Gidion's Blood

by Bill Blume

  His thumb hovered over the “send” button. Once he sent this, he knew there was no turning back. He’d be ensuring his mother’s end or his. Mom said Grandpa turned him into a murderer with a cause, and part of him worried she was right.

  Could he just send Mom a text? He could warn her to let Dad go or else. Doing that might give away that he knew where she was. Hell, she might even lie to lure him into a trap.

  He went back and forth on this, but what happened at the park last night settled the matter. Dad chose to move on to a life without her, and Mom answered by abducting him.

  As soon as he parked in the lot of the Lowe’s, he sent the text to Blood.

  It was time to end this.

  Chapter Forty

  The hardest thing about waiting was all the time it gave Gidion to question everything he was doing. Was he taking the nuclear option too fast? Was Mom really beyond redemption? Was Blood planning to betray him?

  He’d decided to wait in his car in the parking lot of the Lowe’s. At first, he kept the car running with the heat on, but he decided to save the gas and hope the cold would make him too uncomfortable to think about what really bothered him.

  Every free moment of thought dragged him through each lie of the past decade. He was rewriting his life. Grandpa hated to sit at the kitchen table at home, because of mom’s wedding portrait. He’d always assumed Grandpa just didn’t like her. The time Gidion had seen the password Dad used for his laptop, Dad not only changed it but added a second password for the first time to keep him from getting on it. God only knew what other truths hid on that hard drive. Thanks to the laptops he’d taken from Bonnie and GQ Drac, he knew he could probably break into Dad’s. He just wasn’t sure he wanted to. Each thing he figured out only made him question three more things.

  He liked the lie better. Did that make him a coward?

  By the time Blood’s silver Nissan pulled into the parking lot at about a quarter to six, Gidion muttered a sincere “Hallelujah.” He flashed his headlights to draw her attention. Her car crawled into the space next to his, placing it so that their driver side doors faced each other.

  He divided his attention between her and the entrance to the parking lot to make sure she wasn’t followed.

  When she rolled down her window, he did the same.

  “Why here?” she asked.

  “Some of us can’t afford to buy our toys from Killers ’R’ Us.” He pointed towards the hardware store. “Welcome to the poor man’s armory. You got a credit card?”

  “Why should I pay for this?” Her all-too-human stinginess surprised him.

  “Considering what you’re getting paid to kill me, I’m sure you can spare the cash. Besides, it’s not like we’re buying stuff to build a house. We’ll be tearing one down.”

  She rolled up her window and turned off her car.

  They both stayed several steps apart as they walked side-by-side towards the store. He realized that might look weird once they got inside, so he moved closer to her. She reached into her jacket for God only knew what weapon as she stopped and pulled a step back.

  He held up his hands. “Relax! If I wanted to saw you in half with a chainsaw, I certainly wouldn’t do it here.”

  She stayed still a few seconds, but her hand fell back by her side without a weapon.

  “We’re here together.” He lowered his voice and stepped closer to her again. “We just need to look like we’re shopping, not having a domestic.”

  Her slow smile made him laugh. She’d dressed in all black. Even her light jacket was black, and while it looked nice, he could tell it had a certain practicality to it compared to what she wore to the Wawa last night. God and she only knew how many weapons she’d hidden in that jacket. Truth was, she could wear a pink t-shirt with a rainbow-striped unicorn on it and still look like a cold-blooded killer.

  “Should we hold hands,” the corner of her lips twitched with her sarcasm, “Honey?”

  “So you’re a bit of a smart ass, after all.” So her lack of humor towards him last night wasn’t caused by a language barrier, after all. She just didn’t find him funny.

  She nodded.

  “All right, Muffin, let’s go—”

  “No.”

  “You can call me Honey, but I can’t call you Muffin?”

  Her silent glare offered him all the answer he needed.

  “Baby? Darlin’? Puddin’? Love Beast?”

  The brown of her eyes plummeted from freezing to sub-Arctic as he worked his way through the list of proposed nicknames.

  “Maybe we should just go shopping,” he said.

  The way she stared back with an eyebrow arched silently called him a pea-brained idiot. He decided not to confirm his interpretation as they walked into the store together, managing to stay a little closer this time.

  Her expression didn’t change, but he felt her doubt choking him when they made it inside. Hard to blame her when the garden section greeted them on the left, ceiling lamps and fans straight ahead, and paint supplies to the right. This part of the store didn’t really scream “vampire hunter armory.”

  “What items?” she asked.

  “I have a few things in mind, but we need anything that will give us an advantage.”

  He led her straight to the tools. Her attitude improved dramatically as they stopped in front of a large display of hammers and axes.

  “See anything you like?” he asked.

  She surprised him by passing over the axes, none of which were very big and were more like hatchets. Instead, she lifted one of the hammers from its cradle. Unlike most of the hammers, this one didn’t curve on the back end. Instead, the metal stayed straight and formed a vicious point perfect for stabbing it into something. Didn’t take much imagination to envision it thrusting into a person’s skull.

  “Poor man’s armory.” She spun the hammer in her hand before placing it back on the display. “You did not come for hammers.”

