Her Dear & Loving Husband

by Meredith Allard

  “How do you know I know him?” James asked.

  “We live in a small world and we like to talk.”

  James looked at Sarah, concerned because she didn’t know anything about how Hempel was hunting him.

  “Who is Kenneth Hempel?” she asked.

  “A mutual acquaintance,” James said. He took her hand and stroked her fingers. “You look tired,” he said. “Why don’t you go back to bed. Everything is fine. Geoffrey and I will be finished talking in a few minutes.”

  She looked at James, then Geoffrey, then back at James. “All right,” she said. She looked at Geoffrey once more before she went into to the bedroom. James closed the door behind her.

  “The human doesn’t know,” Geoffrey said.

  “No.” James closed his eyes as he considered what to say. “I don’t know much about him. He’s a reporter for The Salem News, and he’s taken it upon himself to expose the truth about us.”

  “I’ve heard he’s been harassing you. Is this true?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why you?”

  “I don’t know. He must have seen or heard something. Why do you want to know?”

  “Because he’s been snooping, and humans should never snoop when they don’t know what they’re dealing with. There are many of our kind who are upset with this person, some who are eager to do away with him before he goes public with some real information. Humans cannot know about us. It will cause too many problems.”

  “That’s what I’ve always said,” James said.

  “See, there’s something we agree on. We’re not so different after all.”

  James laughed at the thought. “Tempting as it is, you can’t just do away with him. He has young children. Besides, people will become suspicious if something violent suddenly happens to him after that article he wrote.”

  “That’s been my argument as well, but I’m afraid the angry ones aren’t listening. Some of our kind are more instinct than reason, but you know what that’s like. Many never find their self-control again as you did. You must talk this Hempel person out of his hunt straight away. It’s for his safety as well as ours.”

  “I don’t need you to show up after three hundred years to tell me what to do,” James said. “I have it under control. I know how to handle him.”

  “Do tell.”

  “It would be best if I didn’t.”

  Geoffrey nodded as he opened the door. “You’re proactive. I like that in a vampling.” He smiled that smile again. “It’s been good seeing you again, James. Really, you’re doing quite well for yourself.” He stepped outside and turned back. “I’ll be in touch.”

  As the visitor disappeared at a flash James wondered if it would be another three hundred years before he saw him again.

  CHAPTER 21

  James walked quickly to the library, nearly springing up the steps ten at a time. He knew he had to settle down so he wouldn’t draw attention to himself. He didn’t want any problems that night. Everything, after so long, was falling into place. Sarah had been the missing piece, and now she was there, the picture complete. He knew she was inside the library, waiting, as anxious to see him as he was to see her. He knew she would smile when she saw him, and how he loved to see her smile, a sweet, beautiful smile that hadn’t changed at all in over three hundred years. He wanted everyone to feel, at least once, the openhearted happiness, the looking-forward joy he felt then. When he was alive, until close to the end of his life, he was an optimistic person, a man looking forward to something new every day. He looked for challenge. He looked for adventure. He abandoned everything and everyone he knew in London for a precarious journey across a dangerous ocean to an undiscovered country. He wasn’t afraid. He was thrilled by the potential. And he had been lucky. His father’s merchant business thrived in Massachusetts. He married for love, and everything he did he did for that love. Now he was feeling the return of his former optimism.

  So this is what it’s like to look forward to seeing the woman I love, he thought. I had forgotten. It’s been oh so very long.

  He stopped short at the front entrance, his senses alert, when he heard the heavy, plodding footsteps approach from the parking lot. He wouldn’t let on that he knew anyone was behind him. If this hunter wanted to catch him acting as anything other than human he would be disappointed. James pushed on the library door and stepped one foot inside.

  “Professor Wentworth. Good evening.”

