Death of an Immortal (15 page)

When she turned around again, Richard was already opening the front door and nearly running down the sidewalk to his police car.

Good. Whatever it was that had scared him away, she hoped it was permanent.

Chapter 23

All afternoon, Jamie watched her little sister lying in her bed. Her vivacious, wonderful, funny sister looked defeated, staring up at the ceiling with sightless eyes.

Jamie had learned that as long as she stayed out of the light, people couldn’t see her. In just the last night, making her way across the mountains in the back of a truck, she’d already learned a lot about her new condition.

She wanted to open the window and give Sylvie a hug. Tell her everything was all right.

But everything wasn’t all right. Even through the glass, it was as if Jamie could see the red blood coursing through her dear sister’s neck. Since she’d awakened to this new, strange existence, the hunger hadn’t left her.

#

Jamie had woken up in a cold metal box. She sensed it was dark, and yet she could see every contour of her prison. There was stainless steel on all sides, smelling of death.

Why she didn’t panic was a mystery. She’d always been a little claustrophobic while she was alive, preferring to take stairs rather than elevators whenever she could. But she lay there and thought about her situation with a logic she had never before possessed. Instead of darkness and enclosed spaces scaring her, she realized they were her friends.

She was dead. It was knowledge that she’d been “born” with, just as she knew instinctively that it had turned dark outside. She sensed she was surrounded by the dead, in their own cold containers, but unlike her, they weren’t reanimated.

The nice client had said “I’m a vampire,” and she had laughed.

She remembered the last thing she’d seen as a mortal: a man transforming into something else, something bestial and frightening. She hadn’t had long to think about it, he had drained her so quickly and efficiently.

Yet––strangely, because she must have already been dead––she remembered him standing over her, looking human and horrified, laying her out gently and crossing her arms over her chest, and saying over and over again, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry…”

“I’m a vampire,” she said out loud, and in the little space, it sounded very loud and very ludicrous. But there was no denying it.

How long she lay there, she never knew. She waited patiently, remembering her past life as if it had happened to someone else. She was aware that she was getting hungry, and that her hunger looked red––red as blood.

In some ways, it was as if she hadn’t changed. She still had the same thoughts, the same memories. But they somehow took on different meanings. Everything felt different.

She’d always been a little naive. She laughed to herself at the thought. She’d ended up dead because she’d trusted the wrong man. It had always only been a matter of time before she trusted the wrong man.

But was the wrong man the vampire who had bitten her? In all fairness, he had warned her, though he couldn’t have expected that she would believe him. But what had really put her in that motel room that fateful night?

Officer Richard Carlan, the bastard. It was funny that she’d ever had mixed feelings about him, that she could ever have thought there was a bond between them. Now that she was no longer human, she could understand human motivations better than she ever could before. She saw through the pretenses, the defenses, the masks and the lies.

As she lay in that stainless steel drawer, she decided that she’d go back to Bend, track down Richard, and settle the score. She understood that the old Jamie would have been horrified by the thought of revenge, but the new Jamie knew it was exactly right for her.

She heard a couple of voices through the metal walls, and the sound of approaching footsteps. She got ready to jump out.

That’s when she first felt the transformation of her fangs extruding, her face protruding outward as if in search of blood, her hands turning into claws with which to grasp her prey. Even from a few feet away, even through the barrier of steel, she could sense the living flesh approaching.

The drawer started to open. The light stabbed into her eyes and she nearly cried out. She closed them for a moment, and when she opened again, they had adjusted to the new ambiance. She was ready to feed.

But something drew the two men away. Their voices receded.

The drawer remained ajar. Jamie reached up and pulled against the opening, rolling the drawer all the way out. She jumped down onto the cold tiles. She felt a little weak, but not too bad.
Not too bad at all, considering I’m dead.

She was naked. There were some lab coats hanging from hooks near the door, and she grabbed one and headed out of the room.

