Blood Games

by Lee Killough

  Staring after Duncan, Garreth reflected that Duncan had not changed either. He still thought he looked like Robert Redford and he was still an asshole.

  Duncan and Nancy went off at midnight, leaving Garreth alone for the night. Cruise traffic had petered out when the fast food places closed. The few cars still parked along Kansas belonged to hard-core drinkers determined to close down the bars, the only businesses still open.

  An office light still shone at Duerfeldt Chevrolet, however. Garreth pulled into the lot and tugged on the show room door. Locked. The light might have been left on accidentally. Still, he walked around the building checking each door and playing the beam of his flashlight across the cars in the rear lot. All seemed in order.

  Back in front, Garreth found John Duerfeldt, the dealership owner, peering out of the show room. He unlocked the door, forehead smoothing. “I hoped from the car there it was you I heard walking around back.”

  “You’re working late tonight.”

  Duerfeldt grimaced. “Employer wage reports to the state. I need to move to a planet with, oh, a forty hour day.”

  Garreth nodded in sympathy. “Do you know your car isn’t anywhere outside?”

  “Today I’m driving a ‘Vette we got in trade and pulled it inside the garage.” He frowned. “While we have pretty good kids around here, I’m not so sure about the ones who come up from Bellamy and I hate to tempt them.” He cocked a brow at Garreth. “You ought to take this car for a test drive. You’d love it. Yeah it’s a ‘78, but it’s a T-top Indy Pace Car replica. One of just 6500 built.”

  Only one car in the area fit that description. What would make Hal Landreth ever sell his beloved ‘Vette, symbol of recapturing his youth? “Is the engine blown?”

  Duerfeldt grinned. “As a matter of fact, it has a new aluminum V-8, 375 horsepower. Mr. Landreth remarried and I guess started feeling more responsible. Anyway, he traded for a minivan.”

  A minivan? That had to qualify as some class of blasphemy.

  “I know it’s older than your ZX,” Duerfeldt said, “but as long as you have Helen Schoning for a landlady, she might as well help you keep a better class of car running. Every time I see her driving that old Rolls I think what a waste all that mechanical talent is clerking for the Municipal Court. She should have been born either a boy or a generation later. We can make you a good deal on your ZX.”

  Except, how could he give up the car he and Marti bought together? While he kept it, he still held a piece of her...and last time he had been truly happy. “I’ll think about it. Good night, Mr. Duerfeldt.”

  The next time he passed that end of Kansas, the office light had gone out.

  After the bars shut down at one, followed by the inevitable handful of discussions with citizens about walking home rather than driving, nothing moved downtown but him and a couple of cats prowling along the tracks. At two, when Garreth walked both sides of Kansas and the alleys behind, checking doors, the disquiet he had managed to ignore through most of the evening returned in force, raising goosebumps on his arms and neck, and he found himself repeatedly glancing over his shoulder. When the cats clashed, squalling, over some mouse or cricket, he started, heart pounding. Why? He usually enjoyed this time of night. Only the occasional barking dog or distant yipping of coyotes broke the silence. A breeze coming in from the prairie swept away the lingering reek of exhaust fumes, replacing it with the scents of grass and dust. Little but static came over his radio, often going fifteen minutes between calls, and those just county traffic or time checks from Doris Dreiling, his Graveyard dispatcher. So what spooked him so much tonight?

  “Garreth.”

  He whipped around at the familiar voice. About eight feet away stood Grandma Doyle. But that was impossible! She lived with his parents in California. She could not possibly be here, and certainly not dressed in just a nightgown. Could he be experiencing something like one of her Feelings? Except none had ever happened to him before. “Grandma? What–”

  “I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye to me favorite grandson, and warning you.”

  Then he understood. She was doing this, not him. Her vision must be a terrible one for her to come to him like this. She had never done anything like it before. “What do you see?”

  “A man...evil...pale as Death with eyes of blood. He brings death and pain. And he can destroy you!”

