the bridge.’

  He considered his options. Press for the answer or go for the bridge and try to turn the tables on what was looking more like a group of vampires planning an ambush? Could he wait them out at their own trap and then track them to where they kept Dad?

  The ache of his swollen face warned him his odds of taking down any vampires weren’t good, especially with all of them using handguns. Short of knowing how to get to the Willey Bridge, he knew nothing about the location where the vampires wanted to meet him. If they chose that place, then they already knew it better than he did. They’d get there first, before he could scope out the scene. Odds favored they were already there from the first text.

  Gidion copied and resent his questions. He smiled as he remembered Dad telling him how dispatchers used that technique to control uncooperative 911 callers: repeat a question with the same wording and tone.

  ‘Gidion, come get me. Hurry!’

  He sat at the kitchen table as he resent the questions for a third time. The last answer had already confirmed what he needed to know. He pressed for the answers to taunt them. The display on his phone went dark and stayed that way for several minutes. He glanced back at the clock display on the oven, the green letters glowed that it was almost one o’clock in the morning.

  The display on his phone lit up and the phone vibrated. Someone was calling him from Dad’s phone.

  He stared at the phone, debating on whether to answer. This wasn’t what he’d expected, but something in him had hoped for it. Just before it could ring for the fourth time and kick over to his voicemail, he answered.

  He let the line stay open, not even offering so much as a simple “hello.” His silence wasn’t some clever play. He just didn’t know what to say.

  “Gidion?”

  The voice—the sound of her voice—filled him with déjà vu. Hearing her say his name dusted off lost memories: the smell of lavender, warm tea, a halo of sunlight around Mom in her robe on a Saturday morning as she stood in front of the window cooking breakfast, even the way she would sneak up on him and give him a loud zerbert. The memories had once made him smile, but hearing her voice in this moment left his heart raw.

  “Are you there?” she asked.

  “Put Dad on the phone.”

  She sighed, as if the request was an inconvenience. “Your father is resting, but he’s fine. I promise.”

  “Resting from getting hit on the back of the head by your gun?”

  “Gidion, I need you to listen.” Her voice sounded so desperate and human. As he stared at her portrait, he imagined her face and the way her lips moved as she spoke. “There are things you don’t understand, and I’m sorry. It’s as much my fault as your father’s.”

  He balled his hand into a fist. “Save it, Mom.”

  There was a slight pause, but he heard the way she smiled as she said, “You recognized me.”

  “Yeah.”

  He picked up the envelope from the table. She hadn’t left this message here. Who did?

  “I didn’t come here to hurt you or your father. I love you, more than you can imagine.”

  He turned away from the picture. Facing the past version of her made it difficult to hold onto his anger, and he needed it.

  “What are you doing here?” Keeping his voice from shaking took all of his will power, but he still tasted the unsteadiness coating each word.

  “I’m putting our family back together,” she said.

  “Really?” He thought about Ms. Aldgate and what he’d seen and heard at the park. “Somehow I don’t think Dad was on board with that plan.”

  “Well, here’s a news flash. Your father isn’t always right.” The sudden shift to sarcasm didn’t hide the edge of anger in her voice. “How do you think I ended up like this?”

  The venom in her question reminded him of what Grandpa said at the funeral home when he caught Gidion there with GQ Drac and Bonnie’s bodies. Grandpa had said he thought he was “done with this bullshit” when Dad quit hunting.

  “Dad got too aggressive hunting.” He couldn’t hold back a slight laugh at the irony, history repeating itself. “They came after him, but they got you. Why’d they turn you instead of killing you?”

  “Fools thought they could use me.” The way she said that was a knife wrapped in silk. “They turned me, then starved me. Thought the hunger would twist and blind me enough that I’d lose control and kill your father when he tried to rescue me. They underestimated how much I love him, so I got the last laugh.”

  “Really? Ask me, Mom,” he didn’t spare on snark as he called her that, “they’re getting their chuckles more than a decade late.”

  “Don’t you dare talk to me like this! You have no idea—no fucking, goddamned clue—what I gave up for you and your father!”

  Gidion didn’t say anything. She shouldn’t be able to intimidate him more than any other stranger, but it wasn’t that simple. How many times had he talked to Dad or Grandpa about this woman, imagined what life would have been like if she hadn’t died when he was four? She’d been more of an imaginary friend than a parent.

