The Vampire Evolution Trilogy (Book 1): Death of an Immortal:

by Duncan McGeary

  It would be his end. At last. As it should be.

  Even now, he could have leaped upon the police officers; with their necks exposed, it would be a simple thing to bring them down. Then all the bullets and blows they could inflict on him would come to nothing. He’d kill and kill, and feed, and stay in the basement until nightfall.

  But he let the cops lift him to his feet and push him toward the door.

  Perry and Grime were on the floor also. He heard Grime clearly. “NO!” the man was shouting. “You’ll kill him! He’s a vampire!”

  Even if the cops had understood his mangled words, they wouldn’t have believed him. They would have laughed.

  Perry was the least shocked. He’d already understood the implications––and he’d already understood Terrill’s decision to do nothing. He nodded to Terrill, as if wishing him well and saying goodbye.

  One cop seemed particularly happy to see him. “I got you, you bastard. Me… Richard Carlan. You hear that, Jamie?” he shouted. He was looking toward the sky. “I got him for you!”

  The cops hauled Terrill to the stairs. They stood in the shadow of the stairwell while a police car was brought around, and it gave Terrill a few more moments of existence. A few moments seemed so important, after an almost eternal life. Years had passed that he valued less than those moments.

  But this was good. He should have given up years ago. He’d reveled in the vampire life for centuries, but after Mary, it had all seemed pointless. Perhaps his change in attitude had come with age. Michael the Maker had seemed equally conflicted, though Terrill hadn’t understood it at the time.

  Perhaps the day had come when Michael, too, had decided he wouldn’t kill to save himself. Perhaps somewhere in a distant, unnoticed, superstitious hamlet in Europe, he had met his end. Unnoticed. Unmourned. Just like Terrill would be.

  “I forgive you, Terrill,” he heard Sylvie call out, and it was as if a benediction had been bestowed. He turned his eyes to the light, and he wasn’t afraid.

  They walked him up the steps, and the first tingling of sunlight landed on his head, pushing down into his hair. Get it over with! he thought. He turned his face to the sun.

  It was painful, as if his skin was being stripped away. He was blinded. His hearing narrowed to the sound of his labored breathing.

  But a minute passed, and then another. He didn’t burst into flame, and the pain was starting to recede.

  “Jesus, look at this guy!” one of the cops said. “That’s the worst sunburn I’ve ever seen.”

  “Oh, yes. The bum’s life,” one of the others said, laughing. “All sunshine and roses.”

  Terrill stopped thinking about them. He was breathing the daytime air, and it smelled different; he was looking at his surroundings in daylight, feeling the sun on his skin, for the first time since he’d been Turned. It was all different. There was a kind of dull glow, a softening and suffusing of everything around him. The hardened cops seemed like friends, the bright sky like Heaven.

  Terrill felt the pain of the handcuffs, the hard metal biting into his flesh. It didn’t heal; it wouldn’t heal except with time.

  And then it hit him. If one of the cops pulled out a gun and shot him in the heart, he’d die.

  He was human. Mortal. God had forgiven him.

  His eyes filled with tears, and his human blood and human flesh were flooded with joy.

  It was a fair trade: God’s grace for mortality.

  He laughed.

  The two cops on either side of him looked at each other in disbelief. Then one of them punched Terrill in the stomach.

  “It ain’t funny, you murdering creep.”

  #

  It was everything Carlan had envisioned. His fellow cops lined the hallway and filled the squad room, clapping and cheering. The only scowling face was that of Brosterhouse, the big hulk in the corner. Even that felt good.

  The prisoner was strangely passive. He looked blissed-out or something. Maybe he was on drugs. He was a coward, that was for certain. He hadn’t put up the slightest resistance.

  The only thing missing from his triumph was Sylvie.

  The two bums had been arrested on suspicion of aiding and abetting a fugitive, but he’d convinced the other cops to let Sylvie go. “She was here on a mission of mercy,” he’d said. “She’s got nothing to do with it.”

