For The Sake of Revenge: An Alaskan Vampire Novel

by Atha, DL

“Forgiveness on the other hand is, Tam, and you’ve always had it. I came tonight because I wanted to see an old friend and tell her that I never forgot her. Or gave up on her.”

  Speech had abandoned me, and so I reached for his hand, giving it a tight squeeze until I could find something to say. I held onto his hand for dear life while I blinked back a few tears.

  Holding his warm hand in mine was like wrapping up in your favorite blanket or slipping into your best jeans. I knew his every tendon, the scar he’d gathered as a child on his palm and the valleys between the bones of his hands. It took effort to let go.

  “Thanks for coming, Peter. Maybe I can forgive myself one day.”

  Indecision sparked momentarily across his face before he spoke. “Your mom lit a candle for you every day at the church. She never gave up. Sometimes she prayed alone and sometimes I prayed with her, but she always prayed. She would want you to quit blaming yourself for what happened. More than anything, she believed in a bigger power than ourselves and a greater plan than what we are capable of seeing.”

  “I didn’t deserve her,” I murmured.

  “You did deserve her. If you could just have seen the happiness on her face the day after you two reconnected, you would know that.”

  “Thanks,” I started to say, but the word got stuck in my throat as my eyes welled with fresh tears. Instead, I lifted up on my toes and kissed his cheek.

  His cheek flamed under my lips, and he looked at the ground hesitantly for a moment. “Call me sometime, Tam. Here’s my card. It’s got all my numbers. Maybe you could stop by the church; everyone would love to see you—me included,” he said as he placed the card in my hand, his eyes holding mine only for a second before he dropped my gaze and turned towards the front door.

  I curled my fingers around the sharp edges of the card, feeling them bite into my skin. I nodded a goodbye as he crossed the porch and walked to his car.

  The sounds of his tires on the gravel had disappeared before I looked down at his card. ‘Peter Solinov, Minister,’ the card read, followed by the address of the church and a variety of different phone numbers.

  Church. I hadn’t been in years. It was tempting, but I knew the prodigal child could hardly return now even if Peter didn’t, and I laid the card on top of an unread stack of newspapers, reminding myself that I shouldn’t drag him into all of my drama.

  I locked the door behind him, listening to the quiet of the highway in the wake of his leaving. The doorknob was already turning cool to the touch as I twisted the lock into place.

  The back door, which opened out onto a small deck overlooking the mountain vista, was already secured, but that didn’t keep me from checking it again just for good measure.

  My watch sounded the hour in annoying little beeps, yet another reminder that I was the last person on the planet to not have a cell phone. It was only six o’clock but all of the sunlight leached from the day.

  Alaskan winter nights are long. In fact, I’d forgotten how they lingered. I’d been in Sitka little more than two weeks and already I was beginning to feel the short days wearing on me. It was easy to get bogged down in your thoughts when the daylight, often times muted by the cloud cover, lasted a mere seven hours. Tomorrow, I’d make a point to get out, do some hiking. It had been years since I’d walked the trail to Heart Lake. It was well traveled and frequented by the locals, and I’d feel pretty safe there.

  I’d gotten into the habit of staying up very late, sometimes till four or five in the morning, and then sleeping till around ten. Perhaps it was a delusion, but I felt safer. Joel was never a night owl, and since I’d known him, he’d never managed to stay up past one in the morning. If he was going to sneak up on me, he was going to have to lose some sleep.

  Normally, I’d peruse a couple of magazines from Mom’s “to donate to the local hospital pile” or read a book from the library. Sometimes, I studied for the philosophy class I’d signed up for before I left Seattle. I wasn’t going back there anytime soon, but the syllabus was still an interesting read and had helped me think outside my usual parameters.

  My newest loan from the local library was lying on the kitchen table. I started to slip my jacket off as I walked by the coat tree, my hand grazing the bottle I’d hidden from Peter’s sight in the jacket pocket. I could only imagine what reason he’d thought a person might have for keeping a bottle of blood on the mantle. Luckily, he’d forgotten it when our argument erupted.