  Garreth went icy. “Do you know--” The question died as her first words echoed. Say goodbye? Panic blasted him. “Grandma! No! Don’t!”

  She smiled. “I must.”

  He started toward her, feeling as though a knife ripped through him. “Don’t leave me! Let me come out there and--”

  A shake of her head cut him off. “No. I know you mean well, but...the price of forever’s too high. Besides, I’ve never stopped missing me darlin’ Jamie, and he’s callin’ me. When you’re weary of forever, no matter how long that tis, remember it’ll be just a moment of Eternity and we’ll both be waiting to welcome you.”

  He wanted to plead with her, to beg for more time, but his throat had closed tight, strangling all speech. He could only shake his head desperately.

  She seemed to know his thoughts, however. She sighed. “I’m sorry for the pain I’m causing. But I leave you me love, me dear dear g-dul, and a gift to protect you.” She blew him a kiss.

  Then only he and the cats stood on the street.

  Garreth grabbed for his phone, to call home.

  Chapter Two

  The wake filled his parent’s house in Davis and overflowed into the front and back yards. Grandma Doyle had left instructions on her bedside table to throw an Irish wake for her, even including money and a guest list for it. She wanted her life celebrated, she wrote, not mourned. And judging by the noise level, Garreth reflected, everyone had taken her wish to heart. Everyone but him. He felt...adrift...lost. And along with daylight dragging at him, the noise and smells knotted his stomach and made his head pound--a flood of blood scents, two groaning tables of food, two with beer kegs and cases of Irish whiskey. Would anyone notice if he sneaked off?

  “Garreth?”

  He forced a smile at the pouter-pigeon woman bearing down on him. Iris something. One of his mother’s cousins.

  She enveloped him in pillowy arms and blood scent. “It’s so good to see you again after all this time, though I thought you must be Brian until your mother corrected me.”

  Obviously she had not seen his son in a long time, either. Brian had three inches and fifty pounds on him.

  Iris Something kept chattering. “You’re certainly looking good. Is there a fountain of youth in--wherever it is you’re working now?”

  He grimaced inwardly. How many variations on that remark he had heard the past week? “Just plenty of clean air. You haven’t changed either.”

  But of course she had. They all had. Though when had it happened...his parents aging, his brother Shane losing hair. And when had Harry Takananda acquired iron grey hair and jowls?

  Peering around, he spotted his old partner at the bar and shouldered through the crowd that direction. “What do you think of all this, Harry-san?” He raised his voice to be heard.

  Harry grinned. “I thought cops have loud parties. I’m surprised the neighbors aren’t complaining.”

  “That’s because everyone in a two block radius is probably here. You can see why even though she died last Friday, we waited until this Saturday for the wake. Tomorrow everyone can sleep in or go to church and ask forgiveness for their drunken excesses. What say we go outside and find some place we can carry on a conversation in a normal tone of voice?” He would take even daylight over being in here. Now someone had started singing, too, and even if the singer had been sober enough to actually carry a tune, Garreth could not bear another rendition of “My Wild Irish Rose”, or “Rose of Tralee,” or, god knew, “Danny Boy.”

  “Well, actually...” Harry topped off his glass and set down the bottle of Tullamore Dew. “...I just came over for a refill
and was figuring on going back to the cop corner there. I’m surprised you’re not there, too.”

  With his father interspersing the war story exchange with announcements about how well Shane’s college coaching was going and how Brian made all A’s his first year in law school and was interning in the San Francisco DA’s office this summer but his only son to become a cop kept turning down promotion to sergeant because it would mean giving up working nights? Garreth’s stomach knotted. No, he had heard enough of that this past week. It’s really all about not being willing to take on responsibility, isn’t it? You divorced Judith; you let her second husband adopt Brian and raise him; you quit the force in San Francisco before they could discipline you for getting Harry shot; and you’ve buried yourself in a nothing department in the middle of nowhere and even there you refuse to try to make rank. I just don’t understand. I never thought a son of mine would be a quitter.

