Allison was surprised to see the sheriff. “Sheriff, how did you find us?”
Alexander closed the door. “I’m afraid I’m here on business.”
She looked down at the dog licking Jenny’s face. “I don’t understand.”
Alexander adjusted his trench coat. “I’m afraid that someone has put out a hit on Jenny. We have people out looking for him but he’s a slippery guy. I have a couple of questions with the first one being why?”
Allison’s face turned ashen. “Oh my GOD. What should we do?”
“I’ve put in a request for protection but it might take a few days. Again I have to ask why?”
Jenny had the desire to come clean and felt safe enough with the red sheriff. “It’s okay. Has there ever been a vampire that I couldn’t handle? Mother, how did they find out?”
Allison invited him into the kitchen where they all sat around the kitchen table. “Saying that Jenny is special is like saying that a Picasso has some value. Her father is a vampire and she has some very interesting talents. I’d say her power is off the chart.”
“I knew it! Jenny, you killed that fella I was chasing, didn’t you?”
Jenny continued to pet Tessy beside her. “I did. I can read minds and as a matter of fact I can read previous thoughts.”
Alexander removed his hat. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s hard to explain but I can read some of your thoughts that you had yesterday, almost like rewinding a movie. Anyway, I went into his mind. He would never have stopped.”
“So you dispatched him?”
“Actually, I made him kill himself.”
Alexander nodded. “What else can you do?”
Allison interrupted her daughter. “She fights like a demon. She’s faster than any vampire that I know.”
“It sounds like she’s taken some interesting traits from her father and in fact enhanced them. Anything else?”
Jenny stopped petting the dog but got nudged and so continued. “Should we tell him? He is a sheriff.”
Allison hesitated but acquiesced. “I guess so. She can enchant objects that will keep evil ones away. There’s a charm in the mailbox so no one can get closer than thirty feet or so. It doesn’t affect good vampires.”
The sheriff looked a bit puzzled. “What happens when they approach?”
Jenny smiled. “They become confused, turn around and head off into the opposite direction. I followed one guy for hours and hours; he remained quite baffled. He couldn’t remember what he had been up to but I think that the memory does return.”
The look on the sheriff’s face was contemplative. Alexander of course knew a few people that could use one, including him. “Can you make some for me? Of course I would pay you. And what’s with the big bat?”
The dog started to lick Jenny’s hand. “The bat’s enchanted. The mayor is going to have it placed in the park across the street to see if it works. I have no idea how long the spell will last, but that’s one of the things that they’ll be monitoring. I can make two for you but that’s it for now. The objects are not easy to make.”
“I wonder if that’s why Sharpton wants you dead.”
“He’s a major bad guy.”
The dog barked at Jenny.
“Tessy, quiet please.” The sheriff pondered on the whole situation as he stared at the girl. It was time that he had heard some good news for a change. “How on earth did you come up with the idea to enchant objects and make a vampire repellent?”
“It just appeared to me in a dream. I had the same dream over and over.”
The sheriff placed his hat back onto his head. He took out his wallet and handed over a business card to Jenny. “I ask that you memorize that number and destroy the card. You do realize that we could have safe areas all over the place with that talent. You are quite an exciting find young lady.”
Jenny rolled her green eyes. When was she going to find the time to simply be herself?
CHAPTER FORTY
THE THIRTEEN HAD TURNED into the Ten with the deaths of Boyle, John and Aidan. They had taken over a residence for seniors, an old but well maintained 1900 neoclassical house. Its red brick face seemed timeless. The place had a beautiful Grand staircase that led to the second floor with wood floors throughout. The large bedrooms had been made into two or three smaller bedrooms to facilitate more people, and therefore enable them to take in more money. Plaster walls with a different color scheme in each room. There was a beautiful parlour where they could congregate and play games, checkers or poker for pennies. There was also a small library which also contained a fireplace and a librarian during the winter months, as much to guard the fireplace from the seniors as to help with the books.
