It Never Rhines but It Pours (7 page)

“And?” Cecily asked.

“You are a vampire,” Sarah was getting more obvious by the minute.

“And?” Cecily asked again.

“You are a
vampire.
” Sarah stressed the last word.

I held up a hand, “Don’t say ‘and’ again,” I begged. “We’ll be here all day.”

Cecily smoothed her skirt and smiled, “May I assume that you are referring to a certain old wives’ tale?”

“Yeah,” Sarah said. “Vampires can’t enter a church.”

“Why not?” Cecily asked.

This threw Sarah for a loop. “Because,” she explained eloquently.

“Because why?” Cecily was making a point.

“Because …” Sarah trailed off. “You don’t have a soul?” she asked embarrassed. This had to be the first time my little sister was worried about someone’s soul.

“Who says I don’t have a soul?” Cecily wanted to know.

“Everyone!” Sarah blurted out. “Everyone knows that vampires don’t have souls.”

“Just like everyone knows that vampires spontaneously combust in the sun?” said the vampire who was obviously not combusting in the bright sunlight. She looked bad, tired, haggard, drawn, but even on her worst day in the sun, Cecily was still pretty good looking. Not that I’m jealous or anything.

“Well,” Sarah was thinking. “Does that mean you can enter a church?”

“Yes,” Cecily smiled.

“Do you have a soul?”

“Sarah!” I chided, thinking that it was rather rude to ask someone if they were soulless or not.

“Well,” Sarah said stubbornly. “Do you?”

“Why wouldn’t I have a soul?”

Sarah crossed her arms and scowled, “Do I have to spell it out?”

“That might help. I’m not a telepath.”

“You are a vampire.”

“You already said that.”

“Why are you being difficult?” Sarah asked.

Cecily sighed. “I’m not trying to be difficult. I just really would like to know what your actual questions are before I start answering. I’ve been around a long time and what people think about vampires has changed over the years. What I’m trying to say is, I don’t know what framework you are operating under.”

“Oh,” that made sense to Sarah. “I always thought that vampires couldn’t go into sacred ground, because they were soulless and would burst into flame.”

“I’m not soulless.”

“But you’re dead, right?” I couldn’t stay out of the conversation. There were some things that I wanted to know as well.

“Yes. But not soulless.”

Sarah had a new thought, “Can a vampire be a Christian?”

“Yes,” was the surprising answer. “Why not?”

“Because,” Sarah was stumped. “I don’t know. You’re dead. Christians believe that when you die you go to heaven to be with Jesus. You died and didn’t go to heaven, therefore, not a Christian.”

Cecily shrugged. “Jesus himself told his disciples that there were ones among them who wouldn’t taste death until he returned.”

“Yeah?” I didn’t get the point.

“That was over two thousand years ago. Humans don’t live that long. Vampires do.”

“Oh, come on,” I was skeptical.

“When Jesus returns there will still be people living on the earth. I will be among them, if I make it that far. Why are they any different from me?”

“Because they’re not dead,” it seemed a big difference to me.

“Neither am I in the sense that you mean. When a human says ‘dead,’ they mean ‘not interacting with life.’ ‘Life’ means breathing, eating, talking, sleeping. In that sense of the word I am very much alive.”

I frowned. I would have to think about this some more. Cecily wasn’t finished. “And,” she grinned, “the Bible does say that ‘the dead in Christ will rise first.’ I take that to mean my vampire brethren.”

I had to laugh. I wonder what the Church would say to that argument. On one hand it seemed rather sacrilegious, but on the other … why not?

“So you can enter the church here?” Sarah was back to the beginning question.

“Yes, I can enter the church here without needing a fire extinguisher handy.”

I noticed that both Sarah and I stayed back from Cecily as she pushed through the double doors. I believed her; I just didn’t want to take any chances. If she was going to catch fire, I wanted to be far enough away that I didn’t get singed.

Chapter Seven:

Grief Counselors

Inside the church foyer, all was dim and cool. It looked very much like other churches I have been in. There was the mandatory table with a vase of flowers and a mirror hanging on the wall behind it. There was the table with church brochures, Bibles, hymnals,
etc.
There were a couple of chairs artistically arranged. The standard faux oriental carpet covered the tile. To one side of the room a sign read “Church/ School Office.” The door was closed and locked.

I had just stepped back from the locked door, when a woman entered behind us. She was short and plump, with heavy make-up, and big hair. “Can I help you?” she asked, a little out of breath from pushing open the front doors.

Sarah and Cecily looked at me. Dang it! I’d forgotten to speak to them about how I was
not
in charge. “We’re here regarding the recent deaths—” I didn’t get to finish.

“Oh, I know. Isn’t it horrible? We are all just so shaken up here about it!” She pulled out a heavy bunch of keys and opened the office door. “I’m Charlene, the church secretary. How can I help ya’ll?”

By this time I had thought of a reason for being there. “We are grief counselors,” I lied. “Do you know of any students close to the two victims? Best friends? Boyfriends, girlfriends? The closer the relationship the greater need there is for professional help in dealing with the many emotions that come from this sort of situation.” Huh? Did that even make sense?

Charlene didn’t have a problem with it, “That is so true,” she gushed. “I can get you a list of their friends right away. That is just wonderful that the state is sending out grief counselors! What rewarding work ya’ll must do!”

I hadn’t said anything about being from the State, but I wasn’t going to correct her. She bustled around to her desk and pushed the power button for her computer. Its fan whirred to life and we all waited as the operating system loaded.

