Dark Moon

by Jessica Marting

  More of her anger ebbed a little. “How could you have failed me?” He didn’t owe her anything. He was a friendly neighbor, a member of a family of friendly neighbors.

  He paused, searching for words. “You’ve been very special to me since you moved into Miss Stapleton’s,” he said finally. His eyes met hers, and she was surprised to see an uncharacteristic tenderness there. “I wanted to look out for you.”

  Molly bent over and set the basket upright. “That vampire, Agate—he tricked me that night.”

  “Humans can be enthralled. You weren’t tricked, and that wasn’t your fault.”

  “Is that what you call it? He enthralled me, then. Caught my attention through the window and before I knew it, I was inviting him into my room.” She shook her head, as if she could rid herself of the memories. That night had been a surreal experience; she’d felt as if something had taken over her body and compelled her to do things she ordinarily wouldn’t.

  Like open her window and invite a strange man into her room. Like telling him that yes, she would like to take a lovely evening stroll with him. Yes, she could keep looking into his eyes, that wouldn’t be a problem. No, she wouldn’t scream when he bit her neck…

  She blinked, forcing those memories away, and looked at Edgar. His expression was still utterly contrite, and she could see true remorse in his eyes.

  It occurred to her that this was the first time since her kidnapping that she wasn’t afraid to look at someone in the eye.

  “Thank you for telling me,” Molly said. “I can’t say I’m delighted you ignored your sense, or whatever you call it, but I appreciate your being upfront about what happened.”

  He nodded, and she thought she saw a little of the tension escape his body at her words. “And thank you for saving these,” she said, looking at the basket. “Those are letters my parents wrote to one another before they were married.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “Dead, like everyone else in my life.” She allowed herself another moment of self-pity, even though it had been years since her parents’ deaths.

  She stood up. “I suppose I should go drink that blood now, and I should clean the bathtub.”

  “Don’t worry about the tub. I’ll take care of it. You have enough to do keeping that down.”

  He followed her to the kitchen, and she removed the cow’s blood from the icebox. “What’s the easiest way to do this?” she said. “You’re the expert.” She looked at the fluid in disgust. “Is this even really necessary?”

  “What did the vampires feed you while you were locked up?” he asked. He was dragging the tub across the kitchen floor, taking care not to splash any of the cold, soapy water out the sides.

  “Would you like some help with that?” she asked, sidestepping the question about food. She could go for another meal or two, actually, and she wasn’t looking forward to drinking cow’s blood.

  “I can take care of this just fine. Molly, what did they feed you?”

  She didn’t want to think about being trapped in that trunk, only being pulled out to be passed around from hungry vampire to hungry vampire. “Water and whatever scraps they found, when they remembered.” She shuddered, recalling the stale bread and slimy meat they tossed her way. She’d been desperate enough to eat it.

  “So you’re missing blood, which means you have to drink it. After you do, I’ll see if I can’t get some of those bites to heal a little better with holy water.” He stopped at the kitchen’s back door, meeting her eyes. “If you’ll let me.”

  She nodded. What choice did she have?

  He’d been ill, she reminded herself. She remembered Edgar’s being sick in the days leading up to her abduction; she’d even dropped off half a bottle of Dr. River’s Miracle Cough Tonic with Beth for him, left over from her own winter illness over the Christmas holidays. Headaches were part and parcel of influenza. It wasn’t his fault, nor hers, as much as she wanted someone to blame.

  Vampires, she told herself. Vampires were the monsters who did this to you, and you didn’t know how to prevent an attack.

  Edgar emptied the tub outside and brought it back in, leaving it beside the door. He crossed the room and opened the icebox, taking out the jar of blood. “You’ve done this before?” Molly wanted to be sure he wasn’t just trying to get her to go along with something disgusting.

  “I’ve been bitten countless times and fed from twice. It tastes vile, but it’s necessary. Your body only produces so much blood, and it has to be replaced.”

  “You’re sure this helps, that I have to do this?” Molly felt her gorge rise at the sight, and she wasn’t sure she could do it.

