The Vampires of Soldiers Cove: One Crow Sorrow

by Jessica MacIntyre

  “Sleep now and heal yourself,” he said. “I’ll come back tomorrow at nightfall and we’ll go together. I have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

  That was the last thing I wanted to do but with the injury I knew he was right. “Ok,” I said. Before he left Daniel took off his jacket and once again opened his wrist to me. I drank heavily. I would need human blood again soon to properly heal but this would do for now. I lay down and closed my eyes.

  When I awoke the next day and turned on the TV I was slapped in the face yet again.

  “Another body found in the little town of St. Peter’s, Cape Breton,” the anchor announced. “This marks the second in just one week. Police are not releasing the cause of death, but they do believe the two incidents are related.”

  I hurled the remote across the room shattering it into pieces. Sometime while I’d been sleeping, Gavin had killed again.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  I doubled over in a fit of despair and anxiety. My world was falling down around me and I felt helpless to stop it. Someone or something was killing in my husband’s name, Alexander was disturbed and suffering and the person I had leaned on, Ian, had seemingly abandoned me. I wanted to run away, wanted to hide under the blankets and never come back out. Things were getting worse by the minute and I was panicking now, trying to figure out a way to fix it.

  Before the anchor had a chance to properly finish the story I heard a loud knock at my front door. Thinking it was Daniel I raced over and pried what was left of it open. Instead of seeing my large brother-in-law I came face to face with an RCMP officer…a human.

  I stood there for a moment trying to comprehend what I was seeing. “Can I help you?”

  “Are you Rachel MacDonald?”

  “No,” I said.

  “No?”

  “No.” I swallowed hard in an attempt to hide my nerves. “I kept my maiden name. I’m still Rachel Landry.”

  “Oh I see. I’m Constable Eric Neary. You are married to Gavin MacDonald though, correct?”

  “I am.” I probed around in his head and heard that he knew darn well I was married to Gavin. He was here because Gavin’s drivers licence had been found with the latest body.

  “Mind if I come in?” he said, taking a step inside the house, the request being only a formality. He was coming in whether I wanted him to or not.

  “Sure,” I said, getting out of his way as he intrusively stepped inside.

  “Is your husband around? I’d like to talk to him.”

  “No, he’s not in at the moment.” He was busy thinking I was hiding something. First the vampires, and now the humans, were convinced I was sheltering my husband. This was bad.

  “Quite a mess you got out there in your backyard. What happened?”

  I stood silent for a moment trying to think of something to say. Constable Neary was less concerned with my answer than he was with casually strolling through my tiny living room and peering in both bedrooms. “Just doing some remodelling,” I said.

  “Shame about the car.” I had forgotten about the McLauren. “She looks like an expensive one. And your door there,” he said turning to gesture at the broken frame and pieces still scattered on the floor all around. “Bedroom looks like it’s been gutted a bit too. Does Mr. MacDonald have a temper, honey?”

  I decided I’d had enough; it was time to end this and send Neary on his way. I stood directly behind him and as he turned around to face me I placed my hand around the soft flesh of his throat. Feeling my iron grip close over his neck the Constable let out a small cry. With eyes darkened I reached into his mind in a different way, pulling it out to be twisted and played with. Ian’s adeptness at rearranging the human brain and the lessons he’d given me were going to come in handy right about now.

  “You came here tonight and asked for Gavin. I told you he was here last night but is out of town on business for the next few weeks. He’s in Halifax. There’s no mess in the yard or the house. You believed me and he’s no longer a suspect.” I swept away his fear replacing it with calm and peace. His eyes glazed over as he nodded.

  I was about to let him go when I noticed the steady pulse of his heart under where my thumb lay on his neck. Taking a step closer I inhaled and drank in his B positive fragrance and a rush of excitement ran through my body as my mouth began to water. Food! I had food right here, a real human meal. I’d experienced a large blood loss during my tangle with Gavin and I was starving. Releasing my grip on him physically, I kept hold of him mentally as I instructed him.

  “Sit on the couch please,” I said. Without a word the Constable moved to the couch and obediently sat down.

  “Now,” I said, “undo your collar and open your shirt.” He did. I climbed on top of the man, straddling him and lowered my mouth to his neck. I felt his heart beat through my tongue as my fangs ran out, and his pulse quickened slightly. Even though I had manipulated his mind, somewhere in his subconscious Eric Neary, father of two and champion of justice as he liked to think of himself, knew he was in danger. The terror synapses were trying to patch the messages through from the sub conscious to the conscious mind as he sat, helpless.

  The swift rushing of the blood like a white water current through his veins excited me, and I bit down as hard as I could, drinking as the blood poured out, sweet and abundant. I lost myself in the moment forgetting about everything that was happening. Gavin, Ian, Aries…none of it mattered in the slightest as I swallowed the lifeblood of the man trapped helpless and unmoving beneath me.