  “Gidion?” Her tone shifted, total one-eighty. A sob clung to the way she said his name. “I’m sorr
y. You don’t deserve that. We left you in the dark for so long, didn’t think you’d be able to understand what happened to me when you were little, that letting you believe I was dead was simpler and that we could eventually come clean.”

  Her last word choked out of her.

  “Come clean?”

  “We thought it would be easier once you were older, but then you got older.” She sighed. Her breath blew the dust off the past dozen years. The regret touched him on an instinctive level. If she’d been there, he might have reached out to hug her, to feel just how real she was. “We couldn’t figure out how to tell you in a way that wouldn’t make you feel deceived, and then there was your grandfather. He never supported our decision.”

  That one word, “grandfather,” killed the brief bit of sympathy she’d built. The buried rage in the way she spoke of Grandpa told him everything he needed to know. Every piece that puzzled him about the night Grandpa died clicked into place.

  “No,” Gidion paused to wipe a lone tear from his face, “he wouldn’t have.” Now he understood why there was a 911 call to save him but not for Grandpa. “He was stubborn like that. Didn’t mean you had to kill him.”

  There was a pause, and then she said, “That wasn’t me. I swear.”

  She said the right words, but they came too slowly. The time between his accusation and her denial held all the confession he needed. Dad told him more than once that truth doesn’t require time to think.

  “Put Dad on the phone.”

  “I told you. He’s resting, and I think it would be better to have this conversation in person.”

  “I agree, so let him go.”

  Another pause. She didn’t have an answer for that.

  “Tell me something,” Gidion said as he considered his earlier questions about why the vampires had taken Dad instead of killing him in the park. “You plan to turn Dad against his will, the same way the vampires turned you?”

  “I’m not a monster. Your father understood that. It’s why he didn’t kill me, the reason he stopped hunting. Your grandfather? He wanted to turn you into a murderer with a crusade.”

  Gidion hesitated. He didn’t know how to play this, and he wasn’t sure what answers he could get out of her at this point. All he knew was that he was running out of time to save Dad.

  “Keep the phone close,” he said. “I’ve got some things to take care of first.”

  He hung up before she could answer. Part of him expected her to call back, but she didn’t. Didn’t even send a text. Maybe she realized he was serious. He might have been better off with her just thinking of him as a child and underestimating him. Of course, it might simply mean she didn’t care enough to try, and even though his anger should be enough to prevent that possibility from wounding him, he couldn’t stop the ache in the center of his chest.

  He looked at the note, written in that skilled penmanship.

  “So, now the question is, ‘Who are you?’” He wasn’t sure if he wanted to thank or kill that person for having ripped his life apart and ending a beautiful lie.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Gidion took a moment to rebuild his nerves and then dialed the number. After just two rings, he had his answer.

  “Who is she?”

  With just a few words, Gidion recognized the assassin. Her Asian accent was thick. Her tongue struggled with English.

  “Why should I tell you? You came here to kill me.”

  Instinct told him that her agenda might have changed, but even if she was focused on his mother for some reason, that didn’t guarantee she wouldn’t turn back to the task of killing him at the next chance. He still had a price on his head.

  “The woman in the painting,” she said. “Is she your mother?”

  “She was.” He emphasized that last word, but he couldn’t decide if he was trying to convince the assassin or himself. “Aren’t you working with her?”

  “She was my guide, not the one who hired me.”

  “So you still have a contract to kill me. Why should I even talk to you?

  “She wants your father.” The way she struggled with English made it difficult to gauge if anything she said was a lie. She paused in places that weren’t natural, and since she needed more time to form even simple answers, there was no way to distinguish a pause to convert her thought to English versus a moment to craft a lie.

  Gidion sighed, the ache beneath his skull flaring with his frustration. She didn’t know everything that had happened, didn’t yet realize the warning about his father came too late.

  “She already has him,” he said. “Do you know where she took him?”

  “No. Do you?”

  “No.” This conversation felt like it was going nowhere, and the longer it went in circles, the more paranoid he became that she was tricking him. He stood and walked over to the window by the stove to glance out at the backyard for any sign of movement or any cars going down the side street. All he saw were shadows, street lights and stillness. “Just tell me why you left the note. I don’t see why you want to help me.”

