Geneva and I left our bags in the car while we went inside the store. I bought a yellow gift bag with a big red bow. I bought a prepaid phone with the cheapest card I could put on it and I programmed my phone number into it.
Geneva and I drove back by the house and I left it on the doorstep. “You know,” she said. “One of us should come back a good half hour before sunset and get that.”
“Yeah?”
“Think of how mad Rawdon will be if he figures out that you're trying to contact his shrink.”
I nodded. “I got us into this mess. I'll come back for it. Hopefully it will be gone by then.”
We pulled up outside Cody's house fifteen minutes later. He had bought the place this past summer, after the first ninety days at his new job had passed. Geneva knocked on the door. I stayed back and looked anxiously around the neighborhood.
Cody Hunt was very tall. He had blonde hair and blue eyes, but his resemblance to Rawdon stopped there. Where Rawdon was pale and thin, Cody was tan and built from playing Rugby in college. When he'd first asked me on a date, over three years ago, I had been reluctant. I thought he looked a bit too much like he'd fallen off of an Abercrombie & Fitch bag. He had to earn my trust.
Cody stood in front of us now, wearing an old UWYO T-shirt with blue jeans. He had grown a soul patch since I had last seen him. He looked surprised to see us.
“Kendall?”
“Nice to see you, too,” Geneva said. She was closer to him and she pushed her way into the house, despite Cody's protests.
“What are you doing here?” he asked as I followed her inside. The place was more furnished than the last time I had seen it. The walls were decorated with framed posters and he actually had lamps on his end tables. It hadn't turned into a total bachelor pad, after all.
“It's a long story,” I said.
“Kendall's being stalked,” Geneva blurted out. “And so we need a place to lay low for the night.”
“What? Being stalked? Who is this guy? Is that who did this to your face? I'll take care of this right now.”
“No, you won't,” I said. I set my bag down on the floor. “Trust me, Cody, I didn't want to have to come here.”
“It was her idea,” Geneva added. I shot a glare at her.
“I didn't want to involve you in this, but he doesn't know about you and I can't bring Noah into it. Oh, God. Noah. What if he shows up at the house?”
“On a Saturday night?” Geneva shook her head. “I'll text him and tell him to stay away anyway.”
“You brought me into this,” Cody said. His voice was getting louder and his face was red. “So tell me, who is he?”
“Cody, you can't take care of this,” I said. “You're used to being bigger than everyone else, but listen to me for once. You can't fight this guy.”
“He thinks a vampire,” Geneva said, looking up from her phone.
“What?”
“Vam-pire,” she repeated.
Cody stared at me. “You're fucking with me?”
“What?” I asked.
“A vampire. Did you two come here just to mess with me? What, am I gonna be on YouTube?”
“No,” I started.
“You think this is funny?”
“It's not a jo—”
“You tell me you have a stalker and you think that's funny, Kendall?”
“Will you shut up and listen to me?” I shouted. I brought my voice back down and tried to start calmly. “We're not messing with you, Cody. I started seeing this guy and then I found out he has a refrigerator full of human blood. I only met him a week ago but he's got it into his head that he's going to kill me and we'll be together forever. He's crazy.”
“So he thinks he's a vampire. Have you called the police?”
“Yes,” I lied. “So can we stay here? He killed this guy that Geneva was seeing,” I explained. “The police came to question her today.”
Geneva sat down on Cody's couch. A college football game between two southern schools was on mute. “So we're going to sleep here until we figure out what to do. Got it?” She turned the volume on.
“You see?” I asked. “Rawdon doesn't know a thing about you. So I'd rather stay here than put my parents at risk.”
“So you plan to live here forever?”
“We've reached out for help,” I said. “Just give us one night? We'll figure out a plan.”
“Fine,” he said. He shook his head. “But you two are paying for takeout and you're not going to leave a mess in my house.”
“Love you too, Cody,” Geneva said. I joined her on the sofa to watch football.
