Mercy's Debt (Montgomery's Vampires Series Book One)

by Sloan Archer

  “I have heard other vampires describe it as excruciating, an agony unlike any that they experienced as a human. I do remember Leopold’s bite. But the change I do not recall, as I was nearly dead from tuberculosis when I became vampire.”

  “You know, I’d like to meet Leopold someday,” I said, changing the subject. It disturbed me to think of Robert’s suffering.

  “I am certain he would like to meet you as well.”

  “That’s too bad about the no strength as a side effect thing, though,” I beamed, feeling the delayed sting of his bite on my inner thigh. I touched the area where his teeth his had gone down into my flesh; there were two crusty little circles of dried blood. “I was looking forward to entering a few arm-wrestling competitions.”

  I flexed my bicep, which looked pitifully scrawny next to his tree trunk arms.

  He shook his head and chuckled. “You have a better chance at competitive eating.”

  I laughed. I liked it when he referenced our earlier conversations. It showed that he’d been listening.

  “You’re just jealous of my brawn,” I said jokingly. I picked my dress up off the floor and threw it over my head.

  “Where are you going?” He looked panicked. “You are not leaving me, are you?”

  Right. Wild horses couldn’t steal me away from this beautiful man.

  “No,” I smiled. “But since I now know that I won’t be changing into vampire any time soon, I need to take care of a few human matters. Where is the, uh…?” I looked towards the door.

  It seemed ridiculous, feeling shy about telling him that I needed to pee. The man had just sampled my blood for God’s sake.

  “Oh, right,” he said quickly. “Unfortunately, I do not have any bathroom facilities in my sleeping chamber, as vampires have no need for them. The closest restroom is up the stairs and down the hall. It is the first door on the left.” He paused. “I will ensure that one is installed for you very soon.”

  “You would install a toilet just for me?” I gushed. It was strangely romantic.

  “Of course,” he stated. “Anything for you, Mercy.”

  I went upstairs to do my business, whistling the same tune I’d heard Robert humming.

  I wasn’t usually prone to flights of fancy, but I swiftly concluded that I was undeniably in love with the vampire. And I was going to tell him that very thing as soon as I snuggled back into his arms.

  In the bathroom, I stood before the vast marble sink and splashed water on my face. My mascara, which now clung to my lashes like tiny black clumps of dirt, required something stronger than water to remove it. It stung my eyes, and I squinted, moving my hand over the surface of the sink until I located a bar of soap in a metal dish.

  I washed and dried my face, which depressed me unexpectedly. I thought of Liz and our bathroom rituals, and suddenly burst into tears. I sank down back against the wall, and pulled up my knees, having myself a good, old-fashioned cry.

  When my tears ended, I reached up and ripped off a wad of toilet paper from the roll on the wall.

  Something in the soap dish glittered, catching my eye. I got to me feet and pulled the object from the dish and rinsed it off.

  I dropped the ring- Liz’s ring- on the counter and exhaled sharply. I took a step back, as if it emitted poisonous gas. Without warning, I vomited into the sink.

  I rinsed out my mouth and paced around the bathroom. I had to get moving, or else Robert would send Carl to check on me.

  There had to be a reasonable explanation for the ring. But I simply couldn’t think of one.

  I had to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth.

  TWENTY

  My vision turned tunnel as I clomped gracelessly down the stairs.

  I entered the sleeping chamber, holding Liz’s ring out before me like a smoking gun.

  “Robert,” I began woodenly, “I’m going to give you one chance to tell me the truth.”

  “What?” His eyes looked frightened and confused, as if he worried that I’d gone mad during my ten-minute absence.

  I ignored him. “What-did-you-do-last-night?” I questioned him slowly, carefully, leaving no room for misinterpretation.

  “I already told you…” he said, focusing on the piece of jewelry in my hand. “I only worked. What is that?” he asked, bewildered.

  “Oh, like you don’t know, you liar!” I screamed. I hurled the ring at him with all my might and it hit him square in the face. “Why is Liz’s ring here? You tell me why, Robert!”