  Not that Sylvie had seemed very grateful. She wouldn’t look at him. Instead, her eyes had followed the prisoner. The man who had murdered her sister.

  Carlan shook his head. It was some religious impulse, he supposed. He couldn’t understand it. He was having second and third thoughts about Sylvie. She was a little too strange. Jamie had seemed grounded in comparison.

  Hey, with this triumph, he’d be set for dates for the next year or two. There were some good-looking lady cops who were looking at him pretty admiringly right now.

  He booked the prisoner. The man was a basket case: quiet, malleable, probably totally psychotic. He’d seen a look in Terrill’s eyes as they were taking him down that had alarmed him. And then it was gone, replaced by this zombie. As he pushed the guy into his cell, he gave him one last kick in the ass.

  Then he returned to the break room and the hosannas of his fellow cops.

  #

  Father Harry didn’t sleep, and he barely ate, but he’d never had so much energy.

  God was in his Heaven.

  Even the logical side of his brain was on board. How could it not be? He’d seen real evidence of real evil. He’d seen how his prayer, which he had pulled out of some deep recess of his brain, had hit the vampire like a physical object. He’d seen the sacred earth of the church remain inviolate. He’d seen how the crucifix had burned the flesh of the vampire.

  If there was evil, there was holiness.

  He dove into the liturgy, looking for prayers to cast out demons, and he memorized them. These chants had always seemed like vestigial remnants of the medieval church, ridiculous and superstitious and irrational, with no more weight than a modern fantasy book.

  Now they seemed like battle plans.

  The fight wasn’t over, he sensed. The vampires would return. And even if they didn’t, he now saw that he needed to be prepared. He needed to defend his flock.

  He regretted turning Terrill in to the police. The vampire had come to him for help, to confess, and to change. Father Harry had turned him away. Worse, he had betrayed him to the civil authorities.

  Father Harry was in full vestments. He’d searched the church for the biggest crucifix he could find. There was one on the wall, a big thing that he’d always been a little embarrassed by. Now he took it down, removed it from the frame that encased it, and put it on a chain around his neck. The weight felt comforting.

  He’d be ready for the nighttime.

  In the meantime, after he was sure that all the homeless in his care had been taken care of, the wounded taken to the hospital, the others coddled and fed, he decided that he’d go visit Terrill in jail and ask for his forgiveness.

  He’d give the man an opportunity to confess, to shed his evil past. Father Harry would be the first priest in a thousand years to turn a vampire from evil. So what if he hadn’t even believed in vampires until the night before?

  Father Harry looked around the kitchen. There was a clear, empty water bottle on the counter. He rinsed it out, then went to the vestibule, filled it with holy water, and slipped it into his pocket. He’d never be unprepared for evil again.

  He bustled off to the jail, singing a hymn to himself.

  Chapter 42

  Brosterhouse rolled his eyes at the small-town triumphalism of it all. It was like a football player doing a victory dance after a three-yard gain. Solving murders should be treated like it was just part of the job. Apparently, that was not the case in Bend.

  He made his way through the cheering crowd to Captain Anderson’s office. The older cop wasn’t joining in the celebration, he noticed. He closed the door and sat down.

  “W
hat are you going to do about it?” Brosterhouse asked.

  “Do about what?” Anderson didn’t look like he’d slept. He was a couple of years away from retirement, Brosterhouse realized with sudden insight; he didn’t want to rock the boat.

  “About this phony arrest!” Brosterhouse raised his voice, and Anderson frowned.

  “Phony? The guy ran; he was hiding. He was guilty of something.”

  “Except we now know that the evidence that was used to make the original arrest was planted.”

  “Do we know that?” Anderson swung his chair around and faced Brosterhouse squarely. “Look, detective. I understand your concern. But for some reason I’ll never understand, Carlan is popular around here.”

  “So he’s allowed to make a false arrest?”

  “No, of course not. I’m just saying, we’ll let a day or two pass, and then quietly release this Terrill fellow. Let them have their little party.”

  “For God’s sake, the real murderer is out there being cheered while an innocent man sits in jail!”