“You know,” she chirped into the silence, “I think ya’ll might find some of the kids in the sanctuary right now. It plum slipped my mind, but they’ve been keepin’ a sort of
vigil
, with candles and whatnot. Pagan goin’s on, is what I said, but the pastor said that they were ‘working through their sorrow.’” She tutted to show what she thought of that. “You might talk to some of them whiles I print you up a list of students who were friends with Shane and Julie. Now you understand that
normally
our records are
completely
confidential. But, seeing as ya’ll are from the
State
and whatnot, I am happy to help out!”

Sarah gave a choked snort from behind me. I valiantly kept a straight face. If I said anything more she would probably think we were from the National Treasury and give us the contents of the offering box! I wondered if the school parents knew how “confidential” their records were being kept.

We excused ourselves, backed out of the office, and entered the sanctuary. I kept an eye on Cecily and tried to stay a few feet back from her. Like I said before, it’s not that I didn’t believe that she had a soul, I was just taking a few precautions. She observed this behavior and gave me a wry wink. I tried to pull an innocent face and, when that failed, ignored her and looked about the sanctuary.

It was a rather pretty church. The wood pews had red seat cushions which matched the stage carpet and the tall, stained-glass window behind the pulpit. Multiple, beautiful, hand-sewn banners with scripture verses hung on each wall. The stage was raised by five steps and each step was covered in flower arrangements. An easel stood on either side of the pulpit with a large framed photo - one of a boy, the other a girl. These must be the two students who were killed, Shane and Julie.

At first glance I had thought the place deserted, but as my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I saw four teenagers sitting on the second pew, two girls, and two boys. The girls were obviously crying; the boys looked grim. These must be the friends the secretary had told us about.

I looked over at Sarah in question. We needed to talk to these kids but I wasn’t sure what the best way to go about it was. The church secretary already thought that we were grief counselors so perhaps that was the best way to approach them. Far from having any great ideas, Sarah gave a shrug as if to say “It’s all up to you.” I really needed to have that talk with her and Cecily. This had to stop.

I walked quietly down the center aisle and cleared my throat. Four heads turned to look at me. “Hello,” I tried a sad smile. I was going for friendly understanding and empathy. Their faces didn’t change so I don’t know how effective it was. I started to introduce myself, realized that giving my real name might not be such a great idea, ran out of time in which to come up with an alias, and decided to just go with “I’m Piper.”

Still blank looks. One of the girls sniffed loudly and wiped at her eyes with a soggy tissue. I continued the introductions, “This is Cecily and Sarah. We’re grief counselors and we’d like to talk with ya’ll. Is that okay?”

I kept one eye on the ceiling waiting for lightning to strike me for lying in church. Nothing happened so I guess God understood that my intent was good.

The four teenagers looked at each other, each obviously waiting to gauge the response of the others before committing to a reaction. One of the girls finally spoke. She had black hair with lime green streaks, a nose ring, and heavy eye make-up smeared from crying.

“What do you want to talk to us about?” she asked a trifle belligerently.

I was guessing that she was the leader of the group. The rest of them seemed content to let her do the talking. “I understand that ya’ll were very close with Shane and Julie. We thought that it might help for you to be able to talk to someone about the emotions that you are going through. Also,” more lies here, “we work closely with the police department and you may have information that could help catch the murderer.”

One of the boys looked puzzled, “I thought it was Mr. Parker?”

“I’m sorry,” I was confused. “Did you know Mr. Parker?”

“Yes,” the other girl answered. “He was a guest lecturer at school.”

“What?” Cecily was surprised.

The second boy turned to her, “Yeah, he gave a couple lectures this year in our world religions class.”

“I thought this was a Christian school?” Sarah said.

“It is,” the first girl said. “But for World Religions we had a bunch of different speakers come in to talk about different religions. Mr. Parker spoke on Wicca.”

I traded looks with Cecily. Interesting. “Did he show a particular interest in Shane and Julie?” I asked.

“Not really,” the second boy said. “I mean, they were, like, really interested in the Wicca stuff and asked him a bunch of questions after class, but that was all.”

“Why did he kill them?” the first boy asked with a catch in his voice.

I sat down on the pew behind them and tried to look them each in the eye. They were all suffering and I wanted to do something to help them. “I don’t know why Shane and Julie are dead,” I confessed. “I know this is really hard for all of you.”

The leader girl angrily wiped at her mascara, “We should have been with them,” she said.

“What?”

The other girl spoke, “We were supposed to meet them that day, but…” she trailed off and looked guilty at one of the boys. “… we were busy.” I could guess what they were busy at.

“Shane said they had a great idea of some fun and did we want to come,” the first boy filled in.

“We thought we’d just catch up with them later,” his friend said lamely.

They all looked at me with stricken looks on their faces. I imagined that this was what survivors’ guilt looked like. They almost felt worse over still being alive than they did about losing their friends.

Cecily sat down on the pew next to me, the Sword of Justice clanging on the wooden back. “There was nothing you could have done,” she said calmly. Their faces lightened a little. They wanted to believe that so badly.

“If you had been there you would have died as well,” she continued. “There is little point in beating yourself up about not dying. Your time will come when it was planned. You were not meant to die that day.”

Sarah cleared her throat. “I know the police believe that Richard Parker was the murderer, but is there any chance that someone else might have been responsible?”

The four kids looked at her strangely. “He was a witch,” one explained.

“He worshiped Satan.”

“He told us about other rituals he had been involved in.”

“The police found DNA evidence.”

“Who else could have done it?” They finished and waited for her to respond to their logic.

Sarah looked helplessly at me, “I don’t know,” she shrugged, “I’m just asking if Shane and Julie ever mentioned anyone else that might have wanted them dead.”