  The liquid swam in the confines of the bottle as I twirled it in my hands, eddies forming and bursting within the glass as the fluid turned in upon itself. The color glimmered in the light and mesmerized me with its intensity. I found it hard to look away, especially knowing the unusual story behind it.

  Returning the bottle to the mantle, I lay back onto the couch and watched the blood shimmering in the firelight. I could almost hear Mom telling me to throw it out and couldn’t help but smile knowing she’d slept with it at the foot of her bed most of her life. She would have been mortified because she would have believed it was real.

  Me. I was a little more skeptical. Vampires are a mainstay of Russian folklore and old wives tales but still, I knew very little about the old legends. Glad that I had something to think about other than Joel and Mom, I decided I’d make a trip to the library and the bookstore tomorrow. If I remembered right, the bookstore had an entire section of Russian literature, and the library would be bound to have something related to the subject. I’d stop there on my way to the hiking trails.

  With tomorrow planned out, I spent the rest of the evening sorting through more of Mom’s belongings. Eventually, I drifted off to sleep with images of vampires and bottles of blood playing across my mind.

  Chapter 4

  I woke at nearly nine o‘clock and still it was barely light. Rain pelted the windows, and when I lifted myself off the couch to look out the picture window, I couldn’t even make out the sea for the cloud cover. Fog had rolled in heavy from the ocean and billowed puffy layers across my porch.

  I considered going back to sleep, and I’d nearly let the quilt fall back across my shoulders when I reminded myself that bad habits are easy to form and I’d made plans for today. If I didn’t watch it, I’d be sleeping all the time, and that wasn’t good for anyone. It’s the risk of living in Alaska in winter.

  I forcefully threw the quilt back, my back protesting a little as I pulled myself to a sitting position on the couch and determinedly made my way into the kitchen. Soon the coffee pot was percolating, and I was completely dressed when I sucked down my third cup. Thank God for coffee. And I meant that literally; no one can survive in Sitka without it.

  I poured a thermos full of the black gold as I shrugged on my raincoat. My plan was simple. I’d avoid the police station today. I would avoid thoughts of stalking soon to be ex-husbands. Instead, I’d drink lots of hot coffee, eat chocolate, and read books that had nothing to do with murder.

  I was going to solve a different kind of mystery this morning—a vampire mystery. Not wanting to drink alone, I called Mom’s best friend Gloria. Like everyone, it’d been years since I’d seen her. She’d meet me at the bookstore at noon.

  Town was as bustling as it gets in Sitka in the wintertime, so there was no waiting for coffee, and a few minutes later, I was tucked between a couple of bookshelves, my thermos resting between my knees and several books about vampires scattered around my feet. Who knew they were such a hot topic?

  As I’d expected, I’d found a couple of books in the Russian lore section. Sitka is, after all, known for its Russian influence, and Russian books are very popular with the tourists. I perused one book of Russian fairytales until my knees and back got stiff, so I moved to a table carrying my stack of vampire books with me.

  I was deep into the old fairytale of a bridegroom and a vampire. I’d heard the story many times as a child, but I can’t say it made much more sense now than twenty years ago. I was intently looking for some deeper meaning when I felt a strong but warm h
and on my shoulder. I nearly jumped out of my skin, the coffee sloshing around with my movement.

  “Tam. It’s me. I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to startle you.” Gloria was smiling down at me apologetically. She and Mom had been best friends for as long as I could remember. Many a winter night had been whiled away at her house. She and Mom guzzled whiskey laced coffee, and Gloria’s two kids and I cooked popcorn over the fireplace and drank sodas. Friends in the wintertime are a commodity that you can’t live without in Alaska.

  Gloria was a transplant, moving here years before from the Deep South. She said she’d come to escape the heat. Her Cherokee Indian heritage showed up in deep mahogany skin that stretched beautifully over high cheekbones. Her complexion was smooth and even. Her lips were still full and dark eyebrows arched gracefully over eyes as dark as coal. She was tall, nearly six feet, and her arms encircled me in a deep hug before I had time to set my coffee aside. Except for the silver in her hair, you’d never know she was pushing sixty.