  James turned around, his face a pleasant mask. “Mr. Hempel, my own personal stalker. I don’t know if I should be flattered or call the authorities and take out a restraining order against you.”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary, Professor. I hardly think there’s much I could do to harm you. Do you mind?” Hempel gestured toward a stone bench behind some shrubs near the parking lot. “I’d like to speak to you somewhere more secluded. Just a moment of your time.”

  James followed the reporter to the bench, his fingers clenched in his pockets. What if Hempel knew the truth? What if he had some convincing proof? Or what if he didn’t, but he named names anyway? James wondered if the news would start a new hunt in Salem, only this time the target was really there.

  And, more importantly, would he expose himself by going outside in the sun? He still couldn’t piece together one cohesive story about the extent of the risk. Just as Jocelyn said, some be-lieved the sun liquidated them as soon as they stepped into the light. Some believed they disintegrated into dust. Others believed it was painfully uncomfortable because of their dilated eyes but not necessarily deadly. They might become weak. A rare few, like him, tried to go out during the day but they were turned away by the blinding pain.

  James’s hope that the problem would disappear vanished into the intensity in the reporter’s eyes, which blazed with the same self-righteous fire James saw in the magistrates in 1692. He recalled the similarities between then and now. But there were differences too. Kenneth Hempel was not a magistrate but a staff reporter for a local newspaper. Hempel didn’t have the law on his side, but he had the ability to sway the court of public opinion, which could prove more deadly in the end. Before, James wouldn’t have hesitated taking the risk. But now he had Sarah. Was his newly found optimism finished already? After their years apart, was this all the time they had together again?

  He touched the tree trunk, the bark scratchy and hard. He wouldn’t look at the reporter. He thought his eyes would give his heart away.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Hempel?”

  Hempel sat on the stone bench, hidden from view of passers-by by the bushes. “Just a few more questions. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “I do mind. I’m tired of being asked about a subject I know nothing about and getting the third degree for my answers. I’m tired of hearing that you’re snooping around campus asking about me.” He faced the reporter. “If you have something to say to me, Mr. Hempel, if you have some accusation to make, I think it would be best if you told me what it is so I know what I have to defend myself against.”

  “Very well, then. I know you’re a vampire.”

  James held Hempel’s gaze as he spoke. “That is the most outlandish thing anyone has ever said to me. What could you have seen that would convince you of something so prepos-terous? I’d hate to think being out at night gets you labeled a vampire. There are a lot of people out at night, Mr. Hempel. You have your work cut out for you.”

  “It doesn’t mean you’re a vampire if you’re always out at night, but it might mean you’re a vampire if you’re never out dur-ing the day. I know this must be hard for you, learning that some human has discovered your secret. You’ve obviously kept it well hidden. But the right answer is always there if you’re willing to look for it. The truth always prevails.”

  “Does it? Because I can think of a few times when the truth didn’t matter at all.”

  “I’m sure you’ve witnessed a lot over the years.”

  James turned away. He felt a blind heat bubbling up
from his feet to his legs to his chest, radiating out to his arms, and he let the breeze floating through the branches of the tree cool his frustration.

  Hempel held out his hands. “Look, Professor, it seems we’ve ended on the wrong foot and that was not my intention. People scoff at the idea of vampires and toss them carelessly into the category of myths and legends, but they need to be warned if there are threats to their lives lurking unseen in the darkness. They have a right to know you exist. After all, not everyone of your kind has the self-control you do. Some are savage, intent on wreaking havoc and murdering innocent people.”

  James let out a frustrated sigh. “You seem to be an intel-ligent man, Mr. Hempel. Do you really believe in vampires?”

  “I’ve known the truth since I was fifteen years old. You see, my father was killed by a vampire. I was there and I saw it. I was lucky I wasn’t killed myself.”

  James sat on the bench. In one glance he saw that the reporter spoke the truth. But James needed to convince him that the truth was false.

  “Are you sure it was a vampire you saw? You must have been terrified when you saw your father being attacked, and our minds tend to play tricks to protect us from trauma like that. It was probably a wild animal you saw, and in your fear you thought…”

  “Do not mock me!”