  “Oh, shit,” he moaned. It was the first time I’d ever heard him use profanity. It sounded unnatural coming from his mouth. “Please, let me explain. Mercy, it is not what you think.”

  “Why did you kill her?” I sobbed. “How could you leave her dead on the ground like that? Was it my punishment for avoiding you?”

  “What? No! You have it all wrong.”

  “Is that why you’ve been tormenting me, following me around? Those were your footprints outside my bedroom window, not Mathew’s! You… You killed Raquel! Your own fiancé!” I screamed madly. “Did you kill the other chaperones, too? Penelope? I’m just like her, aren’t I, Robert?”

  “No! Please, listen to me!”

  Enraged beyond the point of rational thought, I yanked down the top of my dress, exposing my neck to him. “Is this what you were after?” I screamed. “Go ahead, then, you bastard! Go ahead and do it!”

  “Mercy, please listen. Please!” He took a deep breath. “Yes, Liz did come here last night.”

  A horrifying possibility suddenly occurred to me. “Did you… fuck her?” I whispered. After what I’d gone through at the end if my relationship with Mathew, infidelity was on par with murder in my book.

  “No! Of course not! She came over to talk about you, that is all. I swear. She left right after her boyfriend called. I had Carl drop her off.”

  “What?” I asked, feeling betrayed. “I don’t believe you. Liz would never do that to me.”

  “She did not do anything to you, Mercy. I called your phone last night looking for you, and she answered. I had to plead with her before she agreed to come over. All we did was talk about you. That is all. She gave me advice about you.”

  “Right.”

  “Liz loved you. She was only trying to help. She wanted you to be happy. I am terribly sorry that I lied to you, but I was at a loss. I did not know what to do, and you were not making things any easier by refusing to answer my calls.”

  “Oh, so now this is my fault?” I bellowed. “How dare you!”

  “That is not what I meant! I just want you to believe me. Liz was in one piece when she left here. I asked Carl to make sure that she made it into the apartment.”

  “Well, he obviously didn’t wait long enough!” I wasn’t sure what I believed anymore. The sudden revelation about Liz’s visit caught me off-guard.

  “He assured me that he did. He said she waved him off.”

  “You expect me to trust you after you lied about everything, after you followed me around, after you did some sort of reconnaissance mission into my personal life?” I hissed.

  He reached for my hand. “You have to believe me. I love you.”

  I recoiled from his touch. “Don’t you come near me! And don’t you dare try to use love at a time like this! I thought maybe I could love you, too, but you’re nothing more than a bloodsucking monster!”

  “Mercy, please…”

  “You tell me, Robert, if you aren’t guilty of anything, then why did you lie about what you did list night? Why did you have to go and lie to me? You’re as bad as Mathew. I trusted you! Now you just make my skin crawl. I will never be yours. Not ever!”

  “Do not say that, Mercy! I cannot lose you again, not after I finally got you back.”

  “You never had me,” I said coldly.

  His face twisted, and he began to weep. It was an act of humanity I didn’t think vampires were capable of, and seeing his raw emotion took the wind right out of my sails. These weren’t
like Mathew’s crocodile tears; these were the real deal. It hurt to watch.

  “I did not want to lie to you,” he said softly. “Liz said that you would be angry if you found out that I had been asking her about you.” He wiped at the heavy tears streaming down his face. “She was correct. Also, I know how it would appear to you- Liz being murdered after coming into my home. I was worried that you would suspect me.”

  “Right. It’s not as if Liz is around anymore to dispute any of your claims, is she?” I spat.

  “What do I have to do to make you believe me?”

  “There’s nothing you can do, Robert. We’re over.” I gathered my things up off the floor. “I’m leaving now and I don’t want you to contact me again, understand? If you’ve ever loved me, you will just let me go.”