The place was now a prison with the doors locked tight and the phone lines disabled. The residents didn’t have the strength to break their way out and so they panicked in their own ways, with a couple of them truly wanting to be eaten so that they could be put out of their misery. Only two seniors had had cell phones, and they were smashed to pieces. Relatives had been notified of an infectious disease and that visitations were not permitted for the next two to three weeks. By then they would all be dead.
In the parlour the Ten sat around as they discussed what had occurred with the plan to kill the two red sheriffs, and why they had all simultaneously departed the scene for no good reason that any of them could come up with.
“There’s no such thing as magic,” said Bernard. “I’ve never seen it.”
The parlour’s fireplace was dormant as ninety-year-old Annie Baker stared at the painting above the hearth of a young brown mare beside a bright stallion in a meadow of daisies; the stallion had passion in his eyes at the closeness of the mare in heat. The room was full of vampires and their voices floated by as she dreamed of long ago days when she had been a nurse in France during the Second World War. She had been a beautiful blonde in those days and had several men in hot pursuit with their tongues dragging the ground. She encouraged none of them but enjoyed the attention nonetheless, until they fought with one of them ending up in the hospital in her care. Now she thought that she would be lucky to attract an ugly blind man. Mirrors were the enemy so she had none in her room, and the others she wished she could smash.
Annie approached Archie pulling her oxygen behind her. “Mister Vampire, would you be kind enough to eat me now? I have a hard time to breathe, you know, and I’d rather not spend another night waiting to be eaten.”
At first Archie ignored the old woman but she tugged at him. He looked down at Annie disdainfully. “We’re not eating any more today. You’ll have to wait your turn.”
Annie kicked him in the shin with as much force as she could muster, but it wasn’t hard at all. “Take that you piece of vampire shit!”
The all laughed as the old woman left the room.
Twenty-one pensioners resided there in all, and the Ten ate one or two old people a day as they plotted their next attack on a sheriff. Suddenly there was a pounding at the door capturing their attention. Had a sheriff discovered them? Was it time to battle their way out of there? All heads turned toward the door as Anthony blurred, peeking out the side window only to see Sharpton standing there in his fancy suit. He was immediately recognized as an important underground figured that most feared. He was let into the parlour and they all stood in his presence.
Sharpton gave them a slight nod. “Gentlemen, I have a request for you to be temporarily in my employ. I will pay you handsomely and I will also be beholding to you, not a bad deal I would say.”
Anthony shook his shoulder-length black hair. “How the hell did you find us here?”
“An associate of mine overheard two of you in conversation.”
Uberto was happy to be in Sharpton’s company. “We will hear your proposition.”
Sharpton sat as the Ten continued to stand. “There’s a small girl that needs to be eliminated. She’s was foretold in the vampire book of revelation. She means big trouble for all of
us and it is said that she tips the scale in the favour of the humans. I want her head.”
Gage remained puzzled. “Surely you don’t need the ten of us to kill a girl?”
Jenny’s charm had wiped their memories clean, although some minds were attempting to put the pieces back together.
Sharpton scanned the room as if in thought. “Is a nuclear warhead a little bomb? Do not underestimate this child. She also has red sheriffs mustering to her protection.”
Vaile was now concerned. “How many sheriffs are we talking about?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“And you’ll really be indebted to us?” Vaile didn’t like the proposition.
“Indeed.”
“Let’s take a vote. All in favour?”
Everyone nodded to indicate their agreement to dispatch the girl, with Vaile being the last one to nod. He was outnumbered so what the hell.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
MOON DIAMOND WAS BORED, or rather Zacharia whose soul was caught inside the cat was bored. They were back in Moncton and the cat sat impatiently on the recliner chair as Piers Anthony entered the dwelling only to discover Dracula standing with a wooden stake through his heart. The author was shocked but as the Master pulled the stake from his chest he shrugged. A conversation commenced but the cat was tired of it all, and so jumped off the chair and leaped out the open window into the front yard. He wished that Dracula would get over it, whatever IT was, and get on with his life.