  “No, but figured it was worth a look. Besides, we need to talk strategy.”

  “Goals dictate strategy.” She formed the words with slow precision.

  He nodded. “I know what my goals are. What’s your goal?”

  “Your father.”

  He stepped back and looked around to make sure they were out of earshot of anyone. “What does that mean?”

  “First goal: retrieve your father.”

  He noticed she didn’t say “rescue,” but he let that go for the moment. “I know why he’s a priority for me, but why for you?”

  “Gives your mother leverage over you. I require you uncompromised.”

  That they both placed Dad at the top of the list didn’t feel right. Gidion’s instincts insisted she wasn’t being straight with him about her motives, but he couldn’t pin it down. He decided not to question it, though. They didn’t have that kind of time if they wanted to move tonight.

  He pointed down the aisle to a display with handheld blowtorches. A micro torch, the most portable looking of the batch, caught his attention. “Used something much more low tech to burn down the house for the last coven, but that could be handy.”

  She grunted in a way that left it unclear whether she approved. “Cannot burn their house while your father is inside. Dangerous to me, too.”

  “Vampires do tend to be a little more flammable.” Grandpa said that applied to the older ones more than the newly-turned, like dried out firewood. He suspected none of the vampires they faced were older than Mom, and she was only working with about a dozen years.

  Blood pointed to the price on the display, which showed it was just under thirty dollars. “Not too bad.”

  The way she coveted money made him curious. “How much are they paying you to kill me?”

  “One hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Nice!” Gidion had to admit that his ego got a boost from that tidbit. “So, just how much is the price on your head?”

  She shrugged. “Two million.”

  “Two million!” To
say she just emasculated him didn’t cover it. She’d all but amputated his testicles with a dull spoon. He caught himself in time to lower his voice and look around once again to make sure no one was too close. “I wiped out a coven. What the hell did you do to earn a two million dollar bounty?”

  She shrugged. “Why I need your mother’s information.”

  He wondered how long her list of mayhem was, but he decided against pressing the matter.

  “Let’s get this anyway.” He picked up the micro torch and gestured for her to follow.

  “Just what made you so damn sure I’d side with you over my mother?” The bitterness to his question caught him off guard. By contrast, Blood looked as indifferent as always.

  “Her portrait.” She said that as if it explained everything.

  He held his tongue as they passed a sales associate behind the counter of the paint section who was busy resting his chin in the palm of his hand and checking out Blood’s ass. Idiot had a death wish and didn’t even know it.

  “So you get one look at my mom in a wedding dress, and that let you know which side I’d fall on?”

  “Why did you start killing vampires?”

  He knew the answer: Mom. “You didn’t think I’d want to save her?”

  “The thing you love corrupted by the thing you hate? I know how you plan to ‘save’ her.” She smirked at him as they stopped in the middle of the aisle in front of the paint samples. “You are a killer. Killers are not complicated.”

  The need to strike her almost got the better of him. His fist shook from the effort to keep it at his side. He wanted to insist she was wrong, but they both knew better.

  Instead, he said, “We should get some duct tape.”

  He turned his back to her as he went down the aisle past the paint supplies. The shelves with the duct tape contained a rainbow of options. Blood picked up a roll that came in zebra stripes.

  “Kill vampires with this?”

  “Welcome to America.” He picked up a thick roll in the traditional grey and tossed it to her. “That’s enough to put the universe back together.”

  “What next?” Her voice had regained her initial skepticism. “Potted plants?”

  “No, we need some flashlights.”

  She sighed, a long exhale of impatience. “I do not need help to see at night.”

  “Trust me. The flashlight won’t be for you.”

  They spent another half hour in the store. That included a stop by all the house letters and numbers. Gidion went straight to a sticker for the number eight. He pulled out two of them, favoring a version of the number eight where the top and bottom of the number were identical.

  Blood didn’t bother filtering her opinion. “Stupid.”

  By the time they made it to the checkout line, Gidion felt Blood’s irritation like a crazed velociraptor bearing down on him. The clerk, a woman who was probably only a few years older than Gidion, studied the two of them intently as she rang them up. At first, Gidion wondered if their purchases and demeanor had her suspicious, but then he realized she was just trying to figure out if they were boyfriend and girlfriend.

  “That’ll be one-twenty-eight and thirty five cents,” she said.

  “I believe you represent the treasury, Muffin.” Gidion’s grin dared her to protest the term of endearment with the clerk in front of them.

  Even though she could have melted a polar cap with her glare, Blood kept silent and pulled out her wallet. Instead of a credit card, she handed over enough twenties to cover the purchase. Strangely enough, the exchange seemed to convince the sales clerk that they were a couple.

  They discussed their plan as they walked to their cars. Blood summed up their strategy with one simple phrase about his mother.

  “Offer what she wants.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  Gidion parked the Little Hearse behind Blood’s Nissan. They’d chosen this spot along South Boston Circle, because this road didn’t have any street lamps. Even though they were parked in front of some rather nice homes, the properties had high walls in front of them. No one in these houses would notice them unless they drove by, and even if they did, the cars were legally parked. If an officer investigated, the most he could do was suggest they leave. They didn’t intend to overstay their welcome, but it still carried that risk.

