The vampire was on his feet even before the question was out. In three steps he crossed the room to pound his white fist on a wall. There might have been words in the snarl that followed, but they were incomprehensible.
“Keep it down,” Paul ordered, as annoyed as he was chilled by the outburst. “There’s a child upstairs trying to sleep.”
The vampire turned. Sniffed the air like a dog. “I know. A woman, too.”
Paul’s hands fisted on the arms of his chair. He watched the vampire slowly relax until he leaned loose-limbed against the wall. His face, which had grown more mottled with his scarlet rage, faded back to a shade closer to normal for him. “The situation now developing,” he said thickly, “is not of my doing.”
“Purcell,” said the nearly forgotten daughter, the name dribbling from her mouth like sour milk.
“Yes. Duane Purcell. It happened just four months ago. And now that I think of it, it is my fault. The problem, Paul, is that I’m too compassionate for my own good.”
Laws, Drake had told his people on more than one occasion, must be obeyed, for the law is the heart of a civilized society. Those who’d remained with him after Chitimacha Bend gave him no argument for they were the most fiercely loyal. There were no major transgressors for more than a century.
Until the night Frank Dexter killed Duane Purcell.
“I believe John and I were bloodletting a rat at the time,” Drake reminisced, “when James Chaplin blundered in to tell me in that officious manner of his that we had a situation. That’s how James would have put it, too: ‘We have a situation.’
“The two daylighters had been feuding for years. I don’t know why, and quite frankly I don’t care. That was my downfall: not keeping closer tabs on my town. Anyway, I let James drag me to the Winking Dog Saloon, which is where, if anything tawdry happens around here, it will take place.”
“My head reeled with bloodscent as soon as I walked in. Frank Dexter held a dripping knife blade, and that ocean of blood…he must have hit an artery.
“I’m going to use that bloodlust as a partial excuse for my foggy thinking. At least I didn’t do like John Tolliver and Vern Chambers and drop to my knees to lap the pooling liquid from the bare floorboards. But when I saw that the bloody mass at my feet was Duane Purcell, I wanted to celebrate then and there. White trash, Paul. Riffraff, as we called it in my day.” He snickered. “Or at least one of my days.”
The vampire wiped his mouth. “The point is, the entire Purcell clan should have been wiped out long ago. No loss.”
But Purcell’s mother had been called and by now she’d thrown herself down on the floor with her dying son, sobbing.
“He lived with her. Almost thirty years old and he still lived with his mother. Typical Purcell. But like I say, I’m too compassionate for my own good.”
Since the town’s daylighters were all converted as they matured and therefore expected to live exceedingly long and glorious lives, premature death was a particularly grisly prospect. The onlookers gaped in horror as the life pumped from the twitching man on the floor. Take him, the man’s mother implored in the presence of the master vampire.
“Anyone who tells you that rules are made to be broken leads an undisciplined existence,” said Drake.
“You converted him.”
The vampire’s eyes flashed. “I might as well have put a loaded gun into the hands of a disturbed child. I knew it was a mistake as soon as I’d done it. Even before. But that woman…she was relentless.”
There was more to it than that, Drake admitted. With eventual conversion being the basis of the vampires’ unwritten pact with the humans, there was no telling what affect an eyewitness account of that pact being broken would have. Anything from mass exodus to open rebellion would devastate the community.
After a review of the assault, it was determined that Frank Dexter had been provoked by Purcell and his friends, and since no permanent injuries had been sustained, the matter was officially closed.
“Then we heard rumor that Jason Penney and Gary Leckner, two cronies of Purcell’s, were spending their days behind closed blinds and prowling the streets after dark.
“Naturally, I confronted Purcell and he apologized. He pointed out—quite correctly, though impertinently stated, as it turned out—that conversion of the young was not strictly forbidden in our community. We hadn’t had to establish such formal laws before his kind came along. We’d always let common sense dictate that anyone under the age of at least fifty was too young to have the self discipline to assume such grave responsibilities.”
Again, Drake stopped. He sipped water, almost daintily, and stared into the distance.
“I should have cut him down then and there, while I was still stronger than him. But the truth is, my killer instinct had been dulled over the years, and I took my time thinking about it. Trying to be fair.”
The next rumor to befall the town was that Jason Penney had converted his teenage girlfriend, Patty Craven, and that she’d taken her younger brother, Ethan. Even as the master vampire went about his business of collecting and sorting through the evidence of the latest conversions, Purcell changed his strategy and began threatening, cajoling and bribing daylighters.
“Imagine a society, he must have told his listeners, where you don’t have to be withered and senile and near death before joining the hunt. Eternal life, he would have promised, as only the young might enjoy it.
“Not everyone listened, I’m proud to say. Plenty reported back to me, but plenty didn’t.” Drake frowned at the memory. “Frank Dexter disappeared four months ago and hasn’t been seen since. Four months ago, the conversions took up again, this time openly. They converted one officer on the police force, and the strangers started being pulled into town by the daylighter McConlon and a couple cops working for him. But first, McConlon got hold of some of the business owners and made them donate jobs as bait. Many, like my good friend James Chaplin, agreed out of fear. Others are looking toward their final reward.”