  “Please do not do this!” he begged. His voice was thick with desperation. “I would follow you anywhere, but I cannot go outside right now. You know that! Please, just stay with me for a few more hours, until the sun goes down.”

  I pushed past him and marched out of the room, never once looking back.

  He was still weeping when I slammed the door behind me.

  I startled the lawn maintenance crew for a second time that day when I peeled out of the driveway, leaving a nasty pair of black skid marks behind. I swerved onto the main highway and headed back to the apartment. The idea of revisiting Liz’s murder scene made my blood go cold, but I didn’t plan on staying long.

  During the drive, I contemplated just what in the hell had happened to my life.

  Within the time span of just a few weeks, my situation had gone from horribly dire to wonderfully amazing, and then managed to dip down way past horribly dire, and land in a big, fat pile of steaming rhinoceros dung. My best friend had been murdered, my current lover- who was definitely a liar and possibly a killer- was a vampire, my ex-boyfriend had taken up the recent hobby of stalking me, and I had a job that required lying to the IRS. The coup de grâce? If Robert wasn’t the murderer, I still had a killer after me.

  I was done.

  I pulled over on the shoulder of the road and did a quick internet search on my phone. I found the number I was looking for and called it, pulling back onto the highway with the soothing sound of muzak playing on the line.

  Twenty minutes later, I pulled into the apartment complex. I parked my car, doing a quick check to make sure that it was all locked up.

  I ignored the blurred red slash on the front door and threw it open. I marched directly to the front closet and pulled down a suitcase.

  I stormed into my room, flung the suitcase in the bed, and filled it full of whatever random summer clothing I managed to quickly find. I changed into something more comfortable, and then lugged the suitcase into the bathroom, filling it with my toiletries in a single sweep of an arm.

  Leaving the suitcase by the door, I went into the kitchen and flipped on the light, horrendously conscious of the dark shadows in the room. If there was still a vampire after me, I would no longer be protected after sundown.

  I snatched the bucket from the pantry and threw it in the sink, filling it with dish soap and water. I grabbed the pail and a sponge, slopping bits of water on the carpet as I trudged my way to the front door.

  I went out onto the porch and scrubbed the blood off the door. I hated every minute of the task, yet to leave the mark would have felt like I was exhibiting a great lack of respect to Liz. I scoured as hard as I could, but I couldn’t restore the door to its previously white splendor; the blood had left a stain.

  When I was finished, I dumped the pink water out onto the grass and headed back into the kitchen. Locating my checkbook in a junk drawer, I filled out a check to Shady Brook Apartments, writing it so it would cover rent for the following two months. I drew rent on the top of my hand in blue ink, a reminder to mail the payment in the morning.

  Two months wasn’t that much time, but I hoped that it would be long enough for me to decide what in the hell I was going to do next. In the meantime, I would distract myself in Pelville by cleaning out Grams’ belongings. Her trailer had been willed to me, but I’d left it untouched since her funeral, too dejected to enter the home I’d shared with her since childhood.

  With the flight to Florida departing in just a few hours, the last-minute fare had cost me an arm and a leg because the only seats left were in first class. Still, I could think of no better time to head back to my hometown and tie up a few lose ends, finally giving Grams’ cherished possessions the attention that they deserved.

  I found a notepad and began scrawling a message. I’d gotten as far as Gone home to Florida before it occurred to me that I didn’t actually have anyone left in my life to leave a note for. This was a very sad fact that should have made me cry, but, for the life of me, I couldn’t conjure up even a solitary tear. I was numb.

  Feeling more alone than I’d ever felt in my entire twenty-four year existence, I grabbed the note and crumpled it into a ball, throwing it at the wastebasket. It bounced off the rim and rolled to the corner of the room, adding yet another failed attempt at being a winner under my belt.

  “Screw it,” I muttered, leaving the ball where it was. It wasn’t as if I had anyone to impress with my cleanliness.

  I flipped off the light and grabbed my suitcase by the front door.