  Garreth made himself smile at Harry. “Maybe later. I’m going to circulate some more.”

  He thought about looking for Lien. She, at least, had hardly changed. The smile in her eyes remained undimmed, her skin still smooth, her helmet of black hair just shot through with grey. But along with many of the other women here, she probably hovered over Judith’s mid-life surprise twins.

  “Man, what a blowout,” said a voice at his shoulder. Garreth looked up to find a grinning Brian beside him. “I don’t even know most of these people.”

  “Me either,” Garreth said. Brian had changed the most of all, of course. Grown up. And Garreth liked what saw. Judith and Dennis did a good job raising him.

  “How did Grandma Doyle even meet some of them? Have you see that Russian girl? Hot!” Brian’s voice went conspiratorial. “I heard she’s staying in San Francisco with the Takanandas. I wonder if she’d go out with me.”

  The skin prickled on Garreth’s neck. Brian’s relaxed familiarity thrilled him after the years of stiff formality during their visits. He wanted nothing to spoil the camaraderie. Somehow, though, he had to caution Brian about Irina. Not that he feared harm to Brian, but she had, after all, brought Lane Barber across to the vampire life and despite helping found the Philos Foundation so vampires could live without hunting, she might still enjoy taking some of her blood warm. “If so, you’ll find her very interesting. She’s been places and seen things and people we’ve only read about in books.” Five hundred years of history. “But...you ought to know something about her first--and please don’t think I’m trying to go paternal.”

  Brian laughed. “Are you kidding? It’s weird but I have a hard time keeping in mind that you’re my father. I mean, I look at you and it’s more like we’re...cousins or something.”

  The goosebumps sharpened. Did that explain the change toward him? “Okay, consider this a cousinly FYI, then. She’s been on her own since fourteen and sometimes had to live by prostitution, and she told me that she ran away from home because she engineered the death of a man who raped her.” The vampire who forcibly brought her over.

  Brian’s eyes widened. “Whoa! Did Grandma Doyle know?”

  “Yes.” Garreth raised a brow. “Grandma never let a person’s past stand in the way of friendship. You shouldn’t either. Just...don’t forget that past. And now if you’ll excuse me; I have to get out of here for a while.”

  The back yard brought instant relief. Fewer people overflowed here, so the noise level dropped and the smells thinned. Long shadows and a red sky promised imminent sunset, too. The ground at the foot of the big oak called to him...cool, shaded. But sitting there invited people to talk to him. So he climbed the dangling rope ladder to the platform high in the oak’s branches...and pulled the ladder up after him.

  Some of the planks looked new, as did the guard rail around the edge. Garreth ran his hand along the rail...admiring the satiny perfection of the sanding, enjoying the scent of wood preservative. For forty years his father had meticulously maintained the tree house, keeping it safe for children and grandchildren, and soon probably great-grandchildren. He stretched out on the planks and lay staring up into the thick canopy of leaves overhead. How many hours had he and Shane spent up here...on pirate ships and space ships, destroyers, castle towers, and Indian forts. Later Garreth read and studied here. Shane sneaked girlfriends up. The one time Garreth tried he had been caught because the girl’s bra fell over the side. And Grandma Doyle found it. No waiting until his father came off duty for that lecture. She had flayed him herself as soon as she sent the girl packing.

  The memory brought a flood of grief. Here in solitude he could give himself up to it. Pressure on him vanished, signaling sunset, but he still felt crushed by a blackness even darker and deeper than the one when Marti died. Then, at least, he had been numbed by shock. Nothing blocked the raw pain this time. How could she die? She knew how much he needed her, to know she was there for comfort and encouragement. Her mother had lived to almost a hundred. Grandma Doyle should have, too.

  And how could she abandon him with only that warning and some unnamed “gift.”