  Breath misted in front of Gidion as he climbed out of his Kia Soul. He grabbed his backpack from the back seat and locked the car. Like Blood, he’d opted for all black tonight and had limited his number of layers despite the cold. The only exception was to wear his t-shirt with the red bat symbol over his turtleneck. He needed freedom of movement, and once things got messy, he knew he’d be far too busy to feel the weather leeching his body heat. The shivers crawling through his skin had less to do with the weather. He kissed his fingertips and transferred the kiss to the red bat symbol on his shirt, hoping to ward off his fears.

  Gidion walked to the Nissan and climbed into the front passenger seat. Blood kept the interior as cold as outside. He should have expected that. Not like Blood needed to worry about the weather.

  “Thanks for keeping the car warm.” His sarcasm didn’t even make her blink. He rubbed his hands together, praying for enough friction to keep the chill away. Part of him wondered if the cold was intended as punishment for making her buy all that stuff inside the hardware store.

  “Ready to call?” She didn’t watch him. Her gaze focused on the intersecting street just thirty yards around the bend in the road.

  “Almost.” He reached into the backpack he’d placed on the floor of the car and pulled out the two stickers with the number “eight” in bold black font. He offered one to her.

  Blood took the sticker and turned it over as if examining it for what possible use he could have in mind.

  “Just put it on.” He peeled off the rectangular sticker to demonstrate.

  “It reflects light.” She over-enunciated the words, but Gidion didn’t think it was because she was having difficulty forming them.

  “Inside of the jacket.” He placed his sticker on the inside pocket on the left side of his jacket.

  “But why?”

  “For luck. Eight’s considered a lucky number, so I figured this would help.”

  When she continued to stare at him like he was an idiot, he added, “If you put it on, I promise to never call you Muffin again.”

  She placed the sticker in the same place inside her jacket without another protest. “Ni naocan ma?” Well, at least not in English.

  There was no mistaking her impatience as she said, “Call her.”

  He pulled out his phone. “Let’s hope Mom has Dad’s phone turned back on.”

  To his surprise, the line didn’t go straight to voicemail.

  “Gidion, I’m glad you called.”

  Mom’s voice, even though he’d expected her to answer, hit him with all the force of a sucker punch. The way it offered false comfort both tempted and troubled him. He thought he was ready, but the fear that he might not have the will to take her head returned and heckled him. That fear could work to his advantage, though. For what he needed to do in this call, letting it show in his voice might be ideal.

  “I think.” He stopped, eyes twitching to his left. Having Blood here and listening made him uncomfortable, the way he felt when he’d have his friends over to play and they’d witness Dad barking at him for doing something wrong. “I want to talk,” he said, “in person.”

  “I’d like that.” The joy in her voice was impossible to miss. “I can have someone meet you, bring you here to me and your father. I know you’d like to see him. He’d like to see you, too.”

  “No, I’m not comfortable with that—not yet. Just you and me. We meet at the Capital Ale House downtown on Main Street.”

  She didn’t answer right away, and he could just imagine the gears turning in her head. How easily did she think she could manipulate him? This would let him know.

  “We can meet there at eleven.”
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  He couldn’t repress a nervous laugh. “I don’t think so. That’s a little too much time for you to make plans. I don’t care to get hit over the head like Dad and tossed in a trunk.”

  “I promise it won’t be like that. You have my word.” Sincerity, thick as syrup, covered her promise.

  He turned enough to hide his face from Blood. He wondered just how much added insight her heightened senses gave her. Did his heart racing make her hungry?

  “If we’re going to meet, we meet in a half hour.”

  “I’m willing to do that, but on one condition, we meet somewhere else.”

  “It needs to be public.” He couldn’t bend on that.

  She sighed, the first cracks in her motherly façade starting to show. “Fine. Let’s meet at Stony Point Mall, the water fountain in front of the teddy bear shop. I trust that will be public enough.”

  The minute Mom suggested Stony Point Mall, Blood turned to look at him. He felt her glare on his throat. If he’d doubted Blood’s ability to hear and understand everything Mom said, that settled it.

  “You plan to buy me a stuffed animal?” He didn’t spare the sarcasm as he thought about that stuffed dragon she’d sent him all those years ago. “I’d prefer to meet downtown.”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “Then we compromise.” He let his frustration show and hoped it would make him sound convincing. She’d never go for this if she thought he was happy with his suggestion. “We can meet in Carytown in front of the ticket office at the Byrd.” He had to think the old movie palace would tempt her. Parking wasn’t allowed directly in front of the theater. That made it an ideal place to have a car drive up, grab him, and go.

  The silence that followed worried him. He wondered, just before she answered, if his phone had dropped the call.

  “All right,” she said. “We meet at the Byrd in an hour.”

  “8:30 at the Byrd. You got it.” He wanted to hang up on her, but pissing her off wasn’t the goal here.

  “Gidion?”

  He wished she’d quit saying his name. Hearing her say it, a whisper of regret from the past, felt like slow, tiny cuts.