Carol Shenold - Tali Cates 02 - Bloody Murder (9 page)

Sean hung his head but I wasn’t sure I’d convinced him of anything. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll invite Aiden for dinner tonight between the Duchess and Queen contests, and you can see he’s a regular person. In the meantime, I don’t want to hear any more about this stuff, or hear that you and Rusty have been gossiping.”

“Okay. I see what you mean. But look at this book. It’s old and it was written by some professor, and he really believes in vampires. He has proof and everything.”

Sean opened the book and sneezed at the dust that flew up when he turned more pages. “See this paragraph, where he describes the beast and this map? This field he talks about is right next door. He knew what he was talking about. And he talks about how they got rid of it by pouring holy water all over the place and concentrating the ground and everything.”

“The word is ‘consecrating,’ and to be holy ground, I’m pretty sure a church has to exist on the land. Sprinkling a little water won’t quite do it, but I’m not an expert. Let me see the book.”

He handed it over and sure enough the book looked old, and there was a county map that could have indicated our property. But I couldn’t find a publication date or the name of a publishing company. The author could have published it himself for all I knew. The flowery language sounded like something out of the eighteen hundreds, similar to the style Bram Stoker used in
Dracula
.
Maybe the author had thought he was a vampire hunter.

All I could think about was that a witch-hunt could begin if rumors started. I’d like to think that in this day and age, no one would take it seriously, but stranger things had happened.

“Sean, I don’t want you to be the one starting rumors. Take this book back to the library. And you’ll see when Aiden comes over tonight, he’s no monster, has no missing reflection, he’s just our next-door neighbor.”

Sean looked doubtful but took the book and went to his room after he snitched half of my sandwich.

How did my son become so gullible he actually believed in vampires? Where had I gone so wrong? I’d watched horror movies as a kid, Bela Lugosi in
Dracula
, Lon Chaney Jr. as a werewolf, and Boris Karloff as Frankenstein. I didn’t ever remember thinking the monsters were anything other than movie creations. Maybe seeing the ghost this summer and hearing Mumsie talk about her spirit guides has had more of an effect on him than I’d hoped.

How could I counter that? We all saw Mag the Ghost, as much as I’d like to forget seeing her hovering over her own body in the outhouse last summer. Still, would the existence of ghosts really progress straight to believing vampires lived next door? If so, you’d have to believe in werewolves, witches, and all kinds of things. I know Mumsie and I had gifts but it was not magic. It wasn’t as if we did spells or charms or anything.

I did remember Mumsie wanting to put around bowls of saltwater to collect negative energy, but that wasn’t really witchcraft now, was it? Was it? I stood up to put my plate in the sink. I could drive myself nuts thinking in circles. I was going to be as bad as Sean and Mumsie combined.

Mumsie walked in and started rummaging around in the fridge. “Any more tea left? I think I want some with a chicken sandwich.”

I stared at her with my mouth open.

“What? What’s wrong with you, girl? Trying to catch flies?”

I closed my mouth, handed her the pitcher of tea, and filled her in on my conversation with Sean.

“He’s having questions, earlier than you did.”

“What do you mean? I never believed in vampires and stuff, never thought they were real.”

She stopped fixing her sandwich and turned to look at me. “You don’t remember?”

“Remember what?”

“When you were convinced a werewolf lived in the field that’s now the football field.”

“You’re kidding, right? I don’t ever remember thinking the movie monsters were real.”

“This was before you were allowed to watch any of those movies. Every time the moon was full, you swore you saw a man turn into a wolf. Of course, your dad convinced you there was no such thing. He most certainly didn’t want you to be afraid to go out and play. He never really believed in the unseen. That’s why I kept my gifts to myself a lot of the time. He would never have forbidden me to use them, but it would have been like a parent indulging a child’s fantasy. Given the fact Sean has seen a ghost more than once, I’m not surprised he believes in other things as well.”

I took a bite of my sandwich. “I really don’t want him going around with Rusty and starting rumors about the neighbors. This is a small town, there’s no telling how much he could damage someone’s reputation with gossip. Remember that idiot preacher?”

