by Leanna Ellis
Along one flowerbed, where pansies braved the chilly breeze, a stooped gentleman crouched down. He looked frail; even through the black cloth, his bones protruded at jutting angles. But his hearing must have been acute because at Roc’s approach, the priest turned. Even though he wore a white cleric’s collar, he also wore tan trousers and a blue pullover sweater beneath his black jacket. He had piercing blue eyes that went from sharp and pointed like bits of glass to a softening shade of curiosity.
“Father Roberto?”
“Yes.” He remained in a kneeling position and Roc noticed how his gnarled hand curled around a trowel’s handle. Beside him, plastic bubbled over several plants, at the base of which were strips of cloth wrapped like scarves, but the priest didn’t seem in need of any such wrap himself. He held out his other hand for Roc’s assistance in standing.
Roc clasped the frail hand but felt strength in the older man’s grip. Bracing his other hand beneath the priest’s elbow, Roc lifted. Father Roberto was light and his feet were unsteady until he had fully straightened and met Roc’s gaze straight on.
“Should I know you?”
“I don’t think so. Father Anthony suggested I come talk to you.”
“Father—”
“Anthony Daly…from New Orleans.”
The priest’s eyes widened only slightly. “You must come inside then. Quickly. Please.”
Leaving all the gardening tools but the trowel behind, the priest shuffled along the sidewalk toward the rectory. Roc wasn’t sure if the priest had forgotten that he carried the small pointed tool or if he did so on purpose. The older man did not take Roc through the front door but instead showed him a side entrance where Father Roberto pulled a set of keys from his pocket, a slight tremor shaking his hands, and he unlocked the first lock, the bolt sliding and clicking. But still he did not open the door.
He turned his attention to Roc, and those blue eyes looked suddenly weary. “How long have you known Anthony?”
“We went to kindergarten together.”
“Ah, that is a long time. And why did he send you to me?”
“He said you knew how to help me.”
The beeping of a garbage truck disturbed the quiet but didn’t dissuade the priest’s inquiry. “And what kind of help are you seeking?”
Roc always believed in the direct approach, which usually saved time. With a heavy sigh and shoving aside a hefty amount of lingering disbelief, he forced himself to say, “Killing vampires.”
The crepe paper skin around the priest’s eyes tightened and his eyes darkened. He flipped his collar inside out and retrieved another key from a hidden pocket. This one opened the last lock. Turning the knob, he pushed the door open and whispered, “Hurry.”
The inside was like a gaping hole with stone steps leading down into total blackness. Was this the stairway to hell? Would he end up with a trowel stabbed between his shoulder blades? Never keen on walking into a dark, unknown place, Roc hesitated and glanced first at the priest, then pulled his Glock.
The priest shook his head. “Darkness is not what you should fear. And that gun will do you no good. No good at all. Now hurry. I will close the door behind us.”
Disregarding the priest’s advice, Roc kept his Glock poised as he took a cautious step down first one step then another and another. The door closed with a thunk and darkness swallowed him whole. The priest’s breathing had a whistling quality and reverberated off the walls of the narrow stairwell as he clicked and bolted the locks. Roc kept blinking, trying to see an outline, a shape, something, but it was like he’d walked into a black hole, one he hoped held the answers he desperately needed. At the moment though, he might be lucky to escape this one.
“Hold on a minute.” The priest’s hand fluttered about Roc’s shoulder, then patted him as if confirming Roc was still there. “Just a minute now.”
Irritation tightened the muscles along Roc’s neck. Who was this priest that Anthony had recommended?
“Okay. There.” The priest acted like walking into total darkness and discussing vampires was a regular occurrence.
A light snapped on and the beam shot through Roc’s retina, blinding him again. He squinted and raised his arm to block the flashlight’s high beam.
“Oh, sorry.” Father Roberto slanted the light toward the steps. “Now if you’ll just head down that way.”