She had to get out of this place, preferably without running into anyone. It was late at night, and the lights were dimmed in the hallways, the rooms black. She made her way out of the hospital, flitting from darkness to darkness.

Once, hearing someone approach, she slipped into a dark room, and a nurse stuck her head in the door, looking around but somehow not seeing Jamie. The nurse closed the door and walked away. Jamie continued on, feeling invisible.

As soon as she got outside, everything was easier. There was more darkness to exploit, and it seemed easy to avoid humans. For one thing, her hunger warned her of the approach of any living thing.

She needed to feed. She understood that. But something told her that her first feeding was important. She decided that Richard Carlan deserved that honor.

She spent the next day in the back of a semi, hiding in the corner when the driver checked his cargo.

When the truck stopped for gas in Bend, she jumped out and ran into the woods nearby.

The stealth, the danger, was exciting. Later that night, she broke into a local thrift shop and got dressed, choosing dark clothing to match her mood.

Until then, the closest she’d gotten to a human was the two morgue attendants and the nurse in the hospital. Outside the thrift store, she’d turned a corner, and for once her instincts had failed her. There was an old man, a homeless guy, a few feet away, staring at her in alarm.

Jamie was on him before she had time to think, her fangs sinking into his neck as he let out a forlorn cry. It was a resigned cry, as if the man had always known he’d end in a bad way. She tried to pull away once she had gotten a taste, but found she couldn’t stop until the man was drained.

She discarded him with disgust.
So much for Richard Carlan being my first meal,
she thought.
So much for it being important.
The old man tasted foul––he’d been dying already. She crouched over him, lifted one of his arms, and started to eat it.

It felt natural.
I should feel guilty
, she thought.
I should be repulsed.
But the rules had changed. Her old values were for humans. She was vampire, and that was something completely different. She ate a few more parts of the old man, but left the rest, even though she was still hungry. Better to find some healthy flesh next time.

Jamie got up, went back into the thrift store, washed up in the bathroom, and picked out a new wardrobe. There was $20 in the cash drawer, and she took that, too.

From there, she made her way back to her old home.

#

Mom and Howard were in the kitchen. Jamie climbed up on the roof, unafraid. Nothing seemed to scare her anymore except light, and she was beginning to understand that artificial light was only dangerous in that it revealed her presence. The fear of bright light was simply an old vampiric instinct that had yet to adjust to modern times.

She could fall off the roof and break her neck, and it wouldn’t matter. She would immediately heal, as long as there was blood to drink and flesh to eat.

She watched her sister, who lay unmoving. Watched as Sylvie took off her crucifix and then put it back on. Watched as she reached into the nightstand and pulled out a purple book.

So that’s where her diary had gone! Jamie had wanted to take it with her. What had she written? How much had she revealed? She couldn’t remember.

Poor Sylvie.
Inside her vampire heart, it seemed to Jamie that she still felt love for her sister. But it wasn’t as strong as it had once been, and it was fading with every minute that passed. All her old feelings were fading. Soon, she sensed, she would be giving very little thought to her old life.

But for now, she wished she could comfort her sister. As Sylvie lay on the bed, it seemed to Jamie that she could see the red blood in her sister’s veins throb and pulse outward, bending Jamie’s willpower in a direction she didn’t want to go. Love was fighting with hunger.

It was probably a good thing that Howard showed up at Sylvie’s bedroom door. Her sister finally got up off the bed, looking as though she didn’t care about her appearance. Sylvie had always been a little vain––it was her only apparent vice. Now, even that was gone. Sylvie left the room.

Jamie climbed down the tree to the back porch and stared through the screen door.

The visitor was Richard Carlan, she saw, and though Jamie couldn’t hear the words, she knew that the bastard was trying to impress Sylvie. Her sister, to her credit, was obviously not buying it.

Jamie moved back into the darkness and removed her clothes. She went back to the screen door, and this time, she stood within the reach of the light. She stood there, stock-still, her eyes boring into Richard, willing him to look her way.