  “It’s okay. I was deep into this story, I guess.” I stood to hug her back. “Gloria, I’m so glad to see you,” I said as I leaned into her tall frame.

  “Tamara, I can’t believe you’re here. It’s been ages,” she said, squeezing me all the tighter.

  “Better late than never,” I answered, guilty all over again at the problems I’d caused. I knew it was Gloria that had consoled Mom when I left.

  “You look great,” she said, stepping back to take my shoulders in her hands. “Your Mom told me about everything you’ve been through, and I’m so glad you’re home.”

  “Thanks. You look wonderful. Time’s been kind to you.” I wasn’t lying. She looked really good. It’s amazing what a cloudy environment will do for your skin.

  She laughed, “Time is never kind, Tam. We run out of it too quickly and yet complain about how we look wearing the years we get.” She paused as she studied my face. “You look more like your mom than I expected you would. She was my best friend and one lady I’m never going to quit missing.”

  I nodded my head, tearing up a little as I spoke. “I miss her more than I ever realized I would. She was my best friend too in the end. I only wish I’d been smart enough to have taken advantage of that earlier.” Guilt hit me hard, then and I blurted out, “It’s my fault she’s dead. You know that, right?” I questioned.

  “Tamara! Why would you ever say that? None of this is your fault.” She took my hand from across the table, folding it over in her long brown fingers.

  “I think Joel killed her. To get back at me for leaving him. I knew he would and I left him anyway,” I said, a few tears tracing a path down my cheeks.

  “Have you talked to the police?” she questioned.

  I rolled my eyes. “Only every other day. They all but run when I walk through the doors of the station. They say it was accidental. That Mom was getting older and not getting around as good as she used to and just fell. But I know the truth, and it’s my fault.”

  “Getting older my ass,” Gloria drawled as only a southerner can. “Lena was in great shape, and she got around better than most anyone I know, including that little upstart of a detective,” Gloria said, a little miffed that anyone would say her friend was old. “Tam, baby, listen to me. I’ve had a bad feeling about this whole thing myself. Now I’m not sure what happened exactly, but I know none of this is your fault. You are not to blame no matter if your soon-to-be ex did this or not. But I don’t I think she just fell off that mountain.”

  “So you think it’s possible. That I could be right and Mom’s death wasn’t an accident?” I questioned. She was the first person who’d conceded that my suspicions might be correct.

  Gloria looked away for a minute, her eyes studying the wet street outside the window before she took a deep breath and met my gaze again. Her hand circled tighter around her coffee cup, one turquoise ring digging into the Styrofoam. “I know your mom was worried about something. I’m not sure about what; she wouldn’t say, but she seemed jumpy. You know, just a little nervous, and that wasn’t like her.”

  “Had anything happened I don’t know about?” I questioned, watching her face intently.

  Gloria took a quick sip of her coffee and crossed her arms across the table, leaning forward a tad. “Not anything specifically. She just acted a little strange. About a week before she died, we were out one night at a crab boil on the beach. There were lots of people there. Seemed like the whole town had come down, and it was really noisy. Everything was going fine. She was cracking crabs, laughing and talking like normal, and then her hands stopped in midair and her face froze. She looked like she’d seen a ghost. I asked her what was wrong, but she said nothing and went back to cracking. She just seemed a little spooked the rest of the night. I’m not sure what happened or what she saw.”

  “Or who she saw,” I finished the thought for her.

  “A couple of nights later, I went to see her at the house and her doors were locked. In all the years I’d known Lena, I had never known her to lock a door. Then to make matters even stranger, she had all her mail held at the post office. When I asked about it, she just shrugged, saying she didn’t want anything falling into the wrong hands.”

  My insides knotted up and I felt sick. I hated myself for dragging Mom into this. “It was Joel. I know it was. It’s killing me, Gloria, because I want him to pay. I want him to suffer. But the police won’t give me the time of day. They say there’s no evidence and everything’s circumstantial. There are days I feel like I could kill him with my bare hands, and yet I’m scared to death of him. To make matters worse, I have no idea where he even is now. Is he here? Has he left the island? I have no idea.”