With the path somewhat illuminated, except for the momentary spots in Roc’s vision, he made his way down the stone steps. The uneven surface made him worry for the Father’s safety, but the older man kept a hand on the wall and didn’t seem bothered by the steep incline. A musty odor crept toward them as they descended. At the bottom, the stairwell opened into a small, cave-like room made even smaller by the shelves of books and haphazard stacks piled high on the floor and on a tiny rectangular table. In the corner was a small cot with still more books taking up space.
Father Roberto pulled out a rickety chair from the table, causing a stack to tilt and slide. He righted the tower and turned the chair to face the cot, where he backed up and sat down, the springs of the cot protesting and another stack of papers tilting precariously. “Please have a seat.”
Roc eyed the chair dubiously but then took a leap of faith that the chair’s loose hinges would hang together long enough to support his weight. Still, he kept his gun securely in his hand. “Let me say first off, Father, that I don’t believe in that vampire crap. Sorry. I don’t mean to offend. But I don’t. And…and…” His gaze snagged on a stack of books and their titles: Vampire Lore, The Power of Blood, and Dark Angels. “Uh…well, I just thought you should know that.”
Father Roberto did not seem offended, but he merely blinked and clasped his hands in his lap. “Then why are you here? Just because Anthony sent you?”
“Yes…no. Okay, look.” Roc stood. He shoved a hand through his hair. “I saw something…a few things…that I can’t explain. And even though I don’t believe in…all of this”—he waved toward a shelves of books—“I don’t really know what to think…or believe.”
“Maybe you should start at the beginning and tell me what you have seen. Or what you think you have seen?”
“So you think I’m crazy?” He blew out a breath. “Because I’m thinking that.”
“You are not crazy, Roc Girouard.”
Something inside Roc hardened like an icicle and he felt the point jabbing him in the gut. “How’d you know my name?”
“Anthony called me. I’m not accustomed to strangers approaching me about vampires and, considering my beliefs, well, you can imagine the precautions I must take for the safety of those here at the St. Joseph’s.” The priest had a slight accent, a rolling of the syllables in a way that made Roc wonder if he was a foreigner or had lived overseas for a time. He set the trowel on the bed as if deciding all was safe, that Roc wouldn’t harm him. Not that a tiny gardening tool would stop a bullet or assault. “Anthony knows all of this about me. He did not want you wounded in any way.”
“Wounded?” This old man thought he could hurt him? Roc almost laughed but caught himself.
The priest slapped his forearms. “This old body may look weak and frail but I know how to take care of myself. I have been fighting vampires for almost fifty years. And their strength is far superior to yours or mine.”
“Uh-huh.” This had been a bad idea.
“Have there been killings?” he asked matter-of-factly.
That snagged Roc’s attention. “What do you know?”
The priest shook his head. “Nothing. Nothing at all. But wherever there are vampires, there is death. That is a certainty I have come to know.”
“Uh-huh.” The nerves along Roc’s spine quivered. “Have you seen a body killed by…you know…one of those?”
“Many times.”
Roc laid his gun carefully along the top of his thigh. Was this guy a loon? O
r could he be something more? Maybe even a suspect?
“Each vampire has their own method, their own way of killing. Some like to break the neck before they drain the body of blood. But others like the fight, the fresh kill, the thrashing of the body as they subdue it.”
“And…?”
“It is not as Hollywood would make you believe, is it? The movies make it seem so romantic, two little piercings in the neck, neat and precise, like a rattlesnake bite or some such. But in reality, it is violent. Animalistic. As if a wild animal were set on a human…an animal that had not eaten in a long while.”
Roc swallowed hard. What exactly did this mild-mannered priest know? Roc’s gaze shifted and he looked around the confines of the small room, up at the watermarked ceiling. Way down here, beneath the rectory, no one would hear a young girl scream.
“In South America, so many bodies disappear without the authorities knowing. The bodies decompose in the jungle or vanish in rivers. And in many places where wild animals roam, only the animals are suspected of such crimes. This is how vampires remain in one place for so long.”