Zacharia felt that he no longer had a life to get on with.
Outside was yet another cloudy sky, with a plane flying in low as it approached the Moncton International Airport. In the front yard the Siamese licked its right paw and washed its face. Zacharia didn’t want to do it but gave in to Moon Diamond instincts, after all the cat was in the same predicament as he was. In fact it may have been a bit worst for the cat as it no longer had control over its own body for the most part. Oh, it could make Zacharia scratch himself at times, or feast on a mouse that he didn’t want to, but its influence over Zacharia was limited; he felt sorry for the cat inside.
It was Saturday morning. Zacharia decided to go for a walk to see if he could shake free some of the cob webs. The Siamese wanted to sleep more than twelve hours a day, and it was difficult to resist that instinct. He had no one to blame but himself for the predicament he found himself in, and that was difficult to come to terms with. Dracula had said that it might be possible for Zacharia to occupy a human as he did the cat, but that he had no idea how to accomplish it. Who would be in control of the vessel was uncertain. Being trapped inside of a human with no control whatsoever seemed no better than at least being in control of the cat.
Moon Diamond headed for Champlain Mall, not because he was going shopping but he did want to explore the area. He was in a foul mood and could think of nothing that would get him out of it. He thought that he would probably never get used to everything being so much larger than life from his diminutive point of view. Doors were huge, mailboxes were so big that they looked peculiar, and cars were now monsters to be feared. Zacharia was now in a world of giants.
Almost everyone that observed the cat found him to be most attractive with his pale light cream body and china blue eyes with frosty grey ears, tail and paws. Perhaps he would find another male cat to put a beaten on. He hoped he would detect no mice to eat.
Moon Diamond took a left at the end of Martin Street and headed down the Mill Road. He watched as Lewisville the number 7 bus passed with Ed at the helm. The cat had caught the attention of a young brunette on the bus and she strained to see him as the bus rolled on. Zacharia had stopped and sat and stared at her as well before continuing on with his exploration. She actually hit her head on the window as she strained to see the cat after the feline had waved at her with its paw. He continued on his way down to Shediac Road without incident, except that the cat in him wanted to return home for a nap, even though it had one an hour earlier. At the mall the cat crossed through the parking lot, crossed Main Street, through the A&W restaurant parking lot and finally headed down the path beside the Petitcodiac River.
Moon Diamond jumped in the air in an attempt to catch a dragonfly but missed, and it took Zacharia by surprise. It felt a bit like a roller coaster ride as it jumped a second time. Thank goodness he didn’t catch it as Zacharia was in no mood to discover the taste of a dragonfly. He made his way to the edge of the Chocolate River and observed as several seagulls were in the water as the tidal bore pushed through, where it appeared as though the birds were surfing. The tidal wave was travelling against the natural flow of the river, which continued to be an interesting phenomenon, especially to the tourists. He thoroughly enjoyed the scene of the birds surfing, although he wasn’t sure why.
Moon Diamond got up onto a bench on the trail, stretched out and then dozed off momentarily. The cat dreamt of eating mice as Zacharia dreamt that he was back in human form fighting those miscreants once again. It felt great to wield his sword even though it was only a dream. Sparks flew as the blades clashed. He awoke to a Bloodhound sniffing at him and he instinctively showed his vampire teeth; the dog ran frightened pulling his master quickly behind him with his leash.
“Slow down!” The dog’s master let go with several commands but the animal wasn’t about to stop anytime soon.
The cat watched as a bicyclist went by and then several female joggers. Everyone’s head turned to the right as they admired the beautiful cat. “Yah, I’m a good looking cat now move along.” But of course he was unable to talk, although his feline mouth went through the motions of attempting to do so.
