by Marc Daniel
But he’d been too late. He’d found the vampire sucking the last drop of the mother’s blood in the middle of the one-room house. Her husband and son were already dead at her side. It had been a vampire elder, a powerful female, but Michael was in such rage that it made no difference. He’d torn her to pieces as easily as if she’d been a rag doll.
The elder’s corpse had still been bleeding under his paws when she had shown up. She’d looked in horror at the dead vampire and then at Michael. Her eyes smoldering with contained rage. But against all expectations, the coward had run away instead of fighting him. He’d gone after her, but she was much too fast.
He’d found the body of the neighbors’ daughter in the snow twenty yards from their house shortly thereafter. That’s what she had been busy doing while Michael had fallen upon the elder. She’d been feeding on the little girl.
“When was that?” asked Sheila, the question snapping Michael out of his reverie.
“Late 1700s, but it wasn’t the first time our paths had crossed. I’d first met her very close to here in 1679, nearly a century earlier.”
“I didn’t know you had such a memory for dates, Michael.”
“I don’t, usually. But this particular day, I’ll never forget.”
“And why do you think she’d come after you?” asked Sheila.
“Because I killed her maker.”
Chapter 70
A.D. 1679
The hunting party had spent most of the day searching the woods south of the village for yet another vampire lair but hadn’t found anything suspicious. With the sun already low on the horizon, Michael gave the signal to head back home. The village needed all the protection it could get for the night and a good third of the skinwalkers were part of Michael’s group. Snow had started to fall a bit earlier and the white mantle slowly accumulating on the frozen ground would soon slow them down.
“Look there!” said Wawetseka, pointing at a woman running two hundred feet ahead of them.
Wawetseka had insisted on accompanying the group and Michael had reluctantly agreed. Her presence amongst the bears went against his better judgment, but she was one of the best trackers the village had. At any rate, he wasn’t intending on letting her inside any place dark enough for a vampire to hide during the day.
The woman—a European—was nervously and repeatedly glancing over her shoulder as she ran away from them. They had no intention of pursuing her, but suddenly she disappeared in front of their very eyes, swallowed by the ground.
Wawetseka was the first one to rush to the woman’s help, thinking she’d fallen into some type of pit, but what they discovered was anything but a natural pit. The cavity had clearly been recently dug and opened onto a sort of tunnel propped up by wooden beams and boards, as one would see in a mine shaft. Michael jumped down the artificial well and hit the ground seven feet lower, but the woman was nowhere to be seen. Her scent was easy to follow, however, as was the vampire stench that came from the same direction as hers.
“I think we’ve found what we were looking for,” said Michael. At 6’4”, his head nearly stuck out of the pit.
“How many are they?” asked Wawetseka.
“Not sure,” replied Michael. “But I want you to stay outside. You aren’t to jump in under any circumstances. We may need you to pull us out of the well in a hurry if we find too many vamps down there.”
He doubted Wawetseka bought his excuse, but she voiced no objection.
One by one, the skinwalkers jumped to the bottom of the well and, following Michael’s lead, morphed into their bear form. The tunnel ahead of them was just wide enough for Michael’s 800-pound bear to fit through. Fortunately, he was the largest of the group.
The tunnel was about fifty feet long and opened up on a much wider chamber. The darkness of the underground cellar wasn’t absolute, but it was dark enough to impair the bears’ vision and more than enough for the vamps to fight without having to worry about sunlight.
The bears entered the chamber and slowly spread out in search of the vampires’ crates or coffins. They were keeping close enough to each other to be able to fight as a team if necessary.
How many bloodsuckers were there? wondered Michael. The smell was strong but undefined, which suggested several young individuals. And where was the woman?
Michael realized they’d fallen into a trap a second before the vampires fell on them.
Chapter 71
The vampire’s patience was about to bear fruit. After days spent tailing Olivia, always from a distance, always hiding in the shadows, she was relieved to see the werewolf was finally alone. Olivia had gone back to her room two hours earlier and hadn’t come out since. The skinwalker was nowhere to be seen, which gave the vampire a perfect window of opportunity.
