by M. Leighton
“But that’s impossible. There’s no—”
“Are you sure?”
“It would take someone incredibly powerful to pull off something like that, someone—”
“As powerful as, say, the very first vampire?”
“Ridley, that’s ridiculous. Even if it were possible, I have a life. You can’t fabricate an entire life.”
“What? You mean give you memories of a childhood or playing football?
Memories of fishing with your dad?”
Bo stepped back from me angrily. “My life was more than that. I have a mother, too, remember?”
I closed my eyes against the pain that I could already see in his. Something deep inside him knew that what I was saying could be true, could be.
“Bo, she doesn’t remember you.”
I kept my eyes shut, but I had no trouble imagining the hurt that was in Bo’s dark, fathomless eyes. An invisible fist squeezed my heart. I never wanted to hurt Bo, but he needed to know this in case it was true. Because, if it was, his life was in danger in ways that we never could’ve imagined, ways more powerful and treacherous than anything we ever could’ve thought.
“What?” His voice was quiet, wounded. I didn’t need to see his face to know that he was in agony.
“Bo, I’m so sorry,” I said, my voice breaking on the last.
I turned my face away, eyes still closed. I couldn’t bear to look at him, could hardly stand to be in the same room with him, his pain was so palpable. My arms ached to hold him, so I wrapped them around myself. He didn’t want my comfort right now, no matter how much I wanted to give it.
I said nothing, determined to let him absorb what I’d said in his own time.
When the silence stretched on and on and on, I finally opened my eyes.
I was alone.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Why police think the killings have stopped in Southmoore. Sunday’s top story coming up next…
“Turn that up, Ridley,” Dad said over a bite of his cinnamon roll.
I slid out of my chair and grabbed the remote off the counter and hit the volume button a few times. I set it down beside my plate and continued munching on my own breakfast. I had been trying to ignore the news. Not only did I not want to hear anymore bad news; I really didn’t think it was good for digestion.
The one good thing the day had going for it, bad news included, was the distraction a Sunday would provide, at least for a little while. And a little was better than none. I’d take it. I’d take anything that would help me get my mind off of Bo and the distress I knew he was in.
Every time I thought about him, about the devastation he must be feeling, I got queasy. It didn’t take me long last night to discover that I’d rather be beaten or shot than to hurt Bo. I honestly believe that it was more painful for me to hurt Bo, to see him hurting, than it was for me to be hurt. I know that sounds ridiculous; in a way it felt ridiculous, too, but the more time that passed, the more I realized that it was true. His anguish was killing me on the inside, eating away at me, gnawing constantly at my guts.
I still had the same bite of pastry in my mouth when the commercials ended and the news reporter’s voice grabbed all of our attention. It brought me back to the present, reminding me to chew and swallow. I figure that anchorman might’ve saved me from choking to death on my food.
Southmoore Police Chief Edwin McDonnahough released a statement early yesterday morning citing the area’s most recent crime statistics. Most impressive was the decrease in murders, violent attacks and missing persons reports.
McDonnahough credits the reduction in violence to the supposed disappearance of the Southmoore Slayer. He believes the improved numbers are a direct result of the collaborative efforts of the Slayer Task Force.
While neighboring towns are openly supportive of the Task Force’s progress, many deny that they will rest easy until the Slayer is captured. That certainly seems to be the case here in Harker.
Despite the presence of the Task Force in the Harker Community, violence is up almost sixty-five percent compared to last year, with an one hundred-twenty percent increase in missing persons reports. Harker Police Department spokesperson Gloria Ashton released a statement assuring citizens that law enforcement officials are doing everything they can to increase safety measures around the community. Some speculate that the Southmoore Slayer has moved south, continuing his violent reign of terror here in Harker. Police deny that recent attacks are the work of the Slayer, citing the FBI’s psychological profile of the killer’s modus operandi, which behaviorists believe does not change during the course of a spree.
The parents of the most recent people to disappear are not convinced, however, as they wait by the phone day after day, hoping for news of the return of their loved ones.
In addition to the disappearance of four local high school children earlier this year, four more have gone missing since Friday, an alarming number when compared to the rate of abduction in Southmoore during the Slayer’s reign. Local teens Drew Connors, Aisha Williams, and Summer Collins were last seen Friday night, though Summer Collins has been officially listed as a Person of Interest in the recent abduction of Jason Gwynn. Police are currently withholding any additional information about Gwynn’s disappearance, as it is part of an ongoing violent attack investigation. If you see any of these children, please call the number at the bottom of the screen immediately…
Giving up on my breakfast, I tossed my roll back onto my plate, pushed my chair back and took my dishes to the sink.
“I’m going to get in the shower,” I said as I made my way from the kitchen.