  Hempel leapt from the stone bench and glowered, his eyes large and reaching, the purple veins in his neck bulging. He was too close for James’s comfort, and James stepped back. Hempel seemed to expand upward in his anger.

  “I was there! I saw it!” The reporter leaned forward, his hands on his knees. “I’m sorry,” he said. “This always happens when-ever I think about that night.” When he was calm enough to breathe easily he looked at James. “My father grew up near Walden Woods. I believe you’re familiar with it, Professor?”

  “Henry David Thoreau wrote Walden there.”

  “That’s correct. My father wanted me to see where he had spent so many hours of his childhood, so he took me camping in some secluded grounds nearby. It was late at night and my father was sitting alone outside the tent, watching the stars, searching for the constellations the way he loved to. He considered himself something of an amateur astronomer. I was in my sleeping bag in the tent waiting for him when suddenly I heard a maniacal growl, like a crazed bobcat on the prowl. Then I heard my father scream, the most horrible sound you can imagine coming from a grown man.” Hempel pulled a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and dabbed at the sweat on his forehead.

  “I was terrified, but I wanted to know what was happening so I peeked through the slit at the front of the tent. That’s when I saw him, a white-skinned, blond-haired man-ghost gnashing his teeth into my father’s neck. Actually, the vampire looked a lot like you, Professor. There he was with my father in his arms, sucking the blood right out of him. By then my father wasn’t struggling any more. His life was gone along with his blood. If it hadn’t been so horrible it would have been almost tender the way the vampire looked like a newborn suckling from its mother. Do you know what it looks like to see a vampire drinking from a loved one?”

  James couldn’t look at the reporter.

  “There was nothing tender about it,” Hempel said. “My father was dead but his eyes were open, gazing lifelessly at me, seeing somewhere far beyond the forest. His face was frozen into the mask of horror he wore when he saw what was coming. I don’t know why the vampire didn’t attack me. Maybe he was satiated after feeding on my father. He didn’t seem to notice me.” Hempel dabbed at his forehead again. “I have been haunted by that night ever since. When I told my mother how my father was killed, she didn’t believe me. She was so upset she brought me to see a psychiatrist. He prescribed medication, but when I still insisted that a vampire killed my father he admitted me to the mental hospital. He had to treat my delusions, as he called them. I was telling the truth, I had seen it myself, but no one believed me. So I have dedicated my life to studying vampires, understanding them, hunting them, and now I can begin to prove they’re not merely legends or delusions, but real and here among us. People need to know so they can protect themselves from the evil ones, the ones that will kill your father right in front of you. I have proof now, so people will have to believe me.”

  James waited while the reporter seemed to struggle against the violent memories. He had to speak when he could no longer stand the silence.

  “Not seeing someone during the day doesn’t mean he’s a vampire. Neither does not seeing him eat or drink. You don’t see other people use the restroom, but you know they do. Is that next? Are you going to follow me into the restroom?”

  Hempel said nothing. He looked like an attorney in a court case where he expected the suspect to confess after a parti-cularly moving testimony.

  “During the Salem Witch Trials,” James said, “innocent people were falsely accused of witchcraft. Some were coerced into false confessions, and others who weren’t witches were hung for witchery. What will happen if you’re successful starting a new hunt? You’re just like the magistrates from 1692. Your decision about who is guilty has already been made no matter what anyone else has to say. You’ve made your decision about me and declared me guilty without allowing me to defend myself. That makes for a dangerous environment where lies and madness breed. I don’t want any part of it.”

  “You seem to know a lot about the witch trials, Professor. Were you there?”

  “I’m thirty years old.”

  Hempel remained unmoved. James knew it was time to play the one hand he held that could make this nightmare go away.