Rawdon stood over my bed, holding the yellow gift bag with the big red bow. He shook his head robotically, his skull isolated as it moved from side to side. No other muscle moved. He didn't breathe or blink.
I sat up. “Rawdon, I'm so sorry.”
“You betrayed me,” he said.
He was on top of me with his hands around my throat. I gasped and gagged, but could not cry out. His fangs slowly slid out. He lowered his face to mine. “I'm hungry.”
I woke up on the sofa in Cody's living-room. Geneva had taken the guest bed, because this whole situation was more my fault than hers. The house was a new construction with a vaulted ceiling, and the large windows high up were impossible to black out without getting a very tall ladder; the sun landed right on my face. I welcomed it.
I realized, in horror, that we hadn't gone to retrieve the bag with the phone in it. If Rawdon had found it, my only hope now was that he had no idea what it was for.
My phone vibrated. It spun in circles on the coffee table. I knew it couldn't be Rawdon after sunrise and, in my panic not to wake the rest of the house, I answered the phone before checking the caller ID.
“Kendall,” my brother said, “why was I not allowed to visit your house in until daylight?”
“Jesus, Noah. I thought you'd be someone else.”
“Well I'm not. Deal with it. What's going on? Why did I find a cryptic text from Geneva when I left the club last night?”
“It's... I'll explain it to you later.”
“How about you explain it to me now.”
“Noah, it's seven in the morning on a Sunday. Why are you awake?”
“Because I'm worried about my sister. What does 'don't come by our house until sunrise. It's not safe' mean?”
“Wow. Good job Geneva. Way to be subtle.”
“Kendall...”
“It means that Mr. Perfect turned out to be a clingy crazy person.” I wasn't sure if I should involve Noah in this, but Geneva had already made it impossible to gloss over. “We're staying with Cody until it blows over. There's nothing you can do. Just let me handle this. Okay?”
“He's dangerous. Have you told Dad?”
“Dad doesn't need to be involved.”
“But Cody does?”
“Stop worrying,” I insisted. My phone beeped. A call on the other line. I looked at the screen and realized that it was from the pre-payed phone. “Gottagoothercallbye.”
“Good morning,” a rough voice on the other line said. The caller had a think Boston accent. “Did you get my present?”
“Is this who I think it is?”
“Depends on what the vampire told you about me.”
“Liam Gilchrist?”
“That's what I was christened. And you are not as stupid as I thought you were, if you've contacted me already.”
“I need your help.”
“I saw. The vampire came to your house last night. He went in... you should have revoked your invitation if you were going to run away from him. He knows you packed a bag and he'll be looking for you. He's pissed.” I had a hard time pegging his accent over the phone. It sounded like he was somewhere busy.
“Can you help us?”
“Where are you now?”
I gave him Cody's address. Then I got up and knocked on Geneva's door. “Gilchrist called,” I told her. “Get dressed.”
He arrived thir
ty minutes later with coffee and a bag from Daylight Donuts. He was middle-aged with a long nose, short chin, and hazel eyes. His sandy hair was going grey and he had a few small scars on his face. He dressed in a brown leather coat and jeans. I could see a hint of a plaid collar under his coat. He wasn't what I had pictured at all. I guess I was expecting a wide-brimmed hat or a priest's collar.
Cody was awake by the time the hunter arrived, and he sat in his big arm chair with a glass of orange juice, staring as Liam Gilchrist walked in the door.
“You're a friend of Miss Harker?” Gilchrist asked Cody, dropping his R's.
Cody looked at me and then back at Gilchrist. “Ex-boyfriend.”
“Does Hale know about him?” he asked me.
“No. Not a word.”
“Good. Hopefully it'll be a while before he figures out where you are.” He sat down on the sofa and opened his paper bag. He pulled out a pastry with sausage in it and took a large bite. My stomach grumbled. I briefly considered sending Geneva out for breakfast.
“Want one?” he asked Cody, holding out the bag.
“Yeah, thanks man.”
“I'm judging from your glare that you were sort of dragged into this,” Gilchrist said.