“The one who came to the door and told me I was going to hell for having tarot cards?”

“I missed that one but it’s a good instance of the mentality I mean. I don’t want anyone else going through what we have. I don’t want to come home and see
vampire
scrawled across Aiden’s house.”

“Oh, and it’s
Aiden
now, is it?”

“Mumsie, you sound like that Irish woman in
Music Man
who was so anxious to see her librarian daughter find a boyfriend. Yes, it’s Aiden. We went out after the contest, no big deal. Oh, I did tell the boys I’d invite him for dinner to prove to them he isn’t a vampire.”

She took a big drink of her raspberry tea. “Do you think that’s wise? I mean, if you really like the guy, do you want to expose him to Sean and Rusty at the same time, not to mention me and possibly Cass? Nothing like driving him off before you even know him.”

I raised an eyebrow, a feat I learned from imitating Maureen O’Hara in
The Quiet Man
. “It doesn’t bother you at all that the boys think he’s a vampire? I mean, Sean was talking about stabbing Aiden as if breaking into someone’s house and killing them was an accepted activity.”

“It has been a while since you’ve had a decent boyfriend and if this Aiden fits the bill, more power. Besides, the vampires around here have never given humans much trouble. They’ve always been the kind who work hard at blending in, feeding on animals, etc.”

“Eew. You mean an undead boyfriend is better than no boyfriend, and you really believe dead-man-walking is not an expression? I can’t believe I’m hearing this right.”

“Tali, I’ve told you more than once that Love is a power center, with multiple ley lines that attract the–shall we say—out-of-the-ordinary elements in society. That means it would not be completely unexpected to see ghosts or other unusual residents in our town. And you may be more sensitive to their presence than some people.

“Vampires, like any other magical creature, would be drawn to the well of magic in this area. In fact, there was one fairly famous vampire who lived here many years ago, before we moved here. We do need to tell Sean that vampires are not easy to kill, and when it comes to killing, you have to make certain they’re really evil and get permission from the area seethe or their queen, if possible, to avoid recrimination.”

“If the vampire is undead, how can he live here? You are no better than your grandson. No wonder Sean has these ideas. Queens and seethes, and good or evil vampires. I give up on trying to be the voice of reason. I’m getting dressed and putting all of this nonsense out of my head until later.”

“Better go easy on the garlic,” Mumsie said with a grin.

I stood up to throw dishes in the sink. “Very funny. Ha-ha. Such a comedienne you are.”

I stopped and turned around. “Have you been listening to yourself, us? We’re talking about fairy tales as if they are real. Magic and ley line and vampires, oh my.”

Mumsie’s expression grew dark. “What are you trying to say, Tali Cates? Do you realize how close you are inching to making me angry?”

“I’m saying we sound like idiots. I can’t believe we’re having a serious conversation about this.”

Mumsie pushed back her chair. “And you sound like your ex. I swear I taught you to keep an open mind.”

“Open, sure. Leaking gray matter, no. I have more pressing things to worry about, like who to get for an emcee now that Ray hurt his ankle.” I told her what had happened, asked her to fill in, and she started laughing uncontrollably.

I laughed halfheartedly along with her in spite of being irritated by her attitude. “What?”

“This year’s contest is one long succession of disasters and now you want me to be an emcee? Sounds like a dangerous job to me. I think you’re trying to get rid of your old Mum.”

“I promise I’m not. I really need your help. I can’t help it if people are dropping like flies.”

“I don’t think so. I’m dancing with the Lone Star Cloggers at both contests. Besides, you don’t want me to corrupt the kids with my
fairy tales.
You’ll have to take care of it yourself and leave me to my little fantasies, won’t you?
”

Chapter Nine

The Love County Library occupied a Victorian home on Main right before you reached the fairgrounds, between the funeral home and a gas station. High ceilings, wood floors, spiral ladders in the corners turned the room into the stage-set for a library out of the early nineteen hundreds. It was one of my favorite places in town. It had a fireplace, which was dangerous with books but on a rainy afternoon you could curl up in a chair, watch the fire, read poetry, and forget the real world.