All I got in response was a grunt and a nod. My parents’ eyes were glued to the television, watching the faces of the missing flash by. After they’d shown photographs of the most recently disappeared, they showed school pictures of Trinity and Devon, and then showed some vague snapshots of Bo and Lars. Neither of them had been around long enough for an official school photo. I’m sure it was probably an accident that anyone had a picture of them at all. With cell phone cameras now, though, it would be nearly impossible to regulate the capture of images.
Not that it mattered. The pictures barely even looked like Bo and Lars. They were blurry and distant, which was probably a good thing. If Lucius was right, it would be terrible for another of Bo’s many lives to come back to haunt him. It’s hard to tell how many towns across the country could have him listed as a missing person.
Later, at church, I found that I was becoming increasingly distracted, my mind flitting between missing friends, a crumbling life and the pain of ten thousand questions that surrounded the person that I loved most on the planet.
The sermon was about submitting to the will of God, a subject that was particularly distasteful to me at the moment. Giving up your wants in favor of someone else’s, even if that someone was divine and all-powerful, wasn’t easy. In fact, it went totally against the grain. On top of that, the thought that God would let me love Bo so much, all the while knowing that He’d hand-crafted another girl specifically for him, made me crazy. More than once, I found myself praying that He’d let me be that girl, that somehow, some way, He would cosmically rearrange things so that I could be the one for Bo.
I felt like a basket case by the time we pulled back into the driveway. After changing out of my church clothes and into jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, there was still no sign of Bo, no word. So I decided that, rather than sit in my room and fester, I would go see Lucius.
As I walked out, Mom and Dad were talking quietly in the living room. The television wasn’t on; they were simply sitting on the couch facing one another as if they were making important decisions. I should’ve known that didn’t bode well for me.
“I’m going out for a while,” I said, moving off quickly in hopes of escaping without another word.
“Wait a minute, Ridley. We need to talk to you.”
We?
Rolling my eyes toward the ceiling, I resisted the urge t
o say aloud, What now? Instead, I turned back toward the living room and leaned against the doorjamb, adopting my most innocently interested expression.
“What’s up?”
“Your mother and I have been discussing this and, I know you’re not going to like it, but for a while, we don’t want you going anywhere by yourself after dark.”
Their timing couldn’t have been worse to start being caring and parental.
“What? But Dad—”
“Ridley,” he interrupted, holding up his hand. “This is not open for discussion. It is getting too dangerous for you to be out there alone after dark. I’m sorry, but this is the way it’s going to be.”
“Well, how long is ‘a while’?”
“Until they either catch whoever’s behind this or things settle down.”
“But that could be months.”
“Well, I’m sorry, Ridley, but you’re just going to have to make adjustments.
You surely can’t expect us to just let you go gallivanting around when your friends are disappearing, can you?”
“Dad, I’m careful. I don’t take stupid chances like they do.”
Even as I spoke the words, I felt the condemnation of having told them an out-and-out lie. I took insane chances all the time by doing things like going into the woods, woods known to be dangerous, by myself to see a vampire. I doubted anyone could argue that there were few activities that were riskier.
Dad shook his head. “I know you’re a good kid, Ridley, and a smart one.
That’s not the point. We’re simply not willing to take the chance that you could be next. Period.”
I started to argue, but Dad had that not-another-word expression that told me I was starting to tread on thin ice. The last thing I needed was to get myself grounded. I silently reminded myself that Dad would be gone tomorrow and Mom would be back off the wagon, so the restriction was temporary—more temporary than they knew.
“Fine,” I huffed. “So what, I can’t be out after dark unless I’m with friends?
Is that it?”
“Well, let’s just start with being home before dark and we’ll take it on a case-by-case basis.”
“Dad.” I stopped myself, biting my tongue and clamping my lips shut in a tight line. “Fine. I’ll be back before dark then.”
I spun on my heel and hurried away before they could start asking questions or give me any more ridiculous limitations. I’d have to make today count, inasmuch as making the most of my time with Lucius and trying to find Bo.
By the time I’d made my way through the woods and was mounting the steps to Lucius’s cabin, I was spitting-mad. It seemed as though life was just bound and determined to work against me at every turn. I was in desperate need of a pity party and today felt like a good day to throw it.
Fortunately, Lucius was home. And fully clothed. Unfortunately, Bo wasn’t there, though he had been. I’d apparently just missed him. He’d spent the majority of the night with Lucius and then run off to “think.” I tried to quell the sense of dread that caused me. Bo running off to “think” didn’t bode well. That had a tendency to end up with Bo wanting to leave in order to save the rest of us from…
everything.
“What did Bo want to talk about?” I asked Lucius as he poked at the flaming logs burning in the huge fireplace in his below-ground quarters.
“As you can imagine, lass, he was very upset about his parents. I’m sure you would be, too if someone told you that everything you thought you knew, everything you thought was real was all just a lie. He’s lost all the people that he loved, all the family he’s ever known.”
“Well, hopefully not everyone he loved,” I said quietly, miserably.
“I was referring to his parents, his entire life.”
“I know, I just…”
“What? What is it, lovely Ridley? You look concerned.”