  I reveled in it so much that despite all the cautions and warnings given to me by Gavin and others, I severed the jugular, and I didn’t care. The blood came now faster than I could drink it and with every beat of his heart Eric Neary walked a little closer to death’s door. I gulped and swallowed, feeding until my head was swirling, and my vision blurry.

  Then the flow stopped. Stumbling off him I fell to the floor, rolling around for a long time, somewhere on the border of insanity, laughing and crying all at once. In my manic state I couldn’t decide which fit the situation better, and so I was doing both. It took a while for me to realize I had been sitting there talking to myself, saying nonsensical things about everything and nothing for what seemed like hours. When I finally looked up again I saw the body of the dead RCMP officer and my thoughts sobered.

  Then a voice came from the kitchen. “Hey little chick, what’s that you’ve got there?”

  An invisible cold finger touched my neck and slowly began its run down my spine. All the way down until it reached the small of my back, gripping my very being with it at the same time.

  “Dad?” My dead father was standing in the kitchen, drink in hand as he usually did after dinner. He was smiling down at me like he used to when I’d sit on the living room floor to do my homework. My mother came and stood next to him.

  “Looks like a dead body honey,” he said. “Better do something with that sweetheart.”

  My mother sighed, exasperated with me as usual. “That blood better come out or you’re grounded.”

  “Now honey,” my father said, “don’t be mad at her, she can’t help that she’s a crazy little monster. And besides, you can’t ground a recluse, can you? Wanna go for a ride in the car?”

  “Yeah, go for that ride,” another voice said. A cry of shock escaped from me as I saw the man stepping out of the kitchen to stand next to my parents. Stunned and horrified I backed myself up into the corner and lay there, curled up into a ball. I had silenced this man’s voice forever, but now I was hearing it once again.

  “I knew this would happen,” James said, “but nobody wanted to listen to me.”

  Casually he strolled over to the couch, picked up the man’s wrist and let it fall limply back down by his side as he shook his head in condemnation. “Dead as a doornail, isn’t he Rachel?”

  “You’re not real,” I whimpered, pressing my eyes shut as tightly as I could. “You’re not real, I killed you.” I opened my eyes again to see James standing right a
bove me. He knelt down on the floor and put his face up to mine, so close I could feel his breath just the way I had on the night he had raped me.

  “I’m as real as you want me to be,” he said stroking my face. The feel of his hand on me, his skin on mine, caused my stomach to wrench up in a wave of nausea and I clasped my hand over my mouth in an attempt to stifle the sickness. “Let’s play a game Rachel. You run, and we’ll see how long it takes me to catch you.”

  “You’re not real,” I screamed. “Go away! You’re not real.”

  “And when I do catch you, we can do what we did all over again. You’d like that wouldn’t you baby?” he said, taking a strand of my hair and twirling it around his finger. His fangs released with an audible snap and he bared them at me with a threatening smile.

  “You’re a dirty little whore is what you are. I know you liked it. You wanted it. I just gave you what you wanted. What a piece of French garbage like you craves for, what you deserve. You couldn’t spread your legs for Ian fast enough, and you’re gonna fuck Aries, so why not me? Come on, it’ll be fun.” James reached down for his belt buckle and began undoing it, and then began to reach for me.

  “Stop it!” I screamed swatting his hand away, and as I did so, James disappeared.

  Mom rolled her eyes. She had always been an expert at kicking me when I was down, and to her disgust I was literally down. Then both she and my father vanished into thin air as well. For a long time I lay there on the living room floor sobbing.

  “Gavin,” I whispered to myself, “Gavin, I need you. I’m scared. I’m really crazy after all. I need you to help me.”

  But Gavin, wherever he was, or whatever he’d morphed into, wasn’t coming to save me. As much as I wanted to stay curled up in the corner and lay there forever I realized that the only person who could come to my rescue now was me. After a time I turned my attention back to the body. James had been right, the man was as dead as a doornail. I got up and checked his wrist for any sign of a pulse at all, there was none. That’s when I lost it again.

  “Don’t be dead!” I screamed at the corpse. “You’re not dead! You’re not dead!” I opened my wrist and held the stream of blood to the mouth that was still open in disbelief.

  A tiny bit of blood hit his tongue and Gavin’s warnings about accidentally creating a revenant came back to me. As quickly as I could, I pulled my wrist away, admonishing myself. “Stupid Rachel, really fucking stupid,” I said.

  Okay. Plan B. Need to cover this up. Constable Neary was a portly man, short but wide, and if I’d been a human woman there would have been no way I’d have been able to even roll him off the couch, let alone carry him. Luckily I wasn’t a human woman. Throwing him over my shoulder I opened the front door, opened up my distance hearing just to be sure nobody was around, and then ran as fast as I could toward the woods and in the opposite direction of the sanctuary.

  Once deep into the brush I threw the body on the ground and began looking for an area that didn’t have a close gathering of trees. I needed a more open space to burn him without setting fire to half the cove, letting everyone know what I had done. I saw a small clearing a few paces ahead and dropped him on the ground. Just as I turned around I felt something on my shoulder. A hand… Neary’s hand.