The moon was high in the dark, cloudless Yellowstone sky when the vampire carefully approached the building where all interns had their rooms. The small streets running through the park’s main living quarters were deserted this late in the evening. Yellowstone wasn’t famous for its night life, especially not outside the campgrounds.
She reached the building’s front door without meeting a soul and pushed down on the handle. The door was unlocked. These people were way too careless with their safety. There were dangerous individuals out there, people who wanted to hurt them. She knew all about that… The thought made her smile.
The vampire had already acquainted herself with the premises and knew exactly where she was going. She headed for the second-floor landing and reached Olivia’s door a moment later. She was about to turn the knob when the door opened, and Olivia appeared, wearing pajamas and holding a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste.
Before she had a chance to understand what was happening, the vampire put a hand on Olivia’s mouth and shoved her back inside the small room, shutting the door behind them with her foot.
Chapter 72
Michael and Sheila walked hand in hand along the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan, staring into the distance where sky and water met.
“Do you know anything about constellations?” asked Sheila, her head turned towards the big dipper.
“I know a couple,” he replied absently. He was still thinking about Kewanee. They’d spent the day trying to find a lead, but to no avail. Kewanee Bates wasn’t living in St Joseph. At least not under that name. They’d checked the databases of every administration Sheila could tap into and had followed all the obvious leads, but had come up with nothing.
“Maybe the best thing to do is to go back to Yellowstone and simply ask Kewanee who she really is,” said Sheila
“If she’s linked to the Fida’I one way or another, I doubt she’ll tell us. And that would tip them off that we’re on their trail.”
“Are you going to kill her?” Sheila sounded serious.
“I haven’t really thought about it. If she turns out to be one of the people who tried to hurt you, or one of those responsible for Stephanie’s and Lucy’s deaths, killing her won’t be much of a moral dilemma.”
“We’re still not sure she’s one of them?”
“No. Call it a gut feeling, but I actually doubt she is.”
“In that case, and assuming she’s somehow connected to that vampire of yours, that would mean the vampire and the Fida’I aren’t working together. Even though Lucy was killed by a vampire in a coordinated attack involving the vamps and the Fida’I.”
Michael knew all that, but a part of him refused to believe it. “Maybe my vampire—as you put it—isn’t tied to the vampires who attacked Lucy. After all, the last time I saw her she was in France, working for the Eastern Covenant. We know Lucy was attacked by the Western Covenant since it was Silvia’s men.”
“Fida’I, western vamps, eastern vamps, werewolves… my brain is starting to seriously hurt, Michael.”
“Mine too. But I still think there’s something about this town. If Kewanee wrote St Joseph as her address on her résumé, there’s got to be a reason.”
&n
bsp; “Maybe she wanted to attract your attention.”
“That’s a long shot. She had no way to know I’d even look at her résumé. It’s got to be something else.”
They reached their car and headed back to their hotel.
“St Joseph High School,” read Sheila aloud as they drove by a large brick building. “I wonder if we could search the yearbooks.”
“You mean for Kewanee’s picture?”
“Yes. She may no longer be living here, but she might have gone to school here.”
“That’s definitely worth a shot.”
Forty minutes later, the two of them were sitting on their hotel’s king-size bed staring at Sheila’s laptop screen.
“That’s her. She looks a bit younger there, but that’s definitely her.”
Michael agreed with Sheila’s assessment. They’d found the picture in the 2010 Senior Class’s yearbook. The name under Kewanee’s photo was Kewanee Johnson.
“What kind of a name is Kewanee?”
Michael thought about it for a minute. “That’s a Potawatomi name actually. It means prairie hen. I can’t believe it took me this long to realize it.”
“To realize what?”
“That she has Potawatomi blood.”