  “I am helping myself. Your mother means to kill me.”

  “Why?”

  “Money.”

  Gidion laughed. “Seriously? The assassin has a price on her head, too?”

  “We have common problems, hunter.”

  “We should start a support group.” She didn’t respond to that, much less laugh. He decided for the sake of his ego to just assume it was one of those cultural divide things. “You aren’t tied to this place, not like I am. Why are you still here? Why not just leave?”

  “My contract has changed. They now want her dead, too.”

  “Like mother, like son. Fantastic.”

  She answered with more silence. Okay…Either she didn’t get the joke, or she didn’t find him all that funny.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “I do not give my name. Names have power.”

  Seriously? “Fine, then I’ll just call you Blood. You know, like the anime.” More silence. “Never mind. Let’s just stick to business. What changed to make my mother a target?”

  “Unless you know where she is, I see no reason for us to continue to talk.”

  Gidion laughed as he moved to the front of the house and checked for anyone out there. “Let’s get something straight, Blood. I don’t need you to find my mother and take her down. I’ve killed entire covens.” Well, one coven, but she didn’t need to know that.

  She laughed, the snort-like sound carrying twice its weight in condescension. “How many guns did your coven have? Your mother’s does not follow the rules. This is why others desire her death. She makes much noise. Has ten others, all armed. Face them alone, you will die.”

  “Like you’d fare any better? I don’t think you’re going to stop them from chopping off your head once they’ve shot you into the vampire equivalent of Swiss cheese.”

  She didn’t laugh at that. This time, he didn’t mind the initial silence. Just as he started to wonder if she’d hung up, she said, “You are right.”

  He savored the small victory for all of a breath, and then he realized the way she’d said it. She knew the odds were stacked against her from the start.

  “You already knew she was my mother when you left this note.” He balled up the paper in his fist. “Didn’t you?”

  “I assumed.”

  “Then why leave this for me? What is it you really want?” He already suspected the answer, but part of him couldn’t believe it.

  “We act alone,” she paused. “Swiss cheese. Both of us.”

  “What? You think we could actually work together?” Gidion went back up to his room and grabbed an old book bag to fill it with some of the things Dad hadn’t known about to get, most of the cell phones, wallets, and the two laptops he’d taken from the vampires he’d killed in the van. “You tried to kill me, lady. Heck, you still have a contract to kill me. The minute my mom and her guys are dead, you’ll just go for my throat.”


  “If I agree to void my contract?”

  “What? I’m supposed to take your word on that?”

  “You do not trust my word?”

  He pulled the phone away from his face and stared at it as if she could see the disbelief on his face. “You might not have killed my grandfather, but let’s not pretend you weren’t planning to.” He zipped up the backpack and slid it on before he continued talking to Blood. “You’re a vampire. Your word isn’t worth crap.”

  “Your word is no better. You are a vampire hunter. How do I know you will not turn on me first?”

  Much as he didn’t want to, he had to admit she was right. Neither of them could trust the other.

  “I still don’t see why you can’t just walk away from this?” He went back downstairs and took another look out the front windows. “All you have to do is leave Richmond, and my mom and her goons aren’t an issue for you.”

  She sighed, and the way she did it left little doubt she thought him dense as brick. “They are short term problem. Price on me? It follows me, followed me here. I need to know who wants me dead. I learn that, then I kill them. No one left to pay, and the price for my death goes away.”

  He considered that as he watched a car crawl past his house down the street. Her logic tracked. “So you don’t need my mother dead as much as you need to know who wants you dead.”

  “Doi.”

  He took that as a yes.

  Before he responded, he noted what details he could about the passing car: a dark-colored four-door compact. The car disappeared from his sight. A car going that slowly through his neighborhood wasn’t that odd at night, but it made the back of his neck tingle. Time to go.

  “Yeah, well that leaves you a lot better off than I’ll be,” he said. “Even if we do kill my mother’s coven, the price on my head is still there.”

  Blood grunted, and for once, she didn’t sound like she’d considered that.

  “Help me,” she said, “and in return, I tell them you are dead.”

  She made that sound way too simple. “They’ll want proof, won’t they?”