  I gave the apartment a final scan, and a bittersweet wave of joy, pain, love, and loss overcame me. I shut the door and locked it, the tears finally starting to flow as I strode towards the taxi pulling into the complex.

  The driver threw my suitcase in the trunk while I settled into the back seat.

  “See you around, California,” I murmured.

  We pulled onto the highway just as the sun began to set, a brighter life in Pelville awaiting me.

  EPILOGUE

  Robert was no longer weeping.

  Now he was worried.

  He gripped his phone and punched in Mercy’s number once again. It went straight to voicemail, netting the same result as the dozens of other calls that he’d made.

  He made another circle around the room, muttering obscenities under his breath.

  His only hope was that he could locate Mercy before her stalker did. It was just a matter of waiting out the clock until the sun went down. If there was one consolation, it was the fact that the killer was also immobile, another slave to the darkness.

  His phone rang.

  Damn it, it wasn’t her.

  “Carl! Has she shown yet?” he sputtered breathlessly.

  “I’m sorry, Robert, she hasn’t. I haven’t taken my eyes off her apartment since I’ve been here… But I’m afraid that she may have left town.”

  “Why do you believe this to be the case?”

  “I just spoke with a neighbor of hers who said that he saw her dragging a large suitcase to a taxi only a few minutes before I arrived. He said that he was going to offer to help, but then he noticed that she was crying. I also looked through the front window of the apartment, and the front closet door was hanging wide open. There was an empty space on the top shelf, a space about the size of a suitcase.”

  “Did you ask the neighbor if he knew where she was going?”

  “I did, and he didn’t. All he said was that she looked scared and upset, and that she kept looking over her shoulder as she rushed to the taxi.”

  “Okay. I will head over as soon as the sun sets. It should only be a few more minutes.”

  “You want me to come and pick you up?”

  “No!”

  “Alright.”

  “Please, Carl, just stay put,” Robert said in a quieter tone. “I want you to be there in case she comes back. I will take the Bentley.”

  “I won’t move an inch.”

  “Thank you, Carl.”

  “Robert?”

  “Yes.”

  “The sun has just gone down…”

  Click.

  “Hello? Robert? Are you still there?”

  Less than forty-five seconds later, a s
ilver Bentley GT zoomed onto the highway and reached a velocity that was more than double the posted fifty mile an hour speed limit. Robert tightened his grip on the wheel and accelerated, sickened by the thought of his beloved being in the path of danger.

  He did not slow until he entered the inoffensive residential neighborhood, biting on his lip petulantly as the speedometer dipped just below sixty. At the last minute, he rocketed into the driveway of the apartment complex, nearly missing its entrance.

  He found Carl, who was on the porch and in front of the door, craftily picking the lock.

  Carl looked down at his watch as Robert approached. “A new record,” he said, noting the speedy arrival.

  The latch clicked and the door popped open. Robert regarded his watch, then, too. “A new record,” he commented in return.

  They walked into the apartment.

  “What? What is it, Robert?” Carl asked, the disturbed expression on his companion’s face concerning him.

  “A vampire has been here. I can smell it,” he said flatly. “Not recently, but definitely within the past twenty four hours. It must be how the killer got to Liz. He waited for her inside.”

  Carl scowled. “Bastard.”

  The two men walked into Mercy’s bedroom, peering into her closet. They noted her missing clothes. They went into her bathroom next; her toiletries were gone, too.

  Yes, they decided, she’d definitely skipped town.

  They ambled through the living room and made their way into the kitchen. They immediately noticed the notepad on the counter with high hopes. However, their faces fell once they realized that it was blank. Robert ran his fingers over the empty page, feeling the indents from Mercy’s pen. He held the notepad up to the light, trying to make out the words. The marks were indecipherable.

  It was Carl who saw the small black object first. He picked it up from the dining table and silently handed it to Robert.

  Mercy’s cell phone.

  “Goddammit!” the vampire roared. “This explains why she is not answering.”

  “We’ll find her,” Carl pacified. “We’ll find her.”