CHAPTER 6.
In the morning, Terrill
looked up Howe in the phone book. None were listed. He went to the
motel lobby and logged on to the computer there. That was a little more
helpful, but when he called the Howe(s) listed, none recognized the names Jamie
Lee.
Had she written a false name
after all? No, he was certain from the familiar way she wrote, the way
she had hesitated in the middle and then shrugged as if catching herself in the
mistake, that she had written her real name.
He put in the first names,
Jamie Lee and added Bend, Oregon. Up popped, Jamie Lee Hardaway, Bend
High School, Class of 2010. He looked up Hardaway, and there was
only one family listed. He called the number and asked for Jamie and an
older man answered with a whisky and cigarette smoking voice, "She isn't
here. Can I take a message?"
He hung up. They
hadn't heard yet. He was going to have to wait. It wasn't something
he thought he should be the one to do -- "Hello. Your daughter
is dead. I killed her."
Which just brought out how
insane this was.
What did he think he was
going to accomplish? Was he just curious? Or did he want to make
amends? How could he make up for what he'd done? Did he want
forgiveness? Could he confess and still escape? What good would it
do?
He didn't know. But he
had to try.
"Do you have
family? I mean, of course you have family -- but do you keep in touch?"
"My family is all
gone." His tone didn't invite further discussion, but the endearing thing
about this girl is that she overrode such considerations. She went right
for the emotional heart of things. Terrill found himself responding to
her candidness, despite himself.
"I'm sorry,"
Jamie said. "I've got a really complicated family. My Mom's
been married five times. My last name is my father's, who was her fourth
husband. I have four stepsisters and six stepbrothers. I grew up
with too much family, too far away. My little sister from Mom's last
marriage and I are close, though."
Terrill didn't answer at
first, though her silence was inviting a response. He barely
remembered his real family, peasants who had kicked him out when he was twelve
to make his own way in the world. If he had ever had a family, they were the
vampires who had created him, who had taught him the ways so that he
wouldn't be found out the first time he fed. Who had protected him
and traveled with him. Not out of the goodness of their hearts, but
because they had learned that a clan of vampires survived better than a vampire
who was alone.
Still, he'd come to know
them. To -- if not love them, at least to become familiar with their
ways.
Either way, the answer
was the same. They were all dead.
Except for one. One
who was -- his brother. Yes, 'brother’ was probably the best way to
describe Horsham. A brother -- and a mortal enemy. Mortal for one
of them if ever they should meet again. Terrill didn't want that.
He'd flown rather than kill his 'brother.'
Horsham was still out
there. Still hunting for him. There had been those hired humans
over the years who had tracked Terrill down, and even though he had fed on them
before they could report his whereabouts, it was confirmation that Horsham had
not forgotten or forgiven.
"I have a
brother. But we are estranged.”
"Don't give
up!" she exclaimed. "If he's still alive, you ought to get back
together. Really!"
"I don't think he'd
like that."
"But you don't know
that, for sure. How long has it been?"
"Years and years,"
he answered. Fifty-three years to be exact.
"See? Maybe
things have changed."
She cuddled up to him,
ran her fingers across his chest, and then down his body.
"Again?" he muttered.
"Yes, please,"
she said, kissing his neck.
This girl was an earth
mother, he thought. Nurturing, loving. What was she doing here? Why
was she with a stranger? What was her real story?
Maybe he should try to
contact Horsham. Try to make peace.
Even as he thought it,
even as he fell into Jamie's arms, he knew that girl's spell was an illusion,
that such a thought would never stand the light of day. That it would
burst into flame when exposed to sunlight just as surely as his own body
would.
He wished he had her
naivety again. Her innocence. But he was too old by centuries to
fall for such foolishness.
Such a beautiful
girl. She needed to go home to her family. He would make sure of
it, he decided. In the morning, he would give her enough money to go home
and choose a different lifestyle. Such a pure spirit must not be
smothered by the sins of the big city.
Those were his last
thoughts before falling asleep.
Before waking up to an
empty mirror and that terrible, deadly hunger.
He waited until nightfall
before venturing out and reached the bank by 5:45. He made sure that his
accounts were at a bank that was open until 6:00 everyday, though he did most
of his banking online. At the bank, he withdrew five hundred thousand
dollars in a cashier's check, causing a bit of stir. The manager tried to act like it was all in a
day’s business, but the young clerks stared at him with interest.
It couldn’t be helped.
Terrill had all the money he
could ever need. Horsham had a saying, "Compound interest is a
vampire's best friend." Amazing how much money he'd accrued over the
last few centuries.
He walked one block over and
opened another account, (again getting curious glances) and asked for some
blank checks. He found a printer still open, and had the name
"Prestigious Insurance" printed on top of the blank checks.
Then he went back to his motel and ordered a delivery from the butcher shop.
Out of curiosity, he called
the Hardaway number again. He got a busy signal. An hour later it
was still busy, and from that he deduced that Jamie's death had been reported
and the Hardaway's were busy dealing with the consequences.
He tried to stay in the
motel, but he wasn't the slightest bit sleepy. T.V. was all sitcoms and
reality shows and they bored him. He hadn't thought to bring a
book.
At about midnight, he
ventured out, on foot.
There was a public park,
Pioneer Park, along the Deschutes River, a few blocks from the motel. It
wasn't lit, except by the lights over the bridge on one side.
Despite the cold, there was
a couple making love under some blankets down by the riverside. No one
could have seen them, though they might have heard the soft exclamations.
Terrill could see them
clearly. The night was lit up for him more than daylight was for
humans. He could see every blade of grass, every goose turd that littered
the park, the individual hairs on the heads of the lovers. He could see
under their skins, to the blood beneath, running like the branches of a tree,
flowing to ever-smaller capillaries.
The blood called to
him. They couldn't see him or hear him, he knew. He was for all
intents and purposes invisible to the human eye. He was a ghost, a
monster of the dark -- a vampire. He stood over them and watched their
slow movements become frenzied, their blood engorged.
Once he would've waited for
the climax and then have fallen upon them and ripped them to small pieces,
consuming their blood, their flesh. And then, as casually as a diner
throwing his meal away, he would have tossed the bloody bones into the river.
He walked away.
He found himself back at the
motel without consciously thinking of it. He lay on the bed, staring into
the bright darkness.
Before, he could always
rationalize killing humans who he decided deserved to die. Then Mary had come along and changed
him. Now another woman had entered his
life for a short time, and again, he had killed without wanting to.
He would never kill again,
no matter what.
Not now.
Not after Jamie. She
hadn't deserved it -- she was the last person who deserved it, but because of
that, because of her goodness, he was done killing, forever.
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