When he finally looked up, he staggered as if struck and turned perfectly white.

Jamie raised one hand and beckoned to him. Then, with vampiric speed, she moved back into the shadows as her sister began to turn around.

As she got dressed, she felt pleased with herself. She could have gone after Richard. It wouldn’t have taken much. She knew that she was faster and stronger than he was, that she could be on top of him long before he reached his car.

But she had plenty of time for revenge.

All the time in the world.

Chapter 24

The RV was starting to reek, even to Horsham. He’d enjoyed his little nostalgic foray into his primitive past; it had brought back memories of his savage feedings before Terrill had found him and taught him how to behave. Pretty soon it would be time to move on.

He’d enjoyed sitting there, listening to the police scanner, letting the cops roust his prey into the open. Despite their excitement, the police were overconfident about catching Terrill, unless the old vampire had lost all his skills.

Even Horsham would have a hard time tracking him down if he didn’t want to be seen.

No, better to lie in wait, somewhere Terrill was likely to turn up. Unless he was mistaken, that would be the home of his last victim’s family. Terrill would be trying to make amends, to apologize. In his weakness, he would break every Rule of Vampire.

Horsham had watched the dead girl’s house for the past two nights, but had either just missed Terrill or the other vampire hadn’t shown up yet. Horsham would give it another couple of nights before he tried something different.

As he got ready to leave the RV, one of the corpses belched gas, and Horsham wrinkled his nose in disgust.

There was a reason he had lived in such luxury over the last few centuries, after all. He’d begun to enjoy it.

No, he decided, it was time to leave now. He’d abandon the motor home where it was and book a room somewhere, take a long, scented bath, have a glass of wine.

There were no witnesses. He’d taken care of that.

He packed a bag, unhooking the police scanner and shoving it among the underwear and socks. He grabbed his laptop and left, locking the door behind him. As he walked away, he left a little ghost town of RVs of all shapes, sizes and ages.

All of them empty of life.

#

Horsham walked to the nearest decent-looking motel. He didn’t have to go far: the corporate chains lined the highway near the Walmart. He booked a room, dropped his computer, scanner, and single suitcase onto the bed and left.

He decided to walk to his stakeout (he hated that word), assuming that Terrill was unlikely to show up until full dark.

Twice, cops slowed down to look at him. He wasn’t trying to hide. No doubt he looked a little like Terrill, though he appeared older and was several inches taller. He smiled at the cops and they sped off.

He became stealthier as he approached the Hardaways’ neighborhood. Terrill could show up at any time, and he’d instantly spot anything out of the ordinary. Horsham discovered a little vacant lot behind the home’s backyard; he could see pretty much everything he needed to see from there.

He sat down on a flat rock and became still. To any mortal creature, he was all but invisible.

The female vampire walked right by him, which no self-respecting vampire would have done.

How delightful!
Horsham thought.
A baby vampire!
He hadn’t observed one of those in years. They usually didn’t last long. While they were born with the knowledge of how to be a vampire, they weren’t born with the self-control needed in this age, when humans overflowed every available corner of the world and were possessed of high-tech imagery devices and weapons.

He watched her clumsily climb a tree, then clamber onto the roof of the home’s first story and peer into a second-story window.

It was that girl from Portland, Jamie Lee Howe: a one-in-a-thousand unintentional vampire. Did Terrill know she’d Turned? That he was a Maker? Unlikely, even though he’d left a pristine corpse. It was such a rare occurrence, it had probably never occurred to him. It certainly hadn’t occurred to Horsham.

The girl had to be starving. When Horsham had first Turned, he couldn’t stop feeding for days. He’d taken so many victims that the entire town was searching for him when Terrill came along and saved his ass. Just the proximity of live flesh had triggered his feeding frenzy, yet here this new vampire was, mere feet away from a human, and she was holding back.