Zacharia suddenly discovered himself running at full speed, and then flying through the air as Moon Diamond had launched himself at a seagull on a rock near the river. The gull made its escape as the cat almost fell into the water; he would not have looked so attractive had he fallen in there. He scolded the cat but of course realized that it was most likely a useless endeavour. The cat roamed around in there like a rat in a maze, and was about as open to commands as such.
The wind increased slightly, perhaps in preparation of blowing up a little precipitation. He took notice of a cute 60-year-old who was out for a stroll with her granddaughter Madison. Then the cat observed a tall man that was following them, and actually did a double take. Vampires didn’t usually feed during daylight hours, mostly because it was easier for them to be identified in the light. But a biter that was pursuing was almost always up to no good. When the grandmother and the girl stopped to watch several mallard ducks, Everett waited for them to finish before continuing his pursuit.
So Zacharia decided to follow the follower.
“Madison, see the bright colored ducks, those are the males mallards. Isn’t it funny how the boys are prettier than the girls?”
The 5-year-old thought on it. “How come the boys are prettier than the girls?”
Patricia smiled at her granddaughter. “I’m not really sure why that is. That boy duck seems to have an awful lot of girlfriends.”
“He better get a good job”
Patricia and Madison continued down the path as the vampire followed them. The fellow wore a suit that looked to be out of the 1930’s, with broad shoulders and pinstripes. It would have cost him twenty dollars back in those days. He also wore a black fedora hat. Everett had his suits made-to-order as he liked the style, but it did make him stand out. Even though he pursued from quite a distance, Zacharia knew exactly what he was up to, and he didn’t like it. He let go with a low growl that the guy heard but ignored. It was a warning but not many vampires paid attention to a cat.
The flow and the amount of people on the path varied, and at times there weren’t many people around, that’s what Moon Diamond figured the fellow was waiting for, the opportunity to pounce. It would perhaps be a quick but fatal attack. After several minutes the area appeared to quiet considerably, a lull in the flow. No one seemed to be around and the cat watched Everett blur and grab Patricia by both arms. Madison scr
eamed and kicked at his shins as he showed them his fangs. The cat also blurred and jumped into his face. Everett screamed as the fedora fell to the ground.
Patricia screamed. “Damn vampires!” She grabbed Madison by the hand and ran.
Everett grabbed and pulled at the cat, but it was a difficult thing to do because the more he pulled the more it hurt, finally tearing it from his face, along with spaghetti sized slices of skin. He healed but the pain was unbelievable. He attempted to stomp the life out of the cat several times, but Moon Diamond was much too fast to allow that to happen. Everett kept his eyes on the woman and child as they ran. He rushed toward the woman once again as the grandmother placed herself in front of the child, but this time found the cat attached to his forehead, and it started to chew pieces out of his head, and to scratch as if it was in a litter box only more furiously. He screamed from the burning and excruciating pain as he again struggled to be free of the Siamese. Blood ran down his face. He was unable to remove the feline, even with all his vampire strength. The cat twisted itself around and chewed off about a quarter of his ear. Ultimately he managed once again to remove the cat from his head and ran off screaming, jump-dancing from the pain, vowing never to return to the area.
Patricia approached the cat and looked down at it. “You are no ordinary cat, are you?”
Moon Diamond sat and shook its head no.
“Oh my goodness, you understand me. You saved us. Would you like to come home and live with me? I would love to have you as a pet.” She bent down and showed the cat some affection and Zacharia couldn’t help but stick his ass in the air, no matter how much he wanted not to; he couldn’t fight that instinct. At least Dracula wasn’t there to see it.
Zacharia felt better than he had in quite a while. He had accomplished a good deed. On this day the world turned out to be in a little better shape than it would have been had he not been there to rescue the woman and child. The cat walked away with a swagger, and almost felt as if he should be wearing a cape. He decided to head home for another nap but first he had to cough up another fur ball.
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