Drake ran a finger along his mouth. “I don’t know how Purcell did it, but that hayseed has somehow managed to set up a competing society right in the shadow of my own. If I were younger,” he hissed, “this would not be happening.”
“The outsiders…they’re here to be hunted,” Paul said in a hushed tone. “They’re here for…harvesting?”
“It’s an outrage,” said Tabitha Drake as she teethed her empty beer can. “Sooner or later someone important is going to be taken, and then where will we be?”
And now Paul understood, as the vampire frowned his daughter to silence, why he’d been handled with kid gloves.
“If you must know,” said Drake, “a few have already fallen victim.”
“Doyle Armstrong,” Paul shot back. “Judd Maxwell.”
“Unfortunately, all it did was feed their appetites.”
Paul sprang from his chair. “You have to stop them.” He began to pace the room.
“I can’t.” Rheumy, yellow eyes followed him. “They’re young, and too strong to be stopped without triggering a vampire war.” He flapped his hand in a tired gesture. “They got out of control. I should have kept better track of them and I didn’t. I accept responsibility.”
Paul wheeled and faced the vampire. “You accept responsibility? They’re killing innocent people and you ‘accept responsibility?’”
The eyes, which had seemed so old and weak just moments before flared with white brilliance in an instant. “Watch how you talk to me, daylighter. Purcell and the others are problems. You, on the other hand, are an irritation.”
Paul fell to his seat, breathless. He’d almost allowed himself to forget who—or what—he’d been addressing.
Drake said, “My purpose for coming here tonight was to let you make a rational, informed decision regarding the sale of your home. I’ve rambled some, but I’ll now get to the point. I know you have business associates and relatives and friends and bankers and lawyers and accountants, all who�
��d raise more questions than we’d care to answer if you were to just disappear.”
The vampire stared at an index finger before nibbling the ragged nail. “But you haven’t made a new and powerful friend tonight, Paul. I haven’t unburdened myself because I see you as a trusted confidante. Quite the contrary, I don’t trust you at all. And yet, what choice do I have? You’re bright and inquisitive and quite stubborn. You’ve made it abundantly clear to everyone who’s tried to intervene that you have no intention of leaving Babylon without answers.”
“So now you have answers,” said Tabitha Drake.
“And now it’s very difficult for us to let you go,” said Drake.
Paul’s bladder felt heavy enough to release and spill down his legs, and yet he hadn’t the strength to attend to the problem. There were no fully formed thoughts in his head, just cloudy, abstract images of death and dread.
“There’s one more tale to tell,” the vampire said softly. This one—I swear it’s the last—concerns the people who lived in your home. The McConlons? You know the brother, the bastard working for Purcell. Jeff and Andrea and their two lovely kids, I don’t believe you ever met. They were in such a rush to leave. If you listen carefully to this final tale of mine, I think you’ll find in it a valuable lesson.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Of all the laws governing the residents of Babylon, Michigan, those concerning population control were among the most seriously observed. Word would not seep out if no one got out.
While some worked in surrounding towns and even as far away as Detroit or Toledo, the town’s dark secrets were guarded by the fact that emigration was strictly forbidden. The obvious problem with this decree was too many births and an absence of counterbalancing deaths. Even after annexing nearby farm acreage, not always voluntarily, civic leaders could foresee the town outgrowing all available expansion space.
To postpone a population crisis, the families of Babylon were limited to a maximum of two children.
“We’re quite progressive,” the vampire quietly boasted. “Condoms and a variety of female contraceptive options are widely available and inexpensive, and abortions are free and safe at Babylon Community Hospital. As a result, we’ve rarely had a problem.”
Paul’s eyes felt scratchy, prickly for the need for sleep. For the first time, he was struggling to keep up. “Rarely,” he said.
The vampire’s face grew more mottled. “Again, I was kept in the dark. The first I knew of the situation was Olan Buck telling me that the McConlons wanted special dispensation to have a third child. Such permission has never been granted, but I had Tabitha look into it.”
“They’d already conceived. Apparently, the laws of the land are not meant for such as them,” she spat.
A dark glance from her father returned the woman to her sullen silence.
Drake turned back to Paul, his white brows low over his eyes. “After careful consideration, I decided that making the one exception would only encourage disregard for the laws of logic that bind our society. The situation was handled firmly, but with compassion. An appointment was made for Mrs. McConlon at our hospital.”
“The bitch never showed,” Tabitha muttered.
“The next we knew, they were gone and the house was sold,” said Drake, with all the hurt indignation of the offended party. “In a whirlwind of activity, they took off three weeks before you moved in.”
Paul nodded. “The real estate agent said it was a highly motivated seller.” Understatement of the year.
Very softly, the vampire said, “Oh, we know all about Savannah Easton.”
“She’s not responsible,” Paul said. “We found the place ourselves, online, and she recommended against it.”
“No matter. The house should not have even been on the market. There are certain things that area brokers have just picked up on without anyone having to hit them over the head with a hammer about it.” Drake offered up a ghastly smile. “Or maybe that’s exactly what we should have done.”