Cody nodded and unwrapped the second pastry. He picked some melted cheese off the bottom and ate it first. “I hadn't seen Kendall for months.” Cody raised the pastry to his lips and then lowered it again. “You don't look like a therapist,” Cody said.
Gilchrist laughed. “Is that what she told you? I'm his therapist?”
“Yes?”
“What, exactly, did you tell him about Hale?”
“That he thinks he's a vampire,” I answered.
Gilchrist shook his head. “You might not have let her into your house if she had been perfectly honest with you. Rawdy boy doesn't think he's a vampire. He is one.”
Cody put the pastry down. “Get the fuck out of my house.”
Gilchrist continued, “We're not talking about vampires as in whiny teenagers who need to discover Goth clubs.” He set his pastry down and pulled back his sleeve. There was a scar across his right forearm that looked like two puncture wounds that had been dragged before pulling out near his wrist. “I mean demons with fangs who just won't die.”
Cody sat up. “Is that a bite?”
“Doesn't look like a dog bite, does it? Ten years ago, while you were trying to decide what to wear on your first day of high school, Rawdon Hale took a bite out of me. Hurt like a son of a bitch.”
“You called him a demon,” I said. “Do you mean it?”
Gilchrist stood up and took off his coat. He folded it over the arm of the couch and sat back down. “By now you're aware that your new beau is a walking corpse,” he said. “No pulse, no breath. Blinking is just a game of pretend for him.”
I nodded.
“What did he tell you about vampires?”
“He told me about his maker, and about his maker's maker who raised him. He told me about his powers.”
“Did he tell you about his weaknesses?”
I shook my head. All I knew was that he couldn't go out in sunlight. I didn't even know exactly what would happen if he did. Would he catch fire?
“Now wait a minute,” Cody said. “You don't actually expect me to believe that he's a real vampire.”
“I starts with Lilitu in Babylon, the first demon to infect a human. She sired Lamashtu and Gallu. These first demons didn't resemble much about the vampires we know except for the fact that they drank blood. They were slain long ago. More followed, Lamia, Empusa and Izcacus sired their own lines. Each demon sired a lineage of vampires with unique powers and weaknesses as different as the demons themselves. Guire Grando is the first of the particular line that Mr. Hale comes from. The demon who sired him is unknown.”
“You mean like hellfire and damnation demons?” I asked for clarification.
He barreled on without acknowledging my question. “Demonic possession is something you hear about in scary movies and haunting tales. Possession of the living is an infrequent but troublesome issue within spiritual warfare. Vampirism should be seen as possession of the dead. As you know by now, Rawdon Hale is dead.”
Geneva came out of the guest room at this point. “What did I miss? Ooh, hello!”
“Who is this?” Gilchrist asked.
“My roommate.”
Geneva offered her hand to shake. Gilchrist took it, shook it and turned back to his pastry and his lecture on vampire origins.
“Kendall thinks Rawdon is a real vampire,” Cody said.
“What?”
“Right, so, vampires are possessed corpses. Got that? Demons need permission to enter a human being, just like vampires need permission to enter your home. So good job on inviting it in.”
“Technically I invited him in first, I think,” Geneva said.
Gilchrist snorted. “Three things are needed for a vampiric transformation.” He held up a finger. “One, exsanguination. Two, blood. Three,” he held up three fingers by now. “Covenant. You need to be completely drained to the point of death before drinking the blood of a vampire-- the sire-- and you have to want to become a vampire. It only takes the tiniest hint of desire to make the transformation, but you can't be made a vampire if your heart is totally against it. The transformation won't complete, and you'll kick the bucket.”
He stared right at me with that last bit. I stood up from my perch on the opposite end of the couch and started pacing. “Okay. So I got that he's evil and crazy when I found out he killed Jeremy. And I know he's going to kill me if I let him. What do I do to stop him?”
“You found me. That's a great first step.”