  “Tamara, you listen to me,” she said sternly. “He may never pay on this earth, but he will pay. Even if he isn’t responsible for Lena’s death, he’s certainly done enough damage to you. Someday when the good Lord gets ahold of him, he’s gonna be mighty uncomfortable. Right now, you need to take care of yourself. Go somewhere and make a new life. That’s what your mom would want. She would have happily died to protect you. You have to know that.”

  “Gloria, I can’t keep running, and yet I’m about to lose my mind with all of the worry with where Joel might be and what he’s going to do next. I want revenge for everything he’s done to me and to Mom. We deserve it.” I could hear the weariness in my voice.

  “You’re right. You do deserve justice. But remember that vengeance is the Lord’s. Not ours. It’s not ours to dole out.”

  She was right of course. But that didn’t stop me from wanting it anyways. Gloria didn’t understand how much I’d suffered at Joel’s hands nor could she possibly understand just how guilty I felt for my part in Mom’s death.

  I smiled, hoping it would break the tension that had developed. “I guess you’re wondering why I’m reading vampire novels with all of this mess going on,” I laughed, gesturing at the books spread out haphazardly across the little table. I had so many that they were piled on one another.

  “Well, it did cross my mind, and I thought it was good. You need something to take your mind off all this drama,” she laughed, pleased that I’d put the crazy talk away.

  “Okay. Here goes. Do you remember the old steamer trunk Mom kept at the foot of her bed?” I took a long sip of my coffee while she nodded.

  “It was a bona fide mess the couple of times I saw her open it,” Gloria added.

  “Yeah. Well, I was cleaning it out. Going through the heaps of old coats and long out-of-date undergarments and stuff. You know how Mom was, she never threw anything away. I was straining to get one last jacket out, and I lost my balance leaning over the side. When I did, my hand busted through the bottom into some secret compartment. And I found an antique wooden box.”

  “So Lena didn’t know about it?” Gloria smiled, enjoying the mystery.

  “I don’t think so; Mom never mentioned it, and I had to pry the thing out of its hiding place. From the looks of the steamer, it had been hidden for
years. Anyways, inside the box was this old journal written by a surgeon around the time Sitka was first founded. If I remember right, the year was 1808, and I think Sitka was founded in 1804. But that’s not the amazing part. I was able to translate the journal since Mom and Grandmom insisted I learn Russian and there was one entry that described the staking of a vampire. So I’ve been doing some research. It gives me something else to think about. In fact, I’d promised myself that today would be free from thoughts of Joel,” I added, slightly embarrassed to be caught doing vampire research. I didn’t mention the blood.

  Gloria smiled, running a hand through her silvering hair. “Who doesn’t love a good mystery?”

  “I know. Right!” I said.

  Taking another long draw of her coffee, Gloria leaned in excitedly. “Well, I have some clues to add to this. You see, Lena once told me that her great-grandfather wouldn’t go into the forest alone and never at night, no matter how much company he had. He never went hunting with the other men. Did she ever tell you that?”

  “No,” I answered, shaking my head. “I don’t remember her saying too much about him except that he was really old and really superstitious even by her standards.”

  “This was her great-grandfather on your grandmother’s side. Supposedly, he firmly believed in vampires and claimed to know where one was buried. He said his grandfather had nightmares about burying one and talked about it in his sleep. But when pressed, he wouldn’t name where the grave was so everyone just thought he was making it up.”

  “What’d Mom think?” I was pretty sure I already knew.

  “She didn’t think he was crazy. But she sure didn’t want anything to do with him.”

  “So Mom’s great-grandfather never told anyone where the grave was?” I asked.

  “Not that your mom ever mentioned. He took the secret to his grave. Your grandmom was buried somewhere close to him,” she said, pointing over her shoulder towards the cemetery. “I’m sure his stone is long gone by now. I only heard her tell the story once or twice because Lena didn’t like ghost tales and the like. But you knew that. She was the queen of superstition and when a Southerner says that, it means something!”