  Nobody had ever spelled out how much vampire blood a corpse has to come into contact with to turn them into a revenant, but apparently a few drops were enough. Turning I saw the horrible creature that I had created open his mouth and bare his jagged fangs at me. I had fed on him and now he was looking for his turn.

  His other hand swung up, dragging his newly formed talons across my cheek. I punched him dead in the face stunning him for a brief moment, and was backing away when suddenly there was a flash of silver from behind him. The silver ran through Neary’s neck in one smooth motion, and as his severed head hit the ground the once proud Constable turned into a mass of bloody jelly.

  Aires stood before me, sword raised and grinning. “Having a revenant and a baby in the same house doesn’t sound like a good idea to me,” he said smiling down on the carnage, obviously proud of his kill.

  “Aires,” was all I could choke out. The realization of what I’d done had a moment to sink in and I stumbled toward him falling to the ground.

  “You’re hurt,” he said when he saw my face.

  “I’ll heal.”

  “What happened?”

  “He came to the house looking for Gavin.”

  “And so you killed him to protect your lover. I admire your loyalty little one. You’ll be an excellent mother for sure.”

  “Well you haven’t found him yet,” I said, wobbling a bit like a newborn foal as I stood. “And this doesn’t change things.”

  Aries simply smirked. “Of course not. Go home and heal yourself my love, I’ll take care of your kill.”

  “I can’t let you do that,” I said. I was indebted to him now for real, and didn’t want to dig myself in any deeper.

  “No worries, It will be our little secret,” he winked. “Go now. I’ll attend to this.”

  Feeling a bit lightheaded I stumbled forward into his arms as he caught me, holding me steady until I got my bearings once again. Weakened I changed my mind about his offer. “Thank you,” I said. “Perhaps I will go home and heal. I don’t feel so good”

  He responded with a simple courteous nod and with that I turned and bolted for home. Breathing a sigh of relief I walked slowly into my yard and made my way around to the front once again, looking forward to getting into bed, pulling the covers up and ending this day. Hours had passed during the time I’d experienced my little break with reality and it was full on darkness now.

  My relief was short lived, however, because when I turned the corner, there on my front step, was another body.

  “Fuck!”

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Emily Samson was over ninety years old and lived alone on the old back road of Soldiers Cove, defenceless to anyone or anything that might try to hurt her.

  She was naked and staring at me face up with her eyes open. After everything that had just happened I was too shocked to truly take in Emily’s cold dead stare. I looked away for a moment not knowing what to do. I couldn’t leave her there, but I didn’t want to take her inside either. Jumping over her I ran into the bedroom, tore a sheet off the bed and covered her up. It surely wouldn’t hide the fact that I had a dead body on my porch, but at least I wouldn’t have to look at her anymore. As I draped the blanked over poor old Emily I noticed that her throat had been torn completely out and I made the assumption that one of the St. Peter’s clan had made good on the threat of killing one of ours for one of theirs. Either that or Gavin was trying to send some sort of message.

  Paranoia began to set in, and as she lay there poorly concealed I was going through different scenarios on how I’d explain having a dead body on my steps to another cop. The cops would surely come here after all, one of their own was missing now and this would have been the last place he’d gone. If anyone saw her then the police were most likely on their way, even now, to arrest me for her death, and maybe even the other deaths too. I was still the town nutcase after all as far as the humans were concerned, and so what better solution than to assume I’d done it. Who’d believe me? When it comes down to a sane person’s lie against a crazy person’s truth the lie wins out, every time.

  There was no jail cell in the world that could hope to hold a vampire, but the thought of having to leave and go into hiding until all the humans who knew about this incident were dead unnerved me.

  Just then Daniel came around the corner. I had completely forgotten about his promise to come back. “Poor Emily,” he said.

  “How did you know it was Emily?” This was bad. If he had seen, who else could have?

  “I’ve been here for an hour or so, I thought I should keep an eye out.” Maybe nobody else knew after all. “Oh, and I took care of that cop car for you.” I hadn’t even thought of that. I took a moment to be thank
ful that at least someone was thinking clearly through all of this. Daniel was very methodical and practical. I was grateful to have him around. Gavin had been right, I did have family, and Daniel’s loyalty to me right now was something I knew I’d never forget.

  “Who did it?” I asked, even though I had a feeling I already knew the answer.

  “Reyna Stone,” he said. Just as I thought. Reyna did not seem like the type of vampire to make idle threats, but then again, none of us really are. “Looks like she was pretty viscous too,” he observed lifting up the sheet and examining Emily’s neck.

  “Well come on, we can’t just leave her here,” he said, slinging her over his shoulder. On our way out of the yard Daniel picked up a shovel from the carnage that had been my tool shed, and I followed him out into the woods. He was heading in the same direction I’d come from when leaving Aries however, and so I thought fast and redirected him. He may have known I’d accidentally killed the man, but I didn’t want him knowing I’d accidentally created a revenant. I’d done something incredibly stupid by trying to turn the man after he was obviously dead, and I was ashamed of my newbie mistake.