“I’m glad it makes sense to you because I still have no idea why that’s relevant.”
“Let’ see how many Johnsons live in town,” said Michael.
“Fine. While I search, you can tell me what you figured out.”
“Just that she’s definitely involved in all this. She’s the bear who attacked Olivia. And probably the one who killed that other wolf too.”
“Her name tells you that?”
“The fact she’s a Potawatomi tells me that. The Potawatomi from this region count a lot of bear shifters in their ranks.”
Chapter 73
The fear in Olivia’s eyes was quickly replaced by bewilderment at what she was seeing. The vampire cautiously removed her hand from Olivia’s mouth, ready to reapply it were she to start screaming.
“Lucy? But you’re dead? I scattered your ashes to the wind.” Olivia’s voice trembled with emotion, as tears started to flow on her cheeks.
“I know you scattered ashes, sis. I watched you doing it. But I assure you they weren’t mine. I’d have noticed something like that. You are correct, though; I am indeed deceased. I just happen to be less dead than people believed.”
Like a tidal wave, the realization of what Lucy was telling her washed away the happiness that had invaded Olivia a moment earlier. “You mean… you’re a vampire?”
“Yep. I’m pretty sure I’m a vampire. Although there’s one thing that doesn’t really fit—”
“But I saw you in the coffin,” interrupted Olivia whose brain still refused to accept what her eyes were seeing. She suddenly remembered there was still a chameleon at large and her bewilderment turned into suspicion. She walked to a shelf and grabbed the whistle Ezekiel had distributed to all employees: the whistle made of cold iron. “Look what Ez gave me,” she said, placing the metallic object in her sister’s hand.
“A whistle?” she asked with a confused look.
“OK, you’re not a chameleon.”
“I just told you I was a vampire. Do you really think people lie about something like this?”
“But how did you escape the oven at the crematory?”
“I was never in the oven, Olivia. Thanks to your choice of closed casket, I was never even at my funeral. I was waiting for you to come out on top of a hill a few hundred yards away.”
“But you were in the coffin at some point. I saw you.”
“Of course, I was. I woke up there in the middle of the night. The place was deserted, and I quickly understood where I was. The realization of what I had become came almost immediately too. It was as if I’d always been a vampire. Just weird. I knew people expected me to be dead, so I played the part. It’s pretty easy to do when you don’t need to breathe, have no pulse and your body temperature is the same as the room they put you in… I just escaped the coffin shortly before the service. At that point I was reasonably certain nobody would bother checking that the dead girl was still in it.”
“How did you know when the service was going to be?”
“People talked around me all the time, Olivia. It’s not because I play dead that I stop listening.”
Olivia suddenly became mad. “How could you do this to me, Lucy? I thought you were dead. I thought I was all alone. Why didn’t you tell me right away?”
“Why do you think? From the time I woke up a vampire, I knew I had to hide from everyone. Do you really believe Michael would gladly accept a vampire among his little group of misfits? I didn’t know much about your world, but I knew that vampires were the scum of it.”
“Still. You could have come and found me earlier. How many days have you been awake?”
“Eight days. And I tried talking to you ever since, but you were never alone. You spent all your time with Daka. And believe me when I tell you that Daka is the last person I want to bump into. You may not know that, but his kind and mine don’t really get along.”
Olivia took Lucy in her arms and squeezed her tight. “I’m so sorry, Lucy. I’m so sorry we failed you.” She was crying silently.
Lucy gently pushed her away. “Don’t take it the wrong way, sis, but I haven’t eaten in a couple of days and being this close to someone living is kind of difficult for me at the moment. If you weren’t my sister, I’m pretty sure I’d be sucking at your neck like a little piglet on his mummy’s tits right now.”
Olivia looked at her sister with what she hoped was compassion, but she wasn’t certain her disgust didn’t perspire through the veil.
“We’ll get you some help, Lucy. We’ll find a solution, maybe plasma bags from a blood bank.”