“And you’ve been to South America?”
“Oh, yes, many times. Europe is more difficult with so many cities, which may be why the vampire colonies have dispersed to other parts of the globe. But they can still be found…if one is willing to look hard enough.”
“Uh-huh, yeah. I understand. Sure.” Roc stood and turned away from the priest, his fingers curling around the butt of the gun and his trigger finger sliding into place, while he scanned the bookshelves, the walls, the table, searching for any evidence. “That’s all very interesting. Very interesting. And where else have you traveled?”
“On mission trips to the Far East and Africa to…I tell you this: I can go someplace and almost instantly know if there is vampirism in the area. It is a special sense I have developed over the years. I can sense evil deep in my bones like one who senses a storm approaching.”
“Have you been to New Orleans?”
Father Roberto did not answer.
Roc glanced over his shoulder, a paranoid glance. Father Roberto remained on the cot, his hands folded neatly together. Roc then walked a few steps toward a bookshelf near the stone steps. “You said you knew Anthony…I just thought maybe….”
“I met Anthony in Florida.”
“So you haven’t been to Louisiana?”
“New Orleans is a place of much activity, a stronghold, if you will.”
Still not exactly an answer. Roc lifted a book—Dark Days—then set it down again. Over his shoulder, he slanted his gaze toward Father Roberto. “So how many have you killed?”
“Pardon me?”
“The vampires…how many have you…?”
“Oh, of course, thirty-one to date.”
Roc’s heart set a heady pace, and his breathing became shallow, erratic. He fingered the Glock’s trigger, eased off the safety. On the shelf sat Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which almost made him laugh. Had all those books of vampires and evil stirred something in this man, made him a predator. No matter; this was the closest he’d ever get to a confession, and it would have to do. “Not a great track record, considering you’ve been at this…what did you say? Fifty years? And you feel—”
In one motion, Roc whirled around and took aim at the priest. But the old man no longer sat on the cot.
Chapter Twenty-three
Something was wrong.
It wasn’t something obvious that Levi could point toward. The sun had not yet appeared on the horizon and the usual lamplight shone around the edges of the green shade in the kitchen window. All appeared normal, the way he’d left the Schmidt farm yesterday evening. The barn door remained closed, the farm equipment in place, but as soon as he stepped inside the barn, he sensed it, as surely as he could smell when a skunk came inspecting the exterior.
Usually the farm animals were quiet, just starting to stir when Levi arrived, but today, Ash, a stout, gray mare, moved about her stall, restless and uneasy. When her wide brown eyes lit on him, she pulled her thick lips back over her teeth and nodded her head up and down, up and down, up and down.
“Easy.” Levi reached out a hand to comfort her, but she shied away and moved to the far side of the stall.
For a moment, he watched her, intent on checking her thick legs, her flat feet, her rounded belly. All seemed as it should. And yet…
He started to move away when something tripped him. A high-pitched screech made his skin contract. A kitten, the tiny black and white fur ball scurried out of the way. The mother cat, a tri-colored tabby, came from behind a crate and rubbed against his leg, her tail curling into a question mark. He smoothed a hand along her back as his heart slowed to a normal pace.
Nothing seemed wrong at all this morning; maybe it was simply his imagination or lack of sleep. With a shrug, he went about his chores and filled a bucket of oats and feed and poured it into Ash’s trough. The mare, usually eager to eat, didn’t come close. Could she have colic? He walked toward her, laid a hand under her nose, spoke soothingly, and rubbed her side and belly. A muscle twitched along her neck and her tail flicked, but she stood still, showing no signs of discomfort.
Under the stall door, Toby, the yellow lab, crawled on his belly and came to greet Levi. “Where have you been hiding this morning? Or were you sleeping late?”