“So you dated this guy?” Cody asked, breaking his long silence. “For a week? I'm sorry, but if you really think he's a vampire and this is not just some practical joke, how would you not know he was a corpse for a week?”
“Well he always wore gloves, and he was a gentleman,” I said. “And I may have known since Sunday.”
“You should have run the hell away,” Cody said.
“He hypnotized me,” I argued. I knew that my voice was sounding desperate.
“Hypnotism can't make you sleep with a corpse if you're not at least open to it.” Gilchrist said.
“What?” Geneva shouted.
“You did sleep with him, didn't you?”
I looked down at my feet.
“And you knew he was a vampire?”
“I found out on Sunday,” I replied, quietly.
“So you knowingly fucked a corpse, and now he thinks you two will be together forever.”
I looked up at Gilchrist, angry. Maybe I was furious with him. Probably I was just furious with myself. “I didn't know he was evil, alright? He drinks bank blood. I thought he was a pacifist.”
“He won't be drinking bank blood anymore.” Gilchrist bundled up the papers and bag from Daylight Donuts and stood up. “Where's the trash?”
Cody pointed. “In the closet.”
Gilchrist continued to lecture as he walked around the kitchen. “You think you're his first post-mortem romance? Rawdon Hale's psychosis functions on a ten year cycle. He decides to straighten out his life, to foster his humanity. He sets up a legitimate business selling antiques. He finds a new home far away from his previous one. He feeds on animals and willing prostitutes until he can find a source of bank blood and then he thinks he's almost human. Then he meets a girl. The last one was Laura Ruiz, may she rest in peace,” he crossed himself automatically, not pausing one second in his speech to do so, “He falls in love. He tries to turn her. Usually she's repulsed-- only one actually went for it, that's another story-- and she tries to run. He kills her. He spirals into monstrosity, leaving a trail of corpses and anemic women with gaps in their memories. He carries on this way for a few years before deciding he needs to find his humanity. Then he starts all over again. You just figured out his secret sooner than most. That's the problem with the promiscuous times we live in.
Most girls enjoy months of gentile courting before they figure it out. You hopped right into bed with him.”
Silent tears streamed down my face. I was going to be one in a long line of girls murdered by Rawdon Hale. I was going to die all for a few days of excitement at the idea that somebody wanted me.
“I'm so sorry,” I said to Geneva.
She sat next to me and hugged me. She didn't speak. I couldn't tell if she even believed me.
“So who are you then?” Cody asked. “Vampire Hunter D?”
“Dhampirs are a myth. I am a slayer. Liam Gilchrist. Your name?”
“Cody Hunt.”
“Hunt,” Gilchrist repeated with a smirk. “Funny.”
“How are we going to stop him?” Geneva asked. “I mean, if he thinks he's--”
“He is a vampire. To start,” Gilchrist said, picking up his coat. “Miss Harker is going to get dressed and bring me to his lair.”
Liam Gilchrist and I stood on Rawdon's lawn, looking up at the house. The neighborhood was empty. It was a new development that stopped construction because of the housing market collapse. Few houses had sold and the inhabitants of those homes were off at Sunday services.
“Come on,” he said, lifting his black leather bag and slinging it over his shoulder. “We have work to do.
“The back of the house is blacked-out,” I said. “I think he sleeps in the basement.”
“You know what happens to a vampire in the sunlight?”
“They catch fire?”
He laughed.
“They don't actually sparkle, do they?”
“Fuck no.”
“Then what?”
“They're dead.” He jiggled the front doorknob. It was locked. He slipped a set of picks out of the front pouch of his bag and slid one into the lock. “They're corpses. They can't animate in the sunlight, the light of our Lord.”
“For someone so religious, shouldn't you be at church?”
“The Lord will forgive me missing services if I'm actively slaying a demon.” The lock clicked. He turned the knob. “Ha. Left the deadbolt unlocked.”
I looked around the neighborhood once before following him inside. There was no movement on the street.
“So what are we doing, going downstairs to stake him?”
Kissing Corpses Page 6