  “It’s best to just suck it down as fast as you can,” Edgar said.

  Bile rose in Molly’s throat, but she forced it down and unstopped the jar. It was just under three-quarters full, she guessed. Her eyes met Edgar’s again, and he nodded encouragingly.

  “Maybe try holding your nose,” he said.

  She hadn’t done that since she was a child and her mother forced her to eat boiled cabbage. “All right.” She pinched her nostrils shut and raised the jar to her lips.

  It was cold and salty, going down her throat in congealed lumps. Molly wanted to gag, and then cry and feel sorry for herself again, but she forced herself to drink it until she only sucked back air. She slammed the jar down on top of the icebox, dizziness overtaking her at what she had just done.

  Edgar seemed to sense it, because he grasped her elbow and led her to a chair. “Deep breaths,” he said. “You don’t want it to come back up.”

  Molly breathed in deep, cleansing lungfuls of air until her nausea had mostly passed. “That was impressive,” said Edgar. “I’ve seen Searchers suck back less blood than that and still be sick.”

  “Save your accolades,” said Molly. She closed her eyes. Breathe in, breathe out. “It may come back up yet.”

  “Accolades?”

  “Congratulations,” she said by way of explanation.

  “I’ll have to remember that,” he said. “I like that word.”

  She kept breathing deeply, willing the cow’s blood to stay where it should. “Edgar, what am I going to do after this?”

  He knew what she meant. “Work for the Searchers, if you want. You’re an experienced telegraph operator, and the New York branch needs one. It’s even better if you’re a good speller, because God knows none of us are. You can stay with us as long as you need to. You can take Ada’s room until she gets back.”

  “The Searchers are lacking someone with good spelling skills?” she said, still breathing through her nose.

  “Hell, you know the word ‘accolades.’ That puts you miles ahead of everyone else running the telegraph.”

  She laughed a little, some of her nausea dissipating. Maybe she wouldn’t be sick, after all. “Will I have to drink more blood?”

  “It depends on what the doctor says.”

  A doctor. Wonderful. But Molly supposed it was necessary. “Does he work for the Searchers, too?”

  “He does. And I still have to make that report.”

  Almost on cue, a key scraped in the heavy brass lock on the front door and it swung open on squeaking hinges. Francis Burgess’s voice shouted a hello, followed by a quieter male voice that Molly didn’t recognize. The doctor, she supposed.

  Edgar stood up, holding out his hand, and it took Molly a second to realize that he was helping her up.

  She smiled, her eyes meeting his, and laid her palm in his hand. She was struck by how warm and alive he was, and by her own reaction to him. Her body prickled with awareness, and with it, a corresponding warmth. She didn’t want to look away, but it wasn’t because a vampire’s thrall compelled her not to.

  Agate was the first person—no, first thing, she corrected herself—to touch her since Kenneth died. The memory of his cold, dead hands gripping her shoulders as his teeth sank into her flesh was as indelible as an ink stain on cloth.

  But so was Edgar’s touch
and his dark eyes fixed on hers, and there was nothing but strength and kindness there. And, Molly thought, something more.

  But his next words were all business. “Let me find some holy water before Helford examines you.”

  ****

  By early afternoon, Edgar had written his report, and Molly was examined by Dr. Helford, the Searchers’ long-serving physician. Edgar returned to the butcher shop for another jar of blood while she was looked over, just in case Helford recommended more. Besides, it never hurt to have some blood on hand when one was a vampire hunter.

  He stopped at a small curio shop near the butcher’s on his way home. It was a tiny space, dimly lit, crammed with clockwork toys, baubles, periodicals, jewelry, and cheap bouquets held together with yellowed lengths of lace, the scent of tobacco permeating the air. He often picked up adventure magazines there; those issues were usually the closest to literature the Burgess family read, and was pleased to see the current issue of Murray’s. He tucked a copy under his arm and carefully inspected the rest of the shop’s wares. Funny that he never really looked at anything but the magazines before.

