Darklands: a vampire's tale

by Donna Burgess

  Susan climbed back into bed and pulled the covers tightly around her. She suddenly felt very cold. “You need to leave, Devin. Michael will be back any moment.”

  Devin pulled on his shirt. “So?”

  “Get out.”

  “As you wish,” Devin said. He winked at her and slipped out of the room.

  She did not hear his steps on the stairs, but she did hear the soft squeak of the front door opening and then closing. She went to the window and watched him stroll across the lawn and up the lane to a black Range Rover.

  Devin was right. People were shit, at least most of them. They were not truthful to anyone. Hell, most of them couldn’t even be truthful to themselves.

  Susan wished he could have stayed with her. For more than twenty years, she had refused to be truthful to herself. She had never hated Devin, despite the fact that she thought he had murdered Peter. He had remained in her dreams. He lived inside her mind. Making love with Michael, she sometimes found herself imagining Devin’s beautiful face above hers.

  For twenty years, she found herself searching the faces in the crowds for his. Before she met Michael, she had preferred being alone. She had wondered if there might have been something mentally wrong with her for it. Did she crave pain? She grew to look forward to coming home at night, listening to music, not hearing any voices. She smoked too much pot. She drank too much. She drew, and many times, it was Devin’s face that grew visible within the soft lines and easy shading.

  She would burn the sketches in the kitchen sink and wash the ashes down the drain, then draw more. A screwed-up cycle. Her aloneness had defined her, and she didn’t care.

  She would wait until after dark, and then go out to run the park paths. Sometimes, she had felt as though someone was watching. Not every time, only now and again.

  She had even called out Devin’s name once, her voice shaking like a frightened girl. Devin McCree—the only person she had ever feared, and she wanted him, had always wanted him.

  She was losing it.

  And what was she doing to Michael? He had been so different from the pathetic creatures who usually tried to make a play for her. So different from Devin. Sweet-faced and charming—that was Michael.

  He was her chance at a normal life, and that was something she knew she should want, and what she thought she needed.

  So, why did she want Devin so badly, instead?

  chapter thirteen

  Susan had the unsettling sensation that someone was watching her sleep. She squinted into the darkness of the bedroom, searching for her uninvited guest. Stealthily, she rose from the bed, and then headed downstairs. It had been nearly a week since Devin was there; it was obvious what he was doing. Fine. Point taken.

  After nearly tearing out Michael’s throat the other night, she had not had anything else to do with him. Those glimpses into his head were not helping things, either. He was like a petulant little boy. Things had grown increasingly tense, to say the least; they were barely on speaking terms now. Inwardly, she punished herself for ruining the life they had made together. Michael didn’t deserve that.

  She continued to make a of keeping hours similar to his, but it was impossible for her to function in the daylight. Gerald called, but she ignored her phone. Work was no longer a consideration.

  She smelled Devin before his broad silhouette appeared against the lighter gray of the moon-painted window. She smelled that faint odor of blood—it radiated from his very pores, a raw, wild odor that somehow aroused her.

  “Told you I would be back,” he whispered. His hot breath caressed her face.

  “Don’t worry about waking him,” he told her, pointing upward. “We can be as silent as death, when we want to.”

  He moved behind her. He was so warm, almost burning against her back, her buttocks, and her bare legs. What he told her sent chill bumps up and down her legs, despite his fiery touch. Upstairs, the bed creaked slightly, and Susan stood motionless one horrible moment, waiting, hoping that Michael had not awakened and discovered her gone.

  “Been having some bloody horrible nights, I’ll bet,” Devin said. He seemed proud of the fact. He pressed himself against her again.

  “You bastard,” she hissed. “I feel like I’m starving, or hollow.”

  She stepped away, but he slipped his arm around her middle and pulled her back to him. He nuzzled the side of her neck and nipped at her skin, drawing a new dribble of blood to the old wound.