  Anderson sat back with a sigh. “Look, in a day or two, I can do something about Terrill. Meanwhile, the DA still wants another piece of evidence before he’s willing to do anything about Carlan.”

  There was a knock at the door. Cam Patterson pushed it open a few inches and stuck his head in. He frowned when he saw Brosterhouse, then decided to ignore him.

  “Sylvie Hardaway is outside. She says she has information about her sister’s murder.”

  “Show her in.”

  Sylvie Hardaway was a beautiful girl, Brosterhouse thought. No, he corrected himself after looking into her serious eyes. A beautiful woman.

  “There is something you need to know,” she said, without preamble. “Richard Carlan made a porn video of my sister. He posted it on Girlfriend Hanky Panky.”

  Anderson stared at her with his mouth open for a moment. Then he swung toward his computer on the other side of the desk. He turned it on and fiddled with it as if he wasn’t familiar with it. “I can do Google at least,” he muttered. Within seconds, he had the site up. “I hope my computer doesn’t get sick from this.”

  Brosterhouse stood up and leaned over the desk. There it was, in all its sick glory.

  “How do we know that’s Carlan?” Anderson said, looking away in disgust.

  “Of course it is. He’s got the same spare tire around the middle, and check it out––there’s a birthmark on his thigh.”

  “I don’t know,” Anderson said. “Asking him to show his parts is really pushing it.”

  Brosterhouse threw up his hands. But Sylvie wasn’t done.

  “He’s been harassing me,” she said. “He won’t leave me alone; he’s ingratiated himself with my parents so he’s always hanging around. I intend to go for a restraining order tomorrow.”

  That seemed to be the final straw for Captain Anderson. Apparently sexual harassment was his trigger.

  “Arrest Richard Carlan,” he said. “I’ll clear it with the DA. We’ll drop the charges for this Mr. Terrill and the other two vagrants.”

  #

  Brosterhouse found Carlan drinking coffee with a couple of his pals. He had a victorious smirk on his face when the Portland detective walked up to him.

  “Richard Carlan, you’re under arrest.”

  “What! What for?” Carlan turned pale. He had that guilty look that Brosterhouse recognized from a thousand arrests, the look that said “They finally found me out.”

  Brosterhouse found himself spouting off charges, some of which he knew wouldn’t stick, but he’d ask for forgiveness later. Meanwhile, the list of felonies was very satisfying. “Tampering with evidence. False arrest. Sexual harassment. And the murder of Jamie Lee Howe.”

  “What the…?” The dirty cop had winced at each of the first three charges, but seemed totally mystified by the last accusation. Unless Brosterhouse was mistaken, the man didn’t think he was guilty of murder.

  It didn’t matter. Murderers often convinced themselves that it hadn’t really been murder. Sometimes they maintained their innocence for so long that they started to believe it themselves.

  Perhaps the evidence wouldn’t convict Carlan, but his career was done. The lesser charges were enough to get him booted off the force, at the very least.

  #

  The parade was reversed. The squad room fell silent as Brosterhouse led Carlan, handcuffed, through the crowded space.

  To fill the silence, he said, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do may be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to consult an attorney before speaking to the police…”

  The words echoed through the room like a prayer.

  Chapter 43

  The cops put Perry and Grime in the cell next to Terrill. “I’m sure they’ll let you go,” he said. “As soon as I tell them you didn’t know…”

  “Never mind about us!” Perry interrupted. “We’ll get a couple of free meals out of it, and I always try to get a dental checkup. But what about you, Terrill? You did it! You’re human!”

  Somehow, hearing Perry say it and Grime agree with a grunt was confirmation that it had really happened. Just being alive should have been proof, but the walk through the sunlight seemed like a dream to Terrill now. But he could feel it. He was mortal. Each minute that passed was a minute closer to his death, but he didn’t care.

  How ironic that he’d spend the rest of his human life imprisoned. For some reason, the prospect didn’t faze him. It was a prison of the flesh, after all, not of the spirit.