“I just can’t get that story out of my mind.”
“What story?”
“The one about the girl that’s fated to be with the boy who can’t be killed.”
“Lass, there’s so much we don’t know, don’t bother yourself with things like that now. There are many more important matters to be thinking about.”
“Such as?”
Lucius replaced the poker into its stand beside the hearth and turned to take a seat in an armchair to my right.
“Such as who’s attacking you and why, what’s going on with all these children, and how to control the other creatures.”
“Other creatures? What other creatures?”
“You remember me telling you what can happen when a vampire drinks from a human, don’t you?”
“Yeah, they become sort of like zombies or something, right?”
“Well, that’s quite a theatrical exaggeration, but I think you get the gist of it, yes.”
“What about them?”
“We’ve got to find and kill them, lass, before they become a real problem.”
“Kill them? You have to kill them?”
“There’s no other choice. Once so much life is gone from them, they cease to be the person that they were. I thought I explained that they become vicious and mindless, hungry beyond control.”
“You did, but I didn’t realize that- that—”
I didn’t realize that there was no hope for them, that death was the only recourse.
I thought of how many times Bo had fed from me, and I wondered how long I had until I became…something else.
“So then what do we do?”
“Well, we first have to find them. For a while, they can blend into the general population fairly well. It’s as the madness progresses that they become easier to spot.”
“And what do you have to do when you find them? I mean, how do you,” I paused to swallow, nearly choking on the words. “Kill them?”
“It’s not as easy as one might think. The loss of life makes them harder, physically and emotionally. Their conscience recedes as their tissues degenerate.
Physically, they become hardened, almost petrified, like a fossil. Makes them very difficult to destroy.”
He didn’t really answer my question. “How do you kill them then?” I asked, hating to repeat myself.
“They must be decapitated and their heads obliterated.”
That was what he was trying to keep from me: the awful reality of how brutally their lives must end.
“So, what, use an ax or a knife to cut- cut—”
My stomach sloshed with the thought of taking someone’s head off using a knife, of sawing through their skin and sinew as they bled and struggled. Saliva rushed to my mouth.
“That would never work. Only older, more powerful vampires can do it, as their heads must be torn off. No blade would work, no weapon.”
Bile gurgled in my throat. Torn off? And I thought the knife thing was bad!
“Alright, can we please change the subject?”
“You asked. I was merely obliging—”
“I know I asked, but I- I didn’t know…”
We sat in silence for a few minutes while I struggled to rid my mind of the gruesome images of decapitation that I couldn’t seem to stop picturing.
When finally I spoke, I decided to go with a subject change.
“Lucius, are the legends and stories of vampires and the boy who can’t be killed recorded anywhere? Or are they just sort of handed down, generation to generation, like ghost stories?”
Lucius cocked his head to one side in thought.
“If I’m not mistaken, there is a book that supposedly details many of the myths surrounding the origin of the vampire. However, I wouldn’t know where to even begin a search for such a book.”
“Do you remember what it was called?”
He rubbed his chin as he thought.
“No. It is said to be written in an old language, one few alive would know how to read. If one is to believe in such a book, though, then one must believe in the letter of Iofiel as well.”
&
nbsp; “What’s that?”
“Supposedly, after Iofiel was captured and returned to God, she overheard God’s plan to take her lover’s life and she wrote a letter to him, detailing the only way that he might take his son’s life, thereby sparing his own. Legend says that it took Iofiel hundreds of years to find out where her love was and get the letter delivered to him.”
“You’re saying that there is a way that Bo can be killed? I mean, assuming that Bo is the boy who can’t be killed.”
“So the story says.”
“Doesn’t that sort of—”
“I know it makes no sense, but I would imagine that, as with most things in life, where there’s a will there’s a way. Some sort of loophole maybe.”
“And where is this letter now?”
“I would assume that the fallen angel is in possession of it.”
“Has anyone ever found out what it says?”
“Not that I’ve ever heard. It’s my understanding that the letter wasn’t delivered so very long ago, only a few decades.”
“If that’s the case, then why haven’t they killed Bo?”
Lucius shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
I stood and walked to the fireplace, looking into the yellow-orange flames for answers, but finding none. I was more frustrated than I could ever remember being.
The book that was at Sebastian’s house could very well be the book that Lucius was referring to. But without the letter from Iofiel, it was no help to me whatsoever. It only told me their history, not what information I needed to secure our future. Of course, if I was the girl destined to help Bo, I might know a little something more about that, something divinely inspired.
“If Bo is that boy, will he ever be able to remember the things that he’s supposed to know about killing his father?”
“It’s hard to say. If his father has been feeding him blood to control his mind, alter his remembrance, all this time, it may have permanently affected his memory.”
“Then how—”
“The girl,” Lucius said simply.
I turned to look at him. His face was blank, an inscrutable mask. For a moment, I hated him for bringing her up, but, then again, I’d asked.