  “We are going. Tonight. Understand?” He flicked his tongue against the bloody little gash, and she felt the soft thrum of his pulse in time with hers. He was stealing her blood again, and that was what she wanted. She arched her neck, offering herself and hoped he would return the favor.

  He did, taking her head in his large hands and guiding her lips to the hollow of his throat.

  “Only a little, now,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of time before dawn.”

  After what seemed to be only a taste, Devin led her toward the stairs.

  The moon poured in, flushing Michael’s sleeping face in blue light. She did love him, even though she hadn’t felt that kind of unconditional adoration since Peter. Until Devin. Her eyes blurred with tears at the thought of leaving Michael and what had been her sweet, somewhat normal, life. But, she couldn’t even begin entertain the idea of what might happen if she didn’t leave.

  Devin stood over Michael for a moment, watching him sleep. She wondered what would happen if he did wake. Would there be a confrontation? Would Devin kill him?

  Panic gripped her, and she realized she needed to be away from Michael and the house as fast as she could—for his safety, if not for her own health. She yanked off her police academy t-shirt and pulled on a sports bra, jeans and a blouse that she had to button twice because her fingers trembled so badly. Finally, she stepped into a pair of tattered sneakers. She grabbed a small duffel bag and shoved a few clothes inside. She then removed a small stack of photos from the drawer in her bedside table and put them in the duffel, as well.

  She straightened up to find Devin now kneeling beside Michael. He slipped his finger across Michael’s throat, only a fluttering caress. Michael swatted at his hand, but otherwise did not move. Devin appeared to be amused, but Susan wondered if he wanted to wake Michael, if there was some animalistic part of Devin McCree that craved a battle.

  “Just like a little baby,” he said. “We could take every bit of his blood right now, you know. We could drain him. He would never know what hit him.”

  “Please, Devin. I’m going with you. What else do you want?”

  “I want you to want to go with me, Susan,” he said. “Not because you have to.”

  She couldn’t stand it any longer. “I do. I do want to go.” She went to him, stood on her tiptoes and kissed him. “Please don’t hurt him,” she pleaded. She watched in horrified silence as Devin brushed Michael’s hair from his brow. He leaned closer to the sleeping man’s face and inhaled his breath, just as a cat might steal the breath of a sleeping child. Michael sighed and shoved his hand beneath his head.

  Devin glanced at Susan. “Okay. Let’s go.”

  ***

  It was chilly and damp outside. The dew glistened on the grass like slivers of shattered glass, reflecting the round face of the moon a million times. Susan followed Devin past a couple of houses up the sandy land to where he had parked his Rover. Away from Michael, he seemed very different. His gestures and words were again soft, his movements less threatening.

  “It won’t be as bad as you think, Susan,” he said. “In the end, you’ll see.”

  She drew the front of the pea coat that had once belonged to Devin tightly together to fight the cold breeze coming off the ocean. Her mother had asked about that coat after Peter’s death, and she had claimed that she had picked it up at a vintage clothing store. Maybe keeping it had been some kind of weird attachment to a man she thought she had killed. A trophy, perhaps. It swallowed her up, her arms disappearing inside the sleeves, but i
t was toasty warm. She flipped up the collar to block the wind from her neck and imaged she still smelled Devin on it—his musty, sexy scent that reminded her of something entirely naughty.

  Devin started the truck, and they coasted to the main road, gravel crunching softly under the tires like old bones. Susan looked back over her shoulder at her dark, sleeping home, then leaned over and pressed her face against Devin’s shoulder. She was sick in her mind and heart, but she had to do what was best for her, and for Michael. This was the only way. Devin stroked her hair gently and planted a small kiss on the crown of her head.

  “You will be happy with me, Susan. I promise.”

  They drove through the flat, inky country and passed familiar landmarks as they chewed up the miles between Hamilton and Charlestowne. The darkness made everything seem nightmarish, the shadows spilling across the ground overly large and misshapen. Overhead, the sky took on a purplish hue, and the clouds grew fat with rain. Far off, lightning painted their low bellies orange for an instant.