  A present. He could pick something out for Molly. He had just enough money on him until his next payment from the Searchers to buy her something nice. He hoped so, anyway; a dingy shelf held out an assortment of cheap brass and copper jewelry that he didn’t think she would like. He’d noticed the things her landlady tossed out in the street, and some of it was high quality, far better than anything he could have ever afforded. Edgar knew that once upon a time Molly had been a respectable middle-class girl from Manhattan, and her hairpins and jewelry reflected that. Gold, pearls, nothing cheap nor mass-produced.

  She may now live in a working-class Brooklyn neighborhood, but she didn’t belong there.

  He finally picked out a couple of the dime novels his sister was fond of, and a bouquet of daisies. The lace that held it together was fastened with a small brass pin shaped like a beetle whose wings opened when it was wound up, and it was the freshest bunch on offer. An uncharacteristic nervousness swept through Edgar at the thought of presenting Molly with his gifts and wouldn’t go away.

  Dr. Helford was still at the house when he returned, his medical bag over one arm and hat in hand. “How is Mrs. McKillip?” Edgar asked him by way of greeting.

  “I told her and your sister-in-law that she should take some more blood over the next two days,” the physician said. “She also needs to eat some more and put some weight back on. But for someone who was held captive by vampires for over two weeks, she’s doing quite well.” He nodded toward the bag holding Edgar’s purchases and the bouquet in his hand. “I trust you stopped at the butcher shop?”

  “He thinks I’ve gone mad since I’ve been there twice today for cow’s blood, but I did.”

  “Have her take a cup of it tomorrow, and another the day after that. If her condition worsens, and I don’t expect it will, let me know.” He put his hat on and said his goodbye.

  Edgar put the blood in the icebox and took his gifts out of the curio shop’s paper bag. He found Molly in the house’s small parlor, looking far more serene than she had before he left for the butcher shop. The early afternoon sunlight reflected bright gold off her blonde hair, now tied back in a serviceable knot at the nape of her neck. She was, and always had been to Edgar, absolutely lovely.

  “Dr. Helford says you’re on your way to recovery,” Edgar said.

  “Hearing that from a physician takes a great deal of care off my shoulders.” She spied the bouquet and books in his hands. “What’s that?”

  Feeling awkward for the first time in recent memory, Edgar held out the bouquet. “These are for you.”

  Surprise lit up her features, and her lips turned up in a smile. “Thank you. This is a pleasant surprise.”

  “These as well.” He held out the books. “Ada likes these.”

  She took them from him and examined the cheap blue paper covers. “You can never go wrong with a novel.”

  An unexpected relief flowed through Edgar at her pronouncement. She picked up on it, because she asked, “Were you worried I wouldn’t like them?”

  “Yes.” He sank into the battered lounge.

  She shrugged and leafed through one of the books. “All I was allowed to read growing up and during finishing school was the Bible and etiquette guides.” She held up the bouquet and sniffed the daisies, then unpinned the tiny brass beetle from its lacy perch. She sat down next to him and wound it up, letting it crawl across her skirts. “Finishing school was a waste of time,” she said.

  Edgar couldn’t offer an opinion on that, having left school at twelve, the same as Francis. Ada had continued her studies a little longer, having wanted to be an airship pilot, but eventually caved in to the Searchers’ requests and joined their ranks. He was grateful that their parents had insisted all of their children be literate, though. Knowing how to read and write made going through life much easier.

  He was very aware of her presence, the smell of her soap filling his nostrils, the heat from her body setting all of his nerve endings on fire.

  “Why did you give me all of this, Ed?” she asked.

  Ah, the question he both wanted to answer and feared to. Because he wanted to tell her it was because he loved her, that he blamed himself for her abduction, that he knew there was nothing he could do to make up for what had happened.

  “It’s an apology,” he said.

  “You’ve already apologized, and I told you it wasn’t necessary.”

  Before he could talk himself out of it, Edgar blurted out, “I love you, Molly.”

  She immediately stiffened next to him, and the beetle crawled off her skirts and dropped to the floor. The parlor was so silent he could hear her shallow breaths. But he wasn’t going to speak the next words; those were up to her. There wasn’t any way to expand on what he just said.