  “I have to go to class,” James said, looking at the time on his cell phone. “Meet me here tomorrow and we’ll figure out how to settle this amicably so I can prove my innocence to your accu-sations and we can both walk away satisfied and be done with this.”

  “I have meetings and a deadline tomorrow,” Hempel said. “How about Friday night?”

  “I don’t have time Friday night. Friday during the day would be better.”

  Hempel sat upright on the stone bench. He crossed his arms in front of his chest. “You would meet me here during the day?” He looked like a boy who just learned that his best friend was imaginary, air in his head, never really there.

  “Have I ever said I wouldn’t meet you during the day?”

  Hempel thought a moment. “Very well, then. I’ll see you here at the library on Friday. At noon.”

  James laughed. “Very well, Mr. Hempel. Friday at noon. But on one condition: after you see me during the day you’ll stop this nonsense.”

  “Yes,” said Hempel, extending his hand, “I’ll agree to that.” James hesitated, but he stretched out his hand. Hempel studied the sallow, blue-toned flesh. “You’re still cold, Professor. Did you know vampires are cold?”

  Hempel walked away, though he turned back as if he had an afterthought.

  “By the way,” he said, “I recently reread Dracula and I re-alized I made a mistake when I referenced Van Helsing on Halloween. You’re aware of the mistake, I assume.”

  James nodded. It didn’t pay to deny what he knew about the story.

  “And what was my mistake?”

  “Though Van Helsing is known as a vampire hunter, he was indeed a vampire slayer. He killed the three vampire sisters living in Castle Dracula.”

  The reporter nodded as he disappeared into the shadows the campus lights traced on the ground. James felt a crashing wave of melancholy sweep over him. Friday at noon was not far away. He felt himself pulled in deeper when he realized he didn’t know how he was going to tell Sarah. He saw her through the tinted glass doors of the library and couldn’t bring himself to go in. He couldn’t face her yet. While he paced outside he called Jennifer and told her about his plans. Jennifer did everything she could to talk him out of it.

  “It’s the only way,” he said.

  When he walked into the library he saw Sarah behind the librarians’s desk. He went to her, kissed her lips, trying to seem casual, as t
hough there was nothing that could be wrong in the world because she made everything right. But Sarah must have sensed something was bothering him because he saw her worried eyes.

  “It’s nothing,” he said to her unasked question. “I’ll talk to you after class. Don’t worry.”

  Class went by quickly that night. It was Monday night, his poetry seminar. It was Timothy’s turn to present, and the boy recited Langston Hughes’s “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.” The words meant something to anyone who wanted to understand, but to someone who had lived many generations, watching one civilization meld into the next, seeing wisdom passed from the tide to the shore to the people, it was particularly meaningful. Yes, James thought as he listened to Timothy, my soul has grown deep like the rivers. He hoped his river would not run dry on Friday. There could be no drought this time.

  He waited until they were back at their house to tell her. She was frantic. She shuddered with the same barely contained frenzy he had seen the night she learned she might be the reincarnation of Elizabeth.

  “No, James. No!”

  In a matter of moments her frenzy turned into fear turned into melancholy turned into frustration. It pained him to see her so upset, and he almost changed his mind about meeting Hem-pel. Yet if he didn’t go through with the plan the consequences would be palpable. The reporter had him in a trap and wouldn’t let go.

  “We just found each other again,” she said. “How can you do this now? You promised you’d never leave me ever.”

  “I’m not leaving you, Sarah. I’m going out in the sun. You do it every day.”

  “But you could die.”

  “I’ll be fine.” He led her to the sofa and helped her sit. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have told you sooner. I kept hoping Hem-pel would give up, but he hasn’t. I can’t let him tell the world the truth. It’s too dangerous.”

  Sarah sat with her head in her hands, leaning forward, as if she were trying to stop herself from falling over. He waited for her to say something, but she couldn’t speak. Finally, she looked at him and held out her hands, pleading. He sat next to her and took her hands in his.