  After a short while, Susan closed her eyes and fell into a light sleep.

  She dreamed of walking on a beach at night. The ocean was as black as the damp road under the Rover’s wheels. The sand was like cool shards of glass under her bare feet, and nearby, Michael begged to her to come with him. But she couldn’t leave Devin now. She was forever tied to him, and to Charlestowne.

  As quickly as Michael had appeared, he vanished, leaving nothing but a thick pool of blood where he had stood. The pebble-sized granules of sand seemed to suck the blood down into it, drinking it up.

  Susan awoke with a gasp, tears wetting her cheeks. She turned toward the window so Devin wouldn’t see and regarded her own hopeless face floating ghostly and transparent in the side mirror. What had she done?

  Years ago, she had vowed she would never set foot in Charlestowne again, but just ahead, the morning ripped the seam of night at the horizon, and the city rose before her, waiting to swallow her up.

  chapter fourteen

  When Michael awoke, Susan’s side of the bed was cold. He remained still a moment, blinking hard against the late-morning sun. Then, he took several deep breaths and allowed his eyes to adjust to the brightness of the room. He threw back the covers. Sitting up, he scrubbed his hands over his face and rubbed his eyes with his fists to rid them of the residue of sleep.

  “Susan?”

  He finally got up and trudged around the bedroom, rubbing his arms vigorously in an attempt to warm himself.

  “Susan?” he called again, his voice hoarse with sleep. No answer. He knew Susan was already up—the shirt she had worn was on the floor at the end of the bed. She had hardly seen a morning in weeks, perhaps this was sign things were finally returning to normal.

  It was odd, though. She never left her clothes on the floor, and usually scolded him if he did it. Some bachelor habits were tougher to shake than others. Squinting in the sunlight, he crossed to her side of the bed.

  On the bedside table, next to the reading lamp, were her revolver and her cell phone. She never left without either. Beneath them was a slip of paper ripped haphazardly from a notebook.

  He picked it up and squinted at it a moment, and then retrieved his glasses from his nightstand and put them on. The paper had a sketch of a man who looked strangely familiar, but the face was difficult to place. He wondered how long ago it was done. He knew Susan had been an art student, but he had never seen her draw anything. She never even doodled. But, this sketch was incredible.

  Then it came to him like a slap in the face. This was their hero from Yeoman’s the other week. Still, it was odd. They had only seen the guy for a minute or two, at the most. This sketch seemed to have been drawn by someone who knew every contour of the man’s face. He could have posed for it.

  “Susan?” he called again. His voice echoed lonesomely in the silence and panic blossomed in his mind. He sprinted from the bedroom. He stumbled on the rolled-up edge of the rug but caught his shoulder on the doorjamb, keeping him from falling headlong into the hallway.

  “Shit,” he muttered, rubbing his bruised shoulder.

  He went downstairs and glanced through the big front picture window. Susan’s Jeep was still out there, just where had left it, parked next to his little BMW convertible. Neither car had been touched. Susan’s keys were on the little table in the foyer, where she always left them, next to the purse she rarely carried.

  Michael’s heart pounded in time with the throbbing in his head, and fresh dread tasted like rust on his tongue. He searched the downstairs rooms, racing from the kitchen to the living room to his office. She would be there; she would be in one of those places, and he would end up looking like a complete fool for being so worked up. But that would be all right. He had looked like a fool in front of her before.

  Nothing.

  He flung open the front door, trying to convince himself that she was simply out for a walk. He sucked in a lungful of crisp air, and that told him all he needed to know about that—Susan was extremely cold natured. She would never go out for a walk in the chill of an October morning. He stood on the front porch and scanned the sandy lane that stretched from his house, east toward the bay and west toward the highway that led away from Reading. Deserted, as usual.

  Then, he spotted a set of fresh tire tracks. He went to the road and found only one set of footprints, small ones, and he knew they belonged to Susan. They reached the tracks of the vehicle and then were gone. Anger built now, replacing the panic. Had she left him on foot, alone? There had to be another set of footprints.