  As if in answer to that thought, the door at the end of the corridor opened and Father Harry Donovan was ushered in by one of the guards.

  “Stay back from the bars,” the guard warned.

  Father Harry nodded his head solemnly, and then, the minute the guard left, he was sticking his hands through the bars, shaking hands with Perry and Grime, and then Terrill.

  The priest stared at Terrill as if he was a revelation. “I still can’t believe it. Are you real? Were those really vampires?”

  “Yes,” Terrill said. “There are such things as vampires. I was one of them. As to whether I am one now, I’m still not sure myself.”

  “…e’s …eal,” Grime said firmly.

  Father Harry and Terrill laughed.

  Once the laughter died down, the priest seemed a little uncomfortable. “I, uh… I’m sorry,” he said, finally. “I turned you in.”

  Terrill shrugged. “You had to.”

  “No… you tried to confess to me, but I was more worried about a little stolen meat than I was about really listening. Please forgive me for that. I should have taken your words in confidence.”

  “I am not Catholic,” Terrill said. “I’m not sure I was even all that religious, until this afternoon.”

  Father Harry laughed. “Me neither.” He hesitated, then said, “If you’re willing, I’d like to listen to your confession now.”

  “Father, it would take your whole lifetime to hear all my sins. I’ve got hundreds of years of them.”

  The priest looked shocked, as if he understood, for the first time, the extent of Terrill’s crimes. “How about we do a general amnesty, so to speak,” he said. “I’ll absolve you as best I can.”

  “I ask forgiveness, of course,” Terrill said. “But you can’t grant me that. Only God can.”

  “I am God’s rep––” Father Harry started to say.

  Then the doorway at the end of the hallway opened again. “I don’t know if I should,” the guard was saying.

  “They’re going to be released anyway,” Sylvie said. “What difference does it make?”

  The guard looked at Terrill with suspicion, but it appeared that what Sylvie was saying was true, because he nodded reluctantly.

  Sylvie came toward them with a smile and was greeted by Grime and Perry as if she was their long-lost girlfriend. Terrill smiled shyly.

  “They’ve arrested Richard Carlan for the murder of my sister,”
she said.

  Everyone else was delighted, but Terrill froze. That wasn’t right. As bad as this Richard Carlan was, he hadn’t killed Jamie. “I can’t let him take the fall for that,” he said, breaking through the sounds of celebration.

  “You must!” Sylvie exclaimed. “It was Richard who drove her away from here. As far as I’m concerned, he’s guilty, guiltier than you.”

  “I killed her, Sylvie. I killed your sister.”

  “No you didn’t,” Perry said. “A vampire killed her, that’s what I heard. Sucked her blood right out of her. Are you a vampire, Terrill?”

  Terrill wasn’t going to have any of that. He’d spent too many years making excuses for his actions, unwilling to pay for them. How could he start his life as a mortal with a lie?

  “Can my sister be saved?” Sylvie asked.

  “I think perhaps, given enough time,” he answered. Best not to tell her that with Michael and him, it had taken centuries. He thought, perhaps, that Horsham had been nearing that point––until Terrill had taken away all hope by Turning Mary.

  He looked around at the bare walls, at his future. He deserved this fate, and he would accept it. He had so many crimes and sins to pay for.

  #

  The door to the jail opened one more time, and this time it was Richard Carlan who was led in in handcuffs. A large, bald-headed cop was escorting him. He glanced curiously at the group by the bars. “Having a party?” he asked.

  Richard glared at them all, but the sight of Sylvie enraged him. “You bitch!” he screamed. “You told them, didn’t you?”

  “Told them what?” she asked mildly.

  Carlan had enough self-possession left to realize he was on the verge of incriminating himself. “I’ll get you for this!” he screamed. “You lying, scheming bitch!”

  “I’d say that is confirmation of your harassment charge, Ms. Hardaway.” Brosterhouse looked toward the guard at the door. “You heard that, Simmons?”

  “Yes, sir. Sounded like a threat.”