  “What?” Molly’s voice was a hoarse whisper.

  “I have the highest kill count in the city right now because I’ve been looking for you,” he said.

  “But that doesn’t explain your saying you love me.”

  “It does. I never stopped searching.” His eyes met hers, and he saw the shock reflected there. “I’ve been in love with you for a long time. It killed me when you went missing and I knew I could have done something to stop it.”

  “You were sick, Ed…”

  He cut her off. “I still should have investigated.”

  She stood up, the bouquet in one hand and the books clenched in the other. “Edgar, I know you have good intentions, but I cannot handle this right now. Between the vampires and this infatuation you seem to have…” She shook her head and looked away. “I need to be alone for a while, Ed.”

  She hurried out of the parlor and Edgar listened to her footsteps as she ascended the stairs to Ada’s bedroom. He remained rooted to the lounge, unable to follow her.

  A few moments passed and Edgar kept staring out the parlor window, at the sun-drenched street. Francis strolled in. “I thought I’d give you a minute.”

  “I suppose you heard everything.”

  Francis threw himself into a chair, long legs sprawled across the threadbare carpet. “Your timing is terrible.”

  “Shouldn’t you be sleeping? Don’t you have a shift with the Searchers tonight?”

  “I begged off and picked up a shift tomorrow night at Coney Island Airfield instead. You really should stop by. They’re guessing the whole thing will be finished by the beginning of August and there goes the work.”

  “I know.” Did he ever. Money was always tight for the Burgesses, but with Edgar taking on as much work with the Searchers as he had, he’d certainly been short of it more than usual. Airfield construction work was paid in cash daily, and that cash was significantly more than the pittance offered by the Searchers.

  “I came here to bother you about the airfield construction, and I did that.”

  “Then you can probably leave.”

  “Nah, I
’d rather tell you how badly you fucked up telling Molly that you love her.”

  Edgar stood up. “Not now.”

  “She’s right, you know. Dropping that on her the day she’s pulled out of a vampire den and then had to drink blood is a lot. You should have waited a few days, at least.”

  “I’m leaving now.”

  “I hope you’re going to the airfield to sign up for a shift. They’re short of afternoon and night workers.”

  It wasn’t a bad idea. “Fine. Frank, I’ll go to the airfield.”

  ****

  Molly sat on the edge of Ada’s bed, trying to calm her rapidly-beating heart and failing. She was briefly reminded of how much Agate had liked feeding from her when she was terrified, that he liked feeling her pulse vibrate. Tears spilled down her cheeks and she wiped at her eyes with her hands.

  Edgar’s bouquet rested on top of the highboy in the corner, the dime novels beside it. A small bookcase full of similar cheap paperbacks was beside the chest of drawers, giving credence to Edgar’s claim about Ada’s choices in reading material. Molly liked Ada; for a few seconds she wished that Edgar’s sister was home and could offer her some advice. Molly was two years older, but at twenty-five Ada had a worldliness and wisdom about her that Molly didn’t. She knew now that it had to come from a lifetime of staking vampires.

  It wasn’t that Molly didn’t like Edgar. Quite the opposite. He was always polite and cursed far less than Francis or Ada did. She always found him attractive, even though she knew she could never act on that, and hearing his confession in the parlor was as much of a shock as seeing Agate at her window the night she was kidnapped.

  Why did he have to tell her now? Why not in a few days, when she had some time to absorb everything that had happened?

  And why did she have to be such a ninny about it? It took a great deal of courage to tell someone that, and she threw it back in his face. She didn’t know who to be angrier with, herself or Edgar.

  Was he expecting her to return his affections? Molly stood up and paced the small room, footsteps muffled by the large, colorful rag rug covering the floor. She liked Edgar very much and considered him and the Burgess family among her few friends in Brooklyn. She had finished grieving for Kenneth a long time ago and moved on, something she and her late husband discussed well before he fell ill. They had both agreed long ago that if one of them passed away too young, the other would go on with life.