I’d found out the library wasn’t as outdated as it looked when I did research on divorce and custody law when I first came back. Although the library was computerized long ago, they still maintained an old-fashioned card catalogue.

Marion Dial—we really did have a Marion the librarian in our town— had run the library as long as I could remember. She could have worked anywhere she wanted with her skills but she loved this town. Her age was impossible to tell. A mature fifty or well-preserved eighty, no one knew for sure. She wore her dark hair in a bun at the nape of her neck, so thick you knew if she took it down it would hang all the way to her shapely waist. She had to be six feet tall, intimidating except for the sunny smile with which she greeted everyone. Her carefully applied makeup and smooth complexion defied age.

“Marion, I’m so glad you’re here.” I put the vampire book on the oak desk she stood behind. “This book is making Sean think vampires live next door. I’d rather he didn’t check it out again.”

She raised her well-defined eyebrows. “It would be difficult for a book to do that all by itself. I assume he read it already.”

“I’m sure he did, at least, part of it.”

“Then censoring his reading choices now will not change things. A child with an open mind is not bad. I’d hate to see you damage his quest for knowledge.”

I squirmed under her direct gaze. She made me feel like I was advocating book-burning or something. Maybe she and Mumsie were right and I was being way too narrow, but I didn’t want Sean to channel his anger about his dad leaving into something as foolish as looking for vampires.

It was one thing to believe in ghosts—we’d seen one—but mythical creatures made up by fiction writers was a different thing altogether.

“Look, Marion. I’m not trying to take away his reading options, but I don’t want his head filled with gibberish either. This trash leads to the movie and TV garbage with high body counts after a bloodbath. I don’t want him thinking
From Dusk Till Dawn
or
Kill Bill
are examples of rational lifestyle choices.”

“Tali, the history of a local legend is not likely to spawn a bloodbath by a young boy. You’re worrying too much. Even with Love’s reputation for dark practitioners, we are a quiet town for the most part. Sean’s not in danger. I would keep an eye on the girls in that little contest of yours though. Now, if I’m going to watch my niece perform, I’d better get off my chair and close down. Good luck and be careful. Please don’t forget to turn out the lights and lock the door when you leave.”

Before I could ask her what she meant, Marion was gone. Let’s be cryptic, shall we? Everyone talks in riddles. Be careful of what?
Watch the girls
? Yeah, it’s a contest, I’ll watch. What would I be looking for?

Heaving a big sigh, I went to the computer to log in. The library search engines were faster than my dialup. I did a search for Aiden Courtland. If I could find something specific on the family, maybe I could convince the kids how nuts the vampire theory was.

The search pulled up information containing the first name, or the last name but not anything helpful other than a reference to an article in the
Dallas Morning News
on September 30, 1930. I looked that up and couldn’t believe what I read. It was Klan Day at the State Fair of Texas.

Klan Day? I thought the Klan was a secret organization, but none of the people in the picture looked too secret, wearing their robes and carrying their hoods.

One of them was the spitting image of Aiden, which was ridiculous since Aiden was obviously not a hundred years old. In the picture, the Aiden look-a-like was handing a check for several thousand dollars to the founders of a local, nationally known home for children and wayward girls. Behind them, ranks of Klan members stretched back like an army. The caption of the picture insisted, “The Klan supports the community and assures everyone the river bottoms should be free of hangings or beatings tonight.”

My God, they admitted it, brazenly running around without any attempt to hide their identity. I couldn’t comprehend what it had been like to live like that, especially for all the groups the Klan were known to target: Catholics, Jews, blacks and anyone else who didn’t agree with their philosophy. I had to show Aiden. I printed a copy of the robed Aiden.

I looked at the library clock. I had a few more minutes. After printing the picture of Aiden’s Klan relative, I did a quick impulsive internet search for Lyn Peacock. I couldn’t have told you why. I didn’t get many results except for a supposed coven of witches going back several decades up in the Texas panhandle. Since Lyn came from Houston, that wasn’t a likely connection. I clicked on start to print the witch page before I closed down.