  Apprehension trickled into his misery. As pale as death with eyes like blood? A real person? Or something symbolic of death?

  Then a sense of another presence interrupted the speculation. He looked around to see Irina sliding under the guard rail onto the platform.

  At his glance toward the pile of rope ladder she sighed. “No, I do not defy gravity and fly like movie vampire. I have, of course, learned to free climb. A most useful skill on occasion.” Sitting down cross-legged on a corner of the platform, framed by the branches behind her, she seemed more elfin than ever, and every bit fourteen rather than the twenty her clothes and cosmetics aimed for. The ears half-seen though her artful tousle of sable hair looked almost pointed, and violet eyes dominated the delicately Slavic face. She glanced around, frowning. “You should not be here.”

  He sat up. “Why not! How did you find me?”

  She shrugged. “Blood calls to blood. You sensed my presence also, I think.” Without waiting for him to confirm or deny she said, “This is childhood place, yes?”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  If his anger disturbed her, she showed no sign. She scooted closer, frowning, choosing her words. “This is past. You cannot cling to past. You must move on.”

  Cold seeped through him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I think you do. Listen, child.” She leaned toward him. “I understand your pain. I have experienced it, too. Not only did you love her and she you, but she knew you for what you are and accepted you wholly anyway. Losing such persons is hardest.”

  The words reverberated in him. Yes. She had nailed the reason he hurt so much. One of the few people with whom he could be open and he had lost her. “I begged her to let--” He sucked in a breath, fighting the constriction in his throat. “She said the price of forever is too high.”

  Irina nodded. “Grania was very wise. If there are truly old souls reborn over and over, she must be one because with her I felt almost like sisters.” To his surprise, a tear spilled down her cheek. “I will miss her greatly, too. But...I will also let her go. Because we will never look in mirror and see we have grown old, is hard for us to accept aging and death. But you must. She has died. They will all die. Your handsome son who looks like your brother today will one day look like your father. You will become contemporary with your grandchildren. Grania understood one price of our existence is standing rooted while time carries away all we know and love.”

  He felt turned to ice, though ice shot through with unbearable pain.

  It must have shown in his face. Irina reached out to grab his hands. “Child, hear me. To survive we must accept and go on. Love can come again...though always loss again, too.”

  He thought of Lane, attacking but letting him live to come across, then offering him the world. “What about a vampire companion?”

  “As Mada intended you to be?” She jerked her hands back. “No! Think. Do you really wish to bring
another to this life? You and I were forced to it, and we have both hated our rapists...and destroyed them.”

  No, of course he would not dream of forcing this life on someone else. The recorded suicide note of one Christopher Stroda, brought across after a car crash by a travel companion who wanted to save his life, still sometimes haunted his dreams. “But what if someone fully informed consents...or asks...”

  The violet eyes flashed. “Mada asked. And innocent people paid for my acquiescence with their lives. No, do not repeat my mistake.”

  She was right of course. He nodded.

  “Now, other reason I came up. Why do you remain in Baumen? You planned to stay only while Mada’s mother still lived, I believe. Well...she has died four years ago, yes?”

  Cold ran through him again. “Well, yes, but--”

  “But now you are settled in?” Her tone chided. “You have friends, comfortable routines that let you pretend you are like everyone else but for unusual dietary needs? Child, leaving is difficult, I know, but you must. You know in time your perpetual youth will be noticed and arouse dangerous curiosity. Perhaps is true already, you have remained so long.”

  He frowned. “I don’t know that I can afford to move on a small town cop’s salary.”

  She clucked her tongue. “You will go to Hell for lying. What of Mada’s two hundred thousand her mother willed you?”

  He started. How the hell did she know about that? “It’s wrong to use that. I shouldn’t even have it.”

  Irina frowned. “Of course you should. Consider it reparations for destroying your life. And as her blood son, is natural that all her estate comes to you.”

  One word reverberated in his head. “What do you mean, all?”