  Still, Michael did not have to wonder where Susan had gone, and whom with. It all made perfect sense. How could he have been so blind? Devin McCree was the man in the sketch, the so-called hero. She had spoken of him in her sleep—he plagued her nightmares. Or were they nightmares at all?

  Shivering, he turned back toward the house. He knew exactly what he would have to do next. And he had no time to waste.

  chapter fifteen

  The miles disappeared beneath the wheels of the BMW. It is just past 7:00 p.m. and completely dark. Rain splattered the windshield, and the wipers drummed and swished a slow, steady rhythm.

  Michael fiddled with the dial and found a modern rock channel. Soundgarden, or maybe it was Pearl Jam—he couldn’t remember exactly, but the music was hard and fast. He turned it up and tapped out the beat on his steering wheel more out of anxiety than any enjoyment of the music.

  He did not like this stretch of rural road that passed through vast stretches of government-protected forests and swampland. There were towns so tiny they didn’t even warrant mention on a map. It was a dreary, boring ride. No traffic—not a single headlight behind him, not a single taillight in the distance ahead.

  Gerald had told him not to go looking for Susan. Of course, Gerald had all kinds of ideas—that Susan simply might have decided to leave him; that she was unstable as a result of all she had been through recently. Still, unless he had been completely blind for the past year, Michael found it difficult to believe she would have just left, especially in the middle of the night, like a coward. She was a lot of things, but weak was not on that list. Besides, she wouldn’t have left without her gun.

  That gun was now lying on the passenger’s seat, loaded. Just in case.

  Charlestowne was about four hours north of Reading, and he hated that he had gotten such a late start. He should have never met with Gerald and gotten tied up with him. What a waste of time that had been.

  Michael had offered up what he knew, which was not a lot. “She’s with someone named Devin. Devin something,” he said. “Sounded like McCree.” Then, he removed the sketch that Susan had done from his jacket pocket and gave it to Gerald. “He’s the guy who was at Yeoman’s the night we were attacked. The one who beat Alton Lee to a pulp.”

  Gerald squinted at the drawing. “Devin? Wait.” He shook his head. “How do you know?”

  “She mentioned him. Something happened between them.” It was
already too farfetched. He was not about to tell Gerald that he had acquired this knowledge by listening to Susan talk in her sleep.

  “What do you mean, something happened? Like she was screwing around with him?”

  Michael shrugged.

  “If that’s true, why do you even care about finding her?”

  “I don’t know. I feel like she’s in trouble.” Michael said. “Look, are you going to help me or not? Otherwise, you’re wasting my time.” He started toward the door.

  Gerald grasped his arm and pulled him back. “Is she even worth it?” Slowly, he let go of Michael, then reached up and patted the side of his head. “Devin. You think it might have something to do with what happened to her before?”

  “How the hell should I know?” Michael snapped.

  “You can’t just run off to Charlestowne like this. It’s nothing more than a ghost town now, anyway. You have no idea what you might be getting into,” Gerald told him. “What you need to do is go back home and wait. It could be a while before we know if we are going to dig up anything on the name. Besides, she might call.”

  “I’ll go crazy just waiting, Gerald. You know that.”

  “Yeah. Well, that’s the best I can offer,” Gerald said. Gerald had run a check on the name and faxed the sketch, but had turned up nothing by the time Michael left.

  That was hours ago. Since then, checking his phone had become a habit. No calls. He had driven through the rain. Now the big yellow face of the moon followed him, a grapefruit moon, Tom Waits called it, a beacon visible only periodically, most of the time blocked by the gauzy, gray clouds. Ahead, the city rose up like manmade mountains and rock faces. Shortly, the old blacktop was swallowed in inky shadow. Gerald had not been exaggerating—it seemed as if everyone had left. Windows were like black squares against the gray granite faces of the buildings. The sidewalks were empty, and no cars crawled along the streets. Streetlamps bled pools the color of pus onto the pavement.