The vampire scooted forward in the sofa and fixed his listener in his sights. “Here comes the part I want you to pay especially close attention to, Paul. It provides the moral that holds this entire long evening together. Listen carefully, please.”
He could hardly do otherwise. Paul was snared in those twin beams under the thick set of brows.
“You and your lovely family moved in almost five weeks ago, and yet it’s only in the last few days that we’ve begun to pressure you to leave. Why do you think it’s taken that long, Paul?”
The long hours and the vampire’s cool voice had nearly lulled him to sleep, but Paul managed to shake his head into wakefulness and provide a response: He had no idea.
“Of course not. It’s because we had other things to do. Other activities occupying our time and attention and resources. Think hard, Paul. Why do you suppose it’s taken this long?”
He would have liked to have said he didn’t know, but he had a horrible suspicion. He broke eye contact with the vampire and stared at the bamboo floor. His voice rasped painfully in response. “You were hunting. The McConlons.”
“Right!” the vampire shouted. “Right on the money, son!”
The only significant time Jeff McConlon had ever spent away from Babylon, Paul was told, was during a three-year Army stint (“We don’t discourage patriotism, Paul”), and Andrea had never been out. Therefore, the fleeing family had few avenues of outside assistance.
“His brother is a rat’s ass, but he came up with the identity of Jeff’s best friend from his service days. With the help of our police department computers, we were able to track this man down to a trailer outside of Ithaca, New York. He was divorced and living alone on a weed-choked field owned by an alcoholic widower of a farmer whose own tumbledown home was at least a mile away. It couldn’t have been a better setup.”
The last thing Paul wanted was the details, but, as before, he couldn’t stop himself. “You wiped out the entire family.”
The vampire looked hurt. “You didn’t give them enough money, Paul. You found your motivated seller and low-balled even their ridiculously low selling price in a terrible market. I’m not blaming you, just stating the facts. By the time their mortgage was paid off, well…”
Drake shrugged. Smiled, as Paul felt his stomach clench up.
“I’m sure young Jeff and Andrea planned to take the money and run for as long as it held out. Disappear for months, years, however long it took us to forget. That’s easy enough to do with ample funds, but like I said, you found yourself in a well leveraged position. I think that’s the term you use. I can picture the young couple, their two young children and a third on the way, trying to survive with nothing. No job, no plans and no experience on the road. That’s the main thing, Paul: experience. It’s taken me a century to learn that. But the McConlons had this one friend in the whole huge, scary outside world, so where are they likely to end up?”
Paul wanted the night to end, for dawn to break and the new sun to shatter either the vampire whom he’d invited into his family’s home or his own delusion about the old man’s power.
“I’m picturing Andrea protesting her husband’s plans,” Drake went on. “She’d tell him that it was too obvious, too risky. But Jeff would tell her that it’d been several weeks and that it looked like the town had forgotten them. Now, he’d probably know otherwise, but he was without options, Paul, so it was a lie he had to pull over both of them. Can you picture it, Paul? Can you see how two intelligent people can delude themselves out of a sense of desperation?”
The vampire chuckled. “Jeff and Andrea grew up here. They should have known we’d never give up looking for them.”
Paul’s system felt burned out on spent adrenalin. Listlessly, almost beyond caring, he said, “So you people slaughtered the entire family in the trailer home.”
“And their host, too, of course. “But you’re getting ahead of the story.”
The family had most likely chosen such a desolate
spot to avoid prying eyes, and yet it worked just the opposite.
“It was such a remote hideaway that we were able to take our time, set the stage. Our daylighters had preceded us to stake the place out, and I arrived with a handful of old men after sundown. We’d traveled by night and stayed at a nearby motel, but not so near that we’d be remembered, you understand. I recall it being such a lovely, cool evening that we could barely pull ourselves out of the tall grass where we’d been talking politics and philosophy and waiting for the children to be called in.
“The young ones, you see, had been playing outside for hours, tussling in the dirt and weeds under a full moon, chasing fireflies, just being kids. They looked lightning-quick, much too swift for old men like ourselves. We couldn’t risk them flitting away in the dark, which is why we waited so patiently.
“But finally bedtime arrived—much too late for children so young, but that’s just my old-fashioned opinion—and the whole family came together one last time.”
The vampire’s eyes twinkled. “Paul, I don’t think you have a stomach for the details, so I’ll spare them. But there is one thing I must tell you.”
Drake shimmied his hips so that he edged farther forward on the sofa. His eyes looked painfully red-rimmed, as though the bright fires within had burned holes through his lenses. “Since Mrs. McConlon had missed her appointment at the hospital, I performed the surgery myself. No charge, in keeping with our community’s generous family planning tradition.” The vampire again gave up that yellow and brown grin. “It was a most tender meat.”
Then he glanced at his watch and said, “Look at the time.”
Father and daughter rose together and headed into the foyer. Paul found himself, as though floating rudderless, following them to the front door.
It was all a lie, he told himself. A dark and mad parable designed to strike fear in his heart. And yet he knew the truth was otherwise.
Bloodthirst in Babylon Page 22
