He Comes in the Night
Page 20
Nancy wanted to be angry, but she knew the old woman was right. They were vampires—they had bled people dry and provided nothing of value in return. Now it was her turn to suffer. Her eyes became wet and she thought she might cry.
Iryna smiled again. “Take heart, my dear. It’s never too late to do the right thing.”
Something about the woman’s smile comforted her, and this time she knew exactly what Iryna meant. Although she didn’t yet understand what it might be, she had a role to play. She was a part of the story, and together they would write the last chapter. “Okay, how do we kill him?”
“You mean her.”
“What?”
Iryna sighed, the same heavy sigh as before. “The sweet child who sleeps in your nursery is not your daughter, but rather the evil spirit of Vlad Țepeș—the terrible monster of so many legends.”
Nancy gasped for air. Her vision blurred and the room spun and twisted in all directions. It was the same familiar feeling she’d had at the courthouse when Byron was found guilty, and for a moment she thought she might black out.
“Easy, dear.” Iryna leaned forward and placed a steadying hand on her knee. “Breathe.”
She did as the old woman told her, and in another minute the room stopped spinning. “Are you saying you want to kill Nora?”
“No,” said Iryna. “Not me. It must be you—the one who carried Vlad’s spirit in your womb.”
This has all gone too far, she thought. Stories and legends were one thing, but now the old woman was suggesting the murder of an innocent child. She dropped the silver stake and watched it roll toward Iryna’s feet. “It’s time for you to leave.”
Iryna was undeterred. “Think, Nancy. Did something happen not long before Nora was born? Something strange or unusual?”
A deep chill ran down her spine and settled in her hands and feet. She remembered the nightmare she’d had a month before the doctors confirmed her pregnancy—the same dark figure who’d revealed himself the night the caretaker’s poor son died, and who she’d welcomed as a lover in her dreams.
They’d called her pregnancy a miracle.
A miracle.
They were wrong. It was a curse.
“We can end this, Nancy.” There was something rushed and nervous about the way the old woman spoke. “For three centuries we’ve pursued him, the descendants of Bogdan the Great. And for three centuries he’s slipped away, jumping from one dead corpse to another, always one step ahead. But never before has he joined his spirit with a living, breathing human. It was a risk, a gamble, the reckless pursuit of a form in which he might the walk the earth again. He’s made himself weak—vulnerable.”
“Will it work?”
“It has to work. I’m the last one left. Bogdan’s line dies with me.”
Iryna was right about the Hardaways. Nancy wasn’t a good person. But she’d never murdered anyone, not least of all her own flesh and blood. “She’s my daughter.”
“She killed your husband. She killed that boy. And she’ll kill again and again unless you, Nancy Hardaway, do something to stop her. This is your chance to do something good, something right. Send Vlad Țepeș to Hell.”
Iryna nudged the stake with her shoe. It rolled back to Nancy’s feet and she bent down, picked it up.
She was outside of her body now, watching herself tighten her grip around the cold metal, watching herself follow the old woman up the stairs to the nursery. Was it real? Yes, it was real. She was going to kill a baby.
“I’ve drugged her,” said the woman who had once been nothing more than an eccentric old nanny.
The room was dark, lit only by the light of a streetlamp filtering in through the window. Nancy crept slowly toward the crib, convinced she would see a monster. But there was only a baby—the same baby for whom she’d endured seventeen hours of labor and a caesarean section—the same little girl who’d giggled when she kissed her on the forehead, a dollop of whip cream hanging from her tiny chin.
“Do it, Nancy. Do it and save us all.”
She had always been a terrible mother, more concerned with herself, or what other people might think, than Nora’s well-being. One quick thrust of the stake and it would all be over. The police would come for her, of that she had no doubt. But did it matter? She had no husband, no home, and soon enough, no daughter.
Iryna hovered over her shoulder. “Think of the lives you’ll save. You’ll be a hero—if not in the eyes of men, then most certainly in the eyes of the Lord. As Bogdan sacrificed himself to save the village, so too must you sacrifice your only child so that others might live.”
She raised the stake above her head.
“Quickly, my dear! If she wakes it’s all over.”
Too late.
Nora opened her eyes.
“Do it,” said the old woman. “Do it now!”
Nancy remembered the time she told her husband she wished their daughter had never been born. The moment had finally come. She would be a mother no longer. Her hand trembled as she raised the stake higher still.
But before she could strike, a single word passed between Baby Nora’s tiny lips. “Mommy.”
Mommy.
Nobody had ever called her mommy.
Iryna gripped her arm from behind. Nancy was surprised by the old woman’s strength.
“We’ll do it together.”
There was no more time for hesitation. No more time for doubt. For the first time in Nancy’s wretched life, she knew with absolute certainty what had to be done.
She pulled her arm free, pivoted on her heels, and drove the stake deep into Iryna’s heart.
The old woman gasped for breath and clutched her chest. “My dear sweet child, what have you done?”
As the sounds of the dying woman drifted up from the floor, Nancy lowered herself to the crib and took Nora in her arms. “Mommy’s here,” she said. “Mommy won’t let anything hurt you.”
Nora smiled up at her, a hint of red flashing behind her innocent eyes.
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BOOKS BY RICKY FRY
He Comes in the Night
Lionshead
Bill and Ty Get High