“Screw that!” said Lucy. “I want the real thing. I want to feel their body convulse against me as I suck them dry. That’s the high note of the whole meal.”
“Lucy! How can you say that? It’s horrible!” Olivia was no longer trying to hide her revulsion. “Wait a minute. Don’t tell me you’ve already fed that way. Don’t tell me you’re the one who killed that trucker a few nights ago.”
“Guilty as charged. And believe me when I say that he had it coming. The bastard tried to rape me. But it wasn’t at night. The pig tried to screw me in the middle of the day.”
“And the student whose car was found wrapped around a tree outside Bozeman? Did he try to rape you too?” asked Olivia, barely keeping her voice in check.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, sis. I only killed that one dude so far. But I am getting hungry…”
“So you didn’t kill the student? You swear?”
“Cross my heart swear to die,” she said solemnly. “Although I’m not sure it means as much when you’re already dead.”
Olivia took a deep breath. She was overwhelmed by the situation. What was she to do with Lucy? How could she help her? How would she hide her from Daka? Could she trust Michael with the secret? “Wait a minute,” she said suddenly. “You said you killed the trucker in the middle of the day? But vampire can’t—”
“That part surprises me too. I don’t know how or why, but I’m a daywalker. A good thing too. It’s impossible to find a shoe store open at night around here.”
Chapter 74
There were five families by the name of Johnson currently living in St Joseph. Michael and Sheila had already visited the first three on their list but didn’t have much to show for their efforts. The first family had been African American. The second door had opened on a quadragenarian man who’d never heard of Kewanee. The third door had remained closed—some people in St Joseph apparently still had jobs to go to during the day.
As they parked in front of the next address on their list Michael felt a sense of lassitude taking over. They’d driven around all morning and the lack of progress was starting to get to him. On the plus side, they hadn’t been attacked
by anyone or received any threat since they’d left Yellowstone. He was just hoping Olivia would be safe in his absence.
They stood in front of a small townhouse bordered on each side with identical-looking constructions. Sheila pressed the buzzer for the second time, but nobody was in a rush to come answer the door.
“There’s no one home.” The voice belonged to a middle-aged woman kneeling in a flower bed in the neighbors’ yard.
“Do you know when they’ll return?” asked Sheila.
“There’s no they. The boy lives alone now. The mother passed away a few weeks back.”
“What about Kewanee?” asked Michael.
“Haven’t seen the girl in a month. She left town shortly after her mother’s funeral.”
“I’m sorry to hear about Emily’s passing,” said Sheila. “I had no idea.” Emily was the name of the woman the house belonged to and even though Emily sounded as Potawatomi as Sheila sounded Chinese, it looked like they’d found the right Johnsons. “Maybe you can help us out? We’re journalists working on a story and we were hoping to talk about women like Kewanee in our article.”
This was a gamble, thought Michael, but Sheila had a lot of experience getting information out of strangers. The average civilian apparently didn’t mind talking to journalists. They enjoyed the attention.
“I might be able to help,” said the woman in a non-committal tone. “We’ve been neighbors on and off nearly fifteen years.”
“Great!” said Sheila enthusiastically. “Was Kewanee adopted? Emily Johnson doesn’t sound much like a Potawatomi name.”
“A what name?” asked the woman, getting to her feet and wiping her dirt-covered hands on her jeans.
“Potawatomi. That’s what Kewanee is, isn’t she?”
“I don’t know what kind of Indians they are. I never asked. But Emily was definitely the girl’s mother. The resemblance between the two was striking,” she said, pointing at one of the windows. Michael had missed it earlier, but a framed picture sat clearly visible on the other side of the glass pane. The frame had a black bow attached to it. It was of the type used to display the picture of the deceased at funeral services. He walked to the window and stared at the picture a long moment, only vaguely paying attention to the neighbor who was saying, “I think she changed her name when she moved to town. She couldn’t find a job then and she thought having a name like Emily would work, I guess.”