The dog wagged its thick tail but he was panting, his ears pulled back, giving the usual friendly face an anxious look. Toby nosed Levi’s hand, and Levi gave him a good rubbing, as the dog’s hind leg lifted as if to scratch its belly. “Feel good, eh?”
“Morning, Levi.”
Levi turned and greeted Hannah’s father. “Morning, Daniel. I’ve been looking after Ash. She’s off her feed this morning.”
Daniel leaned his elbows on the stall door. “Maybe she ate too much of that alfalfa yesterday.”
“Could be. I’ll be keeping an eye on her, I reckon.”
Daniel nodded and headed toward the Holsteins, the clanking of pails and machinery followed. Accompanied by Toby and his thumping tail, Levi filled the troughs for the rest of the livestock, then readied the pellets for the lamb that Katie had bottle-fed last spring. The lamb had been given free rein until she got into the hay a few weeks back and made a mess. Since then, she’d been kept in a stall at the far end of the barn during the night. When he reached the wood slatted entrance, he waited for her black nose and brown eyes to greet him. But they didn’t. He peered into the stall and felt a catch in his throat.
The lamb lay on its side, head away from him. Even from a few feet distance, he knew the animal was dead. Dead animals he’d seen before. One didn’t work a farm without witnessing the beginning of life and the end, sometimes in too-quick succession. Could something have been internally wrong with the little lamb? Is that why its mother rejected it at birth? Animals often had a sense that humans did not. He’d known momma cats to eat their kittens if something was wrong at birth.
He set the bucket at his feet and swung open the half door. Poor Katie. She would not understand. She would cry over this little lamb of hers. And Hannah. How would she handle this—one more loss?
With a weariness born of dealing with the hard facts of life, he pushed open the wooden gate and approached the lamb. That’s when he saw the blood.
Chapter Twenty-four
Dat and Mamm were awake already.
Hannah could see the kerosene lights flickering in the windows. She clutched the folds of the cape over her clothes, as the icy fingers of the morning crawled beneath her clothes and along her skin, and she felt the weight of a sleepless night. Keeping to the shadow of the barn and moving toward the house, hopeful to get inside without anyone seeing her or asking questions, she heard Dat’s voice and came to a quick halt.
Her heart leapfrogged into her throat, then beat its way back into place as she realized he was n
ot speaking to her but to another. His tone was too deep to register what he was actually saying, the murmurs curt and crisp, but then his words penetrated the fog that seemed to fill her brain and ears.
“Let us not speak of this to the women.”
“Shouldn’t they know?” Levi’s voice stood out with more certainty than question. “So they can be more careful?”
“Of what? A wild animal?”
“Exactly. Or whatever…” Levi paused awkwardly, “…did this thing.”
“There is nothing to fear.”
Fear what? Levi’s words caused an icy blade that had nothing to do with the weather to skate along Hannah’s spine. Fear of what? She glanced over her shoulder toward the spring house. Had they discovered Akiva? His hiding place? No, that wasn’t possible. She’d just come from there, and the door was closed, the latch in place. Besides, why would they fear an injured man? She pressed her face against the wooden slats of the barn to better hear her father’s words.
“I will keep a lookout tonight. We should double-check the chicken coop and make sure nothing can get in.”
“The barn door was closed as always when I arrived this morning. Daniel, this isn’t—”
“You might have been mistaken. It was a fox or a wild dog maybe.”
“Daniel…” Something in Levi’s tone, the way it seemed to unravel when he spoke her father’s name unnerved Hannah. “It could be something else—”
“What? What else could it be?”
There was a long pause. Levi’s silence made the seconds tick by slowly, measured by the heavy thud of her heart. The morning sounds of buckets rattling and footsteps scraping against the dirt floor, along with the snuffling of noses that pushed pellets around the bottom of wooden troughs and metal pales, intruded and lulled her into a calm. But was it false?
Concern crinkled her brow. She should not be eavesdropping. She should hurry, as Mamm would be needing her help in the kitchen. She took a hesitant step away.
